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Review of The Lost World: Jurassic Park (John Williams)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you can dismiss this score's positioning in a
franchise and therefore appreciate John Williams' most violently brutal,
percussively rhythmic score of the digital age, one led by several
monstrously propulsive cues of rambling, exotic power.
Avoid it... if you expect this sequel score to make satisfyingly intelligent use of the classic themes and secondary motifs from Jurassic Park, an unnecessary executive choice that makes this score an impressive but disappointing shadow of its predecessor.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
The Lost World: Jurassic Park: (John Williams) It
had been four years since Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park
dazzled audiences with its thrilling premise, tight execution, and
awe-inspiring special effects. By 1996, however, blockbuster movies had
exhausted the usual array of disaster scenarios with the same style of
visual effects, and The Lost World: Jurassic Park had to rely on
another compelling idea to continue interest in the franchise.
Unfortunately, when author Michael Crichton was hired specifically to
write another book that would inspire the sequel to Jurassic
Park, he fell into the trap of conventional, formula-driven
narratives. Unlike the first film, when the purpose of the horror was to
question whether or not the likable characters could live long enough to
escape the island, The Lost World: Jurassic Park is nothing more
than an exhibition for cheap terror tactics and a blatant rip-off of
King Kong by the end. Shallow characters, familiar rainy
nighttime settings, and a lack of logical continuity with the first
film's story caused the film to sink with critics. Audiences still went
to the spectacle and made it successful, but they typically didn't go
back for another viewing. Spielberg looks back at this 1997 attempt to
create a noir-like tribute to classic films involving monsters on remote
islands with lament, recognizing that the end result was a sequel
clearly inferior to its predecessor. Of the souring aspects of the
successor, none was as surprising as the rather forgettable score by the
usually reliable John Williams. The maestro had gone since Jurassic
Park without an action, adventure, or fantasy entry in the interim,
and his fans were extremely eager to hear him expand upon the popular
previous entry. Williams' work for Jurassic Park has historically
been diminished in stature by some film music critics and collectors,
but it remains an extremely intelligent balance between magnificent,
accessible beauty and technically masterful terror. Several themes and
motifs of significant strength graced Jurassic Park, filling
every moment with a unique musical identity that kept the score from
ever losing its appeal. For The Lost World, Williams, like
Spielberg, lost focus and failed to provide the same level of
accessibility.
It's easy to get the impression that Williams was making a concerted attempt to create a completely new thematic and textural landscape for "Site B" in The Lost World. This second island in the overarching story is treated by Williams to almost a completely separate set of instrumental rules and identities. Understandably, the sequel score is much darker than the original, shedding most of the fantasy element. It's a far more brutal and violent score in every sense, leaving behind the charm and dreamy mystique of Jurassic Park and exploring frightfully atonal suspense for extended sequences. Williams' primary theme for the sequel is its only really well-developed idea, which is a major surprise considering the melodic complexity of the first score. This alone isn't a disappointing factor; Williams has often integrated one or two new dominant themes into the fabric of a prequel's material. But two aspects of the incorporation of themes into The Lost World are somewhat disturbing. First, the title theme for the sequel is nowhere near the usual standard of excellence that Williams fans had come to expect. The heavy emphasis on exotic percussion rhythms is promising, and they do go on to define the score. But the theme itself, with its slowly developing progression and stagnant personality, fails to create an atmosphere of convincing fear or intrigue. It plods through its phrases with the standard assistance of Williams' smart counterpoint and orchestrations, but it's not a particularly malleable theme with which to mold an entire score, reminding of old-school monster themes that are reprised repeatedly in identical form throughout a score. As expected, it only receives interesting treatment in "Malcolm's Journey" (otherwise known as "To the Island"), "The Hunt," and "Heading North" outside of the finale and concert suite. The general rhythms performed by a variety of medium-range drums and slapping metallic percussion, often aided by wild woodwind accents, are the better definition of the score's personality. The score's greatest asset are the many cues that make use of these relentless, primordial rhythms, and Williams often accentuates them with sakauhachi flute (returning from the prior score), conch shells, and brass howling at a distance. For a fan of percussion, The Lost World is a dream come true. Williams' use of both the percussion and ethnic effects here would prepare him well for the early portions of his upcoming score for Amistad. Outside of the major performances of the new jungle and monster-inspired main theme and the lengthy sequences of powerfully percussive rhythms, The Lost World offers surprisingly little to get excited about. There are several