Pater Ecstaticus

One to three pixels per tooth 
 
All joking aside, what a wonderful set, with great sound to boot.

Well, imho it's not as good as JP overall, but in some ways it is. If anyone can always make the sequel better than the original, it's John Williams. Like he did in the case of Jaws 2, The Empire Strikes Back, he did it here as well. He didn't copy his original work, he gave it a whole other flavour. It has much more action music, it's much faster and aggressive if I may say so. To me JP is the superior score, but to many TLW is the better one. It's a matter of personal taste, I guess. With all that said, it's an absolutely must-have for both fans of JW and fans of Film Music in general. It's a GREAT score.

i mean even shutterstock has xwings that you could easily silhouette and just defer any legal issues that way.  but yeah that'd be extremely petty of the mouse
 
back to this expansion, and why expansions are so worth it to me.  you just get some of the best versions of the theme
 
the transition into E.T.'s theme on 'The Kiss'.  No joke when i first got the album, i threw in disc 2 and drove for an hour with this cue playing on repeat for most of the drive.  I still couldn't believe I had this cue.
 
 
and 'Stay With Me' is worth the purchase alone. 
 
 

I’ve really been enjoying this since it arrived last week and I agree that the overall sound is even better than the 2016 release. I love the new Jim Titus packaging too, it really is stunning.
 
The biggest surprise for me though is how much I've been enjoying the remastered OST on disc 2 which I bought on cassette in 1993 and later on CD but hadn't ever listened to since getting the 2016 release. ‘Incident at Isla Nublar’ in particular is such a great combination of three separate cues that creates one thrilling narrative; it works really well musically and I’m glad to have it in such good quality. ‘Hatching Baby Raptor’, ‘My Friend, the Brachiosaurus’, and ‘Eye to Eye’ also work really well. I understand some people’s problems with the OST sequencing but I think the actual cue combinations work brilliantly.

Here’s an idea — let people talk about what they want (unless they’re being rude, which Evanus wasn’t).

I will probably get this because of OCD. And also, one of the discs on my 2016 4-disc set has a tiny scratch on it, and I can't unsee it (OCD again) - even if it has no effect on playback at all - so I will be able to get this CD out and not having to cringe about my own stupidity again.
 
But if this remaster is slightly different (like for example the very slight but noticeable one on the latest, 2022 La-La Land Star Trek: The Motion Picture soundtrack release, compared to the 2012 3-CD set), and if there are some "corrections" (a relative term, I guess) made, then I can quite possibly legitimize this purchase. Also, I think it is nice to have this score as a "standalone" expanded 2-disc issue.
 
 

I will probably get this because of OCD. And also, one of the discs on my 2016 4-disc set has a tiny scratch on it, and I can't unsee it (OCD again) - even if it has no effect on playback at all - so I will be able to get this CD out and not having to cringe about my own stupidity again.
 
But if this remaster is slightly different (like for example the very slight but noticeable one on the latest, 2022 La-La Land Star Trek: The Motion Picture soundtrack release, compared to the 2012 3-CD set), and if there are some "corrections" (a relative term, I guess) made, then I can quite possibly legitimize this purchase. Also, I think it is nice to have this score as a "standalone" expanded 2-disc issue.
 
 

I will probably get this because of OCD. And also, one of the discs on my 2016 4-disc set has a tiny scratch on it, and I can't unsee it (OCD again) - even if it has no effect on playback at all - so I will be able to get this CD out and not having to cringe about my own stupidity again.
 
But if this remaster is slightly different (like for example the very slight but noticeable one on the latest, 2022 La-La Land Star Trek: The Motion Picture soundtrack release, compared to the 2012 3-CD set), and if there are some "corrections" (a relative term, I guess) made, then I can quite possibly legitimize this purchase. Also, I think it is nice to have this score as a "standalone" expanded 2-disc issue.
 
 

Don't insult my fellow Dutchie! 

Yes yes yes! Exactly! This was my favorite thing about the Star Trek score expansions especially.

I want FSM styled LOOOOOOONNGGGG track-by-track commentary!

