THANK YOU FOR THIS! I used to collect the “Story Of…” LPs for every movie that came out. I wish they still made these. Some modern films would lend themselves well to the format.
Roscoe Lee Browne did NOT do all three of these…He did narration for Story of Star Wars, and Malachi Throne did Story of Empire Strikes Back. A simple Google or Discogs search reveals Story of Return had narration by Chuck Riley.
RE Fred Bloggs comment: Once upon a time there was no home video, no VHS Tapes, not even Betamax… No DVD’s, definitely no BluRay’s. All we had at home was a thing called Radio Stories. Often these were adaptions of movies, mostly they were dramatically performed books. Sometimes these Radio Stories were released on LP Records. Mostly Disney stuff, but sometimes there was the odd other movie adaption. The soundtrack was taken from a movie and as the visual element was not there this was provided by a narrator whose duty it was to bring the story to life in the imagination. Imagination was big back then. These three adaptions are the original Star Wars films in this form. Roscoe Lee Browne did the narration and the rest was a cut down version of the movie cast, sound effects and music. I actually had the first one, a rare thing in my part of the world. Unfortunately it was stollen. We get a lot of thieves and thieving these days. I have been robbed three times this past week alone. They even took my rubbish bin and my forty-five year old garden hose with its brass fittings. But I digress. There was Picture Disks as well, before VHS tapes, but these were extremely expensive. They were essentially a LP size DVD type disk, but of a quality to equal or even surpass BluRay. They had special players that plugged into the TV (a bulky cumbersome device in those days with Picture tubes and older ones even had valves which gave life to a grainy picture on a phosphorescent screen.) But the players were rare and disks rarer. VHS decimated the market for these players and Disks too. Of course these days we are getting audio books, some of which are actually dramatized rather than just read, some of them are even made for radio. Yeah radio still exists. So I suppose these Story Of Star Wars releases would be a kind of audio-book by today’s standards. There were a couple of Christmas Star Wars Stories too, but they were made especially for LP release, and while dramatized were not actual films. I think that one of the Ewok movies (Caravan Of Courage) was also adapted to LP. Hope that this helps you out.
Wrong…I wasn’t aware there was a Story of Return of The Jedi, but I had the other two on vinyl years ago.
Roscoe Lee Browne did NOT do all three of these…He did narration for Story of Star Wars, and Malachi Throne did Story of Empire Strikes Back. A simple Google or Discogs search reveals Story of Return had narration by Chuck Riley. They actually did special sound mixes for these Story Of albums…they weren’t simply cut-down versions of the soundtracks (try comparing them to the actual movie soundtracks and you’ll see). They were also NOT “radio stories” because these were made specifically for the retail record market and were not meant for radio broadcast. Technically, these would be referred to as “audio dramas” or “audio adaptions”.
You’re also way off on what you think you know about the other dominant video format before DVD and Blu-ray came along. I know because back then I went through just about every video format available at the time. What you were incorrectly spewing about were called laserdiscs (or laser videoiscs). Yes, they were the same size as 12″ vinyl records, but they contained video and audio information. They were NOT called “Picture Discs”. They were also NOT “extremely expensive” (the average cost for a movie on one disc was about $24.95), and the players were also NOT “extremely rare” and the “discs even rarer”.
There were a lot of retail outlets all over the place…quite common, actually…and many record stores ALSO carried laserdiscs, as well as stores specifically selling only laserdiscs. The players were also NOT as cumbersome as you made them out to be…during that time, I went through three different players (and still have the last one I bought over 20 years ago because it also plays DVD’s).
Laserdiscs were NOT a DVD type, because DVD’s are a digital format…laserdiscs were analog (non-digital), and again you are VERY wrong that they were equal to or “surpass” Blu-ray…Blu-ray (not counting 4k UHD discs now) is the superior and best common video format to date. Laserdiscs WERE considered state-of-the-art at the time and also were definitely better than VHS because VHS was (back then) an analog format, whereas laserdiscs were laser optical discs…two entirely different technologies. Even laserdiscs were a SD (standard definition) resolution…Blu-ray is HD (high definition) format.
VHS also did NOT “decimate the market for these players and disks too” as you erroneously claim…VHS and LD (laserdisc) co-existed side-by-side until the DVD format came along…and DVD is actually what “decimated” both formats, simply because the quality was so much higher (and afterward, Blu-ray which was even higher than that). Also…your sentence about tv’s was utter b.s.
