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Conducted by:
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Geoffrey Alexander
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Co-Produced by:
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Simon Rhodes
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Label:
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Contemporary Media Recordings
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Release Date:
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October, 2002
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Availability:
Promotional release, only found in select specialty outlets and used-CD vendors. Very difficult to find.
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Filmtracks Recommends:
Buy it... if you can find it!
Avoid it... if you prefer Trevor Jones' title themes to be bold and
brassy, and would be less enthusiastic about his inspirational,
string-dominated side.
Filmtracks Editorial Review:
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Dinotopia: (Trevor Jones) Based on the best-selling
books by author/illustrator James Gurney, the six-hour miniseries of
Dinotopia debuted on the ABC network in the United States in 2002. It
is the epic story of a lost continent where dinosaurs and humans live
together in an almost-utopian world, with their diverse culture dealing with
many of the same issues as our more familiar humans-only society. Two
brothers crash their modern-day plane on the island while lost in the
Caribbean and are thrown into this human & dinosaur culture where they
attempt to make a life for themselves. The adventures of the young men lead
them to daring chases, outlandish discoveries, and, of course, affection for
the local women. Composer Trevor Jones was first known for his fantasy and
adventure scores, beginning his career with the cult classics of
Excalibur and The Dark Crystal. He had stepped away from the
fantasy genre for many years, claiming that he had used all of his musical
ideas for that genre at that time. He began to return to fantasy in the
middle and late 1990's, when he accepted several adventurous television
scoring assignments, including the popular Merlin in 1998. Jones
spent the decade turning down large assignments (including First
Knight in 1995) and focusing his attention more on his instruction at
the university level, as well as a wealth of lesser-known television scores.
In these regards, Dinotopia is a very typical film for Jones to lend
his musical talents, for it offered him the chance to soar with one of his
sweeping, trademark themes while also writing quality music just below the
mainstream radar. The six hours of Dinotopia would require Jones to
compose a considerable amount of orchestral material, which, as usual for
the composer, was performed by the London Symphony Orchestra.
Once again, Jones displays his rich, harmonic themes for
Dinotopia. There is no overwhelming brass affair, as in 1999's
Cleopatra or 1993's Cliffhanger, but instead Jones centers the
score around a more classically-inclined string theme. It's a very
emotionally uplifting thematic construct, building upon the utopian sense of
goodness that James Horner introduced in The Land Before Time and
expanding it to Jones' lush standards. The score flows from pleasant cue to
pleasant cue, with lyrical passages often leading from one cue to another.
Even the action cues, and those meant to represent the dangerous parts of
the lost continent are melodic in their presentation and continue Jones'
rich employment of the full ensemble for each cue. There aren't action
sequences as awe-inspiring as those in parts of The League of
Extraordinary Gentleman (Jones' most ambitious action material in the
2000's), nor is there the level of deep, reflective fright as heard in
From Hell the previous year. Jones steers a very steady ship in
Dinotopia, with lengthy segments of music performed with deep
satisfaction by the masterful ensemble. The positive nature of the music may
cause it to take on the personality of a children's score, but even so, the
power of its performance extends its reach far beyond the typical children's
score (by, for instance, the likes of John Debney). You can't point to one
particular cue that is more outstanding than any other, but the consistently
exciting and/or beautiful harmony of Jones' music for Dinotopia makes
it a must for his fans. Unfortunately, the album is a difficult situation.
Like the television film Cleopatra, the score was released by
"Contemporary Media Recordings" (reportedly Jones' own personal label) and
is not available in stores. While Cleopatra was available for a
limited time online, Dinotopia never was, and the extent of its
release was mostly confined to non-chain stores in the Los Angeles area.
Varèse Sarabande originally announced that it would release the score
in 2002, but immediately retracted that announcement. Thus, the CMR album
serves mostly as a promotional album for Jones, and should be considered a
rare find when discovered. For collectors of his solid orchestral work,
Dinotopia is worth the search. ****
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Viewer Ratings and Comments:
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• 1. Dinotopia Main Theme (3:29)
• 2. Chandara Bus Station (3:00)
• 3. T-Rex Attacks (6:02)
• 4. The Codes of Dinotopia (4:13)
• 5. Swampland Mosasaurs (3:13)
• 6. Waterfall City (6:15)
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• 7. The World Beneath (7:57)
• 8. Pteranodons (5:31)
• 9. Academy for Young Mammals (6:00)
• 10. Letter from Matriarch (7:28)
• 11. The Skybax Dawn Flight (3:42)
• 12. Ceremony of the Sunstones (4:24)
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The insert includes a plot synopsis of the film, but no extra information about the score.
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