Star Wars Trilogy: The Original Soundtrack Anthology

Star Wars Trilogy: The Original Soundtrack Anthology is a four-CD compilation released on November 23, 1993 by Arista Records. It contains music from all three films of the original Star Wars trilogy: Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. The music was remastered from the best available sources at the time. The fourth disc contains alternate and expanded cues, and never-before-released tracks (and in some cases, since). The colorful booklet touches upon all facets of John Williams's music with extensive and in-depth examination of Williams's compositions, including comparisons between the soundtrack recordings and their film counterparts.
==Background==
The Anthology release was assembled and edited by Ford A Thaxton, and was produced by Nick Redman. The liner notes were written by Lukas Kendall of Film Score Monthly. Originally, the intention was to release a definitive collection of all of the music from the original trilogy films, with five discs covering the complete scores to all three. Unfortunately, the project went through development problems (including the master tapes for The Empire Strikes Back going missing), and once Lucasfilm started talking about doing a Special Edition release, the project was almost cancelled entirely. This led to the planned fifth disc being scrapped.
Of the music that was released, the first three discs were sort of like rereleases of the original OSTs, but with a few microedits undone. The tracks were also reordered to better reflect the order of the music in the movies, and for Return of the Jedi specifically, much more music was released than was on the original album due to the original OST only being a single LP. The fourth disc was made entirely of previously unreleased material, scattered in a seemingly random order. The releases were not definitive, still missing music heard in the films, and in one case even music that was on a previous album (parts of [6m3] This is Not a Cave and [9m3] Putting Threepio Together were used on the original ESB OST, but the cues were not included at all on the Anthology set).Track 6 of the ESB OST uses the ending of [9m3] Putting Threepio Together instead of the true ending of [10m3] Chewie Chokes Lando. On the anthology set, disc 4 track 16 includes [10m3] Chewie Chokes Lando and its true ending, but [9m3] Putting Threepio Together was not used at all. It wouldn't be until the 1997 SE sets with disc 2 track 7 that [9m3] Putting Threepio Together would get released in full. Also, in the cases of Star Wars and Empire, this set marked the first time the original Eric Tomlinson mixes were released, as opposed to the John Neal remixes that were used on the original OSTs.
During assembly of the album, the original paperwork describing the takes selected by Ken Wannberg for the performance edits had gone missing. This resulted in Thaxton having to guess which takes were the right ones solely based on comparing with the film. Further, he was only given a week to assemble each disc. As a result, many wrong takes were selected for several cues, specifically affecting cues from the original Star Wars film.
For the original Star Wars, all cues were sourced from fifth-generation (or later) 2-track tapes that contained the finished Tomlinson mixes of every take recorded of every cue.
For The Empire Strikes Back, cues were sourced from disintegrating four track 1/4 inch tape copies containing the edited Tomlinson film mix on three channels, with the fourth channel for synchronization with the film. These poor condition copies were used as the first-generation 24-track masters were missing at the time the Anthology set was assembled. Unfortunately, the tapes they used were incomplete, and because Polygram refused to locate their OST masters, Thaxton was forced to source some cues directly from the original Polydor CD. Yoda's Theme is one of these cues, and it's likely that there were others as well. Further, other cues not on the 4-track tapes had to be sourced from 35mm film stems edited by Ken Wannberg, these included [4m2] The Rebels Escape Again and [6m2] Yoda's Teaching. Two cues had their channels mistakenly reversed on the set: [3m2] Leia's Instructions and [11m3] Chewie Chokes Lando, both on disc four.
For Return of the Jedi, cues were sourced from 2-track tapes that contained the performance edits of the finished Tomlinson mixes. Cues that could not be located on these tapes were lifted from the original Polydor CD, which also used the Tomlinson mixes (unlike Star Wars and Empire). Tracks that came from the Polydor CD include "Han Solo Returns", "The Return of the Jedi", "Parade of the Ewoks", "Luke and Leia", "The Forest Battle", and "Ewok Celebration / End Credits".
