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Remasters of the First 6 Star Wars Soundtracks now available (Shawn Murphy / Disney Records 2018)


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34 minutes ago, Margo Channing said:

"Ignore him"... sounds like something Hermione Granger would say.

 

She was in those movies that Nicholas Hooper scored, right?

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So...

 

I picked up the other sets, even the dreaded ESB just to complete the set and they were relatively cheap and altogether in my local retailer.

 

Listening to a FLAC rip of ESB revealed more problems that I didn't pick out the first time and that the score sounds like the kind of thing one might get with 'fan made expanded sets' where the score is a patchwork of official and unofficial sources all mixed differently and all compressed and muffled like trying to remove SFX. In some instances there is clarity in tracks and some instruments do come to life and prominence where they were once buried. It's not all bad, just disappointing.

 

ROTJ fares a little better than ESB but the original album assembly presented here is something I can't readily get used to. In some instances there's a certain flow to the tracks the way they are ordered, but after listening to the Sony sets for a decade I can't help but think of where all the cues went, just chunks of narrative missing!

 

I would say if you're still on the fence about getting any of these releases, go for the prequels and ANH which have consistent mixing, bring more clarity and refinement and actually try to improve upon what came before - in the case of the prequels that isn't difficult, but with the OT, stick to the expanded and sony releases until proper care can be given to them in the future...

 

 

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Not really, I think it doesn't have the punch of the older sets, but the clarity and mixing works. I also remember some distortion in that cue that was toned down a bit with this new set.

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2 hours ago, Arpy said:

I also remember some distortion in that cue that was toned down a bit with this new set.

You imply that they actually attempted to make it sound better, it's not possible.

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3 hours ago, Arpy said:

Not really, I think it doesn't have the punch of the older sets, but the clarity and mixing works. I also remember some distortion in that cue that was toned down a bit with this new set.

 

Tie Fighter Attack in the 2018 remaster clearly has less clarity than the 2016 remaster. Stop denying the obvious. :P

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Wierdly, the 2016 sets still appear to be available to purchase on iTunes and other download sites, alongside the new issues. I would have thought they would have nixed the old ones by now.

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12 hours ago, JTWfan77 said:

Wierdly, the 2016 sets still appear to be available to purchase on iTunes and other download sites, alongside the new issues. I would have thought they would have nixed the old ones by now.

 

The remixed versions from multi-tracks never really replaces the remastered Masters. It's two very different things.

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Who knows what the deal was with Sony as to how they marketed the sets, it could be that the rereleases were contracted for a number of years despite the Disney takeover?

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The drama with the Star Wars original trilogy score saga, it's that NO actual set is perfect.

 

- The 2015 Masters remasters, they still have the old clunky analogue edits we suffer since 40 years (A New Hope and Empire), they could at least correct the 2 that are the most annoying (Star Wars Main Theme in ANH and Finale from ESB).

- The new 2018 remasters, the edits are a little bit less annoying (ANH Star Wars main Theme is not as good as the EDIT on Anthology, but the ESB finale is perfect), but the real turn-off about ESB OST it's it has been remixed using a bit too retro and wide stereo that may not respect the "idea" (and the actual state!) of the original material... and my god, they have been very hard on the background noise! But even worse, "Heroics of Luke and Han" has a stereo default (channel drop-out).

- The 93 Anthology boxset contains some alt tracks, "Mynock's cave" is missing from ESB and still in ESB, the track "The training of a Jedi Knight" have a stereo default (channel drop-out).

- The SE sets contains new recorded music that have replaced the old ones (No Lapti Nek, No Yub-Nub)

 

Will they do a perfect set.... One day????

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10 hours ago, Arpy said:

Who knows what the deal was with Sony as to how they marketed the sets, it could be that the rereleases were contracted for a number of years despite the Disney takeover?

Anything released by Sony have been OOP since January 1st 2017.  It's Disney Record's re-packaging's of Sony's remasters that are still up for sale in digital stores, not Sony's editions.

 

Sony hasn't gotten a dime from Star Wars music sales since Jan 1 2017

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3 hours ago, Bespin said:

"Heroics of Luke and Han" has a stereo default.

I wish it was the only affected track...

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18 hours ago, Tallguy said:

What is a stereo default?

 

Well it's when you have a very deteriorated passage in one channel on a tape... and you decide to mute completely this passage for few seconds (mute, fade-out, fade-in, there are many techniques more or less subtle) instead of repairing it... So when you hear that kind of passage, the sound totally goes away in one channel for few seconds... and then it comes back. With headphones, it's terrible!

 

Of course, we are in 2018... and there are many many many sources for Star Wars music... they would have been able to give us a better "repaired" version of "Heroics of Luke and Han".

 

It was a little of laziness here...

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Baffling they didn't just use the OST remasters from 2016 to cover up that passage in that track, IF the elements/tapes were damaged and irrecoverable in the session masters. So lazy.

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14 hours ago, Bespin said:

The drama with the Star Wars original trilogy score saga, it's that NO actual set is perfect.

The 93 Anthology boxset  "The training of a Jedi Knight" has a stereo default (channel drop-out).

 

As does the track Return of the Jedi. A major one at that!

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7 hours ago, Steve H said:

As does the track Return of the Jedi. A major one at that!

 

I never noted that one, maybe because ROTJ is my less favorite score of the three!

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4 hours ago, Bespin said:

 

I never noted that one, maybe because ROTJ is my less favorite score of the three!

 

It's the coolest one! (Though there are days where I say the original is the coolest one.)

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So what if TIE Fighter Attack was slightly neutered and Asteroid Field completely botched to make Reminiscence Therapy's reception better? Tinfoil Hats Engage!

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On 6/8/2018 at 12:27 AM, Holko said:

So what if TIE Fighter Attack was slightly neutered and Asteroid Field completely botched to make Reminiscence Therapy's reception better? Tinfoil Hats Engage!

 

The Falcon herself can't make jumps like that.  Bravo!

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I have the OT albums now. Even with absolutely no expectations, the mini-posters still disappointed. They are absolutely horrendous.

Star Wars has a promotional still of C3PO and R2, where 3PO bows down so you can barely see his face and R2 is discoloured and falling apart. this is the best of the 3 by a long shot.

Empire has a still from the Luke-Vader duel with their silhouettes, but horribly low-res (upscaled into blurryness) and grainy in a not good way - like they just zoomed in on a shot from the 2006 laserdisc retransfer. The other two are crisp.

Jedi has a promotional still of Vader standing in a primary-school-kid-getting-his-photo-taken way next to Palpatine, who's looking directly into the camera asking for his constipation medicine, in front of a group of stormtroopers behind a perspectivically slanted row of Royal Guards.

All in lovely, poster-relevant 1:1 square aspect ratio, of course.

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About as much effort went into these pictures as into making sure every sound element was presentable, every edit was fine and every take was correct.

Why not reprint the original posters or the original LP covers if that's what's on the disc? Or if it HAD to be these images, who in their right mind would specifically market them?

Granted, I haven't seen the two promo pics so far, but I was probably better off that way.

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The assortment of stills in the gatefold are nice, just don't open them vertically, too.

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