periods of rhythmically dissonant underscore that fail to extend the music's larger narrative to any great degree, some of which go on for five-minute intervals. Cues like "On the Glass" and "The Long Grass" are sufficient mood-setters but little more. Unlike the first score, there are sections of The Lost World that are somewhat non-descript and oddly boring, including "The Island Prologue" ("The Island's Voice"), "The Trek," and "Finding Camp Jurassic." The lack of enthusiasm in the details of these cues is a surprise given Williams' tendency to fill every moment of his scores with some form of meaningful forward development. There are a few individual cues of unique merit for discussion, however. The jungle rhythms in "Rescuing Sarah" are merged with some outrageously rambunctious brass bursts that eventually lead to a conclusion of the cue that introduces a theme singular to this scene. It's among Williams' most heroic bursts outside of his Star Wars scores and causes a bit of head scratching due to its singular appearance. An attractively stomping revenge theme for the T-Rex is developed with timpani and cymbal-crashing authority in "Monster on the Loose," "Visitor in San Diego," and "Ludlow's End." Meanwhile, "The Stegosaurus" is the score's only slight return to the sense of ponderous wonder of the original. Also of note is "The Raptors Appear," which adapts some musical ideas from the late moments of the raptors' battle with the T-Rex at the end of Jurassic Park. In between obnoxiously shrieking piccolo lines, the tonal fantasy highlight of the entire score exists in eight seconds starting at 2:40. That's it... eight seconds. And these eight seconds are among the few in which you'll hear a choir (real or synthetic) at any time during the length of the album. There's a brief reprise of the idea in full, along with several overlapping fragments of the motif, in the latter half of "High Bar and Ceiling Tiles," complimented by enhanced tuba presence. The progression is actually a rising four-note response to the descending raptor and T-Rex horror theme in the previous score. Introduced in "Fire at Camp and Corporate Helicopters," this ascendant theme often accompanies moments when the dinosaurs take control against their corporate masters, evolving significantly during "Ludlow's Speech" and "The Wrecked Ship." Some passages in The Lost World are compositionally brilliant but totally unlistenable, the percussion and woodwinds of "The Compys!" leading that group. The shrieking woodwinds in the highest ranges of their capabilities are difficult to tolerate, and they do expose one of the score's major problems: its mix. The rambling percussion, both in the specialty instruments and the timpani, are presented in a vibrant, engaging form. The orchestra, however, seems muddy and distant by comparison. The Los Angeles recording for The Lost World is substandard in its flat performances, and it fails to take advantage of the wide soundscape in the extreme bass and treble that Williams had written on paper for the score. That's why some listeners may prefer cues prominently featuring the percussion rhythms nearly alone. The other, more disappointing aspect of The Lost World, without question, is the lack of loyalty to the themes of the first film. With so much great material to adapt and expand upon here, Williams chose to ignore much of it due to the perceived notion that too much about the narrative of this movie was different. Spielberg indeed created a darker atmosphere for this film, but that did not preclude better, more obvious disintegration of the prior film's shiny thematic identities. Both main themes in Jurassic Park are reprised, but only the secondary, brassy adventure theme for the park's concept is adapted beyond token placements. This identity receives its first full performance in "Revealing the Plans" without much alteration and becomes an echo of the past in "Spilling Petrol and Horning In," "The Trek," and "Finding Camp Jurassic" before peppering the film's climactic cues ("Monster on the Loose" and "Visitor in San Diego") with sharper reprises. Naturally, it anchors the closing scene of uninhibited dinosaur life and the first half of the end credits, too. Only in the final moments of the story does Williams allow a fully rendered performance of the actual main theme from Jurassic Park that represented the dinosaurs' resurrection with beautiful harmony in that story. It appropriately accompanies the scene involving the Hammond character from the prior film advocating on television for the dinosaurs to be left alone. This lovingly tender piano performance has an accelerated conclusion in "Tranquilizer Dart" to accommodate the "Life Has a Way" quote's immediate transition from Hammond into the adventure theme from the first film that opens the credits. The suite that Williams wrote for the end credits of The Lost World, as only heard on album, is based on the prior movie's material, even resurrecting the mystery theme on horn at its outset. But the main theme is accelerated in pace to such an extent that it's almost ruined. After returning to the adventure theme in the "End Credits," Williams does close out his new arrangement with the crescendo of brass and timpani heard during the first film's great T-Rex finale. This suite was not utilized in this film and would instead come to represent Jurassic Park itself in concerts for years to follow, unfortunately with the consequent pacing issues and lack of choir. The only closure for the new main theme of The Lost World within the film's story comes in "Tranquilizer Dart," where it receives a soothing adaptation. The album's suite variation of the theme exists over the