This topic will bore many of us here, but I am curious as to the track listing that was planned (?) for the 5th Disc of the Star Wars Anthology (1993). I always imagined that it would start with the 20th Century Logo followed by edited/rescored Main Title/Ice Planet Hoth as heard in the film. Thank for your time!
"Guys, I even pulled out my ancient box of cassettes but the mockup I have must be at my parents' house in storage. Sorry.
It did not have anything on there that you don't already have from the 2CD editions.
Lukas "
I bet the quality is a heck of a lot better though, especially for Jedi, if the rest of the Anthology is anything to go by.
This 5th disc remains my all-time Holy grail of soundtracks.
At this point I should say a HUGE thanks for the 17+ years (where the fudge has that time gone?!?) of enjoyment I've gotten from the Anthology. It's still my go-to for these scores!
All this discussion got me so nostalgic and made me take out the 4 disc set from my archives. Wow! it was such a revelation listening to this box set and the pure joy of listening to in on CD made me giddy as a school boy. You know the music by heart and even the those stunning bits and pieces are not in this set the listening experience is great. JEDI rocks thanks to the re-mastering job on it. It is indeed a revelation specially when you compare to the near dreadful sounding 2cd expanded version (but more of that later) I'd compare the Star Wars box set and the recent Indiana Jones 5cd set in the same category. Not quite complete and they still have you wanting more of it and you "love" the agony of not hearing the un-released cues! While I dont expect the "Lost" 5 disc set to surface again (Star Wars Disc 5 ie.) but it would be nice to have the track list and see what they had originally planned. As a fan Id probably edit the sequence and see what it would resemble and play it with my 4 cd set. I really liked the re mastering of the Indy box set and Raiders sounded amazing whereas I always thought that original DCC cd set the standard in terms of its sound mastering- (some how some people were a bit off the presentation as being quite unbalanced etc- maybe this was the film mix version whereas the new rendition cd is programed as an album mix for the first time- correct me if I'm wrong)).
Maybe as time goes by in a year or two we may even get further expanded editions of Raiders, Temple of Doom, Last Crusade and even Crystal Skull (which I would warmly welcome) and in full regal fashion as a definitive editions. I would only hope that the same people responsible for the great mastering would support the production.
And its time (again) that we get the original Star Wars Trilogy re-issued again with a re-do of rematsering and cues being separately edited rather than long suites and re-mixed the way these albums were originaly done. I'm still grateful to Mike Mattessino/ Nick Redman and team who did a great work on the 2cd sets of Star Wars specially the first 2 sets but I will always have problems with JEDI set. The whole equalization basically on Jedi have been compromised to balance a couple of cues where the sound quality was not good and its like vector scale graph where the equalization just drops down to these cues and doesn't recover.
A redo again now that would be welcomed along with the new Star Wars Trilogy with all the music expanded would be a great way to go about again. Both Star Wars and Indiana Jones are endless money making franchises and thank goodness for that!
You are not going to get what you want for either franchise. Lucasfilm controls the rights and ransoms them to the highest bidder. They also defer to Williams, whose people run up big mixing bills and do not orient the releases to collectors' wishes (as happened on the recent Indy box). On top of that there are still elements problems with the original Trilogy due to the stuff having not been well archived at the time...there was a guy at the Star Wars Convention at the L.A. Convention Center a few years ago who was ransoming off original tape reels he had dug up from (LP remix engineer) John Neal's estate, including the original 2" 16-track of side four of the Star Wars LP! (Who knows where sides 1 through 3 went...the way this guy explained it, he got side 4 out of some garage...he did loan it to Lucasfilm at least to make a digital copy.) Finally, that 2CD Phantom Menace was something of a fiasco...Lucasfilm only did it because the tracks had gotten out there somehow (I forget how) and thought they were giving the collectors what they wanted by using the edited stems as conformed to the movie (with a million edits). They were quite taken aback by all the negative cricitism -- "what's the problem, it's exactly every note as heard in the film?" I remember explaining to one of the executives the subtleties involved and by the time I finished the attitude I heard was along the lines of "to hell with these people." Others know much more than I do but omerta prevails...such is the power of the Force. My real advice is to relax because after all we do have every note from the Trilogy on those 2CD editions...it's easy to overlook what a big deal that was...as well as significant Indy releases.
