20 Things You Didn't Know About Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope
12. John Williams Almost Didn't Score The Film
It's absolutely impossible to separate Star Wars from its inestimable composer, John Williams. The man is Star Wars, and yet, George Lucas originally had something else in mind for the series' soundscape.
Initially, Lucas planned to score the film only with existing classical music, in something of an homage to Stanley Kubrick doing the very same on 2001: A Space Odyssey.
That all changed, however, when Steven Spielberg introduced Lucas to Williams, and Williams convinced Lucas he could bring the classical romantic aspect to the film the director was craving.
It's therefore unsurprising that several of A New Hope's musical cues are actually inspired by classical music: Gustav Holst's "Mars, The Bringer Of War" movement had an influence on numerous tracks throughout the series (including the Imperial March from The Empire Strikes Back), while Igot Stravinsky's "Sacre Du Printemps" is invoked in a number of different scenes.