Sorry, but your whole pontification and spewing was a load full b.s. all over. Ticks me off when someone like you spews out a load of hogwash and tries to sound like he knows what he’s talking about, when in fact…as I know very well, having lived and purchased through that era…I suspect you know NOTHING about what you just spit out.
Something I guess you didn’t pick up on – did that idiot imply that Laserdisc players plugged into valve TVs????? Now that would be an interesting experiment.
In the early to mid 1990’s I had a friend in Australia who owned a (gasp) Laserdisc player. These were unheard of devices. He had to mail order movies from the US, as they were extremely rare and incredibly expensive in Australia. As it was, he was paying around $100 for a single disc movie. The box set of Star Wars, Empire and Jedi set him back $300. (He’s very rich). So outside the US, Laserdiscs were, indeed, very rare and extremely expensive. DVD gave us poor people the opportunity to get in on a format that was affordable and fantastic quality.
I have no idea what that fool was on back then, but Laserdisc quality better than Blu Ray? Seriously? I’m aghast at that. Plus, Laserdiscs suffered from Laser Rot, where the foil layer disintegrated, causing the image to be full of artefacts. Eventually discs affected with Rot had lines of sparkles running through them – I know what I’m talking about, as I’ve watched Laserdiscs that suffered from this. A few of my friend’s discs developed Rot after 6 months; some titles were known to be susceptible to bad Rot. A simple Google will reveal the extent of Rot. Once again, DVD fixed that problem.
I get sick and tired of these expert kids looking back on the glory of Laserdisc when they weren’t even born when they were around! The quality of LD was, quite frankly, appalling compared to Blu Ray. However, thanks to LD and the lessons gained from its development, we now have Blu Ray and 4K.
Spot-on, Marco…I agree with you for the most part. Regarding laser rot…that was more prevalent in the earlier years of laserdisc production. I used to have several from the MCA DiscoVision line, and many of those were filled with rot. Eventually, the rot issue was pretty much resolved…it actually didn’t carry on throughout the ENTIRE history of LD video.
I used to have a collection of well over 300 or more LD titles, and now have just a handful of select titles (mostly a couple of rare box sets), and although I don’t watch them anymore (I’ve replaced everything over the years with DVD, and then Blu-ray), I keep these chosen few as collectible items because some of them have features which have never been on DVD or Blu-ray formats.
Well, sure…using “appalling” is a bit strong but sure…LD certainly IS inferior to both DVD and Blu-ray…but at THAT time, LD was considered the state-of-the-art format as well as being superior to both VHS and Betamax. Also, when you referred to “outside the US” costs…well, sure, IMPORT titles (even with vinyl LP’s) were always more expensive, but in case you weren’t aware a couple of other countries…Japan in particular…also had a thriving laserdisc market. Naturally a Japanese import was more expensive here in the US (I know because I owned a few I had picked up at…of all places…Tower Records!). I just meant, in general, not counting imports, that basic LD titles in the US really weren’t THAT expensive (unless it was some sort of collector’s or special edition, like some Criterion boxed titles).
Yeah, it burns my beans too when people in general like the idiot who spewed the original post above rants off like they’re trying to sound knowledgeable or authoritative about something they obviously DON’T know as much about as they pretend to…and this is provable as b.s. when people like me and yourself who LIVED through that period can give the ACTUAL facts about this.
GregMay 2, 2020 - 10:42 pm
Add to that…your first 4 or 5 sentences are a load of b.s. too. “Radio stories”, as in the days of radio-only broadcasts, go back into the 30’s. RECORDS of stories, whether an adaption of a popular movie or an audio dramatization…started becoming popular in the late 40’s, and condensed audio versions of movies lie these were being produced all the way into the 90’s (and audiobooks are more popular than ever today), and story albums like this were STILL being produced even during the early days of Betamax, up through VHS, and even into the early years of DVD.
Sorry, but once again I have to say you don’t know what you’re spewing off about. You really don’t.
If we’re talking about audio dramas, is there any chance the music from the Star Trek readalong cassettes is out there? It has some really good music cues in there.
