The Star Wars Anthology box set (1993). Great content, but flawed presentation of it.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Wars_Trilogy:_The_Original_Soundtrack_Anthology

They wanted to give each movie its own single CD, which is fine, but then they put alternative/unreleased cues for the entire trilogy on a 4th CD. Why not simply split each soundtrack across two CDs with all the alternative cues as bonus tracks on each film's 2nd disc?

Still; a great and essential box set for any John Williams/Star Wars fan even if you already have one of the previous or latter release of the material.

 

Agreed superb set - absolutely destroys the RCA/Sony sets in terms of sound quality. Would be nice to have complete sets of all 6 soundtracks now with the same sparkling sound. In a perfect world there'd be SACDs of each title mastered by Steve - sigh! Imagine that.

I rather like the presentation as it is, and spin the 4th disc often. Also love the original album versions of Star Wars and Empire (though Star Wars isn't mastered too well on LP, unlike Empire).

Dd you know there was a 5th bonus disc readied for this set? Not sure if it was ever pressed, but there was definitely a test version done from what I've read. They had to bury plans for it when plans for the double CDs for the 1997 Special Editions came about. I'd love to get hold of that 5th disc - all those extra cues in the same sound quality as the other 4 Anthology discs...!

John

 

I'd never heard that before but it wouldn't surprise me if it was true.

 

This set contains the best SQ for the original trilogy soundtracks.
As the masters have degraded beyond repair, it will stay that way short of a careful remix.

All the subsequent editions were either remixed or taken from the digital copies made for this set. (Yes, the so-called "DSD mastered" discs are in fact sourced from 16/44 copies.)

So, get it while you can, keep it and treasure it.

 

It's very reasonably priced used on Amazon Marketplace.

 

Such a magnificent score. The 1990 recording John Williams conducted on Sony Classical sounds good but it's just not the original. If I recall rightly the scores were all recorded in England at Anvil (SW & ESB) and Abbey Road (ROJ) to some silly number of tracks, but I'm sure the multis of the original score did and still do sound quite nice. Nicer certainly than the CDs do.

 

Wow. I thought this was oop. I've had this set since back in the 90s. Nice collection.

 

It is out of print and has been since about 1996.

 

easily done yourself with simple burning and editing software

 

I somehow regret a bit for never buying any of these soundtracks, the 1997 releases 2CD versions were really nice as each of them had 32-page booklet with extensive liner notes, photographs and a recording log for the Star Wars scoring sessions.

I saw them in few record-stores at the time but didnt bought them and now any later releases from 2004 have probably the same stuff but they have left out the booklets.
Why did they ditch them?
Now that the booklet versions are OOP, the only way to get them would be Amazon-marketplace, ebay etc..

Is there any good guide for SW-soundtracks?
Are the 1997 versions good?

 

Yes, here's an overview/review of every release of the Original Trilogy music:

A New Hope:

http://www.filmtracks.com/titles/star_wars.html

The Empire Strikes Back:

http://www.filmtracks.com/titles/empire.html

Return Of The Jedi:

http://www.filmtracks.com/titles/jedi.html

I find nothing wrong with the 1997/2004 releases, audio-wise and I think they compliment the Anthology box set very well.

 

Ok, thanks for the links.
By the way, does the Anthology box have any material that is not present on the later 2cd-sets?

 

Yes, it has several cues and incidental music (particularly from Jedi) that was later replaced for the Special Editions, including the Ewok Celebration music.

It would be nice to have a truly complete set of music from the series including all alternative takes, etc.

 

Actually, there are many faults with these releases.


First and foremost, ROJ is horribly NR'd to the point there's nothing above 12kHz. Some of the tracks are at the wrong speed (!).

ESB has been badly remixed, channels are inverted, tracks that sounded good on the '93 boxset became hissy and tinny, instruments and musical cues have been mixed out (!)... Some of the tracks are also at the wrong speed.

ANH is the best of the lot, but share some of the faults of ESB, to a lesser extent.


I will try to find the site that repertories all the problems with the '97/'04 editions.

 

There it is: http://www.malonedigital.com/starwars.pdf

Everything you ever wanted to know about the recordings, by forum member Chris Malone. This is an eye-opener.

For you interest, a thread started by the host of this forum: "Geez, the STAR WARS soundtrack! Has this EVER sounded good on LP or CD?"

Also, about the 1977 film, this thread.

 

I was going from memory there, before finding back the link to the explanatory PDF. It appears I have mixed up some issues.

Also, we can add dynamic reduction to the faults of the '97 editions.


However it seems that SQ-wise, the Anthology is the least compromised of all the versions. Especially for Return Of the Jedi.

 

It's really too bad that the DVDs or Blu-Rays don't have a music-only audio option. That would solve a lot of issues, but would probably cut into soundtrack sales. Too bad.

 

Yup. I think Lucas/the producers know people would use those isolated tracks as the basis for bootlegs.

 

I also think the 97 versions are a good compliment to the box set. I tracked down all the "1997 RCA Repressing" versions represented in the links above. They're in double jewel cases (rather than book packaging w/ envelopes), they have the poster art on the cover as opposed to the "special edition" logo, they have picture discs rather than the gimmicky "holographic" discs, and they retain all the content from the booklets.

 

From what I heard it was only the stereo masters for Empire that had literally crumbled whilst transferring to digital; it was a one-pass deal. The multitracks for all 3 however are reportedly in good shape. Not sure about the stereo masters for Star Wars and Jedi, but my fingers are crossed...

As an aside, the Sony Original Trilogy set was a direct clone of the RCA 1997, despite all the BS about DSD mastering. I think that was a mistake on the marketing department's side... I had the set briefly and they sounded identical to the '97 versions. Star Wars was OK sounding (albeit not mixed with the same panoramic soundstage as the earlier releases), Empire was variable, and Jedi was appalling, esp. on the second disc. Sounds to me like the heads weren't aligned properly, PLUS they used too much DNR. Appalling! It's been 15 years since the last masterings - they're in dire need of a proper sounding set mastered by people who know what they're doing, and what these scores should sound like (i.e. panoramic, dynamic, sparkling!).

- John

 

You're right. Agreed on all counts!

 

Bump...anyone whom is in the market for this box set, let me know. I'm willing to part with mine

 

^^wish I had seen your post, I just bought this 93 Anthology set off eBay and waiting for it to arrive.

I noticed that each cd does not have its own cover art for the jewel cases. Should I use the longbox cover art for each CD or the cover art printed on each disc? The longbox photo will be hard to use in iTunes since generally images are square vs long like the box cover art. I want to tag an image to each track when I import this collection.

 

Wow this is great info on these links, so glad I stumbled upon this thread. Thanks.

 

The CDs in the box have their own cover, it is black text on glossy very dark brown paper with the logo titles of each film.