Trope

Excited about the upcoming release of THE ROCKETEER in Full Score?   Join us on Saturday for this sure to be amazing ASMAC event (it's free and online - register on the link below).   Co-hosted by Chris Siddall Music and Dan Redfeld, we'll be joined by director of The Rocketeer; Joe Johnston, music editors Jim Henrickson and Joe E. Rand, and special guest Sara Horner as we discuss James Horner's scoring process and take a closer look at the music. We will also have a special message from orchestrator Conrad Pope, who sadly can't be with us on Saturday, but was able to sit down for a chat with us last week.   e-Tickets available on the link below. In the words of Eddie Valentine; "Go get 'em, kid!"  
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Edwards should have tried an AI director for the movie, too.

I mean, all four of those examples earlier in the thread show this, to me. There's a lot going on, but not much happening (my main complaint with Elfman). And yes, I feel the same way about Giacchino, but that's a tired road. 

Both Desplat and Giacchino are at their best when they just let their music breathe a little. When they are focused on bringing out the wonder and curiosity and the whimsical nature of human beings. I actually think Desplat does do counterpoints, good melodies, and interesting textures. But only in cues where you are allowed to notice them. For example, one of my favorites from Desplat is the Little Women cue. The music is not overly complex, but the layers and elements are put together in a way that enhances anticipation, and it feels magical. I still think the storytelling is a bit weak (it still sounds a bit like he is composing for himself rather than the picture) but this is the kind of stuff I dig. 
 
 
Giacchino is in the same boat. To me, his best stuff is not his frantic scoring, like Jupiter Ascending or Jurassic World: Dominion. That is because he has been reusing the same loopy strings, stretched horns forever and the unique narrative of the movie just fades away. Rather, it is when he is dedicated to bringing out a specific concept. Like Joy: 
 
 
Giacchino is a actually quite a charming composer. But you would never know if you just listen to his action scores. Even when he is using sweeping orchestra, it is best when he is focus on just making things wonderous and romantic:
 
 
The last point I want to make is that there are nuances to the question "Is a composer overrated." A composer can be overrated in specific situations, some genres, from certain perspectives, and underrated in others. 

Now here is a long post! I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it. And if there are any correction suggestions fire away, especially on the nuts and bolts of music theory of which I profess very little knowledge.

And many thanks to all the people from this messageboard without whose excellent discussion and insights this analysis would not have been possible. You know who you are.
 
UPDATE December 2016: The analysis now includes information and revisions based on the Lala-Land Records The John Williams Jurassic Park Collection which features the complete The Lost World: Jurassic Park score.
 
 
The Lost World: Jurassic Park
John Williams on a symphonic rampage
 

 
A Complete Score Analysis
by Mikko Ojala
 
 
In 1997 four years after the original box office monster Jurassic Park had stomped onto the big screen and brought the dinosaurs so vividly to life through the magic of special effects wizardry, Steven Spielberg released the much clamored sequel to his hit film. The Lost World: Jurassic Park was loosely based on the novel by Michael Chrichton, whose own initial reluctance for writing a sequel (he had never done so before) was finally assuaged by Spielberg himself, who requested it after the success of the first film. The second Jurassic Park novel was released in 1995 and after the period of adaptation of the book into a script (by David Koepp), the production of the new movie began in 1996. Koepp’s script retains only some major outlines of the novel, mainly the locale of Isla Nublar’s sister island Isla Sorna, forsakes nearly all the characters and uses some broad ideas of the action that took place in the book but replaces the ending with a dinosaur rampage through San Diego. This was actually a suggestion from Spielberg during the late stages of the production and the original ending prepared and storyboarded before the last minute change was much more in line with the novel with an exciting chase involving Velociraptors and Pteranodons.
 
Interestingly some elements of the script migrated right out from the original Jurassic Park novel, in particular the scenes with the small Compsognathi dinosaurs from various points in that story. The only retuning character from the previous film and novel is the nervous and edgy chaos theorist and a mathematician Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) with a whole new supporting cast of Malcolm’s love interest paleontologist Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore), Malcolm’s teenage daughter Kelly (Vanessa Lee Chester), a big game hunter Roland Tembo (Pete Postlethwaite), John Hammond’s greedy corporate businessman nephew Peter Ludlow (Arliss Howard), a documentarian and environmental activist Nick Van Owen (Vince Vaughn) and Roland’s second-in-command Dieter Stark (Peter Stormare). In addition the film features a cameo apprearance of three main characters from the original film, Richard Attenborough reprising his role as John Hammond the capitalist entrepreneur now turned naturalist and Joseph Mazzello and Ariana Richards as his grandchildren Tim and Lex Murphy.

The film takes place several years after the horrifying events of Jurassic Park. Dr. Ian Malcolm, a survivor of the Isla Nublar incident is drawn much against his will back to the world of dinosaurs by John Hammond who invites him to lead a scientific expedition to another island full of dinosaurs. Hammond has kept the knowledge of Isla Nublar’s sister island Isla Sorna secret from the world and reveals that it was originally the site of the creation of the dinosaurs and that they were bred and raised there and then moved to the larger Isla Nublar and the park itself. These beasts are by some miracle still alive and well even though they were supposed to die without human provided nutrients. Malcolm refuses flatly to go but is forced to accept Hammond’s offer as he hears that the millionaire has hired his girl friend paleontologist Sarah Harding to document the dinosaurs in their natural habitat. She jumped at the chance and is already on the island. With no alternative Malcolm wants to mount a rescue operation immeadiately. Thus begins the journey to the island that conincides with the plans of the ruthless head of the InGen Bioengineering Peter Ludlow of salvaging dinosaurs from the island to reap profit from them, the operation going awry, dinosaurs on a rampage, a desperate escape from the island and finally a T-Rex on the loose in the streets of San Diego. The stuff of wildest dinosaur dreams for monster hungry movie crowds.

The Lost World proved to be another box office smash even though its world wide gross was considerably less than its predecessor's. It still held the record for the best opening weekend for 4 and half years until another Williams scored film, Harry Potter and the Philosopher Stone (2001) dethroned it and the highest single day box office take for a couple of years until Star Wars Episode I The Phantom Menace claimed the honor, again scored by Mr. Williams.

Despite the huge box office success the film got mixed reviews that commented both positively and negatively on the plot, the characters and the action and the movie garnered a plethora of mainly special effects plaudits, award nominations and wins. It was even nominated for Razzies in three categories but lost in all of them (Williams was nominated for an Academy Award for Amistad that year but lost to James Horner's enormously successful and popular Titanic).

Whatever the merits or failings of the film itself, its score stands proudly as one of the most unique, daring and energetic of John Williams’ career. Here in his 14th collaboration with Steven Spielberg the composer has once again renewed himself and indeed created in chameleon style a new voice. The music is as much a departure as it is a return to the sound of Jurassic Park, the composer treading different ground in the sequel that contains only hints of the familiar themes and atmosphere that was so effective and made dinosaurs so magical only four years prior.

New sound for the sequel
Steven Spielberg’s initial impulse was to create something very different for this film, as he well knew that it would certainly not so much about the wonder of the dinosaurs anymore since the audience knew what to expect  and more about darker sense of adventure, and so he asked from Williams a different stylistic approach for the score than for its predecessor. He wanted it to be exotic and tropical, percussive and driving, addressing as much the action as it did the location.
 
Williams when interviewed for the The Lost World :Jurassic Park DVD documentary commented on the starting point for the new score: Steven’s idea was that this was all taking place on an island in some Carribean area and that the music might have, might be driven by some drums if you like. Or some sort of ethnic or jungle kind of texture or flavour that might drive the music and might give it a kind of unique flavour. And so much of what in the action sequences I did, to begin with at least, was driven by this drum thing, which I enjoyed and we had some wonderful percussionists come onto the stage and it contributed in a nice flavour, I think, to the film.[1]

Themes for a Lost World
With the new locale, characters and situations it seems like Williams started his writing almost from scratch and in this respect the score resembles his gripping and thrilling sequel score for Jaws 2, where he created a whole new extension for the franchise’s world to complement the famous Jaws theme with all new musical motifs and ideas. Similarly in this film the familiar and famous main themes from Jurassic Park return but are complemented by prominent all-new thematic material.
 