second half of the end credits, however. Incidentally, the rising, four-note dinosaur theme receives an eerie electronic performance at the end of the "Tranquilizer Dart" cue's original recording that was cut from the film. Of the two memorable secondary motifs from Jurassic Park, the churning high-wire suspense motif is completely gone and, more surprisingly, the descending raptor and T-Rex horror theme is confined to the latter half of "Reading the Map," where the sakauhachi gives it superb, ghostly treatment. That rhythmic killing theme from Jurassic Park was so effective that its comparative absence from The Lost World is a massive detriment. While it's understandable that Williams was attempting to move the series forward to fit Spielberg's monster/jungle sensibilities, the lack of sufficient use of these existing themes in fragments or in whole is inexcusable, especially with several logical opportunities to do so. As such, The Lost World is arguably the composer's most disappointing sequel score outside of Home Alone 2: Lost in New York and, for some listeners, Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. The original 1997 album for The Lost World did not contain most of the score's second quarter and some highlights, however, so listeners should seek out the additional 40 minutes of material provided in 2016 by La-La Land on a limited set along with Jurassic Park. This fine product, outside of its obnoxious artwork errors and copies sent to collectors without a booklet, does especially remarkable justice to The Lost World, illuminating additional thematic references but also exposing other material that drags down the middle portion of the presentation with its discouragingly bland personality. On the 2016 set, outside of portions of "Rescuing Sarah," there is 25 minutes of newly released material between "Big Feet" and "Reading the Map," some of which interesting ("Reading the Map" is recorded beautifully) but other parts, such as "Up in a Basket" and "In the Trailer," lacking any points of interest. The additional cues on the second CD of the product are more appealing in their development of the score's secondary motifs. The rising, four-note theme of dinosaur rebellion is revealed with much greater clarity in the expanded presentation, especially in "High Bar and Ceiling Tiles" and "Ludlow's Speech." An alternate recording of the main new thematic suite for The Lost World is thankfully included on the 2016 set as well. Its opening includes robust low brass accompaniment to the timpani rhythm that sets the stage for the theme. Interestingly, it would seem that the exact arrangement of the film's transition between the various end credits recordings might remain unreleased, especially with its softer opening of the new main theme. The 2016 set's sound quality is outstanding, alleviating the need to retain the crappy legacy bootlegs of The Lost World, many of which containing sound effects. That said, the orchestra's mix is still far flatter here than the exotic woodwind and percussion layers, a problem that did not seem to exist as obviously in Jurassic Park. The set, despite multiple packaging errors by the label, improved the standing of The Lost World as a composition, exposing more of Williams' expected intelligence in the revealed cues, but it makes for a better experience off-screen than in context. A poorly distributed, solo re-issue in 2023 adds four additional alternate takes that are interesting but not necessary. Overall, The Lost World would be a satisfying venture as a stand-alone score, easily earning four stars to conclude this review. But as part of a franchise, it fails extend the musical narrative in a satisfying fashion, a byproduct of Spielberg's errors with the movie. It was long rumored that either Williams or James Horner would score the belated Jurassic Park III, but Don Davis eventually earned the job and he ironically returned to the original film's material to a greater extent than the maestro had in the prior entry. Michael Giacchino offered a few reprises of Williams' themes as well in 2015's Jurassic World, but it, too, failed to do justice to the original themes of Jurassic Park. As for The Lost World, fans should be prepared for a highly mixed experience. While it's fantastic to hear Williams persist in any franchise, the score's emphasis on cliched, old-school monster horror and needless dismissal of the predecessor's themes can leave a lastingly sour aftertaste.
TRACK LISTINGS:
1997 MCA Album:
Total Time: 68:58
(Track lengths not listed on packaging) 2016 La-La Land Set: Total Time: 118:46
(CDs 1 and 2 contain music from Jurassic Park) * previously unreleased ** contains previously unreleased material 2023 La-La Land Set: Total Time: 134:38
NOTES & QUOTES:
The 1997 MCA album is packaged with a paper and cardboard 3-D pop-up format that is
extremely annoying. It does not contain the standard note from Spielberg for a Williams
album, nor does it even provide the usual recording credits expected on any soundtrack
album. The extensive booklet of the 2016 La-La Land product contains detailed information,
though some sets were shipped from the label without a copy of the booklet, and original
pressings contained inaccurate artwork. The booklet of the 2023 set reprises much of the
same information.
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1997-2024, Filmtracks Publications. All rights reserved.
The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from The Lost World: Jurassic Park are Copyright © 1997, 2016, 2023, MCA Records/Universal, La-La Land Records, La-La Land Records and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 5/15/97 and last updated 7/29/24. |
