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| Davis |
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| Williams |
Jurassic Park III: (Don Davis) Universal Pictures
hit a new low in franchise milking with
Jurassic Park III, a
concept that had, by its first two scripts, already come to an end in
terms of viability. The entire previous crew stepped aside, despite
Steven Spielberg's continuing role as executive producer, and the
haphazard script, which did not involve any new input from author
Michael Chrichton, was reportedly not even finished by the time shooting
began. The concept had devolved into the most basic of its monster flick
roots, leaving only two-dimensional formula interactions between humans
and dinosaurs as enticement for audiences. Two characters from the
original film return to mount a rescue mission to one of the islands of
the concept's past, with predictable results. Everything about
Jurassic Park III was disappointing, from the poorly chosen cast
to the pointless storyline that has no sense of style or purpose. Even
the special effects of the dinosaurs themselves had become substandard.
It's no surprise, therefore, that composer John Williams graciously
removed himself from the franchise at this juncture to work on
A.I.
Artificial Intelligence instead. Eight years after the maestro's
dynamic and memorably thematic score for the original
Jurassic
Park stunned audiences with its sweeping majesty, even this musical
identity was beginning to show its age. Unfortunately, the film
presented an opportunity for Universal to do what had occurred with the
later
Superman sequels: simply rehashing the original themes with
inadequate new material thrown in for just a pinch of originality. That
same process was followed for the music for
Jurassic Park III.
Despite an abundance of rumors that James Horner would take the job
because of his previous association with the new director, Williams
specifically recommended Don Davis for the job, and Davis received the
assignment. With the
Superman sequel process well in mind, it was
figured that subsequent
Jurassic Park productions would not
function without the themes of the original film, so Williams stepped in
as a consultant for Davis, providing detailed notation on how to adapt
his original themes into new situations.
For Davis, meanwhile,
Jurassic Park III represented
his second major break in three years, still riding the success of his
postmodern score for
The Matrix. Unlike that score, however,
Davis turns to a more traditional and predictable orchestral mode of
composition for
Jurassic Park III. If Davis were to be sure of
one thing, it would be that nobody could complain about the lack of
thematic integration in this sequel score. He recognized early on that
his music would be very heavily scrutinized by both film and score fans
who, inevitably, would compare his work to that of the beloved maestro.
When Williams visited the studio to consult with Davis about how to
tackle certain scenes, the younger composer took a look at Williams'
original manuscripts and realized that he was dealing with an incredibly
complex task. The first two
Jurassic Park scores had included
some of the most complex orchestral integration of Williams' career, and
even a mere interpretation of that material would constitute an enormous
challenge. In the end, though, the most impressive aspect of Davis' work
is exactly that careful interpolation of the two main
Jurassic
Park themes into
Jurassic Park III, not to mention the
statement of three or so subthemes of Williams' in addition to an
entirely new, wholesome pair of themes to represent the new family of
characters. The only theme left out in the cold, aside from one quick
and clever allusion in the film version of "Raptor Repartee," is
Williams' main identity for
Jurassic Park: The Lost World, which
is somewhat strange given the location connections between the sequel
stories. In the late 1990's, fans of Davis had already compared his
larger, tonally accessible orchestral style to that of Williams, and so
loyal is Davis to Williams' general concepts in
Jurassic Park III
that even a measure of Williams' theme for
The Towering Inferno
makes a brief appearance near the start of "Tiny Pecking Pteranodons."
The only problem with this equation, awkwardly, is that Davis spends so
much time either emulating Williams outright in this score or inserting
the previous themes into his own material that he neglects the
opportunity to provide the work with a personality of its own, some of
the best moments coming when pieces of
The Matrix managed to work
their way into the action.
In an age when sequels to blockbusters rarely include the
classic themes of the original film (take the dissatisfaction over the
Batman or
Harry Potter series, for instance), it is a
great blessing to hear Williams' work stated in a significant portion of
Jurassic Park III. But still, like Ken Thorne's
Superman
sequel scores, there's a nagging feeling that there is no new life in
this music with which to refresh the series, several of the performances
repeated wholesale. Like the other elements of the production, it sounds
tired despite expert execution. Davis' primary new family theme for
Jurassic Park III is a two-parter, one half addressing the
parents while the secondary portion representing their boy. The parent
phrasing dabbles in "Kirby Paint and Tile Plus" and "Bone Man Ben" on
troubled, worried strings, but it's the secondary, pleasant and
optimistic string phrasing for the boy that evokes hints of Horner
sensibilities (especially in the plucking bass accompaniment to the
melodic line and its eventual solo horn rendition in the credits) from
"Eric to the Rescue" onward as the character is involved. This material
is extended in "Tree People" and really flourishes in "Nash Calling,"
where the latter half of the cue absolutely shines. This material
mingles with Williams' fantasy theme in both "Brachiosaurus on the Bank"
and "River Reminiscence," its tender woodwind and piano explorations
offering a nice break from the otherwise rampaging action. Both the
primary and secondary phrasing for the family theme occupy comfortable
positions for full ensemble performances in "The Hat Returns/End
Credits." It's certainly an adequate identity as a whole, though when
surrounded by Williams' ideas, as it often is, it seems somewhat
artificially forced into the equation. Davis also offers a secondary
theme for the Spinosaurus dinosaur, which displaces the T-Rex as the
main adversary after a horrifying battle between the two beasts midway
through the film. It's a reharmonized, minor mode variant of the first
four ascending notes of Williams' adventure theme, and it becomes
increasingly dominant in the trio of "Cooper's Last Stand," "Frenzy
Fuselage," and "Clash of Extinction" before alternating with the
returning raptor material throughout the rest of the picture and
threatening near the conclusion of "End Credits."
