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Return of the Jedi End Credits Film Version


Brando

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I could only find one single post(can’t seem to find it)about this: for ROTJ’s End Credits, the album versions don’t sound like what they do in the film. In the post i mentioned, someone said that the music editors ended up using the first bit of Empires End Credits and then switched back to Jedi. Does anyone know if this is true or not?

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9 minutes ago, GerateWohl said:

Does there any recording of Jabba the Hutt exist apart from the Charles Gerhardt recording?

 

There are other concert recordings out there, however the original recording has been lost. As Jay said, part of it was edited into the original album version of "Han Solo Returns", but that's all we have of it unfortunately.

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36 minutes ago, GerateWohl said:

Does there any recording of Jabba the Hutt exist apart from the Charles Gerhardt recording?

 

Oh certainly, it's been re-recorded a bunch of times, at least twice by JW himself:

 

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00000153G/

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B000003F46/

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B0000040W0/

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B014I65YWK/

 

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10 hours ago, Jay said:

The End Credits cue was recorded on the final day of recording sessions, the same day the revised sail barge assault cue ("The Return of the Jedi") and all the album concert arrangements ("Luke and Leia", "Parade of the Ewoks", "Jabba The Hutt", and "The Forest Battle') were recorded.

 

You can hear the End Credits cue in full in the original 1983 movie, the original 1983 OST album, and disc 3 of the 1993 Arista box set.  In all three spots, the final cue of the movie is still finishing up when the End Credits cue begins - they are overlapped, meaning the opening of the end credits is not available "clean" in any of these places.

 

For the 1997 Special Edition version of the movie, the final cue of the movie is replaced with the new "Victory Celebration" cue, which for whatever reason John Williams did not end in the same key as the End Credits cue starts in, making a proper segue difficult.  For the actual film, they did some pitch-shifting manipulation to pull off the standard transition.


For the 1997 2CD set, they just kind of let the Victory Celebration cue finish up then start the End Credits cue right after. However, the conundrum was that there was no clean opening of the End Credits cue available to them.  Why? Because the original recording masters from that final day of recording sessions were not located when making either expanded album, and as far as we know could still be missing to this day.  

 

This is why the 1997 set was unable to provide us the full "Jabba The Hutt" concert arrangement; The original 1983 OST album combined the beginning of the film cue "The Big Thaw" with the ending of the concert arrangement "Jabba The Hutt" to create the track "Han Solo Returns (at the Court of Jabba The Hutt)".  On the 1993 Arista box set, the tracks "Han Solo Returns (At the Court of Jabba the Hutt)", "The Return of the Jedi", "Luke and Leia", "The Forest Battle", and "Ewok Celebration / Finale" all come directly off the 1983 album master.

 

For the 1997 set, "The Return of the Jedi", "Luke and Leia", and "The Forest Battle", all come directly off the album master too, and the snippet of "Jabba The Hutt" is simply not included at all - they instead released the entire "The Big Thaw" cue as "Han Solo Returns". 

 

So back to the end credits cue, with the album master containing the end of the original finale cue mixed over the start of the end credits cue, they grabbed the Empire Strikes Back end credits cue (which they had the proper clean opening for) and used that until the point where the finale cue was no longer overlapping, and then segued from there into the rest of the ROTJ end credits cue, again taken off the album master.


I hope that makes sense!

Wow! Thanks for the response, that’s quite a backstory. Is there anywhere I can read up on this stuff? I find these things interesting and would love to read more about them!

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Good god I never knew the Jabba the Hutt concert version was recorded at the original film score sessions. I've never really paid it much attention presuming it was arranged some years after the release of the movie. 

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The next time you listen to "Han Solo Returns (at the Court of Jabba the Hutt)" from the original OST album, pay close attention starting when the Han & Leia Love Theme shows up. Shortly after it ends, you'll hear an extremely obvious analog edit when it switches from The Big Thaw film cue to the Jabba The Hutt concert arrangement recording. 

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I was just making clear you had to listen to the OST album track by that name, not the similarly named track on the 1997 set - I also have no clue if they smoothed out the analog edit for the 2018 Disney Records demasters, so I was trying to make it extra clear to listen to the old edition

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15 hours ago, Jay said:

 the original OST album, 

  

15 hours ago, The Big Man said:

"Original" OST?

  

14 hours ago, Jay said:

I don't understand your question

  

14 hours ago, The Big Man said:

Well the acronym OST stands for "Original Soundtrack". So is an "Original OST" an " Original Original Soundtrack"?

  

14 hours ago, Jay said:

I was just making clear you had to listen to the OST album track by that name, not the similarly named track on the 1997 set -

How about this wording:

“The original 1983 soundtrack-album presentation”

or 

"The original 1983 soundtrack album"

 

I've seen Mike M. used either wording in his booklet notes, often.

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@Jay, I'm sure this has been discussed before, but did the NPR radio drama for ROTJ feature the original recording of the end credits, or was the ANH or TESB version re-used?

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I have no idea, sorry

 

Since the ROTJ radio drama wasn't made until 1996, I'd speculate they only had access to the ROTJ album master for that cue just like the makers of the 1993 and 1997 expansions

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