“It’s been nearly 40 years since the first Star Wars film was released, and the audio archive is showing its age,” writes Adrienne Lafrance for The Atlantic. Over time, the bindings of magnetic audio tapes come undone and release residue on playing equipment that make for a distorted noise.
As a creative fix to the problem, Star Wars sound engineers heat up the tapes in an oven “to reactivate magnetic bindings and reduce moisture so they’ll play again.” Read the article here.