Anyone else watched this, when he was way too young? There seems to be a whole generation of children that got traumatized by this. Now I just admire how ambitious and virtuoso the direction and the actors are. It's not just a great film for children, it is a great film overall!
I would have learned about this by reading this post by @Lukas Kendall in rec.arts.sf.starwars in 1993:
From: ldke...@unix.amherst.edu (Lukas Kendall)
Organization: Amherst College, Amherst MA, USA
Item: Star Wars Trilogy: The Original Soundtrack Anthology
Label and # is: Fox 07822-11012-2.
General description: 4 CDs of music from the original soundtracks to all
three films, including around an hour and a half of previously unreleased
music. Will come in long-box sized packaging with removable lid--inside are
four jewel boxes plus a long-box sized full color 64 page booklet. Booklet
features an essay by director Nick Meyer, detailed track by track liner
notes, and numerous color plates of stills and production paintings sent by
Lucasfilm which have never been seen before.
How the hell I know all this: Lucky me has talked with Fox producer Nick
Redman about the project from the start, so I'm doing the track-by-track
liner notes.
Retail cost: $49.95
There will not be a cassette release.
Here's what to expect:
Disc 1: The original 2LP set to Star Wars on one disc, resequenced in
more of a chronological order than before, and minus "Cantina Band" which
wouldn't fit. (Don't panic about "Cantina Band"--read on.) This has been
remastered from the film mix, and the sound is fantastic.
Disc 2: The original 2LP set to Empire, also resequenced in chronological
order, minus "Departure of Boba Fett." This is actually being re-mixed from
the original sessions as I write this, and some things which were edited
out from the original release (a few bars here, 30 seconds there) will
hopefully be restored.
Disc 3: The original single LP to Jedi, plus 30-35 minutes of additional,
previously unreleased material. Let's see, that includes: Luke's battle with
the Rancor, the Emperor's arrival at the Death Star, the death of Yoda,
the first Ewok battle and fight with the Tie Fighters, the choral music when
Luke flips out and cuts off Vader's hand (at last!), Darth Vader's Death,
and "Through the Flames," when Lando blows up the Death Star. Oh, and I'm happy
to report that Lapti Nek has been relocated to disc four, speaking of which...
Disc 4: As if the first three discs weren't enough, disc four contains another
75 minutes of music from all three films, including "Cantina Band," "Departure
of Boba Fett," and "Lapti Nek."
Here are the track listings. Will notate any changes from original album
track in brackets.
Disc One: Star Wars***********************************************************
1) Fox Fanfare
2) Main Title
3) Imperial Attack [30 seconds longer--restored music]
4) The Desert/The Robot Auction
5) The Little People Work
6) The Princess Appears
7) The Land of the Sand People
8) The Return Home
9) Inner City [also 30 seconds longer--restored music]
10) Mouse Robot/Blasting Away
11) Rescue of the Princess
12) The Walls Converge
13) Ben's Death/TIE fighter Attack
14) Pricess Leia's Theme
15) The Last Battle
16) The Throne Room/End Title
Disc Two: The Empire Strikes Back*********************************************
1) Fox Fanfare
2) Main Title/The Imperial Probe (extended version) [Instead of the cave music,
which will appear on disc five next year, this continues with previously
unreleased music for the opening Hoth scenes--when Han and Leia bicker, etc]
3) Luke's Escape [including music edited out of old album (approx. 30 seconds)]
4) Luke's Rescue [previously first part of "Rebels at Bay"]
5) The Imperial March
6) The Battle in the Snow
7) Luke's First Crash [previously second part of "Rebels at Bay" (with
approx. 30 seconds restored)]
8) The Rebels Escape Again [previously second part of "Heroics of Luke & Han"]
9) The Asteroid Field
10) Yoda's Theme
11) Han Solo and the Princess
12) The Training of a Jedi Knight
13) The Magic Tree
14) Yoda and the Force
15) City in the Clouds [with 30 seconds restored]
16) Lando's Palace
17) The Duel
18) Hyperspace
19) Finale/End Credits
Disc Three: Return of the Jedi**********************************************
1) Fox Fanfare
2) Main Title/Approaching the Death Star
3) Han Solo Returns [at the Court of Jabba the Hutt]
4) Fight in the Dungeon *
5) The Return of the Jedi
6) The Emperor Arrives *
7) The Death of Yoda *
8) Parade of the Ewoks
9) Luke and Leia
10) The Emperor Confronts Luke *
11) Into the Trap
12) First Ewok Battle/Fight with the Fighters *
13) The Forest Battle
14) Final Duel/Into the Death Star *
15) The Emperor's Death [previously titled "The Emperor"]
16) Darth Vader's Death *
17) Through the Flames *
18) Leia Breaks the News/Funeral Pyre for a Jedi [prev title "Rebel Briefing"]
19) Ewok Celebration/End Credits
* Previously Unreleased Music
Disc Four: The Star Wars Trilogy (Outtakes & Prev. Unreleased Music)**********
1) Fox Fanfare
2) Star Wars - Main Title (alternate version) [very similar to original]
3) Heroic Ewok [Paploo steals speeder bike] and The Fleet Goes into Hyperspace
(Return of the Jedi)
4) Destruction of Alderaan (SW)
5) A Hive of Villany (SW) [Ben, Luke, and droids go to Mos Eisley]
6) Drawing the Battle Lines/Leia's Instructions (Empire) ["Good! Our first
catch of the day!"]
