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Star Wars: American Graffiti
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The phenomenal popularity of the first Star Wars film may be in part due to the American public's need for escapism after the harrowing experience of Vietnam and political scandals such as Watergate. Throughout the first half of the 1970s, baby-boomers (like Lucas himself) were getting more involved in filmmaking along with Coppola, Scorcese, Friedkin and others only to express dark and gritty realism in their films.
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Lucas wanted a grand musical sound for Star Wars, with leitmotifs to provide distinction. Therefore, he assembled his favorite orchestral pieces for the soundtrack, until John Williams convinced him that an original score would be unique and more unified. However, a few of Williams pieces were influenced by the tracks given to him by Lucas. The "Main Title Theme" was inspired by the theme from the 1942 film King's Row, scored by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, and the track "Dune Sea of Tatooine" drew from the soundtrack from Bicycle Thieves, scored by Alessandro Cicognini.[54] The American Film Institute's list of best scores lists Star Wars' soundtrack at number one.
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'Star wars' shield threatens treaties Justin Brown The Christian Science Monitor TUESDAY, JANUARY 18, 2000 -- "North Korea is an absurd reason to make such a high-risk decision," says Charles Ferguson of the American Federation of Scientists. "No other country in the world shares the fear that North Korea is an imminent nuclear threat."
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