Returning Themes
The Island Fanfare that previously addressed the heroic and adventurous side of the action in Jurassic Park, most notably underscoring the magnificent helicopter approach to Isla Nublar, is used mostly in subtle references, rising only a few times to heroic proportions in the new score. This theme is also heavily referenced for a sense of nostalgia, the subdued variations giving it an air of worn and by-gone glory and often commenting on the broken dream of the Jurassic Park. The actual hymn-like Theme from Jurassic Park (titled Dinosaurs in the original score) appears only in the last scene of the film to signal a happy ending to Ian Malcolm’s adventure. The haunting and ominous 4-note Carnivore motif, that in the first film heralded the appearance of the most dangerous dinosaurs, T-Rex and the Velociraptors in particular, makes fleeting appearances in the sequel e.g. when the dreaded raptors are mentioned for the first time.
The Lost World
The new primary musical idea of the Lost World is the theme of the same name. This heroic, energetic and questing melody is usually carried by the horns, trombones and strings, augmented by a varied battery of rolling percussion, creating at once the sense of travel, the exotic jungle location of the story and adventure with a hint of danger to it. It begins with a minor key scale ascension that almost builds up through the scale and gives a feeling of progress and movement towards a goal. Williams further elaborated on this theme in his traditional concert version which he wrote for the end credits (this piece can be heard as the opening of the original soundtrack album).
 
Pounding drums announce the theme, playing a forceful rhythm that carries through the whole piece and becomes a sort of musical motif in itself. The swaying melody, almost a Spanish or South American flavoured waltz or sarabande surges forward with dazzling brass and percussion interjections, woodwind runs and subtle synth accompaniment, becoming more and more agitated, hinting danger and sudden dire turn of events in its bridge melody but finally overcoming the obstacles it returns to the main theme, bursting victoriously to a rapturous and rhythmic finale augmented by the whole percussion section with tambourine adding an almost festive colour to the proceedings.

Here Williams has created a perfect theme for a jungle adventure that in its contours captures both the excitement of exploration and awe and the danger of an island full of dinosaurs and contains the right amount of exoticism to illustrate locale of the story. Noteworthy is that despite being the main new theme of the score, this musical idea is used sparingly in the context of the film, where its grander readings are reserved for exploration sequences on Isla Sorna and most adventurous moments early in the movie. The theme actually seems to neatly bookend the whole Isla Sorna experience as it is first heard on the voyage there and then again when the protagonists are leaving the island after their adventure.
 
The Island’s Voice
The other central musical theme in the score is subtler but ever pervasive, in essence a replacement for the original 4-note Carnivore motif from the first film. This new rising 4-note motif, which from now on is called The Island’s Voice in this analysis, is at least initially more mysterious and ominous than the cruelly rising and direct Carnivore motif from the previous film yet remains a close cousin to it. Williams uses these ascending 4 notes to maximum effect in his music, injecting the score with this signal throughout the film, often cleverly interpolating it to nearly any situation, a grim reminder of the dangers inherent in the encounters between dinosaurs and men.
 
This music often appears to warn the listener of the carnivorous dinosaurs, Velociraptors and the T-Rexes and to create a sense of foreboding that is so clearly and well captured in these 4 simple ascending notes that seem to be telling us that in Jurassic Park the dinosaurs were dangerous but confined to the park but this time on Isla Sorna they are the ones in complete dominance and roaming free. This material is often woven into the frenetic and percussive action sequences with such skill that it is hard to notice this musical backbone of the entire score from its environment. And as the story progresses so does the insistence and weight of this musical signal, assuming highly dramatic, ponderous and exclamatory form in the final scenes of the Tyrannosaurus loose in San Diego. It could be said that over the course of the film this motif becomes the musical glue that binds much of the score together.

The Percussion and Jungle Sounds
As mentioned above in Williams’ quote, the percussion plays a large part in the orchestrations of this score and lends a very specific texture and feel to the music. This collection of instruments includes e.g. congas, bongos, "jungle drums", taiko drums, gourds, guiro, log drums and tabla alongside the more traditional orchestral percussion of timpani and bass drum providing a pulse and rhythm that drives the events constantly forward. The brooding, tropical jungle atmosphere is further enhanced by other instruments, such as shakuhachi and "animal sounds" effects played by a synthesizer.[2]

Williams has several different percussion instruments or sections playing layered rhythms over and under the orchestral textures and motifs and offering them even some solo moments where the pure percussion rhythm independently churns underneath the action before the next burst of thematic ideas from the orchestra.

Aleatoric Procompsognathi and Other Musical Terrors
Another common stylistic element in this score is aleatoric writing. To create a sense of chaos and terror, Williams provides a series of pitches to a group of instruments and instructs them to play them quickly ad lib for a given number of measures. Although this technique has been used in many scores by Williams and other composers, The Lost World employs this effect with unusual frequency.[3] In fact this chirping, whirling, wild and agitated aleatoric writing becomes in itself a musical signature for the small carnivorous Compsognathi dinosaurs and is heard whenever they appear.

This style of writing is also attached to the most frenzied of the action music and underscores the dinosaur attacks throughout the movie but it is especially noticeable in the Raptor sequence towards the end of the film. This bed of sizzling effects adds another layer of raw terror to the proceedings, lending animalistic furore to the music.
 
***

As a whole the sequel score is much darker than its predecessor as the film does not offer us so much moments of awe and marvel as mounting anticipation of the coming terrifying encounters with the dinosaurs. There is less a sense of mystery than there is of foreboding and Williams’ music enhances this feel considerably from the start. At appropriate moments the music will also sound heroic, positive and luminous often quoting the old themes with almost a sense of nostalgia but as a whole Williams roots the score in darker textures and motifs with lots of low woodwind, string and brass writing, earthy tones, complex rhythms and driving beats.
 
The rhythm seems to define this music so much that many pieces seem to revolve solely around them, forgoing themes for pure percussive effect and each track seems to have a nearly unique percussion rhythm and feel to it, with each instrument echoing the percussion at varying points. Williams offers a small personal analysis on the differences of the two Jurassic Park scores in the DVD interview: I have not made an experiment of comparing the two scores but I think we’d find that Lost World is probably more frightening, maybe more dissonant, maybe a little bit more... with little harder edge to it and maybe scarier than Jurassic Park would be, of necessity because of the different styles and look and texture of each film. [4]

The new score is as Williams puts it more aggressive and harsher, the action music more propulsive than thematic or balletic like in many previous Spielberg/Williams collaborations perhaps taking its cue from its predecessor Jurassic Park where Williams already constructed his action set pieces around small musical cells like the aforementioned Carnivore motif and built independent yet stylistically connected action sequences for that film. This new sound fits the movie to perfection complementing and enhancing its atmosphere and world considerably. It could be said that The Lost World is to an extent a watershed between the old Williams sound of the early 90’s and the modern Williams of the 2000’s. It contains elements from both worlds and perhaps is reflection of change in the film making as well, the movies demanding more and more rhythmic propulsion and pulse over operatic and balletic thematic development that the composer is so known for, especially in Spielberg films. And surely Williams as an artist is ever self-improving and these shifts in his style could be seen as development of his compositional voice and thinking throughout this period.

The Lost World Pillaged in Post Production
It is a well-known fact that film music is nearly always presented in some way edited form in the film as the medium often requires adjustments to the one hundreth of a second, fast changes for new edits of scenes or the whole film, the music facilitating special effects work etc. and The Lost World is no different. Steven Spielberg usually affords Williams’ music with enormous respect and has even in some instances done the opposite of the norm and edited his film to music (the finale of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial is the classic example), but in The Lost World music went through a bit more rigorous editing process. It might have been the last minute special effects work as the movie did have longer scenes with CGI dinosaurs and ILM did a lot of late post production work on the material or Spielberg's absence from the recording sessions since he was in the final stages of shooting his next film Amistad but whatever the reason was, the score was tinkered with quite heavily in places in the post production.
 
