So when I found out that Rogue One: A Star Wars Story would be the franchise’s first live-action film without Williams at its center, I was apprehensive. Williams’s music has been as vital to my love of Star Wars as have light sabers and giant weapons with rather conspicuous weaknesses. But for me, perhaps the most singular contribution has come from the legendary composer John Williams, of Jaws, Indiana Jones, and Jurassic Park fame. Of course, there are the actors themselves, and the legions of mimics in science fiction and fantasy.
In the 39 years the franchise has been in existence, creator George Lucas has had a lot of help in its success and integration into popular culture. The villains of my youth were imitating shadows of the Dark Side, clad in capes and cybernetics, and the heroes were paler imitations of the didactic duos of Obi-Wan and Luke. There were numerous video games, toys, comics, spin-offs, and an entire new trilogy of films by my twelfth birthday, and characters like Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, and Han Solo had long been cultural icons. Star Wars was already deeply embedded in American pop culture by the time I was a kid.
