Inside The Score - Star Fox 64 - Sector Z / Fortuna

Bad fortune

Stepped on the shoulders of giants, the music from the epic space opera—that for some reason features anthropomorphic animals—called Star Fox (because of course every good space war drama needs to have the word “star”on its name) displays proudly its influences on its sleeve, synthesizing its sound from a cocktail mixture of the influential Planets suite from Gustav Hoist (especially Mars, the bringer of war), a piece born from the true origins of film scoring in the program music and tone poems from the Romantic period; a piece which itself went down tlio influence the score for Star Wars and infused it with the romantic pomposity of Hollywood adventure films from the 30s since the director did not want any edgy, electronic sci-fi sounding instruments in its work that was essentially a swashbuckler film with lightsabers instead of swords. Add to it the patriotic military music featuring snare drums for marching and trumpets for fanfares and bugle calls and that is how we get stuff like Star Fox or Super Mario Galaxy. Pure martial romantic scoring. However, the two main, direct influences for the presentation of the Fox McCloud gang were the British puppet show Thunderbirds and the at the time recently released film Independence Day.

Originally, the idea of the Star Fox series was to showcase the newly developed Super FX chip for the SNES, which allowed to create 3D graphics with polygons; the perfect game to showcase this was a space shooter on rails. The animals were only added much later thanks to the quirky sensibilities of game developer Shigeru MIyamoto, which were inspired by the similarity between the long lines of Shinto gates in Kyoto and the gates the Arwings had to cross in the game; Miyamoto finally settled on having a fox as the main character after visiting Fushimi Inari-taisha in Kyoto, the head shrine of Inari, a Japanese kami associated with foxes. Inari is portrayed as being able to fly, and its shrines, particularly the one in Kyoto, are surrounded by red arches, giving Miyamoto the idea of a fox that could fly through arches.

The fox in question ready for battle and even with the same red scarf

spaceships are meant to fly here according to the mind of Miyamoto

Another game designer, Inamura, used Japanese folklore as an inspiration to add a bird named Falco—but he is actually a pheasant—and a hare as two other protagonists. He also added a toad; the inspiration came from a staff member of Nintendo EAD who used a toad as his personal mascot. Imamura populated the Cornerian army with dogs and the enemy army with monkeys; he also made General Pepper a dog and Andross a monkey since there is a popular Japanese expression about fighting like dogs and monkeys (in the West you know cats would be the evil empire deservedly).

The main theme of the Star Fox series written by composer Koji Kondo replaces the original main theme of the series written for the original game, since Star Fox 64 is a reimagining of that first game combined with elements from the cancelled sequel. The score for the N64 game mixes the romantic grandeur of film scoring with martial music. Koji Kondo wrote the main leitmotifs for the Star Fox team and ending of the game while composer Hajime Wakai wrote the music for the stages. The triumphant score from Kondo contrasts with the war infused scores from Wakai. The two main influences on the music, just like the games themselves, were the award winning score of the recently released movie Independence Day and the TV show Thunderbirds, which also combined The Planets suite with Hollywood adventure music and military bugle calls, fanfares and marching snares.

A brief history of the development of the epic war music from Star Fox as told by tracks

The famous tone poems by Richard Strauss influenced by the grand operas of Richard Wagner influenced film music since the point of program music is to musicalize narratives in the first place

The bringer of war to the Lylat System. So maybe it should be called Titania

The Thunderbirds score. You can even hear a melodic part that might have served as inspiration and it is very similar to the Star Fox main theme at 1:28. Koji Kondo said this score was a direct influence

The non triumphant parts of of the game, like the stages, were inspired by the set-pieces from the film Independence Day

Even the Star Fox credits take its cue from and similar figures from the end credits of Independence Day, starting almost in the same way

Musical Analysis

The track that plays in the planet Fortuna, which is a fully fledged war against enemy aircraft, and Sector Z is a perfect representative of the Star Fox soundtrack. Written by Wakai, the chaotic, diminished chords, and ambiguous keys that sound neither major nor minor. Phrygian mode which is usually good for battle might be the closest thing to a profile used here. There are also low ostinatos that are transposed and the more homogenous orchestration of the games consisting of the standard orchestra: strings, timpani, and brass. A small set of instruments that packs a punch.

We will get to more Star Fox music in short. What other tracks from this soundtrack would you like to see? Feel free to ask for any random track.