Tracking, editing and placing music written for a specific scene into a different one, took place most likely because so late in the post production there was no time for Williams to write replacement material nor prepare additional pick-up scoring sessions before the release of the film and his other film commitments that year (Jean-Jacques Annaud's Seven Years in Tibet and Spielberg’s second film Amistad) would not allow it. Most notable case of tracking, made evident by its frequent use, is the inserting of the concert/end credits version of the Lost World theme into many scenes where Williams had either written different music or that were not scored at all.
 
The reason for this is that Steven Spielberg after hearing the main theme fell in love with it and wanted to make wider use of it in the film although the original concept had been that the theme only underscores the arrival and departure from Isla Sorna and the end credits. The comparison of these replacements with the original musical ideas would indicate that Williams’ original vision of the music is a good deal darker than what Spielberg wanted in the end as the most prominent placements of the tracked main theme suggests a need to add positive, heroic or triumphant feel to the sequences and keep the main theme in the music throughout the score, whereas Williams most often uses it sparingly as was the original plan. As there was no time to revise the music after the director's input late in the post production, tracking was the method chosen to accommodate the director's wishes.

Editing and tracking of the music in the film itself present a slightly fragmentary picture of the score as a whole, especially when the finished product is compared to the music as it was originally conceived. It is not the worse case of a film score being edited to pieces (like e.g. Horner's Aliens) in the post production but this is the first so prominent a case in a Spielberg/Williams collaboration even though done here with certain amount of respect to his original ideas.
 
***
 
The score was recorded at Sony Pictures Scoring Stage in Los Angeles in two chunks in the spring of 1997 (March 18-21 and April 18th, 20-22 1997) with Spielberg away finishing the principal photography of his next film Amistad, much as he had been away in Poland filming Schindler's List when Williams was recording the score for Jurassic Park. The music was orchestrated by Williams' frequent collaborators Conrad Pope and John Neufeld and it was performed by the Hollywood studio musicians.

The original soundtrack album released at the time the film came out offered 68 minutes of music from the film, presenting many of the major hightlights from the score and Williams as is his habit, edited together and truncated some musical sequences for listening experience purposes. The complete score runs for almost 2 hours, so well over 40 minutes of music have remained unreleased and also in part unused until LaLa-Land Records' The John Williams Jurassic Park Collection which came out on 29th of November 2016 and included the complete score presentations of both Jurassic Park and the Lost World.
 

TRACK-BY-TRACK ANALYSIS
All tracks are named by their original Williams given cue titles. This is followed in parentheses by the disc and track number on the John Williams Jurassic Park Collection and the original soundtrack album if the music can be found on it and the time stamps of where in the track the music can be found. After this comes the the orchestrator information for each cue and the length of the sheet music (in bars).

1. The Island’s Voice (1m1) 3:38 (LLL set D 3 Track 2, OST track 2 The Island Prologue, 0:00-3:32)
Orchestrator: John Neufeld
Length (sheet music): 68 bars

Rumbling contra clarinets, tam tams and ominously murmuring low strings open the score as we see a tropical coastline, hear the crashing of the waves and a title card announces the location: Isla Sorna 87 Miles Southwest of Isla Nublar. As the main titles appear Williams introduces the 4-note Island’s Voice motif on eerie synthesizers (the sound named in the written score as Animal Call) which is repeated twice over a bed of low woodwinds and subtle percussion (0:15-0:32). A solitary flute and brass voices slowly rise, supported by growing orchestral swells and percussion, piano adding sudden icy notes to the building atmosphere. With this musical portent the film introduces us to a luxurious yacht anchored off the coast of the island with the ship’s bustling crew and a rich British Bowman family coming into view. The music is eerie, uncomfortable, full of muted colours from brass, sizzling cold synthesizer sounds, yawning strings, cascades from the harp, a complete opposite of what we are seeing, a well-to-do family on a cruise having a picnic on the shore on a sunny day, but Williams’ music is most expressively hinting that something is not right.

It is suppertime on the beach and the family’s little girl Cathy (Camilla Belle) goes off to explore the beach with a sandwich in hand. At 2:04 a curious small melodic snippet on clarinet with synthesizer doubling is introduced as the girl arrives at the tropical forest edge and sees a little green lizard in the underbrush. She approaches it and wonders aloud what it is, even feeding some of her sandwich to the more than eager animal. At this point the music becomes increasingly uncomfortable, with all the different orchestral sections (especially the woodwinds and stopped horns) producing nervous and uneasy sounds until at 2:37 a climbing flute figures announce the arrival of a whole pack of these small green creatures from the jungle, the orchestra mimicing their movement and sounds and creating a slightly dangerous but curious feel as the Compsognathi surround the now frightened girl, jumping for the sandwich.

Williams presents here furious aleatoric writing for the Compsognathi that chirps and whirls, pace quickening, percussion pounding more and more agitated, sharp brass, rhythmic jabs from strings, shrill woodwind runs all careening into a rage. As the ship’s crew and the parents hear the little girl’s screams and rush to see what is wrong the Island’s Voice motif sounds again in trombones towards the frenzied finale (at 3:09-3:15) buried underneath the chaos, the final percussion supported woodwind howl underscoring the horrified scream of the mother rushing to the scene. The sudden end of the cue leads to the next scene where we see tired Ian Malcolm yawning in a New York subway, the image mirroring the screaming mother right down to the screeching of the stopping subway train.

Spielberg quite cleverly allowed Williams to score the action and letting the music tell us what has happened, the raging orchestra perfectly depicting a furious carnage happening off-screen and the sudden building panic at the end of the scene.

***

Ian Malcolm, a chaos theorist and a mathematician, one of the survivors of the original Jurassic Park incident, is on his way to meet John Hammond, the owner of the disastrous dinosaur theme park, who has invited him to his palatial residence for some mysterious reason. He is ushered into the house to the refined sound of Ludvig van Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 8 in C Minor, op. 13 "Pathetique" (Performed here by Jeno Jando) playing softly in the background and he meets in the hall Hammond’s grand children Lex and Tim with whom he shares a warm moment. But before Malcolm has a chance to see their grandfather he runs into Hammond's nephew and the current CEO of InGen corporation, Peter Ludlow, with whom he obviously is at odds. The two exchange icy insults, Malcolm finding out that Ludlow has wrested the control of InGen from his uncle due to the recent incident with the little girl and that he has plans of his own for it. We cut to Hammond’s bedroom to hear the old venture capitalist tycoon...

2. Revealing the Plans (2m2) 2:18 (LLL set D 3 Track 3, OST track 8 Hammond’s Plan 0:00-2:13)
Orchestrator: John Neufeld
Length (sheet music): 37 bars

With Mozart’s Piano Sonata in A Minor, K.310 playing softly somewhere in the background John Hammond reveals to Malcolm the tale of the second island, Isla Sorna, and proposes that Ian should lead a four member scientific team to document the dinosaurs living there. Malcolm flatly refuses, remembering all too well the incidents on Isla Nublar four years ago and vows that he will stop the rest of the team from going. The cue starts as Hammond reveals that Sarah Harding is on the team, a smoky alto flute solo opening the piece with an air of mystery and apprehension, the melody seeming to subtly suggest perhaps the Island fanfare or the main theme from Jurassic Park in its contours drifting ominously over low strings. Harp ghosted by a subtle but sharp synthesizer effect (marked “zither” in the manuscript), flute and the string section lend a tentative and enigmatic air to Hammond’s revelation that Sarah is already on the island as Malcolm tries to call her.
 
Here Williams adds a hint of additional foreboding to the moment by cleverly reintroducing very subtly at 1:11-1:15 the Carnivore motif from the first film on the high strings almost as a reawakened horror from Malcom's memories. He is now both furious and worried. Music is waiting, almost holding its breath as Hammond tries to convince Malcolm of the safety of the expedition and Sarah’s situation on the island when a small melodic snippet on oboe with harp and horn support finally seems to finish a quick deliberation and as Ian Malcolm announces that he is going and this will be a rescue mission, the score opens into a heroic full orchestra statement of the Island Fanfare, the orchestration here distinctly recalling the cue Jurassic Park Gate from the original film. And just as Malcolm is leaving Hammond smiles satisfied having just gathered up his team.