Recordings of those cassettes are around, but not of just the music. In the case of a popular movie, the music used was often directly from the movie. Some may have had original music done for those “Read-A-Long” records and cassettes, but it was always cheaper to just use what was composed for the movie, or sometimes from stock library music. Less licensing fees to have to pay for the music use.
It was definitely some sort of stock music rather than music from the films, as they re-used it for the adaptations of TMP, TWOK and TSFS. For The Voyage Home they changed all the music for some reason. I think it was made specifically for Star Trek though as I don’t remember it appearing in any of their other tapes.
Still, I can hope one day clean recordings may surface! It’s a miracle obscure stuff like that is on my soundtrack grail list now as I’ve been able to find pretty much everything I’ve ever wanted to get.
Thanks for cluing me in on what this is. I’m sure this particular “Story of…” is very good & I don’t mind it being posted, but I’d rather not see audiobooks making a regular appearance on this site; they are not soundtracks, & moreover, will be taking the place of a good daily score. Just my opinion though. Might grab this one, just in case I’m missing something cool. Cheers.
Fred, these are NOT actually audiobooks (which are audio/dramatized adaptions of a novel or book)…these albums (or similar ones like Story of The Black Hole, Story of the Black Cauldron, etc.) are edited versions of the actual SOUNDTRACKS of the movie, including dialogue, sound effects, and music right off the film soundtrack, as it were…and therefore ARE soundtracks because they’re movie related and are taken from the movie itself.
i have all three of these LP’s still! I don’t have a turntable, but I could never part with them. Such a huge part of my childhood, and my love for the Original Star Wars Trilogy. Thank you so very much!
had all three of them on cassette and boy did i play them a lot i even recreated them myself AND added extra little bits of story to them too! i also had the droids tape ahh simpler times
26 comments
THANK YOU! My inner 11-year-old is bursting with joy. I haven’t heard this in decades.
THANK YOU FOR THIS! I used to collect the “Story Of…” LPs for every movie that came out.
I wish they still made these. Some modern films would lend themselves well to the format.
Thanks!
Thank you!
Can someone clue me in as to what this is. Is it spoken word, music compiled from the movies, or something else?
They are narrated by Roscoe Lee Browne, but include dialogue, sound effects and music from the films.
Roscoe Lee Browne did NOT do all three of these…He did narration for Story of Star Wars, and Malachi Throne did Story of Empire Strikes Back. A simple Google or Discogs search reveals Story of Return had narration by Chuck Riley.
RE Fred Bloggs comment: Once upon a time there was no home video, no VHS Tapes, not even Betamax… No DVD’s, definitely no BluRay’s. All we had at home was a thing called Radio Stories. Often these were adaptions of movies, mostly they were dramatically performed books. Sometimes these Radio Stories were released on LP Records. Mostly Disney stuff, but sometimes there was the odd other movie adaption. The soundtrack was taken from a movie and as the visual element was not there this was provided by a narrator whose duty it was to bring the story to life in the imagination. Imagination was big back then. These three adaptions are the original Star Wars films in this form. Roscoe Lee Browne did the narration and the rest was a cut down version of the movie cast, sound effects and music. I actually had the first one, a rare thing in my part of the world. Unfortunately it was stollen. We get a lot of thieves and thieving these days. I have been robbed three times this past week alone. They even took my rubbish bin and my forty-five year old garden hose with its brass fittings. But I digress. There was Picture Disks as well, before VHS tapes, but these were extremely expensive. They were essentially a LP size DVD type disk, but of a quality to equal or even surpass BluRay. They had special players that plugged into the TV (a bulky cumbersome device in those days with Picture tubes and older ones even had valves which gave life to a grainy picture on a phosphorescent screen.) But the players were rare and disks rarer. VHS decimated the market for these players and Disks too. Of course these days we are getting audio books, some of which are actually dramatized rather than just read, some of them are even made for radio. Yeah radio still exists. So I suppose these Story Of Star Wars releases would be a kind of audio-book by today’s standards. There were a couple of Christmas Star Wars Stories too, but they were made especially for LP release, and while dramatized were not actual films. I think that one of the Ewok movies (Caravan Of Courage) was also adapted to LP. Hope that this helps you out.
Wrong…I wasn’t aware there was a Story of Return of The Jedi, but I had the other two on vinyl years ago.
