Steven Spielberg completely bombed out with his magical fantasy film called "Hook", based on the premise that Peter Pan had left Never-Never-Land and grown up to become an uptight workaholic, only to get his own children kidnapped by Captain Hook, and having to rescue them while at the same time figuring out how to be Pan again. The audiences really didn't take into this film and Hook ( along with 1941) is considered as one of the biggest mistakes Spielberg has ever made. After keeping a directorial hiatus for the following year, Spielberg struck back with an incredible one-two punch that more than made up for this dent in his resume. During 1993 he managed to hit it big in both the artistic level with Schindler's List as well as in the entertainment field with Jurassic Park. Jurassic Park was based on the book by Michael Crichton which dealt with the possibilities of DNA technology and what man would be able to do with it when he was given such power to play God. Driven by a desire to create life, but at the same time to make this technology into a popular attraction for people around the world, John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) took this technology and brought real living and breathing dinosaurs back to the Earth and setting them in a very expensively built theme park. Brought in to get a little foretaste of things to come, Hammond invites a group of scientists to sample the new "ride". But as things turn out, there is also a saboteur working in the park who is getting paid a lot of money to get the dinosaur DNA to a rich buyer. Of course this set-up eventually leads into the dinosaurs escaping from their boundaries and starting to hunt the humans, resulting in a very entertaining thriller that keeps you on your toes to the very end. As always with Spielberg films, the scoring of the movie went to John Williams, who created another highly entertaining and memorable score.
The score for Jurassic Park, although eclipsed by its more famous brother of the same year, is one of the best efforts by Williams in his post Star Wars years of 1977-1983. It's deft mix of the elements of adventure, fantasy and horror, knit in a fabric of thematic richness and orchestral splendour not often found in Williams' most recent efforts, has made it an instant crowd pleaser as well as proving to be one of the greatest initiators into the world of film scores. Who can honestly claim the music in the scene where the helicopter flew over the island didn't create any kind of response or the raptor music didn't send chills down your spine. In one of those rare occasions that I actually went to the theater to see a film, the music was one of those things that really left an impression in my mind and it has remained a firm favorite ever since. And I didn't even know the composer's name back then! The score can roughly be divided into three sections: the more magical first part when we first arrive to the island and see the dinosaurs walking around, the second part when everything goes wrong and the people have to survive inside the Park, and the third, more horror tinged part, when we face off the raptors. This may sound a little unbalanced and episodic but the score is built on such strong foundations that the approach works.
The music is full of thematic richness with plenty of themes appearing in the course of the score. The main theme is presented as a concert arrangement in "Theme from Jurassic Park" which is gentle, optimistic and charming. Complete with choir it is a very nice little tune which isn't exactly the most memorable theme Williams ever composed but is a pleasant listen anyway. The piano performances in "A Tree for My Bed" and "Welcome to Jurassic Park" are most enjoyable. The second of the main themes is the one for the island itself, which is a glorious fanfare for brass, not very much unlike a theme you could associate with a superhero. This is the theme that most readily holds your attention and it gets a great workout in "Journey to the Island", "Welcome to Jurassic Park", "Jurassic Park Gate" and T"-Rex Rescue & Finale". These two themes really make Jurassic Park into a memorable and highly enjoyable score which has endeared it to many.
To complement the main themes there are a number of secondary themes as well. The raptors are given a harsh, four-note motif that is very savage and a little hard to listen to at times. This motif is mostly used in the latter half of the score when the raptors escape and start hunting the remaining people. It very much dominates cues like "Raptor Attack", "Eye to Eye" and "T-Rex Rescue & Finale" and it does work most effectively in the movie. Dennis, the bad guy, receives a slinking, conspirational theme for the cue "Dennis Steals the Embryo" that is very reminiscent of the conspiracy theme from JFK. There are also a number of little tingling pieces for celesta that appear in places like "Hatching Baby Raptor" and "Remembering Petticoat Lane" (a cue that is full of a sense of nostalgia that at the same time is twisted into a feeling of side-show perversity). The nervously wavering string harmonies in the latter half of "Incident at Isla Nublar" and "High-Wire Stunts" is something that I would have liked to hear more of while the more heartwarming music of "My Friend, the Brachiosaurus" takes us back into the cozy atmosphere created by the main theme. And finally there is a small haunting motif played by the French horn, bringing up images of ancient secrets hidden in the jungles and making small appearances in the opening of "Theme from Jurassic Park", "A Tree for My Bed" and in the last measures of "Welcome to Jurassic Park".
As for the album release, it offers a healthy dose of most of Williams' material, running to an entire 70 minutes of music with very good sound quality. However, due to Williams desire to make the CD a more enjoyable listening experience, most of the cues are out of film order, with two tracks ("Incident at Isla Nublar" and "Raptor Attack") consisting of two separate cues spliced together and some of the tracks are very badly mislabelled. The track called "End Credits" is really nothing more than a shortened version "Welcome to Jurassic Park", which in actuality is the real end credits sequence, though placed as seventh on the album. However, it is mostly possible to program your CD player to play the music in the correct order (apart from track three) although listening to the music in album order might be a more balanced option. The music is mostly free of boring underscore. The only instances where it might become a tad uninteresting is in "Eye to Eye" and "My Friend, the Brachiosaurus". However these are only small instances and the album will readily hold your attention for its entire length. A very good score to a very good film and, while not an instant classic, it comes close.
1. Opening Titles (0:33) 2. Theme from Jurassic Park (3:27) 3. Incident at Isla Nublar (5:20) 4. Journey to the Island (8:51) 5. Raptor Attack (2:49) 6. Hatching Baby Raptor (3:21) 7. Welcome to Jurassic Park (7:55) 8. My Friend, the Brachiosaurus (4:16) 9. Dennis Steals the Embryo (4:56) 10. A Tree for My Bed (2:12) 11. High-Wire Stunts (4:08) 12. Remembering Petticoat Lane (2:48) 13. Jurassic Park Gate (2:04) 14. Eye to Eye (6:32) 15. T-Rex Rescue & Finale (7:40) 16. End Credits (3:26)
Music Composed and Conducted by John Williams Produced by John Williams Music Editor: Ken Wannberg Music Scoring Mixer: Shawn Murphy Assistant Engineer: Susan McLean Orchestrated by John Neufeld and Alexander Courage Recorded at Sony Scoring Stage, Culver City, CA MCA Records, 1993
![Williams: Jurassic Park Original Soundtrack [SOUNDTRACK] -](http://picnic.ciao.com/uk/65456589.jpg)