==Track listing and cue breakdown==
===Disc One: Star Wars===
#20th Century Fox Fanfare with CinemaScope Extension (Alfred Newman, 1954) – 0:22
## 0:00-end : 20th Century Fox Fanfare (1980 John Williams recording with the London Symphony Orchestra)
#Main Title – 5:23
## 0:00-2:06 : [1m2] Main Title
## 2:06-end : [12m2] End Titles
#Imperial Attack – 6:41
## 0:00-3:38 : [1m3] The War*
## 3:37-end : [1m4-2m1] The Escape Hatch
#The Desert/The Robot Auction – 2:51
## 0:00-0:52 : [1m5-2m1] Desert Song (ending cuts off early : missing 3 seconds)
## 0:52-end : [2m3 Rev.] More Little People
#The Little People Work – 4:08
## 0:00-end : [2m3 New] The Little People
#The Princess Appears – 4:06
## 0:00-1:51 : [3m1 Rev.] The Princess Appears
## 1:51-end : [3m2 New] Lost R2
#The Land of the Sand People – 2:55
## 0:00-1:01 : [3m3 Rev.] The Sand Speeder (ending cuts off early : missing 8 seconds)
## 1:01-end : [3m4-4m1 Rev.] The Sandman Attacks (microedited : missing 15 seconds)
#The Return Home – 2:48
## 0:00-end : [4m4A] A Home Destroyed
#Inner City – 4:44
## 0:00-1:34 : [7m1 New] Is it a Bird? (ending cuts off early : missing 2 seconds)
## 1:34-3:09 : [4m2] Obi-Wan Kenobi (ending cuts off early : missing 2 seconds)
## 3:09-end : [5m6 Rev.] The Inner City*
#Mouse Robot/Blasting Off – 4:03
## 0:00-2:01 : [7m2] The Mouse Robot
## 2:01-end : [6m1] Blasting Away (microedited : missing 15 seconds)
#Rescue of the Princess – 4:48
## 0:00-2:06 : [8m2 Rev.] The Rescue
## 2:06-end : [9m2] The Swashbucklers
#The Walls Converge – 4:33
## 0:00-2:58 : [8m4] The Walls Converge (ending cuts off early : missing 9 seconds)
## 2:58-end : [8m3 Rev.] The Water Snake
#Ben's Death/TIE Fighter Attack – 3:51
## 0:00-2:04 : [9m3-10m1] Ben's Death
## 2:04-end : [10m2] Here They Come
#Princess Leia's Theme – 4:23
## 0:00-end : The Princess Theme
#The Last Battle – 12:13
## 0:00-1:58 : [8m2 New] More Rescue (ending cuts off early : missing 5 seconds)
## 1:58-4:29 : [9m1] Ben Creeps Around (ending cuts off early : missing 9 seconds)
## 4:29-7:42 : [11m2 Rev.] Approaching the Target (ending cuts off early : missing 11 seconds)
## 7:42-end : [12m1] The Last Battle
#The Throne Room/End Titles – 5:32
## 0:00-1:45 : [12m2] End Titles (only first 1:45)
## 1:45-2:15 : [12m2X] End Titles
## 2:15-end : [12m2] End Titles (only last 3:12)
*contains previously unreleased material
===Disc Two: The Empire Strikes Back===
#20th Century Fox Fanfare with CinemaScope Extension (Alfred Newman, 1954) – 0:22
## 0:00-end : 20th Century Fox Fanfare (1980 John Williams recording with the London Symphony Orchestra)
#Main Title/The Imperial Probe (Extended version) – 7:58
## 0:00-1:30 : [1m1] Main Title
## 1:30-end : [1m2] The Imperial Probe* (microedited, missing 15 seconds)
#Luke's Escape – 3:34
## 0:00-end : [1m3-2m1] Luke's Escape*
#Luke's Rescue – 1:45
## 0:00-end : [2m3] Luke's Rescue
#The Imperial March (Darth Vader's Theme) – 2:59
## 0:00-end : Darth Vader's Theme
#The Battle in the Snow – 3:45
## 0:00-end : [3m3] The Snow Battle
#Luke's First Crash – 4:12
## 0:00-end : [3m4-4m1] Luke's First Crash*
#The Rebels Escape Again – 2:59
## 0:00-end : [4m2] The Rebels Escape Again
#The Asteroid Field – 4:14
## 0:00-end : [4m3] The Asteroid Field
#Yoda's Theme – 3:26
## 0:00-end : Yoda's Theme
#Han Solo and the Princess – 3:26
## 0:00-end : [5m4-6m1] Solo and the Princess
#The Training of a Jedi Knight – 3:13
## 0:00-1:47 : [6m4] Training a Jedi (microedited, missing 55 seconds)
## 1:47-end : [5m3] Yoda's Entrance
#The Magic Tree – 3:32