Roscoe Lee Browne did NOT do all three of these…He did narration for Story of Star Wars, and Malachi Throne did Story of Empire Strikes Back. A simple Google or Discogs search reveals Story of Return had narration by Chuck Riley. They actually did special sound mixes for these Story Of albums…they weren’t simply cut-down versions of the soundtracks (try comparing them to the actual movie soundtracks and you’ll see). They were also NOT “radio stories” because these were made specifically for the retail record market and were not meant for radio broadcast. Technically, these would be referred to as “audio dramas” or “audio adaptions”.
You’re also way off on what you think you know about the other dominant video format before DVD and Blu-ray came along. I know because back then I went through just about every video format available at the time. What you were incorrectly spewing about were called laserdiscs (or laser videoiscs). Yes, they were the same size as 12″ vinyl records, but they contained video and audio information. They were NOT called “Picture Discs”. They were also NOT “extremely expensive” (the average cost for a movie on one disc was about $24.95), and the players were also NOT “extremely rare” and the “discs even rarer”.
There were a lot of retail outlets all over the place…quite common, actually…and many record stores ALSO carried laserdiscs, as well as stores specifically selling only laserdiscs.
The players were also NOT as cumbersome as you made them out to be…during that time, I went through three different players (and still have the last one I bought over 20 years ago because it also plays DVD’s).
Laserdiscs were NOT a DVD type, because DVD’s are a digital format…laserdiscs were analog (non-digital), and again you are VERY wrong that they were equal to or “surpass” Blu-ray…Blu-ray (not counting 4k UHD discs now) is the superior and best common video format to date. Laserdiscs WERE considered state-of-the-art at the time and also were definitely better than VHS because VHS was (back then) an analog format, whereas laserdiscs were laser optical discs…two entirely different technologies. Even laserdiscs were a SD (standard definition) resolution…Blu-ray is HD (high definition) format.
VHS also did NOT “decimate the market for these players and disks too” as you erroneously claim…VHS and LD (laserdisc) co-existed side-by-side until the DVD format came along…and DVD is actually what “decimated” both formats, simply because the quality was so much higher (and afterward, Blu-ray which was even higher than that).
Also…your sentence about tv’s was utter b.s.
Sorry, but your whole pontification and spewing was a load full b.s. all over. Ticks me off when someone like you spews out a load of hogwash and tries to sound like he knows what he’s talking about, when in fact…as I know very well, having lived and purchased through that era…I suspect you know NOTHING about what you just spit out.
“(or laser videoiscs)”
Typo…meant to say “videodiscs”.
Something I guess you didn’t pick up on – did that idiot imply that Laserdisc players plugged into valve TVs????? Now that would be an interesting experiment.
In the early to mid 1990’s I had a friend in Australia who owned a (gasp) Laserdisc player. These were unheard of devices. He had to mail order movies from the US, as they were extremely rare and incredibly expensive in Australia. As it was, he was paying around $100 for a single disc movie. The box set of Star Wars, Empire and Jedi set him back $300. (He’s very rich). So outside the US, Laserdiscs were, indeed, very rare and extremely expensive. DVD gave us poor people the opportunity to get in on a format that was affordable and fantastic quality.
I have no idea what that fool was on back then, but Laserdisc quality better than Blu Ray? Seriously? I’m aghast at that. Plus, Laserdiscs suffered from Laser Rot, where the foil layer disintegrated, causing the image to be full of artefacts. Eventually discs affected with Rot had lines of sparkles running through them – I know what I’m talking about, as I’ve watched Laserdiscs that suffered from this. A few of my friend’s discs developed Rot after 6 months; some titles were known to be susceptible to bad Rot. A simple Google will reveal the extent of Rot. Once again, DVD fixed that problem.
I get sick and tired of these expert kids looking back on the glory of Laserdisc when they weren’t even born when they were around! The quality of LD was, quite frankly, appalling compared to Blu Ray. However, thanks to LD and the lessons gained from its development, we now have Blu Ray and 4K.
Spot-on, Marco…I agree with you for the most part. Regarding laser rot…that was more prevalent in the earlier years of laserdisc production. I used to have several from the MCA DiscoVision line, and many of those were filled with rot. Eventually, the rot issue was pretty much resolved…it actually didn’t carry on throughout the ENTIRE history of LD video.
