Star Wars: "Ben's Death/TIE Fighter Attack” by John Williams (Score Reduction and Analysis) A full score reduction of the escape from the Death Star from Star Wars, Episode IV: A New Hope. I own nothing. Enjoy!
I was wondering about the choice of Leia's Theme and I see you've answered my question; interesting to hear John's reason for choosing it and it makes sense.
The passage beginning at bar 47, there's one more thing to say about it: Williams seems to be generating suspense and intrigue by alternating whole tone scales.
That bit starting from 0:52 to 1:20; When I played Xwing v Tie Fighter that music was always playing in the background--and when I paused the game it was quite...uh...'strident'.
The idea in 2:10 is a quite old one in the history of composing: It is imitating the bells of a cathedral. One bell starts ringing an then another starts an so on.
From 1:56 in my own analysis I discovered that this whole section is a sequence of chromatic mediant shifts almost all of which are based on whole tone scales/Fr6ths the bass line is the key to it. Starts B whole tone then down to G# whole tone then a semitone shift to G whole tone, E whole tone, C whole tone, A octatonic then the last mediant shift to F whole tone....