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| Howard |
Dinosaur: (James Newton Howard) After an amazing
run starting in 1989 with
The Little Mermaid, Walt Disney
Pictures ended its streak of dominance over animated musicals in 1999
with
Tarzan. When the studio offered
Dinosaur in 2000
without a single song in its ranks, a new era had begun. The studio
eventually returned to the musical in subsequent years, but the waters
were muddied for Disney by superior efforts by other studios. The story
of
Dinosaur is unimpressive, basically taking elements from both
Tarzan and
The Land Before Time and showing a mismatched
group of dinosaurs forced on a journey to find a new home when a meteor
destroys theirs. The animation caused a stir with its remarkable,
life-like detail, largely obscuring the fact that the story was flimsy
and predictable. Another element of intrigue involving
Dinosaur
resulted when James Newton Howard was hired to provide the score-only
soundtrack for the film. He had relatively little experience in the
genre and had made a name for himself with 1990's action and suspense films,
along with a few ridiculous comedies along the way.
Dinosaur
marked the beginning of a fruitful three-film contract between Howard
and Disney, lasting from 2000 through 2002 and following this debut with
Atlantis and
Treasure Island. Although the animated film
scores ended there for the composer, you still hear snippets of all
three scores consistently used years later in advertisements for the
American Disney theme parks. The score for
Dinosaur was received
very well by both film and score critics at the time, heralded as a
return to 1980's animation, when strong orchestral soundtracks absent
obnoxious songs were a normal event.
Dinosaur also affirmed Howard's own arrival in
the top tier of Hollywood composers, opening the doors for an
outstanding level of success later in the 2000's. Still, it's difficult
to remember now that
Dinosaur was somewhat of an awkward
listening experience at the time; of his contemporaries, only James
Horner had really made a career out of this type of score-only animated
venture. Howard's music is quite strong all around, balancing the tested
formulas of other composers while instilling just enough of his own
character into the work to keep the more derivative parts from becoming
the score's defining aspect. The sizable Los Angeles orchestral ensemble
is joined by Lebo M. and his associated chorus, a vibrant real and
synthetic percussive array, and a slight presence of electronics. The
style of Howard's approach is sometimes criticized for mirroring the
vocal and rhythmic techniques of Hans Zimmer's
The Lion King,
while the action sequences (and typically those involving brass) and
some additional ethnic material is obviously inspired by Jerry
Goldsmith's
The Ghost and the Darkness. Thematically, Howard uses
a two-part "journey theme" as the anchor of the score while exploring
several, sparsely developed ideas for characters and situations. The
journey theme is easily the highlight of
Dinosaur, serving the film
extremely well during the flying scene seen during the cue "The Egg
Travels." This theme also receives full treatment in "Across the
Desert," "Breakout," and in reprise form in "Epilogue." While being the
highlight of the score, this theme also draws the most fire for its
resemblance to the two scores mentioned above.
The first part of the journey theme presents ten
seconds (starting at 1:13 into "The Egg Travels") that is shamelessly
pulled from
The Ghost and the Darkness. The rambling,
Caribbean-style percussion and Lebo M. vocals made popular by
The
Lion King are also prominent. The more pronounced electronic and
drum pad rhythm in "Across the Desert" recalls the hip style of Howard's
concurrent
Unbreakable. The same lovable rhythms grace "The
Courtship," which definitely refer to Zimmer's more playfully harmonic
parts of
The Lion King. The "celebration theme" heard in the
heart of this cue is reprised in full glory at the start of "It Comes
with a Pool." Other highlights of the score include tender woodwind and
string expressions of subthemes in "Inner Sanctum/The Nesting Grounds"
and "Aladar & Neera," both of which are gracefully accompanied by deep
adult choir. The action music is surprisingly the least interesting part
of
Dinosaur, following templates very similar to previous
material that Howard had written for other films. Dissonant strikes
abound in these cues, and although they maintain interest, they cannot
compete as a listening experience with the more fluid cues for character
development and movement. Overall,
Dinosaur offers no less than
20 minutes of highly entertaining material for rearrangement, but beware
of possible temp track imitation or basic inspirational shortcomings at
times. That said, all three of Howard's scores for Disney animation at
the time are equally strong, and fans could arrange an outstanding
compilation of the three that would likely fill a CD with the very best
that Howard wrote for the studio.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
Download
| Bias Check: |
For James Newton Howard reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.4
(in 62 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.26
(in 71,451 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The insert contains extensive credits and a fold-out poster, but no extra
information about the score or film.