***

Ian meets up with the other members of his team, a video documentarian Nick Van Owen (Vince Vaughn) and a field equipment expert Eddie Carr (Richard Schiff) at Carr’s busy workshop full of all kinds of travel and survival gear the latest technology only can provide. Not only does he meet the technician and the photographer but also his teenage daughter Kelly, who he had invited to meet at the workshop and who he should be looking after since her mother went off to Paris on short notice. Malcolm is trying to send her off to stay with a friend called Karen for the weekend as he is obviously busy but Kelly refuses. They argue (another Spielberg trope, poor parent/child relationships), the father being outmatched by the daughter and as Malcolm turns his attention elsewhere for a moment in preparation of the coming trip, Kelly goes wandering about in the workshop.

3. To the Island (3m1) 3:40 (LLL set D 3 Track 4, OST track 3 Malcolm’s Journey 0:00-3:37)
Orchestrator: Conrad Pope
Length (sheet music): 123 bars

The music starts as Kelly walks through the busy workshop and steps into a large trailer van full of blinking lights and high tech equipment. Strings, celeste, harp and woodwinds, most notably airy flutes and a distant call of a solo horn create a curious, luminous and almost spellbinding feel as she explores the vehicle. Expectant build-up begins, bubbling woodwinds, synthesizer and upward stirring strings joining rest of the orchestral forces and a percussive “jungle drum” rhythm in triple meter, a first hint of the Lost World theme, emerges as the camera shows a close-up of the map of the sea and coast of Costa Rica and the islands marked Las Cinco Muertes, The Five Deaths.

We cut to a barge at sea, the vessel ploughing through the blue waves, the deck full of vehicles. Lower strings and woodwinds repeat a rhythmic pattern, borrowing the triple meter from the percussion that continue to pound their motif underneath the orchestra, the high strings presenting here for the first time in a nearly formal fashion the Lost World theme, the brass joining them in a robust declaration, harp decorating the upper ranges with dazzling slightly rhythmic glissandos. Music implies the sense of movement and travelling with its constant rhythm, the swaying theme itself here suggesting perhaps a sea voyage, brass intoning the main theme with assured spirit of adventure. This rendition forms a thematic bookend for the whole Isla Sorna adventure which Williams and Spielberg chose only to open and close with the theme (the closing statement following in 12m2 Heading North).
 
When the audience sees a wider shot of the mountainous island that is their destination Williams provides a deeper and a hint more ominous rendition of the Lost World theme and continues to develop the material further, adding new instruments, woodwinds passing phrases of the theme around the orchestra accentuated by synthesizers. Ian Malcolm has been discussing with Eddie Carr, their field equipment expert, but now turns to listen to Nick Van Owen who translates the reluctant barge captain’s horror stories about the islands. The Lost World theme continues underneath the dialogue and finally builds into a triumphant crescendo ushered by timpani and colored by tambourine and cymbal crash when the film cuts to the trailer and two cars bursting into view on their way through the jungles of Isla Sorna.

Malcolm follows the coordinates provided by Sarah’s satellite phone and tracks her signal in the jungle. He nears a riverbed and to his horror sees her broken and ripped backpack on the ground. Music changes pace accordingly to underscore this tension, the brass and strings sawing furiously, presenting an urgent variation on the Lost World theme, the ever present percussion propelling the men forward. And then the music suddenly comes to a dead stop as Malcolm searches Sarah’s backpack and discovers that her satellite phone is still inside. The trio shouts Sarah’s name trying to locate her but they soon find something else.

4. The Stegosaurus (3m2) 2:13 (LLL set D 3 Track 5 0:00-2:14, OST track 11 The Stegosaurus 0:00-2:12)
Orchestrator: Conrad Pope
Length (sheet music): 44 bars

The men watch in silent awe as gargantuan beasts emerge from the jungle to the rustling of leaves and branches and rumble of the earth under their feet. These creatures are Stegosauri whose massive size and gentle presence and awe they evoke are all reflected in Williams’ luminous score, orchestrationally and stylistically reminiscent of his music for the Brachiosauri and Triceratops in the first film. Slow low string harmonies swell accompanied by bubbling contraclarinets and flutes and a warm horn line, soon joined by the violins and violas and harp, creating an atmosphere of awe and wonder, the melody blooming into a gentle crescendo.
 
Horns present an inquisitive searching melody with the celli and basses plucking a gentle pizzicato underneath to enhance the feel of these gentle giants as more Stegosauri appear from the forest. A clear solo flute and high strings offer a excited and curious melody as Nick Van Owen climbs closer to photograph the animals, the music rising to a sweet string swell as the frame reveals Sarah Harding in the same activity just few feet away.

Same awed atmosphere continues as woodwinds, high strings, horns and synthesizers present snatches of the previously heard melodic idea when Sarah notices both Malcolm and Eddie in the background and offers excited report of her findings only to be cut short by Ian holding her torn backpack, the warm music turning slightly ominous as alto flutes and double basses flutter to express Malcolm’s concern.

5. Finding the Baby (3m3) 3:13 (LLL set D 3 Track 5 2:15-end, OST track 11 The Stegosaurus 2:13-end)
Orchestrator: John Neufeld
Length (sheet music): 91 bars

Without a pause Sarah is off to follow the family of Stegosauri, Malcolm and the two other men trailing after her. She continues to explain her findings, Ian protesting and complaining continually. The paleontologist leaves the men behind and creeps closer to get a better shot with her camera, crawling slowly through the underbrush. Tense strings open the piece, sawing away a little urgent motif as Sarah is approaching the Stegosauri, music remaining rhythmic and suspenseful for a brief moment until the dreamy awe-filled musical atmosphere of the previous cue returns when Sarah discovers a baby Stegosaurus behind the bushes. This short opening passage (0:00-0:26) was cut from the film, most likely because it enhanced the tension and suspense of the moment too much and undermined the surprise coming shortly after.

The score turns curious and probing as excited Sarah and the animal observe each other with mutual wonder. Same playful and gentle mood that filled My Friend the Brachiosaurus in Jurassic Park is very much apparent here even though this piece is less openly melodic. It is here that Williams presents a subtle and probing atmospheric motivic idea for the Baby Dinosaurs (2:40-4:00) on strings with flute, woodwinds, orchestral chimes and harp all creating a luminous innocent quality around it, the motif repeating in dreamy wandering variations throughout but an unsettling undercurrent takes hold as brass plays threatening bursts underneath and a cold high string line offers gradually growing unease as if to tell us that something is about to happen.

And quickly it does. When Sarah starts taking pictures of the baby her camera runs out of film and begins to rewind loudly. The dinosaur baby is alarmed by this new sound and lets out a fearful cry. The orchestra begins an almost march-like repeating rhythmic phrase that is joined by the percussion, the strings, brass and flutes becoming more and more insistent in their reading of the motif as the Stegosauri attack, protecting their baby, tense brass and shrill woodwind runs underscoring the tension and panic as Sarah, who is caught in the middle of the angry lumbering beasts, dives into a hollow log for safety to get away from the deadly spiked tails of the dinosaurs. As one of them rams its tail through the log, nearly impaling her, Williams underscores the impact with a cry from the horn section (at 2:22), low pounding piano notes and percussion (log drums, tablas and timbales) commenting the aftermath, orchestra and percussion slowly winding down as the beasts wander off, strings still playing the rhythmic action motif and fading into silence as the danger recedes into the jungle.

6. Fire at the Camp (4m1) 0:54 (LLL set D 3 Track 6 0:00-0:54)
Orchestrator: Conrad Pope
Length (sheet music): 25 bars

The group is returning to the camp and Nick boasts of the footage he caught of the dinosaurs, dreaming of a Pulitzer prize. Sarah and Malcolm on the other hand are heatedly arguing about the dangers of coming to Isla Sorna. Williams provides a bit of travel music with percussion and jaunty lower strings and horns offering somewhat exotic and eerie jungle atmosphere for their discussion. All of a sudden rhythmic celli and deep horns announce that something is wrong as Eddie spots smoke in their camp. Music continues urgent with the orchestra rumbling to signal danger when all rush to the trailer only to see Kelly, Malcolm’s daughter, coming out with a smoking frying pan, the girl proclaiming her innocent intention of making dinner, the high strings releasing the tension and winding to a stunned finish in the low register, underscoring Malcolm’s reaction.
 