My one teeny tiny complaint is actually more a complaint about specialty label expansions in general.  In my opinion, the liner notes for these releases generally spend too much space on the background/history of the movie overall when personally I'd rather have as much of the booklet as possible devoted to score discussion.  I can read a detailed production history of Jurassic Park in a thousand different places, I wanna read about the score.  I think that a brief summary of the production at the beginning just as context is all that's needed.
 
Just my preference.

Part of me thinks that Spielberg would only begin something like this in earnest once Williams has passed. Who knows if anybody else has attempted anything and been turned away, but you have to think it's occurred to SS to share the goldmine of footage that he's sitting on with the adoring public....possible that Williams himself is uncomfortable with the idea.

To me this is needless tat. 
 
And a very poor substitute for the shamefully never produced blu-ray comprehensive documentary/recording footage treatment we're long overdue for the world's greatest living orchestral composer. 
 
Screw artwork and wordy back-patting; I want two hours minimum of John Williams: his life and career under the spotlight in 1080p, and dozens of hours extra, LotR style, of the man at work. Raw footage, fill those blu-ray discs the f*ck up! It's about goddamn time. 

Apples and Oranges.

In Star Trek's case, the reason there hadn't been expansions of the film scores before that one (other than the Motion Picture expansion by Sony) was Paramount.  Up until the late 2000s, the specialty labels had had no problems licensing scores from the catalogs of Fox, Warner Brothers, Disney, Universal, etc, but Paramount had eluded them.  Thanks to the efforts of Lukas Kendal and a change in management at Paramount, in the late 2000s licensing scores from Paramount became possible.  The first one released was Airplane! by La-La Land, and soon MANY other Paramount titles followed including all of the Star Trek films, and now they've moved on to all the Star Trek tv shows.  Of course, strong sales of Star Trek II expansion by FSM helped ensure that all the films would eventually be expanded, which they were.
 
As far as Williams goes, its a different ballgame.  He's worked in the industry in 7 different decades now, and in the process has worked for all the major film studios.  As a result, all the different specialty labels have released titles from his back catalogy for the past almost 20 years now, though since Williams has scored over 100 films there's still plenty more to go.
 
These two threads might help you learn more about which titles have been expanded and which haven't:
 
http://www.jwfan.com/forums/index.php?/topic/24564-john-williams-scores-by-studio/
 
http://www.jwfan.com/forums/index.php?/topic/18835-john-williams-low-quantity-alerts/
 
 
I should also point out among all those specialty label releases over the last ~20 years, there's been a variety of different people who worked on them (production, editing, mixing, mastering, etc).  But one person in particular oversaw a lot of the big titles, especially for Williams scores to Spielberg films, and ultimately Spielberg's camp elected to make him (Mike Matessino) the only person who will oversee all future Spielberg/Williams expansions.  The Spielberg/Williams releases he has already tackled are:
 
1941: (Out of Print)
The Empire of the Sun
A.I. Artificial Intelligence 
Jaws
Jurassic Park / The Lost World
 
If you want to vote on which Spielberg/Williams films might be tackled next - trust me, people are watching these things - vote here in this thread I created:
 
http://www.jwfan.com/forums/index.php?/topic/26853-which-spielbergwilliams-film-score-do-you-most-want-expanded-next/
 
And post your reasons why in the thread!

My copy was in the mailbox today  Sounds wonderful, to be sure. For one thing, many fine details are now (more) audible. Lower dynamic range? Possibly. I wouldn't know. (Please make me know  )

My copy arrived in Norway early today, according to USPS Package Tracking. It could arrive at my place tomorrow. I haven't been as surprised and as happy about an expanded/complete soundtrack re-release since Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. That one seems to have spurned a release of expanded/complete versions of all the Star Trek soundtracks. Does that make the case for assuming that many or most all other John Williams soundtracks will also get the expanded/complete treatment? Or maybe the question is a silly one - I am not steeped in knowledge about John Williams soundtrack (re-)releases as many as you fellow forum members are. Anyway, this release is little bit of a dream come true.
 
Jan

Oh dear god, not this again...