Just for fun, I was watching SW:ANH with the 5.1 DTS-ES Italian track the other night (Italian is not my language) and I’ve noticed a flaw in the audio for the scene just after the Solo/Jabba conflict where Luke and Ben were making their way to Docking Bay 94 (at the 54:14 mark). I noticed that the music tracks in the front were not sync’ing to each other by about 1 second between them.
For convenience, here’s a 29-second mkv clip of that scene.
https://wetransfer.com/downloads/e643d937e7d6b570a2a25dae2bd3ed2320200513100442/1c1de497fafcd75d76e0ff141675dbd720200513100510/eba192
Here it on Audio Track #1
The following morning, I ripped the audio for that scene and I examined each channel. I’ve discovered that the music element in the front left and right channels are out of sync with the music element in the center channel, but the other sound elements—the dialogue, and the alien sounds (Chewie’s grunt, and an alien stalker speaking on a portable communicating device) were in sync. As a hunch, I’ve compared both channels to the 1977 mix. Sure enough, the center channel element used in this 2019 Italian audio track for that scene is from the 1977 sound mix because the music placement for that scene in the center Italian track matches the music placement of the same scene in the ’77 version.
Here’s breakdown of how this 28/29 second-footage covering between these two frames …
In the ’77 version, the music cue for that scene—Inner City (Cue #5M6)- begins to the end where Luke says, “What a piece of junk.” For the 1997 cut, Lucas extended the said footage by 21 frames. As a result, the said music cue ends just before Luke says that said line.
Using that same mkv clip (above), here’s how the Italian track on the said footage plays out.
The Left and Right Front Channels (Audio Track 2): It begins with the ’77 audio mix with Ben’s line, “If his ship is as fast as his boasting…” in Italian, then switches to the ’97 mix through-out the remainder of the scene.
The Center Channel (Audio Track 3): It is entirely the center track for the ’77 Italian mix. Notice that after the stalker-alien does his speak (at the :16 mark), the audio fades out to silence and fades back in. The ’77 center audio for that footage would not cover the added frames in the ’97 cut, so, a silence patch in the center track was made to extend the length of the ’77 audio. Since the left and right front channels are filled with music and sound effects, they mask out the center track’s brief silence patch.
However, in the end, the music being out of sync between the channels is audible (Track 1).
Why a polished audio mix of that sequence was never created back in ’97 or that audio mistake was never corrected in future home video releases *, including this one, is anyone’s guess.
*= yeah, this anomaly appears in the 2004 Dolby EX Italian audio track via shorman’s Star Wars Saga HDTV-DVD Preservation