7) The Ewok Battle (Jedi) [actual film version of "The Forest Battle"]
8) Attack Position (Empire) [Falcon turns to attack Star Destroyer]
9) Crash Landing (Empire) [Luke lands on Dagobah, R2 swallowed by swamp
creature]
10) Cantina Band (SW)
11) Lapti Nek (Jedi)
12) Cantina Band #2 (SW) [the second song--it's pretty groovy!]
13) Faking the Code (Jedi) [Approaching Death Star in Tydirium]
14) Brother and Sister (Jedi) [film version of Luke and Leia--Luke tells Leia
they're siblings, etc.]
15) Standing By (SW) [The X-wings and Y-wings take off from the Rebel base]
16) Leia Is Wounded/Luke and Vader Duel (Jedi) [Leia shot at shield bunker,
on Death Star, Luke backflips up to catwalk]
17) Carbon Freeze/Luke Pursues the Captives/Departure of Boba Fett (Empire)
[Continuous 11 minutes of Bespin battle music]
18) Losing a Hand (Empire) [Luke gets hand cut off, hangs off weather vane]
19) The Return of the Jedi (Jedi, alternate version) [completely different
version of the sail barge battle]
20) Leia Breaks the News/Funeral Pyre for a Jedi (Jedi) [alternate version--
in latter case, the film version, of the track "Rebel Briefing" on old
Jedi album]
21) Ewok Celebration (film version) and Empire end credits (film version)
All music on disc four previously unreleased except Cantina Band, Lapti Nek,
and Departure of Boba Fett
Okay, I won't try to fool you die-hards. There is still music in the movies
not on this box set. However, Fox is considering doing a fifth disc, which
will take care of that. Fox may or may not release it next year, depending
on how well this box sells. There are naturally going to be people who say,
"Yeah, I liked those five hours of Star Wars music, but you bastards left
off my favorite one minute cue when Chewie puts Threepio back together!"
For those people, all I can say is you'll have it eventually. This box set
will rectify 16 years of screwed-up albums (the infernal Polygram has
nothing to do with it) and will give the Star Wars and movie music fan more
music than anyone could have ever hoped for.
The entire SW and Empire soundtracks cannot be put on one CD because
they simply won't fit. While technically a CD can hold up to 79 minutes,
the manufacturer in this case (Arista) has limited each disc to 75 minutes.
The rationale is that with discs of great length, you get more screw-ups in
the pressing run. Arista--which is just manufacturing the CDs, not producing
them--said that they absolutely would not go past 75 minutes. They put it in
writing to the producer at Fox, the fellow I've been dealing with, that if
he delivered CDs longer than 75 minutes and there were screw-ups in the
pressing run, they could hold him legally accountable.
In the case of Star Wars, we are using the film mix, instead of the album
mix. Basically, when they record a film score, it goes on a multi-track
master. You've got some instruments on one channel, others on another
channel, etc. For SW, there was a mix made for the film which is very crisp
and in-your-face. For the album, a softer, mushier mix was made in order to
disguise the occasional wrong note, not that you or I will be able to
notice any such flubs. The album mix was used on the previous album and CD,
but we'll be using the film mix, and it really reveals the score anew.
In a few cases, different takes have been used so that it sounds a little bit
different.
Empire has been altered more, specifically because Polygram was unable
to supply the album masters, so the CD (disc two) had to be reconstructed
from the aging session masters. For Empire, a variety of tape sources has
been used. To make a long story short, some of the tracks are taken off of
the film mix, some were mixed down from the multi-tracks in an all new mix,
and one track, Yoda's Theme, was actually lifted from the old CD. Trust me,
you won't be able to tell the difference.
