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T-Rex: Back to the Cretaceous: (William Ross) The
popularity of
Jurassic Park and the relative availability of
special effect techniques that could bring dinosaurs to life were
responsible for a variety of Jurassic-oriented films in the mid-1990's.
One such entry was the short IMAX film
T-Rex: Back to the
Cretaceous, released in 1998 to the super large American screens in
3D format. Unfortunately, Brett Leonard's production had very little
going for it. Of its 44-minute running time, the advertised dinosaurs
are only on screen for a precious few minutes, which alone is enough to
annoy any impatient parent. The script instead spends its first half
exploring the very poorly acted relationship between a teenage girl and
her father, who conveniently happens to be a paleontologist. When
suffering parents go to a short IMAX film, family problems aren't what
they want to see, and it's a relief when the girl accidentally breaks a
tyrannosaurus rex egg, a cloud of smoke magically appears, and she's
transported back in time to be chased by the 15-ton monster. Sadly, she
eludes the beast. On the whole, the film was derided by critics for not
delivering on the goods, even in the special effects department, where
the rendering of the creatures isn't as sharp as in the competition.
It's hard to imagine that any composer would turn down the opportunity
to score another IMAX picture, because they so often utilize the
grandest of orchestral soundtracks. For career orchestrator William
Ross, such projects were his outlet for his own compositional efforts,
and
T-Rex: Back to the Cretaceous represented a pretty typical
outing. Known mostly at the time for his orchestration of some of
composer Alan Silvestri's best scores, Ross doesn't surprise anyone when
he writes material that sounds generally similar to those works. In the
case of
T-Rex: Back to the Cretaceous, though, the other elements
of the production are so awful that you can't fault him for providing
largely derivative music. While it would have been nice to hear a true
adventure score in this circumstance, Ross was bound by the script to
write mostly pleasant conversational pieces for the troubled
relationship between the girl and her father. With that in mind, the
listening experience of
T-Rex: Back to the Cretaceous on album
sells itself just as short as the film on the whole. Still, there is a
significant amount of strong material here to please any of the rare
collectors of Ross' usually strong work.
The score for
T-Rex: Back to the Cretaceous
kicks off with its bold main theme on brass over rumbling, jungle-styled
rhythms. It's a functional construct though somewhat anonymous in its
progressions. More engaging, ironically, is Ross' theme for the girl,
first introduced on tender piano in "Ally." Any veteran Silvestri fan
will recognize the style of this theme from
Forrest Gump, though
Ross expands upon the idea with an attractive woodwind performance of
the idea over acoustic guitar in "Finding the Egg." He continues along
the same lines in "Ally and Dad," which transfers the pleasant idea to
the light, contemporary tone of piano and strings. The most troubled cue
on album is "Journey to the Cretaceous," which utilizes very messy
orchestral mayhem highlighted by wild percussion and slurred brass for
the transition, though the track ends with a grand orchestral statement
of the main theme. In "Meeting Barnum Brown," Ross spontaneously goes
west; he pulls some inspiration from Dimitri Tiomkin and John Barry in
his Western-styled theme on harmonica and high strings over soft
acoustic guitar. A fluttering effect on the harmonica at the end of this
cue is very annoying. The only consistent action piece in the score is
"Meeting T-Rex," which emulates John Williams' music for the subject
until another lofty performance of the main theme is presented on
majestic strings. The album concludes with a nice suite of both themes,
opening with a triumphant fanfare version of the main one. Of the
remaining tracks, "Liz Falls" and "Meeting Charles Knight" are
unremarkable and "Kiss and a Squeeze" is a misplaced source piece of
old, big band jazz with lovable, animal-related lyrics for the male
vocalist. Overall,
T-Rex: Back to the Cretaceous is predictable
but undemanding and enjoyable in its context. Ross' workmanlike music is
appropriate at every turn even if it isn't particularly memorable after
it concludes. As with most of Ross' compositions, the score was released
initially in promotional format. It eventually made the rounds under a
makeshift label name, but the contents of the albums' music and
packaging were the same. In 2020, Dragon's Domain Records remastered the
same presentation for a 500-copy pressing, marking the score's first
official label release. Given the poor quality of the film and the
score's existence only as a rare item via soundtrack specialty outlets,
the short product for
T-Rex: Back to the Cretaceous isn't likely
to draw much attention unless you were one of those suffering parents
mildly impressed by the score during your IMAX encounter with it.
**** @Amazon.com: CD or
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The insert of the 1998 promotional album contains artwork from the film but no
information about the score of film. That of the 2020 Dragon's Domain album contains
basic information.
