Here’s the New Lucasfilm Fanfare That Plays Before ‘Star Wars’ Movies

Those of us who spent years wearing out our Star Wars VHS tapes have grown to associate the 20th Century Fox logo fanfare with the phrase “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.” Even when we heard that iconic music blast before another movie, we half-expected that shimmering Lucasfilm logo to appear, followed by that familiar blue text and Star Wars title. But Disney owns Star Wars now and the Fox music will no longer be heard before each movie. In addition to being a real punch right in the nostalgia, this means that Disney has created new music to accompany the Lucasfilm logo and ... it’s weird.

When we say weird, we don’t mean bad. In fact, the music that has been selected is from John Williams’s brilliant score for The Empire Strikes Back, so it’s just plain lovely. When you fire up those brand new Star Wars digital releases, you get this:

Here's the new fanfare that replaces the 20th Century Fox jazz. pic.twitter.com/xz7dt16Kfy

— Jason Ward (@MakingStarWars) April 10, 2015

To be specific, you get that on five of the six movies. Thanks to all kinds of ownership issues, Fox still has the rights to the first film, A New Hope, so you can still hear the familiar Fox fanfare before that film. The rest of the movies just open with the Lucasfilm logo and the new music cue. We can safely assume that future films in the saga, including December’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens, will feature this new opening.

In most ways, this is non-news. Are we really going to get sentimental and worked up about a major movie studio’s theme music being removed from a film series it no longer owns? We shouldn’t. That would be silly. But we are! Hearing that Fox fanfare so many times made us feel oddly close to it.

Still, this could only be a good thing. Star Wars is undergoing some radical changes in the next few years under Disney’s watch and tiny things like this will prepare us for whatever comes next.