20th Century Fox Fanfare

The 20th Century Fox Fanfare is a musical piece played to accompany the 20th Century Fox logo when it was displayed during the opening of the movie studio's feature films. The fanfare has been played before each live action Star Wars film.

History
The 20th Century Fox Fanfare was composed in 1933 by Alfred Newman, longtime head of Fox's music department. In 1954, an extended version was created for CinemaScope films, and debuted on the film The Robe.

In the middle to late 1970s, the 20th Century Fox logo had all but been phased out. However, Lucas enjoyed the logo and Alfred Newman music so much that he insisted it be used for his Star Wars films. The fanfare and logo have, since then, enjoyed a rebirth in usage.

When John Williams signed onto the Star Wars project, one of his first moves was to compose the Main Title to Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope in the same key as the 20th Century Fox Fanfare. He has said before that it was truly meant as another extension of the fanfare, and it has since then been adopted by Star Wars film score buffs as part and parcle of the scores to Star Wars.

When Sony released the original trilogy Special Edition scores, and the Ultimate Edition score to Episode I, each set included on it a recording of the 20th Century Fox Fanfare.

Usage in Star Wars

 * Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope utilizes a 1954 recoring with CinemaScope Extension.
 * Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back utilizes a new recording, specially recorded by John Williams for the film. This version was used in all of the later Star Wars films as well.
 * The Ewok Adventure re-recorded fanfare for the two Ewok films.
 * Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace Ultimate Edition soundtrack includes a newly recorded fanfare, but is not the one used in any of the films.