What follows is an argument between Ian, Sarah and Kelly but their familial discussion is soon interrupted by the appearance of

7. Corporate Choppers (4m2) 2:24 (LLL set D 3 Track 6, 0:55-end. Unused in the film 0:40-0:58)
Orchestrator: Conrad Pope
Length (sheet music): 76 bars

InGen transport choppers rumble into view carrying heavy machinery while log drums, jungle drums, marracas and tremoloing strings and horns announce their arrival. Music is marked primitif in the score, the nervous high strings, alto flutes and low horns and trombones creating an ominous feel amidst the constant jungle percussion pulse. A queasy clarinet solo further enhances the sense of something being wrong and the brass finally building to a statement of the Island’s Voice motif at 1 minute mark, repeating several times as we cut to Peter Ludlow and his associate, big game hunter and leader of the expedition, Roland Tembo in their jeep.
 
Music is here with very little subtlety announcing who the bad guys of this story are, tying the Island’s Voice theme as much to the dinosaur hunters as to the most ferocious of the beasts living on the island. As Roland countermands Ludlow’s ill-advised orders to his crew and gives a severe lecture on who is running the show, percussion continues its beat, woodwinds and brass veering into uncomfortable clusters and nervous rhythmic strings and synthetic voices announcing eerily the Island’s Voice again as the InGen team prepares to start

8. The Round Up (5m1) 3:30 (LLL set D 3 Track 7, OST track 4 The Hunt, unused in the film)
Orchestrator: Conrad Pope
Length (sheet music): 144 bars

This is the first actual action set piece of the score. Pounding low piano and percussion, sizzling tambourine notably adding its unique colour into the mix, repeat a rhythm that reveals itself to be the one associated with the Lost World theme, brass galloping to the fore, enhancing momentum and sense of panic and ferocity of the chaotic scene where the dinosaur flee from the pursuing humans. Williams uses variations of the triplet ideas inherent in the Lost World theme to underscore this wild chase, changing the heroic and questing nature of the composition to that of a terror and oppression, the insistent motivic fragments repeating continually in the brass, becoming almost tortured, percussion making heavy bursts, the music building steadily in orchestral power, like some monster rolling forward with unstoppable momentum.
 
Cymbal crashes, flurries of panicked woodwinds, hooting horns, merciless timpani and the ever present snippets of the Lost World theme rhythm propel the cue along and finally to a slowly fading finish on percussion and low piano as the hunters have captured their prey, the music stopping as Dieter’s jeep closes in on the InGen team trying to capture the Parasaurolophus.

In the Making
Sadly this brilliant aggressive and propulsive music (performance direction to the players marked bestial in the score) was not used in the film due to the fact that the scene was extended and restructured and thus would have created problems in trying to conform the composition to the new picture. Still the original cue captures so vividly the ferocity and sheer terror of the wild chase on-screen that is it hard to believe that it was just discarded. It also cleverly hints that the only monsters in the scene are human, not the dinosaurs, who pursue them relentlessly with high tech equipment and round them up like cattle to be carted away off to an amusement park.
 
Perhaps Spielberg felt that the composition was too powerful for the scene or that it might have dominated it or that it was too difficult to treat properly by editing and decided to use some tracked music in its stead, most notably ending with the heroic Lost World theme, which seems tonally an odd choice for a sequence which is in essence a chase and a panicked stampede. Williams' original idea also strongly emphasizes the brutality of the sequence whereas the tracking would seem to indicate a need for a slightly more adventurous tone. The changes made to the film were in the final stages of the post production and thus denied the composer a chance to re-score the scene properly. Williams was reportedly dismayed to hear that the music was discarded and the pride he took for this particular cue is easy to understand.

9. Big Feet (5m2) 1:40 (LLL set D 3 Track 8; Unused in the film 0:42-1:02)
Orchestrator: Conrad Pope
Length (sheet music): 21 bars

This cue begins as Malcolm’s team is surveying the end of the disheartening round-up, powerful timpani roll, rising strings and horns performing a 2 chord motif (performance marked tortured in the score), chimes in particular adding a fateful feel to the scene. We then shift to Roland Tembo and his companion Ajay at the jungle’s edge, bent over a huge T-Rex footprint. The Island’s Voice motif appears first subtly in basses under a sheen of eerie synthesizer effects when Roland’s and Ajay’s faces are reflected from the puddle formed into the gigantic footprint.
 
When the accompanying dinosaur expert Dr. Burke confirms to him that it is indeed a T-Rex print we hear the Island’s Voice repeated with stronger orchestral backing, horn soloing darkly in the background and woodwinds presenting a high register bird-call style answering motif to enhance the forest atmosphere. English horn over low piano rumble and cold queasy strings and subtle comments from marimba are introduced as Tembo readies his gun, Ludlow arriving to congratulate him and then wondering where he is going. As Tembo walks off “to collect his fee” Ludlow follows a few steps behind but lands his foot into the puddle earning a sudden downward surge from the strings as the camera tilts to show the footprint again ending the piece in a low bass drum thump full of meaning.

10. Spilling Petrol (5m3/6m1) 3:45 (LLL set D 3 Track 9)
Orchestrator: John Neufeld & Conrad Pope
Length (sheet music): 85 bars

This piece begins a two part musical sequence. The cue title refers to an unused part of this particular scene where Sarah and Nick sneak into the InGen camp to release the dinosaurs from their cages while the “hunters” are occupied by Ludlow’s presentation to the InGen board of directors via satellite uplink. In the original cut there was a short segment where the duo sabotaged the vehicles by emptying the petrol from the gas tanks, hence the cue name. The percussion section first presents a rhythmic base (marked driving jungle groove) for suspense and night time jungle atmosphere while synthetic animal sound adds a primal feel to the proceedings as Ludlow is giving his speech and the two “gatherers” creep around in the camp, sinister synth sounds accompanying them, celli, basses and high strings all maintaining tension.

Around 1 minute mark ghostly shakuhachi with synth doubling lets out a haunting sigh, violins and brass following a foreboding melodic line, music building around the percussion section, the synthetic animal sound wailing in the background. The orchestral writing comes suddenly to fore when Sarah and Nick open the heavy bolted doors of the dinosaur cages (2:20->), high end orchestral sounds, harp, strings and synths commenting this turn in the events, the music resembling the textures of the Baby Dinosaurs motif as we see a caged baby Stegosaurus among the captured animals.

The drums return to focus again when the camera shows us Ludlow’s tent where he continues his sales pitch to the InGen board of directors, recounting the original Jurassic Park’s folly and the existence of park facilities in San Diego and his plan of recouping the company's losses with the captured dinosaurs transported to the main land. At the mention of the Jurassic Park amphitheater in San Diego the percussion give way to a nostalgic, nearly wistful, ghostly reading of the Island Fanfare which passes through the woodwind and horn sections in remembrance of Hammond's dream. Then the music without warning bursts into a Triceratops...

11. Horning In (5m3/6m1 Part II) 1:26 (LLL set D 3 Track 9 3:46-end)
Orchestrator: John Neufeld & Conrad Pope
Length (sheet music): 45 bars

Alarmed ascending hooting horn cries and energetic rhytmically charged strings underscore the Triceratops suddenly crashing into Ludlow’s tent and other dinosaurs escaping from their cages, wreaking bloody havoc around the camp, tearing through the panicking InGen crew and scattering their equipment all around. With merciless percussion and crushing staccato exclamations from the brass section an exploding jeep flies through the air and almost hits Roland and Ajay in their hideout tree where they are stalking the T-Rex, the pair just barely surviving the flaming projectile.

Rhythmic strings continue to drive the action from 0:38 onwards backed by sharp snapping percussion beat as Nick finds and rescues the Tyrannosaurus baby (to another briefest hint of the ghostly Baby Dinosaurs music) that is tied to the ground and used as bait by Roland Tembo to capture an adult T-Rex. This is followed by an almost militaristic reading of the previous string idea when Roland returns to the camp, surveying the damage, reprimanding his second-in-command Dieter Stark, deep brass and cold strings underscoring Dieter’s sullen look which promises retribution to whoever did this. The percussion suddenly subsides and the music shifts to an apprehensive orchestral passage as Sarah sees Nick bringing the injured T-Rex baby to their jeep.
 
