Star Wars composer John Williams “mistakenly” wrote an extremely awkward love theme for Luke and Leia

John Williams
(Image credit: Getty Images)

Star Wars composer John Williams didn't know Luke and Leia were siblings when he was scoring the first movie – and to be fair, we're pretty sure George Lucas didn't know either.

"I mistakenly wrote a love theme for Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker," Williams told Variety. "I learned later that they were brother and sister, so it was an incestuous idea to have a love theme for them. But George never told us there was going to be a second film!"

Considering that Leia quite literally kisses Luke on the lips at one point in the flagship film, we understand the confusion. George Lucas later revealed in the book Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays that making them siblings would be motivation enough for Luke to battle Darth Vader in Return of the Jedi's infamous 'Throne Room' scene (H/T ScreenRant).

Williams rewrote the score – resulting in an Academy Award win for Best Score and arguably some of the most important music in pop culture history. He would go on to score The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith, and returned to the franchise in 2015 with The Force Awakens. He went on to provide the music for The Last Jedi, Solo: A Star Wars Story, The Rise of Skywalker, and Disney Plus's Obi-Wan Kenobi series.

For more news from a galaxy far, far away, check out our list of all the upcoming Star Wars movies and TV shows you need to know about.

Lauren Milici
Senior Writer, Tv & Film

Lauren Milici is a Senior Entertainment Writer for GamesRadar+ currently based in the Midwest. She previously reported on breaking news for The Independent's Indy100 and created TV and film listicles for Ranker. Her work has been published in Fandom, Nerdist, Paste Magazine, Vulture, PopSugar, Fangoria, and more.

Read more
Star Wars: A New Hope
32 movies that inspired Star Wars
Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon Jinn in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace
After 26 years, a secret Star Wars reference to George Lucas has been uncovered: "We got a new Phantom Menace Easter Egg before GTA 6"
The Rise of Skywalker
New Rey movie screenwriter reveals what his vision might have in common with Star Wars creator George Lucas
Werner Herzog in The Mandalorian
Star Wars fans are sharing their favorite unbelievable canon cameos – and some of them are seriously deep-cut
Ridley Scott says Blade Runner's financiers didn't know who Harrison Ford was and the director had the perfect response: "You're going to find out"
John Boyega as Finn in Star Wars: The Last Jedi
John Boyega reveals Tom Cruise actually helped him get cast in Star Wars
Latest in Sci-Fi Movies
John Boyega in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
John Boyega was tired of "doing a lot of falling" in the Star Wars sequels, so asked director J.J. Abrams for a "level of growth" between The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker
Darth Vader in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
Star Wars fans have ignited an age-old debate, and there are some seriously hot takes
Sam Worthington in Avatar: The Way of Water
James Cameron's early cut of Avatar 3 is "absolutely breathtaking," according to Disney CEO Bob Iger
Pacific Rim
The 35 greatest 2010s sci-fi movies
Godzilla emerging from an exploding volcano.
Win a Blu-ray of Godzilla vs Biollante
The Mandalorian and Grogu
The Mandalorian and Grogu has the lowest budget of any theatrical Star Wars movie since Disney bought Lucasfilm
Latest in News
Pillars of Eternity
10 years later, in a post-Baldur's Gate 3 and Avowed world, Obsidian is giving its own throwback CRPG Pillars of Eternity a turn-based combat mode
Destiny 2 Lightfall
When Destiny 2 "weekly active users dropped lower and faster than we'd seen since 2018," Bungie assembled an A-Team to put out some fires: "We needed to do something"
Velma, Daphne, Fred, Shaggy, and Scooby-Doo looking at a giant key which is also a clue
Netflix is rebooting Scooby-Doo as a live-action series from the producer of Supergirl and The Flash centered around a "supernatural murder" at a summer camp
Astro Bot
Astro Bot went through 23 pitch iterations before its director promised PlayStation "happy gameplay" and "overflowing charm," though it did once end with robot decapitation that made "some people really upset"
Tomb Raider
5 years after Avengers, 2 years after its last layoffs, and who knows how long before Perfect Dark and Tomb Raider return, Crystal Dynamics announces another round of layoffs
AI Limit
"AI is not as effective as it might appear": Dev of AI-focused Soulslike RPG says they didn't use any AI-generated content and it can't match "genuine creativity"