Disney To Release First 6 Remastered Star Wars OSTs on May 4

Disney Music Group Set To Release First 6 Remastered Star Wars Original Motion Picture Soundtracks On May 4
(https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/disney-music-group-set-to-release-first-6-remastered-star-wars-original-motion-picture-soundtracks-on-may-4-300617275.html)

BURBANK, Calif., March 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — Since the release of the first Star Wars movie 40 years ago, the Star Wars saga has had a seismic impact on both cinema and culture, inspiring audiences around the world with its mythic storytelling, captivating characters, groundbreaking special effects and iconic musical scores composed by John Williams.

On May 4th, Walt Disney Records is set to release the original motion picture soundtracks for the first six Star Wars films: A New Hope (1977), The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Return of the Jedi (1983), The Phantom Menace (1999), Attack of the Clones (2002) and Revenge of the Sith (2005). With scores composed and conducted by Academy Award�-winning composer John Williams, each album has been remastered, features new artwork and a collectible mini-poster. The soundtracks were reconstructed from new hi-resolution (24/192) transfers supervised by Shawn Murphy and Skywalker Sound. In addition to physical, each soundtrack is also available digitally.

John Williams is well known for scoring all eight of the Star Wars saga films to date, beginning with 1977’s Star Wars: A New Hope for which he earned an Academy Award� for Best Original Score. His score for Star Wars: The Force Awakens was nominated for an Oscar� and most recently, Star Wars: The Last Jedi received an Oscar nomination.

Williams has won five Academy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, seven British Academy Film Awards, five Emmy Awards and 23 Grammy Awards. With 51 Academy Award nominations, Williams is the Academy’s most nominated living person and the second most-nominated individual in history, after Walt Disney. In 2005, the American Film Institute selected Williams’ score to 1977’s Star Wars as the greatest American film score of all time. The soundtrack to Star Wars also was preserved by the Library of Congress in the National Recording Registry, for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." Williams was inducted into the Hollywood Bowl’s Hall of Fame in 2000, and he received the Kennedy Center Honors in 2004, the National Medal of Arts in 2009, and the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2016. Williams has composed the scores for eight of the top 20 highest-grossing films at the U.S. box office (adjusted for inflation).

Pre-orders are available at:

A New Hope: http://disneymusic.co/ANewHopeCD
Empire Strikes Back: http://disneymusic.co/EmpireStrikesBackCD
Return of the Jedi: http://disneymusic.co/ReturnoftheJediCD
Phantom Menace: http://disneymusic.co/PhantomMenaceCD
Attack of the Clones: http://disneymusic.co/AttackoftheClonesCD
Revenge of the Sith: http://disneymusic.co/RevengeoftheSithCD

The Star Wars: A New Hope 40th Anniversary 3-LP Collector’s Edition hologram vinyl is available at Disney Music Emporium, http://disneymusic.co/SWNewHopeDME.

For more information on Walt Disney Records’ releases, like us on Facebook.com/disneymusic and follow us at Twitter.com/disneymusic and Instagram.com/disneymusic/. For more information on Disney Music Emporium, please visit DisneyMusicEmporium.com, become a fan at Twitter.com/DisneyMusicEmp and like us on Facebook, Facebook.com/disneymusicemporium

SOURCE Walt Disney Records

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*Hoping this time is better*

But will the prequel trilogy feature unreleased score or just a remastering of already released albums only?

At first, I thought it was something like the Sony sets, but properly remastered this time. Because, Disney has already digitally issued remasters of the original album presentations online, from the vinyl remasters of 2015, so it can’t be. But then someone asked the remaster guy and he said, the presentation of those new releases is, for all of them the original album presentations.. the only exception and difference is that the source is film mixes. So.. we get the same assembly as the original albums but with film mixes?

lol "remastered" music.

Anyone got track lists?

That’s a pretty sweet deal for Star Wars fans. I’ll dare to admit that I never saw a Star Wars movie but I kinda want to in a way, but just not really into it.

I do wish Toei Animation would release their old anime series’ music on CD but since they’re so stubborn and cheap, it probably won’t happen.

Any extras or unreleased tracks?

Any extras or unreleased tracks?

I hope for this as well, but I’m looking at the description from Amazon, it says it’s a one-disc, so I’m going to suspect these are the LPs a la the digital versions that were released around 2015 from Disney themselves, but finally making its way on discs, though I don’t know until more information surfaces.

—-

I’m also seconding CosmicAmoeba for a tracklist, especially for the 40th anniversary LP that was released last year.

Seems like it’s a re-release of the original album presentation of the movies, but apparently this time being based on film mixes remastered for the occasion.

I seriously do NOT get it. Why remaster something that was immaculate from the get go?? Now, I will admit the first release of Phantom Menace was a bit squashed and compressed, but the complete 2 disk edition is some of the best mixed music you can get your grubby little hands on. All the other releases are great as well.

