Michael Giacchino's Jurassic World (2015)

[KK 3,307]

There's not much you can do with a three-note motif, though. I mean, how much can you change something so small before it's unrecognizable? If you change one note in a three-note theme, it's already a third different. That's a pretty good amount.

Don't agree with this flawed logic.

But I do agree that I wouldn't include 3:49 as one of Giacchino's JW references.

[gkgyver 1,645]

Kick ass themes with three notes: Voldemort from HP 1 for example. LotR squeezes three or four distinct themes out of three notes.

There are also plenty of fanfares being varied in quite a few scores.

[KK 3,307]

And in case people need reminding of the most obvious:

[Hlao-roo 389]

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2015/06/12/how_michael_giacchino_creates_a_new_masterpiece_from_the_original_jurassic.html

Giacchino has mastered Williams’ vocabulary in the service of making his own fresh statements. A lot of this fluency manifests on the level of tone color: Like Williams, Giacchino favors epic brass lines (especially in the gorgeously orchestrated horns) here, and he occasionally indulges in Williams’ penchant for wind and pitched percussion flourish as well. But it’s in the arena of melody that we see just how simpatico Giacchino and Williams really are. Much of the indelibility of the original Jurassic Park music is due to its brilliant simplicity. At root, the whole structure is built on the breathtaking power of disjunct motion in a melody—the space between the notes leaves us hanging in midair, which makes finally landing on the next note all the more satisfying. That—combined with Williams’ skill at elaborating basic melodic cells into grand suites of music (Jurassic Park’s “da-do-da-ba-ba” kaleidoscopes across that score much like Beethoven’s “ba-ba-ba-bum” does across the Fifth Symphony)—produced a tightly constructed masterpiece. Giacchino has smartly taken a similar tack here, elaborating on both his own and Williams’ fragments across the score—so deftly, in fact, that I found myself laughing out loud at a number of moments where the writing coyly suggested the return of one theme only to skip off in a different direction.

[KK 3,307]

Isn't this the same guy who was talking about Zimmer's genius application of gravity, time, string theory and particle physics in Interstellar? Is this the best guy they could get to write about film music? He just throws out musical jargon meaninglessly to seem like he's educated on the matter.

He's clearly out of his depth here.

[curlytoot 97]

Kick ass themes with three notes: Voldemort from HP 1 for example. LotR squeezes three or four distinct themes out of three notes.

There are also plenty of fanfares being varied in quite a few scores.

I never said there weren't great themes (or more technically, motifs) with only three notes. I said that with only three notes in a theme, changing one note makes it virtually unrecognizable. Take the Voldemort one for example: what if I were to take that last note and simply move it up a step? It would suddenly sound completely different, perhaps like the first three notes of Shore's "Misty Mountains". There are certainly a great many effective and even memorable three-note motives, but there simply aren't enough notes in them to be able to have many "variations". A rhythmic alteration would be the better route to go, and lots of composers employ that as a way to change things up. I just don't think that lick in "As the Jurassic World Turns" warrants being called a variation of the three-note JP motif. Not in any way trying to bash Williams' JP motif; it's great.

[KK 3,307]

Kick ass themes with three notes: Voldemort from HP 1 for example. LotR squeezes three or four distinct themes out of three notes.

There are also plenty of fanfares being varied in quite a few scores.

I never said there weren't great themes (or more technically, motifs) with only three notes. I said that with only three notes in a theme, changing one note makes it virtually unrecognizable. Take the Voldemort one for example: what if I were to take that last note and simply move it up a step? It would suddenly sound completely different, perhaps like the first three notes of Shore's "Misty Mountains".

Once again, I point you to Signs. The notes alternate consistently throughout. Pitch isn't the only thing that characterizes a theme. You can reference a theme just as effectively with rhythm or harmony as done by guys like Williams and Shore on many occasions.

[curlytoot 97]

I hear the SIGNS three-note motif from 0:25-0:45 and then just different, additional material afterwards (like a B section or something). The mood is consistent throughout, but that rising three-note theme only seems to show up at that one spot.

[KK 3,307]

I was referring to the score as a whole.

For instance, in the main title cue you hear the motif as a P4+b5. And then in the cue below you hear it start with P5+b5 and continuing changing throughout the cue. By your logic, the change in the second note should make the motif unrecognizable. But it isn't, because it uses rhythm and colour to help identify it.

