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Jurassic Park- The Ride USH Music Identification


scallenger

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The original Universal Studios Hollywood version of Jurassic Park- The Ride has been one of my favorite attractions (even though the animatronics are not as impressively managed as they once were). Having been on the ride MANY times, I always thought, as did everyone else, that every but of music on that ride was just from the film. While it mostly is, there actually is one source music usage. It's a song that plays out of a radio when the Dilophosaurs attack, and funny enough, that song is "The Girl from Ipanema". What's funny about that bit of source music is that the same song was used in Spielberg's "Catch Me If You Can". Coincidence? Or did Spielberg choose this source song randomly for that moment of the ride and then also liked it enough to use it in that film?



However, there is actually still one piece of music on the ride I cannot identify. At first I thought it was just another track used from JP in the film, perhaps "Raptor Attack". But on closer examination... it doesn't seem like it fits. Granted, the recordings of this moment from on-ride videos isn't the best, but even still it doesn't sound like any part from JP... and yet it sounds very much like Williams! I was wondering if any of you guys can help identify!

Try this video at 3:35 to 3:53

You can also try these links here, here, and here.

If it helps, this ride came out in 1996, a year before The Lost World, so it can't be that.

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Maybe it is something that was specifically recorded for this moment of the ride, when the Velociraptors pop out.

John Williams wrote and recorded original music for E.T. The Ride, so maybe this is the same case.

I am just guessing, though. It might even be an outtake that was recorded during the scoring sessions for Jurassic Park. I am not entirely sure.

Does anybody else know?

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I don't know the JP score well enough to know for sure. It does sound very JW, and fits right in with the sound of JP score. I think with the Indiana Jones ride, someone arranged it, and re-recorded it, all based on themes from the original JW score. Maybe this is similar, and the orchestration is different, or with the sound effects of the ride it's hard to make out exactly which part of the original JP score it's from.

Also, I'm almost sure you're aware, but by chance you're not, there was recently a re-release of almost the full JP score, coinciding with the IMAX release of the movie. From what i remember, it only had 11 minute of missing music, the rest was released, and is on itunes.

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  • 3 months later...

While this may not be of interest to many here, it may be for those who love theme parks and their theme park specific scores. I received some information about Jurassic Park- The Ride (the original Universal Studios Hollywood version) recently, and one piece of information mentioned something I never knew, but did speculate before due to some unidentified music I noticed on the attraction.

I'm quoting this directly:

"Portions of the ride utilize the film's majestic original score, composed by Academy Award winner John Williams. For other segments, Landmark's own Gary Guttman composed special dramatic music for use during certain scene transitions. To be consistent with the tone of the original Williams material, Landmark recorded a full orchestra score with the Seattle Symphony."

Yeah, definitely NEVER knew that. I would be very interested in obtaining this music, despite it not being done by Williams himself!

This recently dug-up documentary on the making of the ride that is on YouTube credits Gary Guttman in the end credits for the music. So a lot of, if not most of, the music heard in this documentary may have been made for the ride (and a lot of seems to not have been used, if true).

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  • 4 years later...

So while I have still not obtained the brief music made just for the ride, I am about to release for the first time ever seen the entire ride preshow/queue videos of the now-extinct attraction. They were recorded live on site, so obviously it's not going to be a perfect watch, but still better than nothing and the sound comes through remarkably well considering.

 

Before I do that, however, I was wondering if there was still some help with music identification from you guys. I spoke to Gary Guttman if this music is his, and it's not. He doesn't know whose it is. In the video, it also plays when John Hammond appears. Take a listen and see if you know what it is:

 

http://www.trescom.org/hosted/scallenger/jpride/Hammond Queue Theme.mp3

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Huh, no idea on that Hammond music. The ties to the island fanfare are pretty obvious, but it doesn't sound like a Williams composition or recording. I assume it's an "inspired by" cue written by another composer after the fact?

 

As for the music you originally asked about back in 2013, I'm having a hard time hearing it distinctly in the videos, but it certainly doesn't sound like anything I recognize from the first film.

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Honestly the more maddening thing about this is looking at just how much of the ride has degraded. Compare the documentary to that 2013 footage. (That one dinosaur in the water certainly doesnt live there anymore)

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11 hours ago, Turbo said:

 

I'd literally just gone to UPPM to find library tracks 'inspired by' JP :)

 

The similar-but-different melody jumped out at me as being library music. If it were composed specially, they'd allow the use of JW's themes.

 

Are we assuming that the eerie sounding cue above is by Gary Guttman?

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Oh wow, thank you! Man this guy really channeled his inner Williams for this lol. No wonder they used it for the attraction's queue.

 

I was wondering if you anyone is also able to figure out the following tracks. I tried to upload them just as videos to YouTube to attempt to use their copyright identification to figure them out, but apparently no-go. Since they are uploaded for now I figured I'd see if you guys can figure any of these ones out:

 

https://www.youtube.com/user/scallenger87/videos

 

And yes, as far as I know it is by Gary, but he told me he does not posses the music anymore.

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  • 2 weeks later...

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