Problems with Releases to date:
Problems with all Album releases: John Williams had been around for quite a few years by the time he composed the scores for the star wars trilogy. At that time, it was common practice to compose a score for a film, and then arrange cues from the film for an album release. Around this time however, Williams started using a different technique.
Rather than record the album separately and have to arrange the music for it, he would record the score, and edit the score to highlight cues from the film, edited together in a sort of concert suite approach.
In this, many cues are lost, left unreleased or partially unreleased.
The LP's:
Original LP for Star Wars: Biggest issue is the entire score is not released. The quality is actually very very good. Unlike CD's, the music is not digitally compressed and is considered to be almost near "reality" as possible. It's funny to think of the price we paid for convenience and for technology.
Original LP for Empire: Same as the first. Even with the double LP's released, the entire scores are not presented.
Original LP for Return of the Jedi: Some of the most defining moments for this film are left off. Stranger still about this film is the lack of a Double LP set. Perhaps because of the popularity of CD's, LP's began to loose a foothold and a single disc became more feasable and would cost less on both ends. This SEVERELY cut down on the amount of music released.
----
The first CD's:
CD's as I mentioned contain the music from the LP's in an almost strict copy to CD but unlike LP's, cd's are compressed. The music presented on the CD's often lack a lot of the clarity and depth and reality that the LP's present and for this reason, many people often say they prefer the old LP's to the CD's.
As I said, the CD's are almost strict copies of the LP's HOWEVER some information and documentation had been lost over the time as you have to realize in this time, when they edited the music, they literally edited the music tapes. Some of the CD's used alternate or incorrect takes.
----
The Anthology Set:
Perhaps one of the most loved of the releases, the Anthology presents a wealth of music along with a great booklet.
Problems with the Anthology:
A New Hope: One of the biggest problems was the company putting together this set was denied access to vaults and to a lot of materials that would normally be required to put a set together. Limited access to copies of masters was granted so the quality of the music is still a further step down from the LP. Also, proper documentation on the exact editing of the score (the correct takes of cues used, where they are edited, how many edits, what take is used of the ~400 takes) was thought lost so the people working on the set guessed.
This led to incorrect editing, usage of improper takes, and a few other errors like this.
Example: Compare "Throne Room" on the Anthology to the "Throne Room" on the SE. You'll find that the horns do a triplet on the Anthology but a duplet on the SE. This is an alternate take and was not meant to ever be used and although it shows the creative decisions behind the composing of the score and recording of the score, it denies the definitive and final creative choice/version meant to be heard.
Empire Strikes Back: One of the more complete of the trilogy, the second disc highlights and shows a great wealth of cues. I personally have always preferred this CD to the 2 DISC SE for reasons I will discuss in a bit.
Several of the cues on disc 2 suffer from omissions of material heard in the film but not here (such as the music that plays in the helicopter establishing shot of Luke riding his tauntaun on Hoth). Some of the cues warble in and out of tune at times and it has been said that several cues were transferred at the incorrect speed (compare Imperial March to the same from the SE).
For the most part, the only issue is the less than stellar copy of the master used to produce this.
Unfortunately, the Empire tracks on the 4th disc weren't so lucky. Many of the extra tracks from Empire tacked on the 4th disc suffered from editing errors. The second half of a few tracks such as "Drawing the Battle Lines/Leia's Instructions" suffer from flipped Left/Right channels. This occurs on several cues in this. Why it occurred is perhaps carelessness as the cello/bass are suppose to be in the right channel and the violins in the left. A simple editing program can flip these back to the correct sides however, but the release does have these errors.
Return of the Jedi: Some of the most interesting aspects of this score is how bad it has always sounded. It has never truly had the clarity or depth that any of the other recordings had. The strings in every release lack quality and strength and almost don't exist in the mixes and are bland and weak.
Aside from the amount of material lacking in this release for the set, Film versions of cues are left off. "Lapti Nek" on the 4th disc is an album recording and is one of 6 recordings: (some have been released denoted by *)
Film Version
*Album Version
*Extended Album Version
*Instrumental
Film Instrumental
English Version
Other missing tracks include the Album recording of "Jabba the Hutt's" suite. This was recorded after the film in a separate album recording session (where the "The Ewok Battle" and "Return of the Jedi" were recorded.