In the Making
The beginning of this cue seems to consist of music re-purposed from a later scene (see cue Truck Stop) with Williams re-orchestrating it for the dinosaur rampage in the InGen camp. This music becomes semi-thematic in the score as roughly the same energetic rhythmically insistent staccato brass and percussion section of the piece is later reprised in another cue (Rialto Ripples) as well.
***

In the van Malcolm and Kelly try in vain to contact their ferry when Sarah and Nick burst in with the baby T-Rex, Malcolm horrified and nervous, Sarah going straight for an operating table to find the damage done to the dinosaur by Tembo. Kelly panics and wants to go somewhere safe. Malcolm leads her to Eddie and...

12. Up in a Basket (6m2/7m1 Part I) 3:27 (LLL set D 3 Track 10)
Orchestrator: Conrad Pope
Length (sheet music): 66 bars

Deep drums and alla marcia rhythmic horns begin a taut militaristic and almost funereal procession as we see Eddie Carr asking Malcolm what is happening and the mathematician taking Kelly to the high-hide, a metallic cage that can be hoisted up to the trees with a winch to give an observation platform and safe vantage point for the team. There is a sense of anticipation and preparation in the music, Sarah and Nick trying help the T-Rex baby. Ghostly fluttering flutes, apprehensive strings and brass underscore the high-hide reaching above the tree tops, Kelly fretting about the dinosaurs and Malcolm is trying in vain to comfort her. As he says they are now in a completely different situation than when he was in the Jurassic Park a loud roar of a Tyrannosaurus echoes through the jungle.
 
The following passage of music, that should have started around 1 minute mark, was cut from the finished film. Under the T-Rex roar we hear a constant uncomfortable synthesized sizzling sound and the orchestra begins an urgent churning motif full of foreboding, the music raising the tension when Malcolm attempts in vain to call the trailer, trying to reach Sarah and Nick to warn them. Nick is about to answer the ringing phone but the paleontologist calls him for immeadiate assistance, the ensemble repeating the motif ever insistent. Malcolm decides to descend and get to the trailer to warn the two, Kelly begging him not to go, music changing pace to another rhythmic motif with a low piano groove, percussion and strings forming the basis as Malcolm says he is coming back and dropping out of sight down a rope.
 
Interjections to the nervous orchestral rhythm from lowest brass become more noticeable, underscoring Eddie and Kelly witnessing the T-Rex approaching through the jungle, made visible only by the trees swaying back and forth, Williams’ repeated deep brass motif for trombones underpinned by bass drum here suggesting an almost subliminal connection to Jaws, a beast lumbering almost unseen towards our heroes, personified just by the music. These heavy brass blasts drive Ian Malcolm onward through the rainy jungle and just as he reaches the trailer door and bursts inside to warn Sarah and Nick of the coming threat the orchestra reaches an ominous shuddering crescendo.

In the Making
This cue plays from 0:00-0:59 in the film as composed but the rest is dialed out, letting the sound effects and silence carry the tension of the scene. The music as written would have immediately continued with

13. Up in a Basket II (6m2/7m1 Part II) 2:21 (LLL set D 3 Track 11)
Orchestrator: John Neufeld
Length (sheet music): 75 bars

Nick, Sarah and Malcolm do not have much time to prepare before the sharp snapping percussion reminiscent of the cue Horning In and brass section making constant nervous blasts inform them and the audience that something is coming, namely the parents of the infant T-Rex they have in their care. As the beasts peer through the windows on both sides, composer introduces first the animal howl-like synthesizer voice echoing menacingly which then flows into cold shimmering orchestral and synthetic writing, the percussion sounds slowly giving away to a high register ghostly melody in the strings that resembles the benevolent musical idea Baby dinosaurs originally used for the Stegosaurus baby from the earlier scene as the T-Rexes view their whimpering offspring inside the trailer, the little motif underscoring an eerie moment of parental concern from these gigantic carnivores (0:42-1:51).

The initial rhythm creeps slowly back into the music when the trio lifts the baby and carefully presents it to the parents through the trailer door, the percussion groove and subliminal shimmer synthesizer effects coming to an abrupt silence as Eddie Carr informs via the phone from the high hide that the apparent threat is over and the beasts have decided to return to the jungle with their infant.

In the Making
The whole cue was cut from the film, perhaps thought too energetic, aggressive and prominent for the scene, adding too much tension and drive where the silence and the eerie noises of rain and dinosaurs was all that was needed to convey the menace of these massive beasts.
 
***

But the safety is only momentary as suddenly the dinosaurs are back and the team has only a few seconds to prepare themselves. With determined rage T-Rexes push the trailer off the cliff face, half of it dangling over the edge, our heroes in the falling half holding on for dear life as everything topples down, the van turned into a corridor to death.
 
***

14. Pain of Glass (7m2/8m1) 4:05 (LLL set D 3 Track 12)
Orchestrator: John Neufeld
Length (sheet music): 67 bars

With a sharp blast from timpani and trombones Sarah falls to the bottom of the trailer’s up-ended section landing on a rear window pane (hence the pun in the cue title). The celli and basses weave an urgent chaotic motif as she is momentarily knocked out but as she comes to the pane begins to crack, small cobweb of fractures spreading under her weight.
 
The music here has a hint of familiarity, the string idea slightly reminiscent of the Dies Irae-like danger motif from Jurassic Park (found in the cues like The Falling Car (OST CD the latter half of Incident on Isla Nublar) and Highwire Stunts) as Malcolm tries to lower himself to rescue her, the music enhancing the urgency and danger of the scene considerably. He reaches for Sarah’s hand, but the satellite phone left hanging from a tablelamp by the fall slides off and topples down, the suspense peaking fast, high strings racing and brass keening in panic, Sarah reaching for Malcolm’s hand with all her desperation. The glass shatters to the sounds of tortured aleatoric brass and furiously sawing string section but the paleontologist makes a grab for life, Ian catching her with the lucky backpack. Here an extended queasy string glissando facilitates a scene transition to Eddie Carr.

Outside Eddie Carr arrives to the site of the half destroyed trailer and frantically searches for survivors as tropical storm starts to spew torrents of rain on the island. The trapped trio hollers to him for help, Williams providing suspenseful jungle beat from the percussion and the brass, piano pouding its own jazzy suspense grooves with rhythmically tugging string accompaniment that add their weight to the field equipment expert's toil and determination as he hurries to safe the team, trying to tow the trailer back up with his jeep cable as a steady rhythm from the percussion section and strings continues to underscore his efforts.

15. Truck Stop (8m2) 5:10 (LLL set D 3 Track 13, OST track 7 Rescuing Sarah [0:00-2:12] (2:12) / Unreleased (1:04) / 7 [2:12-end] (1:48)
Orchestrator: John Neufeld
Length (sheet music): 156 bars

Eddie’s actions come in the nick of time for the trailer is starting to slide on the muddy cliff in the pouring rain, pulled towards the cliff edge by the weight of the fallen section. The music bursts to life as Eddie notices how the vehicle is slowly beginning to move towards the edge and he runs to his jeep and tries to use it to pull the van back, percussion of all kinds among them bongos, congas, logs, bass drum and gourd beating wild rhythms (performance marked brutally) to emphasize the tension and fight against time. The timpani and the rest of the orchestra then join in this seemingly chaotic and driving barrage, which propels as much Eddie’s efforts as they comment the team’s dire predicament.
 
Woodwind trills and runs, panicked and tortured brass exclamations hinting at the Island’s Voice motif, sharp and furious string figures and above all the percussion assault the poor protagonists, filling the air with dire expectation, underscoring the efforts of the trio in the van to escape the death trap, holding on to a rope, making desperately their way up and out of the slowly falling car. Williams keys everything into the rhythmic drive in this orchestral tour-de-force of percussive invention, relentless and primal. Eddie’s valiant rescue efforts and momentary success receive near victorious brass fanfares as he fights to keep the trailer on safe ground, his determination seeming to win them the much needed time to escape.