Both of the two primary themes from the original film
receive significant, full treatment, even more than what was heard in
Williams' own
The Lost World. The rousing brass fanfare of the
adventure theme most commonly associated with the franchise is heard
extensively in "The Dinosaur Fly-By" and is integrated into a plethora
of situations throughout the score, serving once again as a faint
reminder of the glory of the original theme park concept. Davis
especially adapts the first two pairs of notes of this idea into
numerous action sequences, starting right away in "Isla Sorna Sailing
Situation." An explosively exuberant, militaristic rendition at the
height of "Raptor Harassment" and briefly in "The Hat Returns" takes
this idea to silly parody by the end, though. The romantic secondary
theme of fantasy for strings, mostly representing the friendlier
dinosaurs and their human interactions, is less frequently heard, but
compared to its short-changing in
The Lost World, Davis gives it
plenty of clear air time in "Dinosaur Man," "Raptor in the Cabin,"
"Brachiosaurus on the Bank," "River Reminiscence," and "The Hat
Returns/End Credits." The fantasy theme is accompanied by a choir in a
few of these performances as well, a welcome nod to the format of the
original film's treatment of the idea. Williams' rising four-note theme
of mystery at the very start, the churning raptor theme, and other
snippets of Williams' chomping action music are littered throughout the
score. The raptor theme in particular receives much more sensible
treatment in this work as compared to
The Lost World. Even more
intellectually appreciable is Davis' revisiting of a variant of the
rolling panic motif from
Jurassic Park at 0:46 into "Raptor Eggs"
and in the middle of "Raptor Repartee." He even resurrects Williams'
militaristic motif of dtermination for the mercenaries in "Udesky, Nash
and Cooper" and a few subsequent cues. Several individual moments from
the
Jurassic Park score are reprised wholesale for scenes of
similar intent as well, ranging from the deep choral suspense of the
breeding concept through the highest ensemble crescendos and solo horn
interludes of dread and loss. One has to appreciate the care with which
Davis handled all of these interpolations, because they are indeed
everywhere, and sometimes buried as secondary lines in the action.
The downside of these many nostalgic thematic statements
in
Jurassic Park III, however, is their seemingly poorer
performances at times. They are often carried at far too fast a tempo,
especially in "The Hat Returns/End Credits," reducing their majesty
considerably and giving them a formulaic sound. The first two scores,
recorded on the Sony Scoring Stage in Culver City, featured resounding
sound quality, with a wetter mixing that enhanced the epic proportion of
the scores. The tone of
Jurassic Park III often sounds flat by
direct comparison, which is surprising because its recording location
was the Newman Scoring Stage at 20th Century Fox, where Jerry Goldsmith
had recorded some of the most vibrant scores of his career in the late
1990's. Ultimately, this could be only a mixing dilemma, though with
inevitable comparisons to Williams' work, it remains an issue. One
interesting exception to that issue of sound quality exists in the
difference between the performances of Williams' themes and Davis' own.
Take, for example, the contrast between "Brachiosaurus on the Bank" and
"Nash Calling;" the former includes a rather two-dimensional
performances of Williams' fantasy theme while the latter features a far
more vibrant performance of Davis' own theme for the film. The same
could be said about several other cues of similar construct. Though it's
great to hear Williams' material incorporated so faithfully, the few
cues that stand out are those in which Davis plays a little with the
previous concepts and merges them with harder edges of his own, more
postmodern tendencies, especially on brass. Cues like "Isla Sorna
Sailing Situation," with its resounding, ominous bass strings, and
"Clash of Extinction," with an intelligent frenzy of battling antagonist
monster themes, are easily the highlights of the work. In a general
sense, the complexity of Davis' score is on par with those by Williams,
even if Davis' music occasionally seems a bit anonymous. All three films
really tax the abilities of the string section, especially during
frightening chase scenes that call for an abundance of sixteenth note
madness, a usual Williams tactic heard later in his career. The raptor
attacks are scored very well, as Davis' intuition for writing in darker,
harsher tones is clear. Still, on the other hand, the music for
Jurassic Park III lacks the dynamic and exciting edge that
Williams was able to inject into his music.