Interesting to note was that the final portion of the "Jabba the Hutt's" suite was Incorrectly edited onto the end of "Han Solo Returns," replacing the correct segment which is unreleased until the SE's. This is the only release of the original John Williams Album recording in existence. It is now proposed to be lost.
Besides the sound being quite dead, they use a copy of the master. Interesting to note is a strange blip of sound at 2:33 on track 2. This is also heard in the SE but NOT on the LP as the LP's were derived from the original masters which were not available for this release and were not found until after the SE was released.
Some of the greater parts of the Anthology were the extra tracks on Disc 4. They show a great deal of extra music never before released and to this day, the Anthology has been one of my favourite sets.
---
And now to the SE's.
A New Hope: This set is perhaps one of the most well done of ANY of the Original Trilogy releases. Mike Matessino who edited this went back and studied the original LP and the film to make sure his edits were accurate. He then, through a few people, was able to find the lost documentation on what cues were used, how they were used, when they were edited, and what cues were recorded.
Through this discovery and the discovery of some of the masters not available to the Anthology producers, the "Binary Sunset (Alternate)" was discovered. This, plus the first recordings/takes of "Star Wars" were found. They were added to the set as extras and were not originally know about.
Unfortunately, as with all the releases, the set comes from several different masters and copies of the masters. Because of this, Matessino admits that they had to dumb down the sound slightly of the tracks from the better masters to ensure a playable experience and that the set on the whole, worked together and that certain tracks didn't sound better than others.
Also they discovered that the other takes of the Main Title had degraded so poorly that they were lost forever.
Binary Sunset was discovered on some extra reel left over from the editing process from when they actually had to edit the tape to put together the score.
This set is a definitive release of A New Hope. It uses the correct takes, is mixed properly, and with the advent of digital transfers, the masters were safely stored on a computer (digitally but eh, it's better than nothing for now) and this, unlike Analog, does allow for a larger degree of clarity in the recordings. When you listen, for the first time, you get the entire score as it was meant to be heard and better than it has ever sounded before.
Empire Strikes Back: A New Hope was a great start, but Empire falls apart quickly.
From track 2, fracking "Main Title" that which you hear at any Star Wars concert and is recorded for each film and so on, one of the biggest problems with this set begins to show. Unlike the Anthology predecessor, this error is not easily fixed.
The Horn channels are very obviously flipped.
When an orchestra is recorded, there are 3 main mics (left, right, center) and there are separate mics for different sections and specialty instruments such as harp.
The normal orchestral setting is:
Extreme Left: Harp
Left: Horns (aka french horns), Violin 1, Violin 2, percussion, (and in the case of Imperial Walkers) Piano.
Middle: Winds and Violin 2 to an extent. Precussion like timpani
Right: Viola, Cello. Brass sections (trumbone, trumpet, tuba, baritone, etc), (and in the case of Imperial Walkers) Piano 2. choice of percussion like glocks.
Extreme Right: String Bass, Harp,
In every track edited by Risner, one of two music editors for the SE release of Empire, the Horn's are flipped: putting the trumpets and brass on the left, and horns on the right.
Also, one of the bigger mistakes made by Risner is his improper mixing of the harp. In every track he mixed, he mixed the music so narrowly that the definition of right and left is almost non-existent. The Harp is meant to be on the extreme left or right (usually there are two harps one one each side). He places them in the MIDDLE. This is WRONG. You listen to the music in the film or ANY John Williams release or check out the common orchestral set up and you see that it is meant to be on the extreme left and/or right. NEVER the center unless it is a lead instrument which it was never used as such in Empire.
Celeste, meant to accompany the first violins plucking in "Training of a Jedi Knight" is again, mixed into the center rather than being in the far right complimenting the strings.
"Imperial Walkers" utilizes two pianos in it's opening measures very loudly. In the performance notes, Williams says that the more pianos, the better.
