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Post #422015

Author
hairy_hen
Parent topic
Star Wars 1977 70mm sound mix recreation [stereo and 5.1 versions now available] (Released)
Link to post in topic
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/422015/action/topic#422015
Date created
26-Jun-2010, 4:59 AM

ChainsawAsh is exactly correct in his description.  Putting in the RotJ music isn't a theatrical restoration of any kind, though it does restore a part of how John Williams envisioned the film when he scored it.  I think it was a mistake for them to cut the cue for the Obi-wan/Luke conversation--I have always felt the scene was missing something ever since I first saw it.  It's the kind of scene that needs the additional emotional weight a well-written musical cue can provide (and hey, Obi-wan's ESB scenes all had music, and they were no emotional slouches).  There's a slippery slope involved in changing a film to one's personal preferences--preservation is definitely the worthier goal--but I guess since RotJ is the most flawed film of the three, I feel the least guilty about tampering with it.  ABC's remastered version was used as the source, converted to 48 khz with the high quality iZotope resampler.

Fixing a few botched music edits in ESB is also something I don't feel guilty about, because it makes the transitions smoother, especially if you're familiar with the music on its own.  RotJ has its share of bad music editing as well, especially in Jabba's palace--like ESB, some of these edits weren't necessary for timing purposes, and are thus nearly inexplicable.  I'd change them if I could, but it would be difficult to get a seamless result.

Anyway, what I've done is only a very minor series of alterations; and because they are not part of an original theatrical release, they will be presented in 5.1 format only, since those are fan-created hybrids anyway.  If I could, I would make exact 70mm recreations of those films to go along with Star Wars; but I'm quite hesitant to do so without having real recordings of them to use for reference.  Regardless, for the most part my versions still sound very similar to what they would have been like in terms of dynamic range, sound quality, bass response, and overall balance.