Perhaps a distinction should be made between motifs and leitmotifs. It seems to me if a particular passage of music isn't being used to reinforce or elaborate on established associations it's not really functioning as a leitmotif at that point, but still can be a recurring motif and perhaps is just being used to bring a sense of unity to the score (whereas the introduction of a new/previously unheard passage might be jarring). I just finished revising a piece on music in John Huston's films and have a section on motifs and themes where I point out that the scores for Huston's films often contained what could be considered leitmotifs but ones associated not with specific characters, places, etc. but with more abstract concepts. This is evident, for example, in Steiner's score for Treasure of Sierra Madre where a theme initially associated with Walter Huston's character gradually expands to become a reflection on the camaraderie among the three main characters.
I don't find any controversy in Leia's lingo being used (as in the original Ben's Death And TIE Fighter Attack) when Luke notices the old cloakies having a bashup. The Leia theme on the album, which began the second LP on side one (I think), did not appear in the film at all. Did the Leia motif appear anywhere else?
Sure, all over the place. When we first see Leia putting the plans or message or whatever it is into R2-D2 on the Rebel ship, the theme is introduced. When Luke watches the hologram where Leia tells Obi-Wan he's her only hope, a sparkly rendition of the theme plays.
And the brief romantic treatment in amidst all the swashbuckly stuff when Leia kisses Luke (ooh, ick she just kissed her own brother) before swinging with him across the chasm in Star Wars.
One really bad SW example i know of is in AOTC during that silly droid factory sequence. Yoda's theme shows up out of nowhere and for no apparent reason. But I think that was Lucas and his editor just pasting music into a sequence which was thrown in at the last minute.
The 4-note "Barrier" motif from Star Trek V reappears as some kind of "Friendship" theme in First Contact and Nemesis. No idea what resurrecting that motif for a different set of characters means, but it's always distracted me.
That said, I always thought the use of Yoda's theme when Luke is fighting in "The Empire Strikes Back" was absolutely to suggest that Yoda's Jedi training was influencing Luke.
Except that the theme was mostly used during the scenes where Lando, Leia, Chewie and the droid escape Bespin, not during the lightsaber battle.