In the SE, the pianos are mixed so narrowly that it sounds like a single piano in the center! It says something about the accuracy of the performers that they could be down-mixed into a single piano and be flawless, but the problem is, THAT is NOT how it was meant to be at all!
Certain aspects of the score were also improperly mixed such as the little synth used in "The Wampa Lair" and the choir in "Cloud City." In both cases, the mixing is incorrect and the synth/choir are meant to be very lightly mixed, not mixed so loudly as to cause actual digital distortion as you hear in the SE in "The Wampa Lair."
Other problems:
Many of the more important cues are mixed very narrowly. Take "Imperial March" for example. It is meant to be a sonically bombastic power house piece, but it sounds wimpy and flat on the SE. The strings sound HORRIBLE and the brass is so narrowly mixed it may as well be mono. The bass and middle registers are removed and the brightness becomes harsh and crass.
Other tracks like Hyperspace are again mixed so narrowly that the handoff between the string sections becomes dangerously downplayed and mono, destroying the original vision of the score (not to mention the flipped horn tracks).
Lastly, the omission of many alternate versions. "The Rebel Fleet" heard on the Anthology and on the SE/LP are two DIFFERENT versions composed for different edits of the same sequence.
Also worthy of note are the two versions of "The End Credits," the one commonly heard on the other releases and the one heard here.
Return of the Jedi:
This release is almost not worth buying.
This was the first of the three sets finished and has the least amount of work done to it.
The plehtora of problems with this set make me wonder where to begin:
First off, the set sounds like shit. It sounds like your listening through a woolen blanket. The strings dissapear and sound dead.
For a "dolby digital" transfer, with THX verification, this score really sounds bad. We know that the masters used for the anthology are the same used here. The original masters could not be found in time for this set.
On top of that, many other masters went missing. The various version of Lapti Nek, the 2 Max Rebo Band songs, a completely unheard/unused/unreleased third source cue also composed by John Williams son, Joseph Williams is lost.
The original music composed for the Ewok Celebration is not presented here (On the Anthology two versions are released: neither are the film version).
The Alternate for "Leia's News" is left off of the set along with several alternates and the Ewok Insert heard only in the film.
Jabba the Hutt's concert suite is missing (as the masters could not be located).
The concert suites used on this set came from the masters from the Anthology release and so their sound is questionable.
Certain cues use incorrect takes such as the great cue "Superstructure Chase." The film take does not have the horn flub as heard in this take. Not to mention it sounds much better as this one sounds like utter glorified shit.
--------------------------------------------------------
So where does this leave us? What can be done? What can a new release do?
Well for one:
A new release can release some of the alternate takes from A New Hope that have not been released including an alternate End Credits take that has leaked through video game sources.
Empire could be completely remixed (CORRECTLY) and it's alternates could be reinserted.
Return of the Jedi could be released in its complete fashion (however I heard that the masters for the Lapti Nek cues and Album recording sessions are still proving illusive). It could also be remixed to sound worth listening to.
All this together could take up about 8 discs. 2 for A New Hope with some extra tracks, 2 for Empire with some tracks left over, and 3 for Jedi. The left over tracks from ANH and Empire could go on their own CD.
That would be 8 discs...
----------------
Other Original Trilogy Music Odd's and Ends:
-The Star Wars Disco versions (which can still be found around)
-The Star Wars concert versions (which are available in many places and recordings)
-The Holiday Special Score (one track is in a 30th anniversary set of 'The Star Wars Archive')
-The 2 Ewok movie scores (which have very poor incomplete bootlegs)
-The Radio Show music (which has been released)
So what can be on the set? Hard to say. We know that masters for Return of the Jedi surfaced and that they could be used to create a much better release. Look at the DVD with Revenge of the Sith and the concert suites. They music is mixed in 5.1 and sounds quite good.
The other option would be to release DVD's of the complete scores like they did with the Lord of the Rings sets, but even then, they included CD's so it's hard to say unless the DVD's are simple transfers of the 2 disc SE's and if you want to listen to the CD, you buy the SE and you buy this for the Surround sound mix.
Hard to see the future is...
anyway, I hope this answered your question.