This is yet another of those cases when a company uses "remastered" as a selling point to convince the audience they will be getting a somehow higher quality product. Which they will not, it will be just mixed slightly different (so your ears could hear SOME difference, which will lead you to think they somehow made it better with digital sound magic).

Sorry for a mini rant, but I am really disappointed they did not simply re-print the existing releases.

Well, turns out this thankfully is.. "a bit better" than what we expected with their basic press release with little information about what’s on the disc and how it’s presented. I have the six albums now, and I have to say.. all of them have been remastered.. decently, actually, though that depends on each audiophile’s representation of how the music should sound, but overall to everyone, it really sounds pretty good. Probably the best the scores have ever been heard for now. The original trilogy and even the prequel. Yes, they made a difference.. even for something that is more recent. It sounds magnificent. It’s from film mixes after all.

And it seems it’s not a reissue of the original soundtrack presentations.. of the years of the movie were releases. Turns out it’s just what I wanted; a remastering from film mixes, a proper sounding version which seems to have the presentation of the 1997/2004 versions.. but from film mixes and sounding much better.

Some people will still nitpick, but overall I am happy that it is better than I had hoped, personally.

EDIT: No, it’s based on the original 1997,1980 and 1983 OST’s, my bad. I checked. But it is still good..

Well, turns out this thankfully is.. "a bit better" than what we expected with their basic press release with little information about what’s on the disc and how it’s presented. I have the six albums now, and I have to say.. all of them have been remastered.. decently, actually, though that depends on each audiophile’s representation of how the music should sound, but overall to everyone, it really sounds pretty good. Probably the best the scores have ever been heard for now. The original trilogy and even the prequel. Yes, they made a difference.. even for something that is more recent. It sounds magnificent. It’s from film mixes after all.

And it seems it’s not a reissue of the original soundtrack presentations.. of the years of the movie were releases. Turns out it’s just what I wanted; a remastering from film mixes, a proper sounding version which seems to have the presentation of the 1997/2004 versions.. but from film mixes and sounding much better.

Some people will still nitpick, but overall I am happy that it is better than I had hoped, personally.

EDIT: No, it’s based on the original 1997,1980 and 1983 OST’s, my bad. I checked. But it is still good..

Have a track list?

Not necessary. Based on original OST presentations as stated on my edit.

Well, I’ll be keeping my releases, which sound amazing.

Well, I’ll be keeping my releases, which sound amazing.

So do these. Give them a try.

…since they got back to the filmmixes for these "recreated" soundtracks…I guess (or hope) it is the first step towards releasing the complete scores remastered

…since they got back to the filmmixes for these "recreated" soundtracks…I guess (or hope) it is the first step towards releasing the complete scores remastered

One day, hopefully. Disney is Disney and they have to first use what they have and then release that.

I listened to these today, and I made a post about it here Thread 224373
As far as the prequel releases, someone said why re-release something that was immaculate to begin with… well if they were immaculate, I have no idea how they sound so much better now. That kind of thing should be impossible if something started out as perfect. They even have new versions of some tracks in ROTS as I mention in my thread. Overall, there is no reason not to get the prequel releases. They are an improvement over the original releases in every way. The difference is surprising, since these soundtracks were all released less than 20 years ago.
Now for the OT remasters. ANH and TESB are undoubtedly worse than the Anthology in terms of clarity and fidelity. Many tracks suffer from the same "muddiness" that the SE releases had, albeit not THAT horrible. The Imperial March is perhaps the best-sounding version among all previous releases, so props for that. ROTJ sounds clearer than the Anthology, and it’s unclear how the people working on that album allowed the other two to end up in such a sorry state. Maybe different mixers worked on different albums. The Battle In The Snow is an absolute abomination, no exaggeration. I don’t know what the hell they were thinking with that one. I thought maybe I was accidentally listening to the "5.1 Surround Sound" album (which doesn’t exist). Mind boggling.

Personally, I love the albums so far. (I’ve only listened to Revenge of the Sith and the OT, since those three are my favorite scores of the bunch). Jedi sounds great, but I wish the masters for the film versions of Lapti Nek and the Ewok Celebration surfaces. (so far, only the Arista anthology had the so-called film version, which also tacks on the film version of the end credits to ESB)

For me, these remastered sets are definitely worth it. I’ll support these releases in hopes that someday Disney will give us the expanded scores we deserve.

I listened to these today, and I made a post about it here Thread 224373
As far as the prequel releases, someone said why re-release something that was immaculate to begin with… well if they were immaculate, I have no idea how they sound so much better now. That kind of thing should be impossible if something started out as perfect. They even have new versions of some tracks in ROTS as I mention in my thread. Overall, there is no reason not to get the prequel releases. They are an improvement over the original releases in every way. The difference is surprising, since these soundtracks were all released less than 20 years ago.

The editing on the original releases is far superior. They also used the wrong takes or edited them poorly in some cases. That’s not to say it’s bad (except for the bad crossfade between Boys Into Battle and They’re Coming Around on ROTS) but clearly these releases were not given a whole load of thought.