On the original Empire album, the first track combined the main title and
Luke getting whacked off his Tauntaun with the "This Is No Cave" music from
later in the picture. Here, we have restored some four minutes of music--
in lieu of the cave music--originally intended for the opening of the
movie. Said music was re-recorded on the first track of the Varese
re-recording. The cave music will appear on the possible fifth disc.
My producer contact at Fox isn't too happy about this either. Here's what
happened: Because of the way we had to assemble the discs one at a time,
disc four was done assuming the cave music would go on disc two, because
disc two would be done with the album masters. When the album masters didn't
show up but the session masters did, we decided to include the extended
Imperial Probe cue because it was important and intriguing "missing music"
that also kept to the chronological order Lucasfilm was bugging us about.
No problem, "This Is Not a Cave" would go on disc five. Now, the higher-ups
at Fox have decided to put disc five on hold. There's no way we could have
forseen this. So, yes, there will two and a half minutes of music on the
original Empire CD that may never been re-released. Well, what can we do?
For Jedi, two main sources have been used, the film mix and the old CD.
The following tracks were culled from the old CD as that was the only
available recording, and with digital technology it sounds exactly the
same: Han Solo Returns, The Return of the Jedi, Parade of the Ewoks, Luke
and Leia, The Forest Battle, Ewok Celebration/End Credits, and Lapti Nek.
Of the remaining tracks, Main Title/Approaching the Death Star is ten
seconds longer but it's the same music, just joined at a different spot;
Into the Trap and Rebel Briefing are identical; and The Emperor is the same
music although there's one very faint synthesizer overdub heard on the old
CD that won't be on the new one. However, unlike SW, this is the same mix.
Again, you won't be able to tell the difference.
One of the few things that will not be on this box set or the subsequent
fifth disc is the film version of Lapti Nek. We simply have been unable to
find the tapes of it. The album version will be used instead. Sorry about
this, but there's nothing I can do about it.
In the strict technical term of "mastering," all four CDs are being
re-mastered and re-equalized for compact disc presentation by one of LA's
finest sound engineers.
Here are two main reasons why they've been resequenced:
1) Lucasfilm insisted.
2) The original SW and Empire albums were designed to work each as four sides
totalling one larger whole. You have four independent listening experiences
of 15-20 minutes apiece. With CDs, you have one, 75 minute listening
experience. Because of that, it makes sense to present the tracks in
chronological order to better serve that one long listen.
To elaborate, the original 2LP sets to SW and Empire were constructed in no
order whatsoever except as a musical program. As such, cues from different
parts of the movie were joined together in many cases. Because the albums
have been around so long, all but two of those joins or crossfades have
been left as is because it works musically, but this throws a few kinks
into Lucasfilm's demand for chronological order. Basically, disc one is in
mostly chronological order, disc two is in chronological order except for
two instances, and disc three is in entirely chronological order. Disc
four, the bonus outtakes disc, is not in any chrnological order because
it's a collection of extra music, not a direct soundtrack to any one film.
Any questions/comments/complaints? Are you not properly overwhelmed with joy?
Does anybody know, why there is no soundtrack to the 1990 score by Stanley Myers? I think, we are in desperate need of an official release for that one!
John Williams' Indiana Jones 5 score was more generic in-film than Lorne Balfe's Mission Impossible 7 score and had waaay less identity than Ludwig Göransson's Oppenheimer.
John Williams' Indiana Jones 5 score was more generic in-film than Lorne Balfe's Mission Impossible 7 score and had waaay less identity than Ludwig Göransson's Oppenheimer.
The awfully sloppy cover art was only a hint to the carelessness that would be found on the CDs:
two alternates from the original album are missing ("The Hollow Man" and "Linda & Sebastian")
some of the combined cues have very harsh transitions with background hiss blatanly fading out and in
there is no real volume compression, but the separate tracks seem to be normalized - this is why the tracks with lower peak volume got amplified, which leads to very unnatural volume dips between the tracks
moreover, some of the track combos have the cues within play at different volume, because each cue got normalized by its own
I don't know, what the fuck they were thinking, but the film version inserts of some alternates were implemented in such shitty fashion that you would hardly be able to find on a bootleg, like for example in "Bloody Floor" and "The Big Climb" - sorry, I'm not trying to be rude here, but it really sounds horrible
there are several stances of overdriving volume (the alternate opening of "The Big Climb" and the brass blast at the start of "Hi Boss"
the end credits suite, which features no new music was taken from film stem and has very obvious crackling sounds
All in all, this is a release that had good sounding source material available and still got the worst out of it. No one can tell me, they did quality-check this one. It feels like Intrada's main issue is the volume (and not for the first time).
