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Question: Return of the Jedi - Missing Music

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Hi, people. I have a question about the missing music from Return of the Jedi and the recently discovered higher quality master tapes. First of all.. are those missing cues lost or destroyed? One person says they're lost, another says they're destroyed, and yet another "states" those cues haven't been released because of copyright issues (specifically the Max Rebo music). Second, what music is contained on the newly discovered higher quality masters? The same cues we hear on the current albums.. except just a higher quality? If so, why are the missing cues separate from the rest? Also, on the 2004 Return of the Jedi DVD the Max Rebo source music and Endor insert cue are isolated in the rear speakers (albeit horrendous quality!).. those had to originate from somewhere. Maybe they got them from the original soundtrack mix? I guess I just assumed the created a whole new 5.1 surround mix for the 2004 movies. I recently viewed the "From Star Wars to Jedi: The Making of a Saga" documentary and the first unreleased Max Rebo song is heard almost completely and its a great piece! Hearing that makes me want all the unreleased cues even more! I certainly hope they aren't gone forever! If anyone has any official information.. I'd greatly appreciate it!
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I am not sure that I understand what you are referring to.

I read a long time ago that the master tracks for Max Rebo's background music from Jabba's Palace are indeed completely lost. They were loaned out to a production company who was  doing a documentary and they misplaced them.

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"misplaced them" i.e. their resident Star Wars fanatic thought, 'OMG! No way I am missing this opportunity!" and smuggled them out to his car after they were done with them.

"Every time Warb sighs, an angel falls into a vat of mapel syrup." - Gaffer Tape

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EmpireSB said:Hi, people. I have a question about the missing music from Return of the Jedi and the recently discovered higher quality master tapes......what music is contained on the newly discovered higher quality masters? 

I hadn't heard about this before- where did you find out about this?

 

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Darth Lars said:

I am not sure that I understand what you are referring to.

I'm not sure what you're referring to, either...  You mean about the higher quality master tapes for Jedi?  I've read on this forum and elsewhere that higher quality master tapes for "Return of the Jedi" were recently discovered.  See below.  Thanks for your reply, too.  I hope you just misinformed on what you read about those Max Rebo songs being lost forever.  I'm kind of in denial about that.  Although, I'm sure copies of the tapes were made.. after all weren't 3rd-4th generation masters used for the "Return of the Jedi - Special Edition" album?

Mielr said:

I hadn't heard about this before- where did you find out about this?

I read a post on here about it and on other sites, but they didn't really go into much detail about the discovery.  Here is the original post by GoodMusician.  He seems to be the expert on this stuff.  I never realized that the "Empire - Special Edition" album was incorrectly mixed until I read his post.  He talks all about it in his letters to people at Sony.  He also mentions that the complete masters for Jedi have supposedly been found... except for the currently unreleased cues.