## 0:00-end : [6m5-7m1] The Magic Tree
#Yoda and the Force – 4:02
## 0:00-end : [7m3] Yoda Raises the Ship
#City in the Clouds – 6:50
## 0:00-2:07 : [6m2] Yoda's Teaching
## 2:07-end : [8m2] City in the Clouds*
#Lando's Palace – 3:52
## 0:00-end : [8m3] Lando's Palace
#The Duel – 4:14
## 0:00-end : [11m1] Through the Window
#Hyperspace – 4:03
## 0:00-end : [12m2] To Hyper-space
#Finale/End Credits – 6:18
## 0:00-1:57 : [12m3] Finale
## 1:57-end : [12m4] End Credits
*contains previously unreleased material
===Disc Three: Return of the Jedi===
#Twentieth Century Fox Fanfare with CinemaScope Extension (Alfred Newman, 1954) – 0:22
## 0:00-end : 20th Century Fox Fanfare (1980 John Williams recording with the London Symphony Orchestra)
#Main Title/Approaching the Death Star – 5:18
#Han Solo Returns (At the Court of Jabba the Hutt) – 4:06
#Fight in the Dungeon* – 3:38
#Return of the Jedi – 4:59
#Emperor Arrives* – 2:05
#Death of Yoda* – 6:03
#Parade of the Ewoks – 3:25
#Luke and Leia – 4:43
#Emperor Confronts Luke* – 3:26
#Into the Trap – 2:36
#First Ewok Battle/Fight with the Fighters* – 7:18
#Forest Battle – 4:01
#Final Duel/Into the Death Star* – 3:37
#Emperor's Death – 2:41
#Darth Vader's Death* – 2:31
#Through the Flames* – 1:36
#Leia Breaks the News/Funeral Pyre for a Jedi – 2:19
#Ewok Celebration/Finale – 7:58
*previously unreleased
===Disc Four: Outtakes and Previously Unreleased Material===
#20th Century Fox Fanfare with CinemaScope Extension (Alfred Newman, 1954) – 0:22
## 0:00-end : 20th Century Fox Fanfare (1980 John Williams recording with the London Symphony Orchestra)
#Main Title (Alternate Version) – 2:16 (from SW)
## 0:00-end : [1m2] Main Title (take 20)*
#Heroic Ewok/The Fleet Goes into Hyperspace* – 3:05 (from ROTJ)
#Hive of Villainy – 2:12 (from SW)
## 0:00-end : [5m1] A Hive of Villainy*
#Destruction of Alderaan – 1:31 (from SW)
## 0:00-end : [6m5 New] The Destruction of Alderaan*
#Drawing the Battle Lines/Leia's Instructions – 4:02 (from ESB)
##0:00-2:09 : [3m1] Drawing the Battle Lines*
##2:06-end : [3m2] Leia's Instructions*
#The Ewok Battle* – 2:48 (from ROTJ)
#Attack Position – 3:04 (from ESB)
##0:00-end : [7m2] Attack Position*
#Crash Landing – 3:35 (from ESB)
##0:00-end : [5m1] Crash Landing*
#Cantina Band – 2:46 (from SW)
## 0:00-end : "Cantina Band"
#Lapti Nek – 2:48 (from ROTJ)
#Cantina Band, No. 2 – 3:44 (from SW)
## 0:00-end : "Cantina Band #2"*
#Faking the Code* – 4:10 (from ROTJ)
#Brother and Sister* – 3:08 (from ROTJ)
#Standing By – 1:14 (from SW)
## 0:00-1:11 : [10m3-11m1] Stand By*
#Leia Is Wounded/Luke and Vader Duel* – 2:57 (from ROTJ)
#Carbon Freeze/Luke Pursues the Captives/Departure of Boba Fett – 11:08 (from ESB)
##0:00-4:12 : [10m6-11m1] Carbon Freeze*
##4:12-7:33 : [11m2] Luke Pursues the Captives*
##7:33-end : [11m3] Chewie Chokes Lando**
#Losing a Hand – 5:20 (from ESB)
##0:00-end : [12m1] Losing a Hand*
#Return of the Jedi (Alternate Version)* – 5:03 (from ROTJ)
#Leia Breaks the News (Alternate Version)/Funeral Pyre for a Jedi (Film Version)* – 2:27 (from ROTJ)
#Ewok Celebration (Film Version)* – 6:22 (from ROTJ and ESB)
*previously unreleased
**contains previously unreleased material
Star Wars Anthology Soundtrack disc 1.png
Star Wars Anthology Soundtrack disc 2.png
Star Wars Anthology Soundtrack disc 3.png
Star Wars Anthology Soundtrack disc 4.png
==Notes and references==
==External links==
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Category:Film soundtracks
Category:Soundtracks