Mattris

Music on the go is an unnecessary indulgence for me. After a long commute, the feeling of listening to it at home on my hi-fi is that much more satisfying.

I can certainly understand Williams' reluctance to release some of his music if he feels insecure or unhappy about a particular cue or even score (e.g. Sugarland Express), but artist's perspective on their own work is something we can't always quite fathom when it comes to these decisions. Perhaps because they don't spend long time dwelling on their past works after their release and have particular desire to revisit them and feel that they had their say with the presentation of the music with the original album.
 
Good examples from the LLL Hook set are Prologue at incorrect speed and separating Follow that Shadow from Remembering Childhood. Williams was probably fine with his edit of Remembering Childhood and didn't want the cue Follow that Shadow intruding on that edit so he expressed his wish that it would be made a separate piece on the album. Which in turn made every Hook-loving JW fan blanch in horror at the un-chronological approach that tampered with the overall musical narrative of the sequence they know and love from the film! And JW happened to like the slower version of the Prologue and saw no need to change it. In fact it feels JW wanted to retain the original OST programme as much as possible with the LLL set and bolstered it with unreleased cues sprinkled around this main programme.

What Jason said. It also has incorrect takes, missing film versions, omitted inserts, combined tracks with clean openings and closings missing, retained OST edits, etc.
 
Essentially, it's got Williams' meddling fingerprints all over it.
 
Most frustratingly, the centrepiece for any Hook expansion, The Ultimate War, was taken from the film stems. Apart from noticeably inferior sound quality, it was riddled with volume inconsistency, loops and edits. Plus unreleased sections of cues weren't recoverable due to being dialled out in the final film.
 
Previously I'd have said they did the best they could under the circumstances, but recent expansions have shown most of these issues were avoidable under a different producer's care.

Williams tends vary with his interpretations for re-recordings like this. E.g. on the Williams on Williams album the Lost Boys Ballet and Jim's New Life are played far slower than their film counterparts, which renders them rather lethargic when they should be energetic and sprightly while Theme from Jurassic Park receives a very fast performance where a slower speed would have benefitted the hymn theme in particular. I have always wondered why he chose these performance speeds for the pieces as they do not benefit from the changes. But of course he sees/hears these things differently as the composer. I think he has performed e.g. the Adventures of Mutt in concert slower than on the soundtrack which deprives the music some of its zest. Hopefully this performance will be boisterous and fast to emphasize the athletic nature of the music. The musicians are up to it Johnny! They can play fast and deftly!
 
I find that the Spielberg/Williams Collaboration album has pretty much spot on tempi for all the selections.
 
I remember how the change of speed/tempo of the performance can weigh down a piece of music when I heard a considerably slowed down version of Indy's Very First Adventure in concert. Felt like the orchestral was swimming through tar and there was a slow motion feel to the whole piece.

The only thing of interest is Marion's Theme, right? We have everything else recorded perfectly on fairly recent CDs. Talk about redundant.
 

 
In an alternate universe, Williams could have recorded music from the E.T. Adventure, The Lost World concert theme or maybe some awesome Harry Potter Children's Suite-esque new versions. Not the same old shit.

If they aren't, I will be holding off until Vol. 3 is available separately. The lack of selections from The Lost World, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, War of the Worlds, and A Timeless Call is disappointing, to say the least. Plus, including just one movement from An Unfinished Journey is... strange. As others have noted, many more superb pieces could have - or should have - been included in this "Ultimate" Spielberg/Williams release.
 
My theory is that Williams and Sony had originally planned to record two albums-worth of material... but eventually opted to reduce the recording sessions - or omit some of the recordings - to fit on a single additional CD. Then to fill the spot where "Vol. 4" would have been, a short DVD was thrown-together. I supposed it's possible the musical contents of the CDs will also be on the DVD, but I wouldn't bet on it.

Here is it synced up:
 
 

Almost every Sony Classical JW release has had questionable decisions or something off putting about them.
 
whether it's screwing up the TPM UE, adding 1 new recording to a 10 c.d. compilation of old stuff, or not releasing music they do have  (proper releases of the the SW prequels and OT), we've been frustrated by them for years

Mine arrived today, unscathed, and with all teeth intact (except those that aren't there anyway).

I understand why scores can't always be made available in their complete form from the get go, but I'll never understand why composers and/or producers feel the need to create work for themselves by editing cues from different parts of the film together or, even more strangely, start making microedits to brass fanfares etc. The music we got on the JP OST would have worked perfectly if presented chronologically and would have made room for things like the T-Rex Chase.

Poor T-Rex singing "All I want for christmas is my two front teeth."

I'm not listening to the samples

The music on this SACD was newly mastered by Steve Hoffman, so its sound should be a noticeable improvement over the DVD-A.

The disc will be a Hybrid SACD, so it will play in most standard CD players. Both layers (SACD/CD) will be in stereo only.

The Theme will be included as a bonus track, likely the disco version.

The price of the SACD album is now $24.99 on Amazon.

Shame this release is only the OST, which means it will omit about half of the complete score. That being said, I'll probably get it since its a limited-edition release.

The music on this SACD was newly mastered by Steve Hoffman, so its sound should be a noticeable improvement over the DVD-A.

The disc will be a Hybrid SACD, so it will play in most standard CD players. Both layers (SACD/CD) will be in stereo only.

The Theme will be included as a bonus track, likely the disco version.

The price of the SACD album is now $24.99 on Amazon.

Shame this release is only the OST, which means it will omit about half of the complete score. That being said, I'll probably get it since its a limited-edition release.

Yeah, I can't see myself plonking-down $150... or even a $100 for a set of all the LIS music. LLL should release a separate set with just the Williams music for $30-40. Now that would sell well.

Well, we know they've been extremely lazy in regards to releasing the OT scores over and over. But to produce AOTC and ROTS UE CDs, Sony would have to hire someone (most likely Shawn Murphy and his crew) to properly mix the scores from the original multi-channel analog master tapes. They would then create a new stereo master for the purpose of creating a CD or download release (or a 5.1 master for SACD / Blu-Ray audio release). This process was used to create the Episode 1 UE, which sounds fantastic - even though the sound was hard-limited a tiny bit.
It's sad to think, but the conversation could have gone something like that.
In envisioning the Episode 1 UE, it's clear that Sony didn't understand what the fans wanted, so they decided to simply release the score as it appeared in the film. Problem is, they lied by marketing it as "every note John Williams composed for SW Ep.1 TPM". (Heck, that statement is on the back cover of the UE packaging. Liars!) It's perplexing to think that Sony hired someone to edit the score to mirror as it appeared in the film, instead of simply releasing the music "as John Williams intended it to be used" - without the jarring edits.
Who was the target audience for the TPM UE? Really, would the casual SW fans have complained (or even noticed) that the music wasn't edited exactly as it appeared in the film? The supremely edited "Battle of Naboo" might have been an exception, so to make everyone happy, the 'film version' could have been presented at the end of disc 2... instead of the music video version of "Duel of the Fates".
My point is that Sony could have turned a considerable profit by releasing AOTC and ROTS UEs around the time the movies' DVDs were released. Even if they had only sold a few hundred thousand copies each, that would have meant millions of dollars profit. I'm sure some obscure Sony Classical recording artists sell only only a few thousand albums worldwide, so it just doesn't add up. So if not producing the the other two UEs was simply a "business decision" by Sony and Lucasfilm, what could have been their reasoning?