Star Wars Trilogy: The Original Soundtrack Anthology, a collection spanning four CDs, was distributed by Arista Records on November 23, 1993. This compilation features musical scores extracted from each of the three films comprising the original Star Wars trilogy: namely, Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. The audio quality was enhanced through remastering, utilizing the highest-quality source materials accessible at that time. The fourth disc provides listeners with alternate versions, extended musical pieces, and tracks that had not been previously available (and in some cases, since). The accompanying vibrant booklet delves into various aspects of John Williams's musical contributions, presenting an extensive and thorough analysis of his compositions, including comparisons between the recorded soundtracks and their corresponding film segments.
Ford A Thaxton assembled and edited the Anthology release, while Nick Redman served as the producer. Lukas Kendall from Film Score Monthly authored the liner notes. The initial concept involved creating a comprehensive collection encompassing all the music from the original trilogy films, using five discs to accommodate the complete scores. However, the project encountered developmental obstacles, such as the disappearance of the master tapes for "The Empire Strikes Back," and the potential cancellation of the project when Lucasfilm considered releasing a Special Edition. Consequently, the planned fifth disc was abandoned.
The first three discs consisted of material akin to re-releases of the original OSTs, but with some minor edits corrected. The track order was also modified to align more closely with the music's sequence in the films. In the case of "Return of the Jedi," the original album, which was a single LP, included significantly less music than what was released on this set. The fourth disc was comprised entirely of previously unreleased material, arranged in an apparently random order. These releases were not exhaustive, as they still omitted music featured in the films, and in one instance, even music that had appeared on a prior album (segments of [6m3] This is Not a Cave and [9m3] Putting Threepio Together were featured on the original ESB OST, yet were completely absent from the Anthology set). Moreover, the Star Wars and Empire portions of this collection marked the initial release of the original Eric Tomlinson mixes, in contrast to the John Neal remixes that had been used on the original OSTs.
During the album's compilation, the original documents specifying the takes selected by Ken Wannberg for the performance edits were lost. As a result, Thaxton had to rely on comparisons with the film to determine the correct takes. Furthermore, he was given only one week to assemble each disc. Consequently, several incorrect takes were chosen for various cues, particularly affecting cues from the original Star Wars film.
For the original Star Wars, all cues originated from fifth-generation (or later) 2-track tapes containing the finished Tomlinson mixes of every recorded take of every cue.
For The Empire Strikes Back, cues were derived from deteriorating 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 copies, which were in poor condition, were used because the first-generation 24-track masters were missing when 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 obtained from 2-track tapes containing the performance edits of the finished Tomlinson mixes. Cues that could not be found on these tapes were taken 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".