Lukas, as always thanks for your remarks. As a fan boy I'm inclined to say "I find your lack of faith disturbing"- (a quote from a certain film of some note)and to those Lucas film executives but then again you are absolutely right. It all comes down to economics and how this system works. Its the fans who make sets like these a success or a failure. But in a extremely monopolistic and competitive consumer environment the aspect market research of our segment of film music fans is not always being recognized. Granted we have come a long way from the 39 minutes album sets to today 2cd expanded sets with booklets, but its time that big exec look also what exactly we are demanding. FSM has become the definitive standard as are other labels like Intrada, Varese, La La Land who have have represented the fans in the right spirit. My point is that these big bigwig execs need to come out of their shells and start listening to us. The film music fan community segment is now a legion of its own and it has to be reckoned with. Somebody ought to make these executives come down and do a proper research and not make outlandish mistakes like the 2cd Phantom Menace box set! And again the love and attention that was done to the original Star Wars 2cd sets must get 100 marks for the sheer effort but its a new decade now and franchises are un-ending money making machines. I dont believe that these 2 cd sets will be the last time we will ever see STAR WARS on disc.
My point is that these big bigwig execs need to come out of their shells and start listening to us. The film music fan community segment is now a legion of its own and it has to be reckoned with. Somebody ought to make these executives come down and do a proper research and not make outlandish mistakes like the 2cd Phantom Menace box set!
Maybe a few of us should become bigwig execs instead. Would that be uneasonable?
If they're messing up our soundtracks so badly, who knows what other horrendous mistakes occur?
Stop with the online petitions and message board whining, and enroll in an Ivy League business school already! Get SERIOUS about your film music, folks!
My real advice is to relax because after all we do have every note from the Trilogy on those 2CD editions...it's easy to overlook what a big deal that was...as well as significant Indy releases.
Thanks for your very informative post, Lukas. I too think we're lucky enough to have complete deluxe presentations of at least the original Trilogy scores and almost all the stuff from the original Indy films. It's a big deal indeed.
My hope is that one day Lucasfilm will understand better how soundtrack collectors' market works and will agree to license their music stuff to some specialty label like FSM, Intrada, LLL or Varèse to put out proper complete archival presentations of all the SW and Indy scores. I know, maybe that day will never come, but hope is always a good thing in my view.
I am eternally grateful for both the 1997 RCA sets and the Anthology set (which I should probably listen to more often).
New Star Wars releases are not a priority for me but it's entirely possible that, with no new Star Wars films coming out anytime soon (that we know of), some marketing guy at Lucasfilm might get the idea, "Hey, why don't we do something with the soundtracks?" Of course, if they still defer to Williams and his people, it may not matter anyway.
Believe me, I'd love nothing more than an "Imperial Box" from FSM featuring the complete scores (plus alternates) for all six films and a nice booklet but I am happy with what we have now. Same goes for Indy. After waiting for expanded Indy releases for years, I'm not gonna complain about the Concord set. (I'll wait a few years. )
My hope is that one day Lucasfilm will understand better how soundtrack collectors' market works and will agree to license their music stuff to some specialty label like FSM, Intrada, LLL or Varèse to put out proper complete archival presentations of all the SW and Indy scores.
It's really a shame that Lucasfilm doesn't already have a better understanding of soundtrack collectors. I'd wager that a great many of us here were originally turned on to soundtrack collecting because of Star Wars and the orchestral films that followed. I find it shocking that Lucas Marketing could have a difficult time understanding soundtrack collectors' desire for completism. After all, this is the marketing machine that has fed toy collectors' wishes for 30+ years now, immortalizing each and every background character as a plastic action figure. Is it so strange that we would want a set of music lovingly archived the way it ought to be?
