Essay 1

Cynthia Smith
The Force of Star Wars

21 September 2015
Essay #1
Did the positive public reaction to the radio adaptation simply reflect insatiable audience
hunger for anything Star Wars? Or does the adaptation prove that there is or can be more to
Star Wars than stunning visuals?
In responding to this question, I first have to make a caveat. While I rely pretty heavily on
the visual in one way or another, I am probably more affected by the aural. I dont see stories
when I make them up: I hear them.
I can well believe that audiences that went to go see the first Star Wars movie back in
1977 multiple times couldnt wait for more and devoured anything that was offered. (It would be
three years until The Empire Strikes Back, after all.) And certainly the radio drama delivers. Out
of thirteen episodes, three are mostly if not entirely composed of material that is not in the
movie. When listening myself, I found these three episodes some of the most interesting. This is
with me having watched the movie and read the novelization multiple times. But I would argue
that there is more to Star Wars than the visuals and that the radio was the perfect confluence of
form and matter for a popular adaptation, and that Star Wars would not be Star Wars without the
sounds.
Radio dramas have a long and proud history. Without going too far back in history,
listening to radio dramas was what people did for entertainment at home before the advent of the
TV. You might go out and see several movies in a year, but you could listen to your favorite radio
drama almost every day (or at least every week) from the comfort of your living room.
Auditory entertainment has made a comeback thanks to such things as XM radio, which
has room for stations that play old shows, and thanks to sites like Audible.com that specialize in
pleasing the ears in a different way than music does. This revolution has come about thanks to
technology, which has made such items easier to transport than ever. No longer does one have to
carry around bulky containers full of tape cassettes or CDs. No more does one have the bother of
switching to the next cassette or disk. No more do we use a media that in the normal course of
use can too easily be damaged.
This makes the Star Wars radio drama even more remarkable for its success, since it came
about after the prime age of radio but before the digital age had simplified technology. I think
there are two key factors that explain this phenomenon, and in fact help explain the success of
Star Wars generally.
Exhibit one is all of the sound effects in Star Wars. Only in Star Wars can you hear the
warble of R2D2, the hum of lightsabers, the metallic breathing of Darth Vader, the roar of Tie
Fighters. Not only are these sounds unique, they are also instantly recognizable. This is perfect
for a radio drama. And this gets to the point that Star Wars would not be star wars without these
sound effects. Can you imagine a Darth Vader without that ominous, heavy breathing for
example? It would completely change the character to have it missing. In fact, this point is so
important to the character that the score completely stops for a few seconds when Darth Vader is
first introduced just so we can hear him breathe. (Taylor 175-176)
There is, of course, another crucial part of the auditory Star Wars experience. Exhibit two
is John Williams, or rather the music he created for Star Wars. The music is the emotional center
of the movies. You could watch the movies with the music but no words and understand perfectly
what is going on. You can almost do the same with just the music. He won an Oscar, Grammy
Awards, and Emmy Awards for his work on Star Wars: A New Hope. And deservedly so. His
music is memorable, and never more so than in Star Wars. In fact, his music has been called the
oxygen of Star Wars. (Bateman)
[Lucas] wanted something bombastic and brassy in the style of old HollywoodThe
images were going to be wild; the music would have to anchor you in familiar emotions.
(Taylor 168) And Williams succeeded beyond Lucas dreams. The main theme is triumphant, the
rebel fanfare is defiant, Princess Leias theme is romantic, Darth Vaders theme (as opposed to
the later imperial march) is ominous.
Why does the music work so well? Part of it is probably that Williams got his inspiration
from the same era that George Lucas did: Lucas was inspired by 1930s Flash Gordon serials;
Williams was inspired by composers of the same period. (Taylor 168) Coming from some of the
same roots, no wonder they harmonize so well.
As Chris Taylor says, It is impossible to separate the Star Wars themeor the rest of the
soundtrack for that matterfrom the visuals of Star Wars; cut a thirty-second TV segment on
anything to do with the franchise anywhere in the world, and youre going to get a grab-bag of
imagesunder the main melody from Williams march(Hands up any readers not hearing it in
their head right now.) (Taylor p. 169) So visuals aside, Star Wars would not be Star Wars
without the music.
However, it appears that the reverse is not necessarily true. Hear the music, and you can
see in your minds eye the saga unfolding in front of you. This is especially true with the sound
effects and dialog added in as well. To this day, most Star Wars audio books include sound
effects and music for this reason, making them some of the most interesting audio books from an
auditory perspective to listen to.1
A good example is the third episode of the Star Wars radio drama. The rebel theme music makes
a nice transition without the need for words from the fight aboard the Tantive IV between loyal
rebel forces and Storm troopers and the next scene, which features Princess Leia programing
R2D2 to escape to the planet Tatooine below and deliver a message to General Kenobi. During
this scene we are treated to Princess Leias theme and to plenty of beeps and whistles from
R2D2. In that way it is similar to the movie and you really can almost see the events happening
before you.
So yes, the visuals are important to Star Wars. One has only to look at an image of Darth
Vader to concede this point. However, given how integral the sounds of Star Wars are to the story
as well and the fact that there was a successful radio drama (a medium without visuals) made at a
time when radio dramas were not in vogue shows the importance of sound to Star Wars and that
the movie is indeed more than just special effects.
References
Paul Bateman. Wookiepedia. http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Paul_Bateman. Web. Retrieved
September 17, 2015.
Taylor, Chris. How Star Wars Conquered the Universe: The Past, Present, and Future of a .
Multibillion Dollar Franchise.
1 The audio drama naturally has the advantage of having a full cast, which helps differentiate the
characters. There are many decent readers for audio books, but few are Jim Dale of Harry Potter
fame with a different, distinctive voice for each character.

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Cynthia Smith

The Force of Star Wars

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