Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi

The film runs as usual, but the orchestra pit or stage supplies every note live, matched to picture, while dialogue and sound effects stay in the film's audio track.

Early on, listen for the return of familiar material from the first two films, including the noble brass theme associated with Luke Skywalker and the ominous marching music tied to Darth Vader and the Empire, both woven into new scenes.

At Jabba the Hutt's palace, a jaunty, offbeat wind and percussion number underscores the alien cantina-style entertainment, colorful and slightly comic against the surrounding danger.

The forest moon of Endor brings lighter, folk-like writing for the Ewoks, using simple repeating tunes and light percussion to suggest a smaller, more primitive world than the Empire's machinery.

As the story builds toward its climax, a mysterious, hushed theme accompanies scenes between Luke and his father, Darth Vader, growing more expansive as their conflict resolves.

The space battle above the second Death Star and the duel inside it are scored with rapid, driving string and brass writing, alternating tension with sudden bursts of triumphant brass.

The film closes with a broad, warm restatement of the main Star Wars fanfare and related themes, tying together threads heard across all three films as the celebration scenes play out.

John Williams composed the score for Return of the Jedi, released in 1983, concluding the trilogy he began with Star Wars in 1977 and continued with The Empire Strikes Back in 1980. As with the earlier films, Williams recorded the music with the London Symphony Orchestra. The score extended musical material already associated with characters like Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader while introducing new themes for the film's added elements, including the Ewoks and the reformed Anakin Skywalker. In later decades, film studios began licensing complete scores for live performance alongside a projected film with its original dialogue and effects intact but its music removed, allowing orchestras to perform the entire soundtrack in synchronization with the picture. These "film with live orchestra" presentations of the Star Wars trilogy have become a fixture of orchestral pops programming across the United States.