[curlytoot 97]

Okay, that's a very good point; I absolutely agree with that. But in a non-repeated, isolated instance of the JP motif, I don't think the same thing necessarily applies. It's either it, or it's not.

[KK 3,307]

In this instance, I agree. I was just trying to point there are more variables than the number of notes when it comes to these things.

[gkgyver 1,645]

Seems like only John Williams knows how to use John Williams themes. I am reminded of this Don Davis quote whenever I hear a failed/awkward take on material like this:

Well, in that case, it was pretty daunting, because when you casually listen to John’s themes, they don't sound that complicated or unusual, but they are unusual, unusual in that they are unusually good! He got me all of his sketches from the first two Jurassic Park movies and I just started looking through them and I said to myself, "Jesus, what have I gotten myself into!?" <Laughs> There's such integrity in his music, and it's very subtle integrity, you know, just the integrity of the line. Every line that he has in there is so rich with potential harmonic information. So, I'm going through it and it's like, "Man, I don't know if I can hack this!"

Karol

I revisited JP 3 (the score), and Davis' work is a different ballgame than Giacchino's. Davis has a way better knack for weaving in Williams-esque soundscapes.

[Jay 37,283]

Davis's score is like halfway between a Don Davis action score and a John Williams action score.

Giacchino's is a Giacchino action score with some Williams cameos.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Quintus 5,399]

That Don Davis quote above is awesome. Love reading about how other composers feel humbled whenever they look at Williams' music.

[crocodile 7,983]

Some more then (albeit less related to the main thread). It's funny how he predicted Williams post-2003 fall into obscurity (in the first one):

I'm not so sure that younger composers are trying to be like John Williams because if they are, then they're failing! <Laughs> But I think possibly it has more to do with the infusion of popular music on film scoring - and record type composers aren't really geared towards the "John Williams" type of thought pattern. I think one thing we're seeing now, in spades, is that since the record industry is crumbling fast, due mostly to Napster and the proliferation of on-line piracy, many record / songwriter-type composers are getting out of the record business and they're trying get films to score, and they're getting them. In addition to that, film directors and producers at this point in time have grown up in a rock music culture and orchestral music is becoming more and more foreign to them. So I think for that reason, to try and perpetuate the John Williams legacy is going to become difficult.

And another interesting one:

The obvious ones are still there, you know, the Goldsmiths and Williams are pretty hard to dismiss. But it will actually be interesting to see what happens when these composers actually do pass. I think it would be interesting checking out exactly what their legacy is going to be when they are gone. I mean, we've really only been able to assess Stravinsky after he died. His legacy certainly still continues, but so will Boulez's and even Williams'. The nature of film scoring is such that trends and fashions have a lot more to do with it then they do with concert music. So, it will be interesting to see, once John Williams is no longer with us, how his legacy will play out. Even now, I think that there is some negativity associated with any attempt to expressly deal his legacy, unless one is scoring Jurassic Park III or doing what Bill Ross did on Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. It seems that it isn't fruitful for film composers to try and build on that legacy. In fact, building on any sort of legacy, or lineage in film scoring seems to be frowned upon. I'm not really sure why that is, that shouldn't be the case.

Seems like only John Williams knows how to use John Williams themes. I am reminded of this Don Davis quote whenever I hear a failed/awkward take on material like this:

Well, in that case, it was pretty daunting, because when you casually listen to John’s themes, they don't sound that complicated or unusual, but they are unusual, unusual in that they are unusually good! He got me all of his sketches from the first two Jurassic Park movies and I just started looking through them and I said to myself, "Jesus, what have I gotten myself into!?" <Laughs> There's such integrity in his music, and it's very subtle integrity, you know, just the integrity of the line. Every line that he has in there is so rich with potential harmonic information. So, I'm going through it and it's like, "Man, I don't know if I can hack this!"

Karol

I revisited JP 3 (the score), and Davis' work is a different ballgame than Giacchino's. Davis has a way better knack for weaving in Williams-esque soundscapes.

Davis made a JW stew using his own techniques. To me, the closest (probably not very accurate comparison) comparison to this is how Edgar Varese reconfigured Stravinsky in his Arcana. I'm exaggerating here, of course.