But the score announces more trouble for the team with shrill woodwind runs, queasy muted horns and kinetic string writing. Only to make matters worse, calamity piling atop of another, the two T-Rexes like harbingers of doom return, stomping out of the dark rainy jungle, orchestral chimes, fateful exclamations from the whole brass section and swirling pained and panicked string figures underscoring their footfalls at 2:52, ringing a death knell for poor Eddie as the dinosaurs attack his jeep with fury, the percussion instruments beating an ever present barrage under the orchestra. The furious brass piles on top of the strings in staccato jabs accompanied by wild riffs from the drums and sharp cymbal accents as the monsters tear the car to pieces and Eddie in half, the orchestra and percussion reaching violently racuous heights, sounding like the full ensemble is nearly toppling on itself.
 
The trailer finally falls to its destruction but the team makes a miraculous escape, underscored by fateful deep descending chords from the trombones, orchestra winding slowly down with percussion, brass and woodwinds flailing as in the death throes of the vehicle while the Tyrannosauri return to the jungle and the trio hangs on the rope against the cliff face. When the heroes finally climb up, receiving unexpected helping hand from Roland Tembo waiting at the top of the cliff, the percussion quiets down and a horn led strained but heroic fanfare sounds out, nearly quoting the Island Fanfare but taking a different turn, the music blossoming to a tragic and noble melody of operatic proportions joined by the entire orchesta, wearily celebrating their survival but also mourning the loss of Eddie Carr.

16. Reading the Map (8m3) 3:11 (LLL set D 3 Track 14)
Orchestrator: John Neufeld
Length (sheet music): 90 bars

Percussion returns with the rhythmic low strings to signify preparations as the two teams, hunters and gatherers, decide to join forces despite their differences of opinion in order to trek across Isla Sorna. Williams adds another rhythmic element into the mix, a subtle interpolation of a deep bass synthesizer (marked "Fender Bass" in the score) playing its own jazzy figures underneath the basses and celli to beef up the atmosphere. Roland, Ludlow and Malcolm's group inspect a map of the island and discuss their route to the old InGen facilities and communications center where they want to radio for help, mentioning to Malcolm that the buildings are at the center of island, where unfortunately the carnivores and more specifically Velociraptors live.
 
As these cunning and deadly dinosaurs are mentioned Williams reprises the 4-note Carnivore motif on ghostly shakuhachi flute (doubled on synthesizers) much in the same style as he did in the Opening Titles of Jurassic Park, the theme calling out several times over the dominating rhythms of the percussion section. High strings, horn and woodwind colours creep into the texture of the rhythm, adding deep sonorities to the pace of the music and lending it grim determination.

In the Making
The first 0:00-1:42 were not used in the film and the music begins when we first hear Ludlow mentioning the Raptors and hear the first rendition of the Carnivore motif.

17. The Trek (8m4-9m1) 5:25 (LLL set D 3 Track 15, OST track 5 The Trek)
Orchestrator: John Neufeld
Length (sheet music): 138 bars

And so the group is on its way in the rain through the jungle towards their destination. Deep resonant exotic drums play a steady softly pounding figure for the jungle trek, the horns rising ominously in series of dark melodic phrases, a Trek motif, strings making nervous jittery interjections, lower woodwinds bubbling subtly underneath and growing into a percussion accompanied horn statement of the Island Fanfare while Ian Malcolm talks to Ludlow and mentions John Hammond and his doomed dream of Jurassic Park. The rising Trek melody from the beginning of the track is repeated more grandly in the brass with woodwinds squirming underneath as we see the long line of people walking through the jungle scenery, cloud capped mountains looming ominously in the background and Roland giving a dark nervous glance as they hear the distant roar of a Tyrannosaurus.
 
When the group arrives to a red wood forest the travelling music gives away to a collection of dark orchestral and percussive sounds that underscore Roland Tembo spotting blood on Sarah’s coat and asking is she hurt, the eerie music enhancing the dangerous situation and environs these people are in. Dieter Stark hears the nature’s call and wanders off to satisfy its demands, hollering to one of the men, Carter, to keep at a shouting distance in case he gets lost. Carter, with a walkman blaring Mexican music ("Tres Dias" by Tomas Mendez), is completely oblivious to this which is announced with foreboding by queasy strings.

After stopping for a suitable spot, followed by the unnerving snapping of the orchestra and percussion, Dieter is interrupted by rustling in the underbrush and he grabs his gun, ready for anything, backing away, searching for the assailant. As he sweeps the bushes with his gun he is startled by a single Compsognathus sticking its head out of the undergrowth accented by a shakuhachi wail at 3:48. Dieter is annoyed and tries to tazer the little lizard as he has done once before but it escapes in a sizzle of a rubbed tam-tam and bubbling of woodwinds and strings.

But now the mercenary is truly and hopelessly lost and Carter (who still enjoys the fine performance of the Mariachi Los Camperos De Nati Cano) can’t hear his screams from the jungle. Strings pull nervous twittering sounds, shakuhachi howls again and pizzicato violins and the sizzling of suspended cymbals all cry out his panic as he wanders through the woods frantic, woodwinds, choice brass and low strings joining an insistent rhythm as he trips on a tree root and falls down a steep slop. Suspended cymbal swell and synthesized metallic zither notes underscore him hitting the bottom with a thump.

In the Making
This cue was dialled almost in its entirety out of the film, the Lost World theme tracked from To the Island in its stead, replacing the rising Trek motif for the travelling sequences, the film makers favouring silence and the adventurous feel in the music over Williams’ darker and more tense and grimly determined take on their journey across the island. The eerie underscore of the red wood forest was also removed and Dieter’s predicament left mostly unscored (although the music from 3:20-3:59 for compy's appearance from the underbrush is heard in the film), very likely because Williams’ music added too much tension and foreboding to the preceding dialogue between Roland, Nick and Sarah and could have dampened the horror of the Compsognathi in the following scene.

18. The Compys! (9m2) 1:34 (LLL set D 3 Track 16 0:00-1:34, OST track 1 Island Prologue 3:27-end)
Orchestrator: Conrad Pope
Length (sheet music): 67 bars

This music should have continued without a pause from the previous cue. Dieter has no time to gather his wits after the fall when he is attacked by a swirling pack of Compsognathi, biting and clawing and climbing all over him. Piccolos chirp furiously, sul ponticello strings bow queasily, horns hoot and growl full of menace (performance for the whole ensemble is marked sinistro in the score) and is soon joined by the rest of the orchestra, the percussion pounding mercilessly, many sections of the ensemble playing aleatorically, achieving an organized chaos that describes the little dinosaurs perfectly as they swarm upon the mercenary with blood thirsty glee.
 
The music is very similar to that heard in the first cue of the score, the little dinosaurs characterized by the same orchestral effects but even more frenzied this time around. Dieter repels the attack of the swarm and drives them away, swaying wearily along the river bed, the sinister strings, synthesized breath effects and woodwinds promising him no respite while at the temporary camp Roland calls everybody to continue their march.

19. The Compys Dine (9m3/10mA) 2:54 (LLL set D 3 Track 16 1:35-end, OST track 10 The Compys Dine 0:00-2:47)
Orchestrator: Conrad Pope
Length (sheet music): 76 bars

Carter rises from his place to leave and the camera lowers and catches Dieter’s backpack on the ground forgotten, celli and double basses and a subtle timpani rumble commenting this with quiet and tense notes. Tabla drum and maraca take us back to the river bed where the mercenary is fleeing, still shouting for help. Horns and muted trombones rise menacingly, the woodwinds slowly return to the aleatoric style of the previous cue, all orchestral sections joining in a cacophonic carnage as Compys attack in force, appearing all around, Williams scoring both their action and the sheer terror they evoke with equal precision, the musical texture and performance style becoming a theme of its own for these little carnivores. Dieter stumbles over a large fallen tree and out of sight but the dinosaurs follow in a merciless swarm, music rising to a fever pitch with raging clarinets and piccolos, timpani accenting their menace and the brass announcing the end of the man at 1:10 as we see the water turning blood red, fluttering flutes and unsympathetic strings sighing as if for his last breath.

