Several more singular melodies prevail throughout the score for Jurassic Park, often contributing impressive individual tracks that stand out as tonally pleasing on the album. Usually enjoyed by collectors are the lush string layers in "My Friend, The Brachiosaurus," a cue that treats the non-threatening dinosaurs with the wondrous and imaginative innocence from a child's perspective. Significant parallels can be drawn between this cue and similar ones from Hook. Another cue slight on the volume is "Remembering Petticoat Lane," a music box waltz for the lamentation of the park's creator as all goes wrong. While this cue is a significant departure from the overarching style of Jurassic Park, reflecting the more ethereal emotions of Always, Williams uses the same general instrumentation to represent a calming influence on the story's two children in "A Tree for My Bed," this time returning to the film's primary string theme for structure. A foreshadowing the main Harry Potter theme accompanies the exuberance of "Entrance of Mr. Hammond." For the film's bumbling conspirator, Dennis, we hear a return (with no surprise) to the electronic bass rhythms of JFK, including the rambling piano motifs and tinkling percussion largely identical to the previous score. This material is perhaps the score's only truly disappointing identity, if only because the composer so clearly yanked it from a previous context. It is effective once again here, however, so for non-Williams collectors, the self-referencing won't really matter. Several other partial structures exist throughout Jurassic Park, with a noteworthy amount of them featuring some sort of four-note construct; it's not known if this is an intentional choice by Williams, but it's definitely a trend in the score's themes to be considered. As expected, the "panic" and raptor themes do eventually draw closer to one another, with the churning bass of the raptor theme adopting the panic theme's structure by the final cues of the film. Even the brass elements that perform the raptor theme merge finally with the panic theme at 2:20 in "T-Rex Rescue," appropriately erasing their distinctions. The arrangements of the two primary themes remain rooted in mostly concert suite-based form, and therefore don't mingle in any great volume during the rest of the score. Their variations on album are even more generous than those in the film, with multiple mixes of both themes available separately, and two cues combining them for use in the film.

There are individual aspects of Jurassic Park's music that help give it the memorable personality it has maintained through the years, apart from the major themes discussed above. First, the opening titles are treated to an electronically-distorted thump of a Japanese drum in the Jaws-inspired key of E, an unmistakable way to start the score and suggest the approaching stomping of a large animal's feet. Watch out for volume levels on your stereo system when playing this track. (It's somewhat inconvenient in that it begins the album) It has a tendency to cause distortion on lower-end systems. Also used in that cue is sakauhachi flute, a staple of James Horner's career that flutters and blasts with an eerie, wet (echoing) sound during Dennis' attempted escape. The use of electronics and low male choir in the short opening titles and "Incident at Isla Nublar" are rare in their combined employment by Williams in his career. This material briefly extends in mixed vocal form to "The Encased Mosquito," an initially unreleased cue representing the true fantasy of the science behind the concept. This ethereal, other-worldly tone transfers to only the female voices early in "Hatching Baby Raptor" with a sound more familiar to Williams' collectors as his standard technique of eerie wonderment. Other unique moments include the native drum rhythm of "Jurassic Park Gate," aided by harp (of all things), which sets a perfect mood for entry into the park. The cute "Stalling Around" cue for the cartoon demonstration of how the science was accomplished is a soft xylophone-based romp that predicts a few techniques in the Harry Potter scores and is mostly unrelated to the rest of Jurassic Park. The last 30 monumental seconds of "Finale" stand among Williams' most satisfying closing statements, letting rip with forceful bass string rhythms that recall the explosive final scene in The Fury. A handful of other brief moments of major, tonal relief punctuate the score, including one notable escape announcement about a minute into "High-Wire Stunts." In "Eye to Eye," an original album track that contains several unused sections of music that Williams assembled into one place for the original album, there is a minute-long, snare-aided passage just after the 3:00 mark that infuses the slight militaristic tones of the Raiders of the Lost Ark scores. (This music eventually moved to the track "To the Maintenance Shed" in the later presentations.) Finally, of course, Williams slips in a faint brass inclusion of the raptor's theme at the end of the titles (and concert suite) to leave the door open for the inevitable sequel.

As demanded by Williams himself, the original album presentation for Jurassic Park was significantly rearranged from chronological film order, though to his credit it does include a sampling of every major idea from the score despite missing some significant material. Enthusiasts of the score need to remember that lengthy sequences in the film existed without any music at all, including most of the early action involving the T-Rex dinosaur eating a goat (the cue "Goat Bait" was struck from the film) and later attacking the vehicles after escaping. The formation of the two primary themes on album for Jurassic Park can be confusing to those not familiar with the film, too. Their two combined performances are both heard in the film; "Journey to the Island" is exactly that, and it features easily the most robust performances of both themes. The "Welcome to Jurassic Park" cue is actually the end titles, employing Williams' trademark use of piano to introduce the theme in the credits before providing the string-based fantasy theme with its only significant brass treatment. Unfortunately, the following performance of that fantasy theme by the strings is lacking the necessary choral presence in the end credits, a disappointing event more than likely meant to make the cue more accessible for concert performances. The album cuts of "Theme from Jurassic Park" and "End Credits" are seemingly edits and mixes of music heard in other cues (from the journey and end titles cues, respectively). The 1993 product was missing about 15 minutes of music, some of which quite good. In 2013, for the 20th anniversary of the picture, Universal released a Williams-approved expanded album containing all but about four minutes of the score. Instead of placing the cues in proper order on the 2013 presentation, however, the four additional tracks are tacked onto the end of the still artificially rearranged tracks from before. The first of these, "The History Lesson," is essentially the Hammond character's music from early in the picture, easy renditions of the island's theme for woodwinds, harp, and piano. As mentioned previously, "Stalling Around" is the cartoonish demonstration music. Slapped together are three cues in "The Coming Storm," the first 1:20 actually dedicated to that moment of dread. From after that until 2:45, the cue presents a T-Rex chase sequence from later in the film. Finally, the last additional offers "The Encased Mosquito," the impressive choral sequence most notably absent from the prior album. With the largely unused "Hungry Raptor," listeners can assemble the entirety of the action music meant for the last third of the picture, a notable entry that layers the raptor motif over electronic jungle rhythms.