Instrumentally, Davis rarely spices up the orchestra
with performances of exotic contributors in
Jurassic Park III,
with the exception of a few, short woodwind accents concentrated in the
raptor-related cues during the middle of the film. Seemingly gone are
the impressive percussive arrays that Williams used, especially the
timpani and native drums, as well as any form of tinkling or rolling
piano performances outside of the obligatory fantasy theme interludes. A
painfully flat snare is occasionally employed instead. The manipulation
of the thematic material is often done in such a fashion as to cut
short, accelerate, or combine sequences, too, causing many of Williams'
themes to jar with surrounding material by switching instrumental leads
unexpectedly. Only a finely tuned film score ear would find much fault
with these few integration issues, as a regular moviegoer probably would
not notice such problems. To that end, Davis has created a very
effective score for the film, and one that is far more faithful to the
Williams sound than anything Michael Giacchino wrote for later franchise
entries. While the music for
Jurassic Park III is worthy of no
award, and Williams fans may have initially sought refuge with the
original score as an antidote to some of the performances heard here, it
does offer smart thematic variations and serves the purpose of an
extended franchise sequel well enough to suffice. On its original 2001
album, the score suffered from many more problems. The first two albums
of Williams' music were both 70 minutes in length, and rarely through
the years did you hear many fans complain about wanting more music from
either film even though there were a few good unreleased cues in each.
The duration of the Davis score on this album is just under 50 minutes,
with well over half an hour of material missing, including some notable
thematic highlights. (It should be noted, though, that
Jurassic Park
III was a very short film by comparison to the two Spielberg
pictures). Several tracks are mislabeled combinations of unrelated cues,
and some alternate takes were selected for inclusion, leaving their
longer film versions missing. The last four and a half minutes of music
on the album are an inexcusable tragedy likely meant to push additional
album sales without any artistic coordination whatsoever; no Randy
Newman song has any business existing on a
Jurassic Park
album.
This is a respected fantasy/horror film franchise, and
some Williams collectors were appropriately horrified by the fact that a
stereotypically ridiculous Randy Newman country song was included at the
end of the 2001 album, regardless of the fact that it was a source piece
in the film and Davis had a long associated with Newman. That product
was also an "Enhanced CD," a feature that, after a flurry of such highly
advertised gimmicks in the mid-1990s, had been tailing off in the
2000's. The features are wonderfully presented, but the "Don Davis
interview" turned out to be a short, text-based affair. The CD was also
programmed with an auto-run feature that was somewhat annoying at the
time and had a tendency to crash older computers. On the other hand, the
packaging didn't feature pop-up dinosaurs like the silly
The Lost
World digipak product of 1997, and the planet was grateful for that.
In 2024, the La-La Land Records label finally expanded the film version
of the score presentation to a full 84 minutes and supplied it alongside
the equally remastered prior album (yes, including the Newman travesty)
and a handful of additional alternate takes that aren't significant but
still welcomed, including two version of the "Dinosaur Man" that
tenderly looked backwards at the characters of the first film. This
album is absolutely essential to appreciating Davis' intent with both
his own and Williams' themes, the narrative far more cohesive and
interesting than on the 2001 CD. Further development of the new themes
is evident on this set, as is a host of supplemental major references to
the Williams themes. The original album arrangement is provided first on
the La-La Land set, though, by a disc timing necessity. Overall, the
music is the kind of romp that was a cheap joy to hear in the theatre,
and the 2024 set marginally helps alleviate the somewhat flat
performance and mixing issues with the recording that still cause Davis'
hard work to lag behind that of Williams in terms of majesty and
excitement. The unnecessarily accelerated tempos of the major
performances of the legacy themes alone will deter some devoted fans of
the previous two works. Even so, the music for
Jurassic Park III
is still a giant love letter to Williams' original concepts and is
intelligently constructed throughout, and the presentation heard on the
2024 set is more emotionally accessible than Giacchino's later works for
additional sequels. It's a worthy investment for casual fans of the
franchise so long as expectations are realistic. Davis isn't Williams,
but nobody ever will be.
@Amazon.com: CD or
Download
- Score as Written for Film: ****
- Music as Heard on the 2001 Album: ***
- Music as Heard on the 2024 Album: ****
- Overall: ****
| Bias Check: |
For Don Davis reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.3
(in 10 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.06
(in 44,956 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
|
The insert of the 2001 Decca album includes extensive credits and artwork but no extra information about the score or film. The product is an Enchanced CD with numerous extra features as a CD-ROM that had a 50% chance of crashing your vintage computer. Included in these extra features is a short, textual interview with Don Davis. The 2024 La-La Land album contains extensive notation about the film and score.
