Quote Originally Posted by Woochifer
I've been following a thread on the Digital Bits website making note of several audio problems on the Star Wars DVD. According to people writing in to their site, the music is reversed in the surround channels and there are other audio glitches in the soundtrack. The ones that Digital Bits made note of are listed below:

1) The familiar Force theme trumpet fanfare that used to play right after Red Leader says: "This is it!" and just as the X-wings start diving towards the Death Star's surface has been dialed back in volume so that it's almost inaudible - it's almost completely buried in the surround mix.

2) The audio quality varies wildly as Tarkin says the line: "You would prefer another target, a military target? Then name the system." - almost as if the master sound element was damaged. It's very distracting.

3) Possibly most critically, John Williams' entire score for the film has been flipped in the rear channels, so that what should be the left rear channel is playing from the right rear channel (and vise versa). What this means is that the rear channels don't match the front channels - instruments heard from the front right channel come from the left rear instead of the right rear. Again, this is very distracting once you notice it.

Lucasfilm responded to them with this statement, and the site editor's response follows:

"We are always impressed with how closely fans listen to the many different sound mixes we have made for the Star Wars movies over the years. It is flattering to know that, indeed, the audience is listening. Consequently, each mix comes out differently and any changes that you hear on the all-new Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround EX tracks on the Star Wars Trilogy DVD set are deliberate creative decisions. We can confirm that there are no technical glitches as reported."

Dialing down the trumpet fanfare during the Death Star attack... okay, I can see that could be a creative decision. But the strange audio quality shift of Tarkin's line and the surrounds issue - I don't really buy that those are creative decisions. Judging by the e-mails we're getting, we're certainly not the only ones to have noticed these things. We're going to dig into this further and see what we come up with.

I watched Star Wars last night on my system and I can definitely confirm that there are glitches in the soundtrack. It could simply be that most of my previous viewings have been with two-channel sources and the flaws that I noted don't show up in a two-channel or Pro Logic playback, but a whole bunch of scenes just struck me as sounding VERY different than I remember them.

The sound effects definitely sound like they've been ratcheted up a LOT, to the point that they now overwhelm the dialog and the music in a lot of scenes. In some scenes, it also seems like the sound elements themselves got changed around, but overall the biggest change is just that certain sounds are much louder than before while others that I previously picked up on are now very quiet. Also, the audio quality of the dialog is all over the place, like half of it got dubbed in later on. I understand that looping sessions after filming is completed is standard practice, but the dialog in a lot of scenes jumps around from cut to cut. Also, in the cantina scene, Han Solo's voice spreads across all three front speakers creating a very bizarre effect.

I did not really notice the reversal with the music in the surround speakers, but the music is still not nearly as well integrated as it sounds with Empire and Jedi. I'm going to do some more careful listening tonight to see if I can identify signs of a reversal.

I can see where Lucasfilm is trying to create a soundtrack that can hold up to modern standards, but it's also pretty obvious that a lot of the sound elements were not originally created for careful listening on a home audio system. So, with Star Wars, the DVD soundtrack is a jumble of things that hold up well and others that don't. With the old VHS soundtracks, I always noted that the audio quality of Star Wars was a clear step below Empire and Jedi, but it was consistent. With the DVD soundtrack, they improved the audio in a lot of areas, but when blended in with other elements that still sound the same as before, the effect is somewhat jarring.

Not related to audio, but the new ending for Jedi with Hayden Christiansen making a cameo as Anakin is just WRONG! I'd heard that Lucas made that change and I didn't really pay much attention, but actually seeing that scene just made me cringe. It just did not look right at all, and seemed more like something you'd see in a B-movie where a cast member died and some stand-in had to finish up. Think "Plan Nine From Outer Space" where a lead died in th middle of filming and a stand-in did the rest of the scenes with a cape draped in front of his face! Or the U.S. version of "Game of Death" where they built a ridiculous movie (complete with a plastic surgery subplot) around the 20 minutes of fight footage that Bruce Lee finished before he died.
Did I not say there were audio issues with the trilogy DVD set on LENGTHY discussions via digitalbits.com and hometheaterforum.com? Some of these, as I got into on hometheaterforum, were tremendous in scope (the discussions, that is).