Although the 2013 album for Jurassic Park was unfortunately not released on CD, those listeners demanding a lossless version were treated to such an option by outlets offering high-resolution downloads. Much of the hype generated about the 2013 expanded album involved its supposed remastered sound quality and its availability as 24-bit/96kHz and 24-bit/192kHz downloads. Collectors were best served by ignoring the popular MP3/AAC download options for the product, as they are pointless since they nullify the remastered clarity. In high-resolution form, while the 192kHz and 96kHz aspects don't have meaning to people's ears (we're not dogs, after all), the 24-bit presentation does open up the soundscape a bit more. In any case, a little more reverb can be added to give either the 16-bit (original CD) or 24-bit (high-resolution expanded download) options that extra fantasy touch. That 2013 album was rendered somewhat moot when La-La Land Records issued a comprehensive 4-CD set of Jurassic Park and Williams' sequel score, The Lost World, titled "The John Williams Jurassic Park Collection," in 2016. Both scores are afforded expanded treatment on the 5,000-copy offering, with the bulk of the newly available highlights concentrating on 40 minutes of material for the 1997 sequel. For Jurassic Park, the label provides two significant benefits: a chronological presentation and the inclusion of the additional unreleased music not supplied on the 2013 Geffen download. The rearrangement of music into the film order may confuse some listeners accustomed to Williams' own edits from 1993, especially with a few unused cues thrown into the equation, but the overall experience is improved when paired with knowledge of the film. Film versions of several (but not all) cues are provided, though don't expect significantly noticeable differences outside of the shuffling efforts. As for the additional new cues amounting to about four minutes, the highlight is "Race to the Dock," which expands upon the Raiders of the Lost Ark-inspired music heard later in "To the Maintenance Shed" (previously edited into "Eye to Eye"). Less consequential is the ambient suspense of "You Bred Raptors?," "The Saboteur," and "System Ready," all of which nondescript but adequate mood setters for low strings and woodwinds. The album also notes additional previously unreleased music in "The Falling Car and the T-Rex Chase," though nothing significantly interesting seems new outside of the reinsertion of the panic theme's initial performance into the proper slot. The two album suite arrangements, along with the source-like "Stalling Around" cartoon music, are moved to the end of the second CD as a bonus section.

The 2016 set, selling out despite multiple packaging errors by the label, was satisfactorily definitive and utilizes the same source quality as the 2013 lossless digital album, so don't expect improved sound. In reality, the presence of Jurassic Park on that collection is auxiliary to the significant expansion and remastering of The Lost World. In 2022, La-La Land pressed a 2-CD presentation of Jurassic Park alone, using the same sources to yield additional film versions of major cues and providing the original album arrangements in the improved sound quality on the second CD (along with "Stalling Around"). Overall, Jurassic Park remains a crossover score that connects the high-flying fantasy of Williams' early 1980's efforts with the more complex rhythms, instrumentation, and density of his 1990's scores. Despite lingering criticism from some film score critics, this score is as enjoyable as Hook and Far and Away and is even more technically ingenious. For a film that was so thoroughly hyped for its incredible advancements in sound design, kudos need to go to the recording team for Jurassic Park's music. Rarely is a score featuring so many impactful instrumental layers mixed with such attention to detail. The mixture of wet and dry elements is well handled, especially in a multifaceted cue like "Dennis Steals the Embryo." The choral layering in Jurassic Park is also outstanding; on occasion, Williams utilizes it as a subtle background element so that you don't really notice its presence. Such is the case in "Journey to the Island," a cue in which you don't outwardly notice the singers' contribution until they majestically alternate to a counterpoint line at 6:45. In the years following Jurassic Park, Williams began moving away from the unashamed enthusiasm of his full-blown fantasy scores, with an absence of new material in 1994 leading to four underachieving or decidedly darker scores before returning with Spielberg to score The Lost World in 1997. Unlike many of Williams' impressive works for sequels, and despite many outstanding qualities of his music for The Lost World, he wouldn't quite capture the same abundance of energy of Jurassic Park the second time around. Later films in the franchise, scored by Don Davis and Michael Giacchino, faithfully make use of Williams' themes but cannot compete with the majesty and intensity of the original inspiration, either. While long overshadowed by Schindler's List due to the proximity of their release, Jurassic Park remains one of Williams' very most accomplished action and fantasy scores, and no collection of the maestro's works would be complete without it.  *****   @Amazon.com: CD or Download