Karol

[Luke Skywalker 1,792]

While i love Davis work, sometimes the action cues are too much. It's like Williams' complex ultralayered cues but without restraint or Williams excellent melodic and counterpointg craftmanship.

Giacchino could have used more references. Clerly the raptor or rex should have used the carnivore motif, and then create his new theme for the indominous. At least he did not eliminate random notes to make williams main themes sound a little different...

The arrival of the park with main theme was well used...it scores the awe for the park, but the helicopter journey was weird placed. (Setting perfect, -helicopter ride though the island- but the dialogue parts at the wrong place...

[Giftheck 916]

Do you reckon Giacchino wrote anything unique for the end credits? I saw the film yesertday and the credits started with a piano rendition at the start that sounded a lot like they may have come straight from Jurassic Park's end credits recording as opposed to newly recorded. (I did not stay to hear the entire suite). I'm also a little surprised that he did not do what Davis did and perform an arragement of the full Jurassic Park suite, though I won't say I'm entirely disappointed as it's on all the other Jurassic Park soundtracks.

Is it me, though, or is the CD mastered worse when compared to, say, Star Trek Into Darkness?

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[crocodile 7,983]

Correct.

Karol

[Giftheck 916]

Pity. I was hoping he'd create a specific theme for the end credits like he did with Star Trek.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Giftheck 916]

Didn't he just use Courage's theme for the end credits?

He used an orchestrated version of it at the start of the sequence, yes, then a short version of Spock's theme. What goes in between that and Giacchino's own Star Trek theme differs between the films: in 2009, you get a more action-styled version of Spock's theme woven with Giacchino's ST theme, followed by a reprisal of "Matter, I Barely Know Her" (same recording as the actual cue but with a new ending recorded) before it transitions to Giacchino's ST theme. In STID, after Spock's Theme (cut from the soundtrack but recorded), they tracked in "London Calling" and "Ode To Harrison" before going to Giacchino's theme.

I expected something similar for this soundtrack: a return of John Williams' theme, before moving on to themes in the film and with the new Jurassic World theme at the end. Unfortunately, Giacchino pulled a Desplat.

[crocodile 7,983]

Well The Park Is Closed must have been written specifically for end credits, if that's what you mean. Didn't stay to find out what followed. It was probably stuff from suite track.

Karol

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Giftheck 916]

Perhaps it's just that the soundtrack, at least in the current OST release format, doesn't seem nearly as memorable as some of Giacchino's other works, particularly his work in both Star Trek and Medal of Honor.

[crocodile 7,983]

It's not the most favourable of albums out there. Complete score, as heard in the film, makes much better impression. Trust me.

Karol

[BloodBoal 7,538]

It's not the most favourable of albums out there. Complete score, as heard in the film, makes much better impression. Trust me.

Indeed. We need the sessions!

[Giftheck 916]

Maybe they'll get posted when the academy awards come around!

[jacksparrow900 32]

This has got to be the saddest laziest review of the score.

 

I just came from the movie, oh god it was awesome. It was the shit. And I actually liked Giacchino's score, thought it went perfectly with the vibe of JURASSIC WORLD. I honestly was and am glad Giacchino was brought in, instead of John Williams. Before anyone of you screams to me "BLASPHEMY!" you listen to me first. JURASSIC WORLD is a different movie.. it needs a different score. John Williams is John Williams, he's a great composer and musical master, but for the type of action in the movie, Giacchino was a better choice. Besides, Williams is old and maybe sick. If he did Star Wars VI is because he FELT he had the obligation, as he had done all of the others and Star Wars just wouldn't be Star Wars without him. But JURASSIC PARK is a whole different movie from Jurassic Park.. so I FELT it was right..

[Giftheck 916]

What a load of bunk! Aside from his back, John Williams is in perfect health for a man of his age. And that review heavily implies that he couldn't have adapted, which we all know is wrong. The guy should look how different Lost World is to Jurassic Park for examples.

He also did not catch the bit where Williams said he wanted to do VII (spelling mistake here, as thoughout that review - he called it VI - unless JW has a time machine )

[BloodBoal 7,538]

That part was also pretty good:

On 13/06/2015 at 12:30 PM, jacksparrow900 said:

But JURASSIC PARK is a whole different movie from Jurassic Park.. so I FELT it was right..

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

It wasn't RAPE rape...

