Talk:The Imperial March

message: Really, I'm surprised there's no talk of the theme not being completely original, it's obviously based off the traditional funeral march melody which I assume is by Chopin but I've never heard the movement in the context of the sonata.
:For a while I thought that it was Williams's own Throne Room music from Episode IV that inspired him with the theme of the Imperial March. But the Chopin Funeral March connection is very interesting. If you have an album of Chopin's greatest hits (such as Naxos's), it might have the entire movement, (though most likely not the whole sonata), giving you a better idea of context. I will certainly be listening to that. Del arte 21:04, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It is often said that the Imperial March is "based on" other songs, especially Chopin's "funeral march", but the differences are in reality smaller than they seem. Both are marches in minor key, and the first two bars have similar rhythms and chords, but that is as far as the resemblance goes. It could certainly be said that the IM sounds similar to the Chopin march, Mars from Holst's Planets suite, or several other songs, but to conclude that it is based on one of them is overstating the similarities.128.205.228.26 05:37, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussion

message: I was told this one a while ago, and it's stuck with me ever since; the Imperial March sounds like it's got a few bars of A Spoonful of Sugar from Disney's Mary Poppins musical in it. Specifically, it's the tune for the lines "...helps the medicine go down, helps the medicine go down". I can't listen to the Imperial March any more without hearing this :)
:Astatine 11:08, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have never noticed this before. There are indeed two bars in each song with almost identical rhythms, although the melodies are quite different. It's quite an amusing coincidence.128.205.228.26 05:37, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: My god, tell me you didn't just ruin my favorite leitmotif.  To quote Darth Vader in Attack of the Clones, "NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!"--Varkman (talk) 23:27, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: This has bothered me since I first saw the movie in 1977, I always ended up trying to place that segment. I just figured it out while watching Rise of Skywalker, which is a movie leaving plenty of mental power for other things. I googled to see if anyone else had realized it, and found this. —Kaz (talk) 04:08, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: A Spoonful of Sugar

message: Hello... I do agree it's similar to Mars the bringer of War.  But also,  please add to the main article another possible inspiration because to me there are some notes that remind me of the most famous Swan Lake song, it is: Tchaikovsky - Swan Lake - NR. 10 Scene: Moderato ( II. Act 2 ) Listen to that carefully. I can feel it in the most dramatic part, a similarity to the Imperial March, when there's a part when the song goes slower.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.140.192.119 (talk) 02:03, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: The similarities with Chopin's Op. 35 are without a doubt coincidental as well. The only real similarity I can spot is the rhythm, and that can be explained by the fact that they're both marches. Without a source stating explicitly that this was inspired by Chopin's march, claiming that there's any relation between the two is quite bold, and I'm therefore removing that claim from this page and Piano Sonata No. 2 in B flat Minor (Chopin). EldKatt (Talk) 20:23, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I thought that John Williams based the Imperial March on a low quality recording made during a British military parade in London from about a hundred years ago.  Whenever the British conquered a new city, their military paraded through the city playing this sort of music...called an imperial march for obvious reasons.  Ultrazenith.
Sounds like a part of music in Betty Boop - Chess-Nuts, 1932 (sec. 32)  --87.78.240.226 (talk) 17:27, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inspiration 

message: and the notation example (supposed to be b minor) is full of enharmonic (maybe some audio-to-MIDI program?) mistakes.
:Others have complained about the notation example not being in the right key, but you're the first to complain about "enharmonic mistakes". As I've already said, the music was notated with three-flat key signature in the Episode II sheet music and I arbitrarily transposed it to two sharps. I have no problem with someone changing the notation example to match, say, the very first appearance of the theme. Del arte 23:38, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The "enharmonic mistake" is in the third measure. The F-natural should be an E-sharp. They're enharmonic equivalents (i.e. they sound the same) but for sundry technical reasons, it should definitely be notated as an E-sharp. (To call it an F-natural implies that it is a lowered tonic, where it is actually a leading tone--part of a Vb9 chord (C#-E#-G#-B-D), which makes sense. If it were a lowered tonic, the chord would be something really screwy like a Vsusb4b9, which would be silly.) --68.69.65.13 03:33, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

text: If the key isn't crucial, it might as well be put in A minor. It's as good as anything because there are no sharps or flats. It would also avoid the pesky E-sharp; tones with accidentals that are enharmonic to natural tones can cause confusion. As a wind player, I like to see G minor, but the theme itself (as opposed to a specific track built on the theme) doesn't require any particular key, so it might as well be something simple. --68.69.65.13 03:33, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Also, the excerpt is cut off (in the middle of a measure!). I doubt that it would be any more infringing (regardless of whether or not it is currently fair use to post the whole theme; it's not like people only buying the soundtrack because the theme on Wikipedia is incomplete, and anyone can write it down from a recording. --68.69.65.13 03:33, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  d minor in Chapter 16 of TESB when DV first appears 

message: In what scenes in the special edition of A New Hope does the Imperial March appear? JayMan 03:16, 06 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Appearance In A New Hope Special Edition? 

