After listening to Hairy_hen’s 5.1 70mm mix and 5.1 ESB mix, I went through my SW scores for the first time in years. Figured I’d start a thread for overall score discussion.
I found that overall, I’m not really happy with any of the official releases that I own. The original 77 double LP is probably the best overall, but that was remixed especially for home playback and places different emphasis and narrows the stereo image. And I understand that John Williams wanted to create a interesting listening experience (and it works with that in mind) but why the heck does the score order have to be so mixed up?
The 97SE releases while really nice looking and fully complete are just absolutely horrible. The sound is over-compressed, limited, remixed and frankly I think this is what turned me off to ever listening to these scores. I’ve had these releases for years and never listened to them more than once.
ABC’s salvage editions of all three scores are well done and provide a nice compromise as the simplest and most complete version. It is a primarily the 1993 Anthology set combined with elements from the 97 scores and then re-equalized by ABC. I need to track down the 1993 Anthology set so I can finally have every official version and have an actual decent sounding official Trilogy.
The transfer of the RSO Star Wars LP confirms that the UK LP is more detailed and warmer than the US 20th Century Fox edition. I need to look for the LPs of ESB and ROTJ to hear their strengths.
I found this article by a member of the Steve Hoffman forums. 52 highly detailed pages on the recording and various editions of the Trilogy scores. Absolutely required reading.
http://www.malonedigital.com/starwars.htm
Of course, this article mentions things about the lack of proper storage and care by Lucasfilm…hmm sound familiar at all?
I never knew that there were so many differences and mixes between the SW scores. Which ones are your favorites? I think The Anthology set, original LPs and ABC’s ESB audiophile edition are probably the closest we’ll ever get to definitive sounding versions.