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2015/06/12/how_michael_giacchino_creates_a_new_masterpiece_from_the_original_jurassic.html

Giacchino has mastered Williams’ vocabulary in the service of making his own fresh statements. A lot of this fluency manifests on the level of tone color: Like Williams, Giacchino favors epic brass lines (especially in the gorgeously orchestrated horns) here, and he occasionally indulges in Williams’ penchant for wind and pitched percussion flourish as well. But it’s in the arena of melody that we see just how simpatico Giacchino and Williams really are. Much of the indelibility of the original Jurassic Park music is due to its brilliant simplicity. At root, the whole structure is built on the breathtaking power of disjunct motion in a melody—the space between the notes leaves us hanging in midair, which makes finally landing on the next note all the more satisfying. That—combined with Williams’ skill at elaborating basic melodic cells into grand suites of music (Jurassic Park’s “da-do-da-ba-ba” kaleidoscopes across that score much like Beethoven’s “ba-ba-ba-bum” does across the Fifth Symphony)—produced a tightly constructed masterpiece. Giacchino has smartly taken a similar tack here, elaborating on both his own and Williams’ fragments across the score—so deftly, in fact, that I found myself laughing out loud at a number of moments where the writing coyly suggested the return of one theme only to skip off in a different direction.

A lot of words to say very little at all.

I hear the SIGNS three-note motif from 0:25-0:45 and then just different, additional material afterwards (like a B section or something). The mood is consistent throughout, but that rising three-note theme only seems to show up at that one spot.

The three note motif (known as the Viennese Trichord) is heard from 0:00-25, but frozen in time as a chord. (D-A-Eb sounded by a string quartet, playing a mixture of harmonics and natural notes, then two ocarinas come in any play the secundal clash D-Eb). So it's the same motif we hear later (A-D-Eb) but rotated and transformed into a vertical sonority. The section after 0:45 is just an exploration of the octatonic space suggested by the three note motif. A-D-Eb belongs to the ocatonic collection of C-D-Eb-F-Gb-Ab-A-B.

[Jay 37,283]

The end credits were The Park Is Closed, Indominus stuff from the suite, a chunk of As The Juassic World Turns, and then I don't remember how it ended.

[Max 141]

I thought The Park Is Closed played over the montage of the empty Jurassic World before the end credits started and that Jurassic World Suite started with the end credits? I might have been too distracted thinking about that final action scene, though.

I noticed something pretty cool today. I was listening to Chasing The Dragons, and when the ostinato played from 1:20-1:26, it sounded almost *exactly* like the raptor call from Jurassic Park III. I wonder if that was intentional. If so, that's a great effect!

[Jay 37,283]

No, Nine To Survival job is all the final scenes in the film right up to the start of the end credits.

[Anthony 572]

Yes, and The Park Is Closed is the start of the end credits. Also, I'm pretty sure the start of the suite contains most of the music from the "Does This Dinosaur Make Jurassic Look Big?" cue that was axed from the album.

I was surprised the JP visitors centre music wasn't on the soundtrack...that was the best use of Williams' music.

All of the InGen/ACU stuff was great, though I'm certain there is more of it in the film. I agree with whoever mentioned it above - cutting the suite and the source music and replacing them with more score cues could have made a better album. Sunrise O'er Jurassic World is great though. Where was it used in the film?

[Jay 37,283]

"Does This Dino Make Jurassic Look Big" IS on the OST - its the first half of track 4. Scroll back a bit, we figured it all out!

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[Luke Skywalker 1,792]

Damn... i was listening to the score after the film viewing... and my ipod died, and i'm nowhere near my computer at all...

Will have to wait untill it recharges...

I'm really liking Giacchino's theme.

About the End credits no usage of Williams end credit music, i hope they recorded the main theme as a kind of 'schiffrin and variations' or something, just to tune up the orchestra...

[Not Mr. Big 4,639]

[peter.anschutz 43]

I just came back from seeing Jurassic World, and I wanted to chime in on a mini discussion that occurred a few pages ago.

