Development of the Special Edition soundtrack release continued with the second Original Trilogy film, The Empire Strikes Back. Once again, 's intention for this release was to present the score in as complete and chronological a fashion as possible. Early on in development of the set, an incomplete set of 24-track masters were discovered, which had been completely missing during development of the 4-cd set. Unfortunately, these masters did not include Eric Tomlinson's original film mixes, meaning the cues would need to be remixed. Due to the large increase in sound quality the master tapes afforded, the decision was made to use them, and engineer was only given six hours to remix all of the cues on the tapes. One of the most common criticisms of the set after it released was that the remixed cues were far too narrow in their stereo separation, in other words instruments that should have been panned to the left or right were panned to the center.
Cues that were not on the incomplete set of 24-track tapes were instead sourced from lower-generation backup session tapes, film stems, and the original LP masters. Cues originating from these sources utilize their original Eric Tomlinson mixes instead of having been remixed by Brian Risner. As a result, about half of the cues on the final album ended up being remixed, and about half of them didn't. Cues that were remixed by Brian Risner are marked with a "%" symbol in the below track listing.
In 2004, Sony Classical re-pressed the 1997 RCA Victor release of the Special Edition Star Wars trilogy, including The Empire Strikes Back. The set was released with new art work mirroring the film's first DVD release, and without the liner notes. The set was advertised as being processed by Sony's proprietary DSD (Direct Stream Digital) technology, but the final tracks on the 2004 set are exactly the same as those on the 1997 set.
Total Time: 62:43
*previously unreleased
**contains previously unreleased material
% cue remixed by Brian Risner
Total Time: 61:44
*previously unreleased
**contains previously unreleased material
% cue remixed by Brian Risner