Great 1980 John Williams "Making of Star Wars Music" documentary

This hour long special aired at around the time Empire came out and covers most of the movies JW did up to that one.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five

Part Six

 

I like JW's reaction to seeing Han say "I know" to Leia before being put into carbonite!

 

"With a budget of 18 million dollars and rising..."

JW: "Star Wars 2: The Empire Strikes Back"

Ah, the good old days...

EDIT: Why are things like THIS left off DVDs while we get crap like Empire of Dreams?

 

1. A DVD-quality version of this might not exist, and it'd be pretty subpar to include on a DVD

2. Empire of Dreams was pretty fantastic

 

Never seen that documentary before. I loved it. I didn't notice, but did they say who the lady was that was singing opera while John Williams played the piano?

 

Come again?

 

Great stuff. I had never before thought about all the work that went into score composition, or the more technical aspects of it. If only they'd make more documentaries like this...

 

Does anybody else think the theme JW wrote for "Jane Eyre" sounds awfully familiar?

 

I mean subpar in terms of picture quality. The only version I've seen looks like it was recorded on a VHS in the 80s, which is...probably what it was. My point is that footage gets lost and a high-quality copy might not be around anymore.

 

Whereabouts is that?

 

They could quite easily clear it right up to DVD standards with computers.

 

Yeah, I call BS on that one, BlackTiger. They had extreme difficulties with the negatives for frigging ANH after just 20 years, which was presumably carefully stored. There's no such guarantees for extras like that that probably nobody in the early 1980s thought actually had a chance of seeing the light of day.

 

No, I doubt they'd bother, seeing that it's just a rare documentary rather than a big budget movie. I don't know how expensive it'd be with 2009 computers, but I suspect the expense would be prohibitive. However, it could still easily be done if they wanted to invest in restoring a small piece of movie history, especially seeing that it doesn't seem to be in that bad a condition.

 

It's only a documentary. Why does the picture quality need to be cleaned up to match the standard of the film proper? I thought Empire of Dreams featured some rough, black and white audition footage, anyway. I think it's being withheld because Lucasfilm just doesn't like old documentaries. Everything has to be new, flashy and - of course - selective in what it tells.

 

Yes, as far as I could tell only the beginning was mashed up and needed sorting out. And yes, Lucas does only like the flash presentations and telling "selective" history of the making of Star Wars.