I think there is indeed a musical reference to the truck chase scene and "Desert Chase" track of Raiders of the Lost Ark during the truck/raptor chase scene in this film. The scene in Jurassic World is almost certainly a homage to Raiders, just one of several homages to non-Jurassic Park films contained in JW. The musical reference occurs in "Raptor Your Heart Out" at 2:06-2:11, and corresponds to 2:22-2:32 of "Desert Chase." The onscreen action in JW is basically the same as what happens in Raiders, except Claire replaces Indy and the raptors replace the Nazis. Just as Indy forces the Nazis driving beside the truck into the trees, Claire does the same with the raptors running alongside her truck. I think the musical reference occurs specifically during the shot of the raptor in the side-view mirror, which is the same shot in Raiders. I have to assume the musical reference is intended to further invoke that scene from Raiders.

Here's a quote from a review that mentions other homages contained in the film.

"There are a lot of references to seminal movies in Jurassic World. One scene evokes Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, another scene borrows heavily from Alien, and there are flourishes from Lassie and Jaws thrown in for effect. But Jurassic World doesn't want to be those films. Rather its homages are intended to make sure you know and respect the classics, and understand that Jurassic World is not one of them."

http://www.vox.com/2015/6/11/8761885/jurassic-world-movie-review

Are there any other small musical references that correspond to these? I didn't notice anything resembling music from Jaws on the OST, but I'm not sure if the mosasaurus show cue made it to the album. And if I remember correctly, The Birds doesn't really have a score, right? What about the others mentioned above?

[Jay 37,283]

Hmmm so around 2:40 in this video then

[gkgyver 1,645]

Having listened to the first 25 minutes of the music, I would say it's a good score. Having listened to the second half of it, I have to say that second 30 minutes are dull as hell. Completely unengaging, irrelevant stuff. At some point, I can't take those dull rhythms, and trumpet staccatos/rhythms/stabs anymore. It's also not very specific for the film. When Giacchino's main theme reaches its final choral conclusion, it's just the usual large brass theme token statement.

The theme is also lacking in Jurassic Park style, it lacks flair, panache, punch ... I want that feeling of revelation and a shiver down my spine with a main theme, that the composer plays it, and it hits you right away.

The statement of The Lost World theme is more interesting than 99,5% of Giacchino's music. The suite at the end is ultimately the most interesting part for me, the rest can be cut down to 2 or 3 tracks for a compilation, and that's it.

I'm constantly reminded of other scores in Jurassic World; JP, TLW, the main theme somehow feels like it breaks into Titanic any second, and for some strange reason, does Giacchino unintentionally quote one of Goldsmith's Star Trek themes near the end (52:00 in the YouTube video)? One thing I'm not reminded of: Jurassic World.

What fans REALLY want is an ORIGINAL score in the vein of the original two films, with new GREAT themes, and not some undercooked mix of regular action music, average motifs, and seemingly randomly picked quotes from earlier, better, scores. Giacchino's score is the musical equivalent to that godawful Terminator trailer, which reassembles classic situations, stitches them somehow together and hopes people will buy it.

What this score also reminds me of is that Giacchino is the perfect choice to score Bond movies.

Let him have a swing at Bond for heaven's sake, instead of that dreary dull fuck Thomas Newman!

[peter.anschutz 43]

Hmmm so around 2:40 in this video then

I'd actually say 3:55-4:05 is the closest parallel to Jurassic World/Raiders scene and score.

[Jay 37,283]

Yea, I forgot that horn rip played twice

[Anthony 572]

"Does This Dino Make Jurassic Look Big" IS on the OST - its the first half of track 4. Scroll back a bit, we figured it all out!

I assumed Does This Dino Make Jurassic Look Big was the music playing when Claire shows Masrani the Indominus. If it is indeed the first half of track four (which is when Masrani is flying them to the Indominus paddock in the helicopter) that would put it out of order.

[BloodBoal 7,538]

[publicist 4,643]

This one rumbling horn theme at the 07:50 mark of the suite is serious fun - it's Williams/Goldsmith undiluted by Giacchino's usual thematic dyspnea.

That is my favourite one.

It's more John Barry in his Shostakovich mode but I agree.

First half Barry, second half is too busy for that, it's an amalgamation of the kind of bold Goldsmith fanfares á la the klingon theme. That this vertical kind of writing can only be applied as a road to nostalgia is sad.

[leeallen01 2,133]

Hmmm so around 2:40 in this video then

I'd actually say 3:55-4:05 is the closest parallel to Jurassic World/Raiders scene and score.

I did mention this exact thing and the exact time stamps of the brass riffs about 2 days ago.