Pretty sure it had unique takes. Anyhow, I’m sorry you find it so difficult to enjoy that release Brundlefly. I readily admit it’s not perfect, but I quite enjoyed it myself. Maybe one day the score will be revisited again in a more definitive edition. LLL just rectified their earlier Hook expansion after all, and that 2CD expansion had far more noticeable issues with it than Hollow Man, IMO.
The awfully sloppy cover art was only a hint to the carelessness that would be found on the CDs:
two alternates from the original album are missing ("The Hollow Man" and "Linda & Sebastian")
some of the combined cues have very harsh transitions with background hiss blatanly fading out and in
there is no real volume compression, but the separate tracks seem to be normalized - this is why the tracks with lower peak volume got amplified, which leads to very unnatural volume dips between the tracks
moreover, some of the track combos have the cues within play at different volume, because each cue got normalized by its own
I don't know, what the fuck they were thinking, but the film version inserts of some alternates were implemented in such shitty fashion that you would hardly be able to find on a bootleg, like for example in "Bloody Floor" and "The Big Climb" - sorry, I'm not trying to be rude here, but it really sounds horrible
there are several stances of overdriving volume (the alternate opening of "The Big Climb" and the brass blast at the start of "Hi Boss"
the end credits suite, which features no new music was taken from film stem and has very obvious crackling sounds
All in all, this is a release that had good sounding source material available and still got the worst out of it. No one can tell me, they did quality-check this one. It feels like Intrada's main issue is the volume (and not for the first time).
The awfully sloppy cover art was only a hint to the carelessness that would be found on the CDs:
two alternates from the original album are missing ("The Hollow Man" and "Linda & Sebastian")
some of the combined cues have very harsh transitions with background hiss blatanly fading out and in
there is no real volume compression, but the separate tracks seem to be normalized - this is why the tracks with lower peak volume got amplified, which leads to very unnatural volume dips between the tracks
moreover, some of the track combos have the cues within play at different volume, because each cue got normalized by its own
I don't know, what the fuck they were thinking, but the film version inserts of some alternates were implemented in such shitty fashion that you would hardly be able to find on a bootleg, like for example in "Bloody Floor" and "The Big Climb" - sorry, I'm not trying to be rude here, but it really sounds horrible
there are several stances of overdriving volume (the alternate opening of "The Big Climb" and the brass blast at the start of "Hi Boss"
the end credits suite, which features no new music was taken from film stem and has very obvious crackling sounds
All in all, this is a release that had good sounding source material available and still got the worst out of it. No one can tell me, they did quality-check this one. It feels like Intrada's main issue is the volume (and not for the first time).
It is kind of a statement to go from such a busy to such plain artwork, maybe it is supposed to make the two releases easily distinguishable. A statement à la "This is not a re-release, this one's different."
La-La Land hasn't really had any of these fuck-ups. It has mainly been Intrada and Varese.
The guy is definitely biased, for he doesn't take a film score for what it is and then tries to rate it, but instead he has a clear concept of what a film score is supposed to be like and then he looks at it and rates it accordingly.
For example, The Prisoner of Azkaban or The Lost World are supposed to offer a consequent development of pre-existing themes. The question here is: Are they really? It has never been the composer's goal and the new identity of these sequel scores that undeniably contrast pleasently with their predecessors on purpose should be taken as what they are first, before you start judging their quality. Of course, one can criticize the abscence of thematic continuation, but there should be any arguments for that, other than "I expected differently".
Another issue is the fact that he has an affection for traditional scores (thus any Star Wars score gets at least four stars) and doesn't really like the concept of modern ambient scoring at all (just look at the ratings for Interstellar, Arrival and Dune, for example). I don't think that's fair either.
It is three times the same less than mediocre sounding stuff, so no it is not enough, even with three discs.
Again, I think that score could get much more love if it was re-recorded and sounded acceptable.
I'm not longing for those two scores, but it is definitely necessary to re-record those two in order to complete the Goldsmith catalogue. Black Patch is now the last feature film score (excluding TV) that hasn't got an official release yet.
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