message: I removed this section from the article:
"Finally, the first nine, and most memorable notes of The March, are played near the end of the films soundtrack song "Enter Lord Vader," yet another reference that the theme does, for the most part refer to or belong to Darth Vader."
This is the same cue played when Vader prepares to assasinate the Seperatist leaders, as mentioned just previously in the article. --JayMan 10:56, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Useage in Revenge of the Sith 

message: Ok first thing the link no longer works as Lucasarts has removed some of their older games' websites. I edited the article and removed the link.
Does anybody else know of anywhere to get either the rage or the leviathan versions of this song.
Last does the name of the Rage version actually refer to the band Rage Against the Machine, I have never seen any evidence showing that they have performed this song, but it does sound like it could be based on their style of music. Darth vader 007 21:08, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rage and Leviathan mix 

message: I came along here just out of curiosity and was dismayed enough by the tone of the article that I put the tags on. There's some good stuff here; the article needs to be less interpretive and more factual. Citing some sources would, I think, be a huge help. Daniel Case 04:37, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  July 3, 2007 tags 

message: There is now a reference so I have removed the tag. However we still need more of them. --Stealth500! (talk) 23:45, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unreferenced Removed 

message: It seems more likely to have been inspired by Chopin's Funeral March than Holst's Mars.  In fact it sounds almost like plagiarism.  David Bergan (talk) 16:44, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, there's all those repeated notes. But what do you make of the great speed difference (I don't know what the proper musicolological terms are for some of these things), the difference in the distance between the notes (aside from the repeated notes), the changes to a slightly brighter mood between the statements of the more famous melody, the supporting by the other instruments, etc.? ShutterBugTrekker (talk) 22:32, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Also, neither the melody nor the harmonies of the two pieces match in any sense. Just compare the first two bars. The Chopin march has a minor third rise, while the Imperial march drops by a major third. You might as well cite Beethoven's 5th symphony as a closer inspiration for the imperial march: three repeated noted and then a major third drop for the fourth. The harmonies: Chopin has alternating Bb minor/ Gb major whereas the Imperial march would have Bb minor / Gb minor in the same key.Even less the "Mars" parallels. There are almost direct quotes from "Mars" in the Main Title of the score for Episode 4, but not 5, where the Imperial march was featured. If you got the Signature Edition score of the "Star Wars Suite", it's on page 19-22, bars 82-97: exactly the same repeated chords (C-G-Ab-Db) as in the final bars of "Mars", followed by similar fast triplet rhythm (in 3/4, however) as in the main theme of "Mars". But no Imperial March in sight at this point (or in any other place in Ep. 4) (For CD owners, its on Track 1 (Main Title) of the Episode 4 CD, 1:41-2:06) These are more or less direct quotes from Holst's "Mars", but without the Imperial March, which, to me, doesn't seem borrowed from either Chopin or Holst. -- megA (talk) 13:07, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Inspiration

message: Though not official. I've heard many people in real life and on websites call it The Death March. Maybe we should link that to this article and mention it. 206.255.127.246 (talk) 01:50, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Alternate Names

message: I have also encountered some people who claim that it sounds like Al Bowlly's "My Woman". . Stonemason89 (talk) 03:27, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Al Bowlly

message: This article is  mor or less cut and pasted from the Star Wars wiki.  Wikipedia does not hilight trivia like the theme's similarities to various songs and fans' opinions of it.  Wikipedia hilights only what has been officially stated.  I nominate this page for a major clean-up. 142.26.194.190 (talk) 19:22, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cut and Paste 

message: The mentions of where and when the theme has been used outside the films throughout the years are entirely unsourced, wholly trivial, and completely impossible to be exhaustive.  They just need to go. JayHubie (talk) 01:07, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Trivia, trivia, trivia -- HUGE clean-up needed 

message: I don't know if there's an ogg file out there or how that even works, but it's a redlink under the sheet music.--Varkman (talk) 23:25, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Play file dead link 

message: The article misses the instance of the theme in it's Rogue One section where Darth Vader massacres the rebel soldiers in the hallway. When the music for that scene is sped up one can hear most of the Imperial March clearly. The music in that scene is pretty much a marriage of the chorus from Revenge of the Sith with a slowed down Imperial March.24.224.109.223 (talk) 20:50, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hidden at the end of Rogue One 

message: For those of you who pay more attention to this article, let me put this forward for you to consider...</br>
Look at the below YouTube video, and consider adding it into the article. </br>
</br>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jA36-mQEYwk </br>
</br>
LP-mn (talk) 02:54, 4 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Add this link?