I used to have a collection of well over 300 or more LD titles, and now have just a handful of select titles (mostly a couple of rare box sets), and although I don’t watch them anymore (I’ve replaced everything over the years with DVD, and then Blu-ray), I keep these chosen few as collectible items because some of them have features which have never been on DVD or Blu-ray formats.
Well, sure…using “appalling” is a bit strong but sure…LD certainly IS inferior to both DVD and Blu-ray…but at THAT time, LD was considered the state-of-the-art format as well as being superior to both VHS and Betamax. Also, when you referred to “outside the US” costs…well, sure, IMPORT titles (even with vinyl LP’s) were always more expensive, but in case you weren’t aware a couple of other countries…Japan in particular…also had a thriving laserdisc market. Naturally a Japanese import was more expensive here in the US (I know because I owned a few I had picked up at…of all places…Tower Records!). I just meant, in general, not counting imports, that basic LD titles in the US really weren’t THAT expensive (unless it was some sort of collector’s or special edition, like some Criterion boxed titles).
Yeah, it burns my beans too when people in general like the idiot who spewed the original post above rants off like they’re trying to sound knowledgeable or authoritative about something they obviously DON’T know as much about as they pretend to…and this is provable as b.s. when people like me and yourself who LIVED through that period can give the ACTUAL facts about this.
Add to that…your first 4 or 5 sentences are a load of b.s. too. “Radio stories”, as in the days of radio-only broadcasts, go back into the 30’s. RECORDS of stories, whether an adaption of a popular movie or an audio dramatization…started becoming popular in the late 40’s, and condensed audio versions of movies lie these were being produced all the way into the 90’s (and audiobooks are more popular than ever today), and story albums like this were STILL being produced even during the early days of Betamax, up through VHS, and even into the early years of DVD.
Sorry, but once again I have to say you don’t know what you’re spewing off about. You really don’t.
You nail it! Listening to an LP of Star Wars was the only way to have access to the movie back in the day!
If we’re talking about audio dramas, is there any chance the music from the Star Trek readalong cassettes is out there? It has some really good music cues in there.
Recordings of those cassettes are around, but not of just the music. In the case of a popular movie, the music used was often directly from the movie. Some may have had original music done for those “Read-A-Long” records and cassettes, but it was always cheaper to just use what was composed for the movie, or sometimes from stock library music. Less licensing fees to have to pay for the music use.
It was definitely some sort of stock music rather than music from the films, as they re-used it for the adaptations of TMP, TWOK and TSFS. For The Voyage Home they changed all the music for some reason. I think it was made specifically for Star Trek though as I don’t remember it appearing in any of their other tapes.
Still, I can hope one day clean recordings may surface! It’s a miracle obscure stuff like that is on my soundtrack grail list now as I’ve been able to find pretty much everything I’ve ever wanted to get.
Wow I had forgotten about these. Yeah, the inner 11 year is WAAAAYY happy.
Would you happen to have the Story of TRON?
Thank you very much. Could you upload the Double CD “Buddies – Bear Side and Bird Side from Materia Collective please ?
Thanks for cluing me in on what this is. I’m sure this particular “Story of…” is very good & I don’t mind it being posted, but I’d rather not see audiobooks making a regular appearance on this site; they are not soundtracks, & moreover, will be taking the place of a good daily score.
Just my opinion though.
Might grab this one, just in case I’m missing something cool.
Cheers.
Fred, these are NOT actually audiobooks (which are audio/dramatized adaptions of a novel or book)…these albums (or similar ones like Story of The Black Hole, Story of the Black Cauldron, etc.) are edited versions of the actual SOUNDTRACKS of the movie, including dialogue, sound effects, and music right off the film soundtrack, as it were…and therefore ARE soundtracks because they’re movie related and are taken from the movie itself.
i have all three of these LP’s still! I don’t have a turntable, but I could never part with them. Such a huge part of my childhood, and my love for the Original Star Wars Trilogy. Thank you so very much!
Many thanks. This type of recording was also done for “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”. I would love to hear that one too. Thanks again for this one.
had all three of them on cassette and boy did i play them a lot
i even recreated them myself AND added extra little bits of story to them too!
i also had the droids tape
ahh simpler times
Finally finished getting this file… Thanks. Not sure about the new look to this site, but …