Later Roland Tembo questions Carter about Dieter Stark and atmospheric percussion and rhythmic tugging of double basses underscore his decision to go find his second-in-command. Flutter-tongued shakuhachi carries the danger inherent in the decision and the troop gets moving again, leaderless, to the sound of low ominous brass and woodwinds repeating a subtle quote of the Trek motif from cue The Trek. A light cascade of notes from the harp and percussion transition to the night camp where the dark mood is further enhanced by the cold string lines and drum rumbles as the camera moves past the sleeping men.

20. Rialto Ripples (10m1) 5:53 (LLL set D 4 Track 1, OST track 12 Ludlow's Demise 0:00-1:35)
Orchestrator: John Neufeld
Length (sheet music): 183 bars

As Roland returns from his search double basses start a subtle menacing figure, bass drum beating a ghostly rumble in the background, the big game hunter noting flatly that Dieter is dead. Flutes, rubbed aluminum rod, triangle and vibraphone strike a cold clear sound when Tembo lights his flashlight and Malcolm and Ajay read the map with him and make plans for their next move. Strings continue dark and mysterioso, the woodwinds and brass joining them, a few slow deep bass drum cadences giving the listener a small hint of what is to come as we see Kelly and Sarah sleeping in a tent, Malcolm walking towards them. Then Sarah is suddenly awake and feels a low rumble, alarmed by it.
 
At 1:02 the percussion section starts pounding a steady, simple and menacing march rhythm as trombones and horns flutter and growl full of dark danger, woodwinds joining soon in a repeated figure, the suspense climbing continually, timpani spiking the tension along with the continuous sizzling sounds of a suspended cymbal. Outside Malcolm sees the ripples in a muddy pool, realizing the coming threat (Williams’ cue title refers to this and nods humorously at an old rag time standard by George Gershwin called Rialto Ripples).
 
Inside the tent the paleontologist notices the bloody coat left hanging out to dry inside, realizing that the smell of blood of the baby dinosaur must be attracting the T-Rexes but before she can do anything about it, a huge shadow is cast over the tent. The violins and violas add their cold colours to the mass of sound, suspended cymbal hissing over the bed of repeating churning orchestral effects and timpani attacking violently as the beast approaches. Here the brass becomes more pronounced, the blasts oppressive and demanding underpinned by the rolling overpowering percussion as the T-Rex pushes its head inside the tent, searching, sniffing. Kelly wakes up, and Sarah who is in a state of terror herself tries to keep the girl silent and still. The presence of the dinosaur hammers at them in Williams' music, the coiled, violent bursts of the orchestra threatening to crush them. The strings, first the high and then low register, spin uncomfortable cyclical figures backed up by synthesizers, further ratcheting up the suspense to unbearable levels.

But suddenly the bottled up tension is released at 3:24 as Carter wakes up and sees the beast, screams and fires at it with his gun. Strings whip into frenzied action as they flail in rhythmic anger and the whole camp wakes up in panic, the T-Rex turning to face the sudden attackers, the lowest brass ascending ominously in the fashion of monster music of old as we get a wide shot of the dinosaur. To add to the constant sense of energy Williams keeps the pounding march from the opening half of the cue constantly going underneath the action, creating a relentless steady drive to the scene. From 3:35 until 4:06 the music again reprises a furious staccato brass and percussion passage from the cue Truck Stop underscoring here the panicked flight of the people and Tembo’s failed attempt to shoot the T-Rex as Nick Van Owen had emptied the shells from his rifle while Roland wasn’t looking.

Panicked, forward hurtling rapid fire brass phrases (with virtuoso playing from the session musicians) and sharply chirping woodwind runs underscore the wild flight of the team through the jungle with the T-Rex on their tail, characterized by the low brass sounds. As the scene shifts rapidly the percussion strike up an agitated jungle rhythm underpinned by aggressive brass blast again when Roland Tembo tries to capture the other T-Rex with a tranquilizer gun, rattling clanging metallic percussive sounds further instilling momentum and tension and the low brass again rising to a monster music style deep exclamation as Tembo hits his quarry. The rhythms from the furious sawing strings, pealing synthetic chime effects and percussion become increasingly frantic as we cut to the T-Rex chase, the score surging to keep up until the ingeniously driving and wildly chaotic orchestral and percussive melange comes to a dead halt when the fleeing protagonists jump through a waterfall for safety.
 
In the Making
In the film this piece underwent editorial tinkering and as a result it was re-edited, layered with material taken probably from the unused portion of the Up in a Basket I and mixed very differently resulting in the opening part prior to 3:24 to sound wildly different in the film compared to Williams' original intentions. 


21. Steiner in the Grass (10m2) 2:28 (LLL set D 4 Track 2, OST track 8 Hammond's Plan 2:05-end)
Orchestrator: Conrad Pope
Length (sheet music): 60 bars

The survivors of the T-Rex attack (Carter and Dr. Burke didn't make it) continue towards the InGen facilities and cross a meadow of high grass, the line of people filing through high stalks, forming dark furrow as they go while Ajay is in vain trying to stop them. The title of the cue is a wink to the grandfather of film music Max Steiner, whose score for 1933 film King Kong was almost certainly a partial inspiration for this score and contained exotic music for the jungle travel and locale of the Skull Island, Williams is tipping the hat to the old master in styling his piece in somewhat the same vein. Another new jungle rhythm on the percussion and jazzy low piano open the cue and slowly rising ominous brass and string lines continue in the style of the previous Trek motif but spinning unique melodic variations for the scene.
 
Soon colder tones from the tense brass, strings and woodwind stings creep into the texture of the music as we see new dark furrows forming in the grass all around the group. Velociraptors approach and stealthily start picking off people one by one, soon creating another panicked flight. The brass continue to develop the trek material, ever ominous as Raptors go about their bloody business and the protagonists behind the main group appear just at the edge of the meadow.

Nick finds Ajay’s bag in the dark, the rhythmic basses and marimba beating almost a countdown and as Malcolm hears the horribly familiar snarling in the darkness and the cries of the dying men, he breaks into a hurried flight, the orchestra following suit and with a swirl at 1:55 mark, releasing the tension, picking up speed, all orchestral sections urging them on with furious flurries as the heroes race towards the forest edge and safety, only to tumble down a slippery slope, a downward string and woodwind surge and a percussion hit signifying the end of their fall. The music continues without a pause with

22. After the Fall (10m3-11m1) 3:05 (LLL set D 4 Track 3, OST track 6 Finding Camp Jurassic)
Orchestrator: Conrad Pope
Length (sheet music): 58 bars

Under a brooding contrabassoon drone, deep trombone sonorities and celli’s and basses’ menacing murmurs the heroes find themselves in what seems like a dinosaur graveyard with huge rib cages surrounding their path. Nick says he is going to find the communications center and radio for help, not staying to wait for Malcolm who has hurt his leg in the fall, piano and harp playing probing notes as the photographer runs through the broken gates of the facility towards the main building with strings rising full of mystery. As he enters through the main entrance of the Camp Jurassic center a percussion rhythm starts over nervous strings and bubbling woodwinds. At 1:11 when Nick first jumps at seeing a T-Rex’s snout in a poster and then looks at a faded advertisement banner of Jurassic Park on the wall, we hear an equally faded and ghostly setting of the Island Fanfare, a reminder of lost dreams and faded glory, Williams again tying the old theme firmly to the earlier park rather than Isla Sorna's situation.

As Nick continues to explore the vines and jungle infested main building,  part shadowy part enigmatic orchestral and percussive elements take over, heightening the suspense of the exploration until another subtle variation of the Island Fanfare on brass supported by woodwinds at 2:30 announces his success of turning on the power and finding the radio, the percussion slowly fading into silence as he makes contact with the main land.

23. The Raptors Appear (11m2) 3:44 (LLL set D 4 Track 4, OST track 9 The Raptors Appear)
Orchestrator: John Neufeld
Length (sheet music): 104 bars

Malcolm, Sarah and Kelly have finally caught up with Nick, walking past dinosaur bones and huge geothermal pipes. A ghostly wail of the Island’s Voice motif sounds repeatedly on synthesizer accompanied by almost breath like shakuhachi synth effects, tabla drum echoing alone in the distance. The group reaches the gate and the courtyard of the InGen center with strings and subtle percussion keeping up the suspense, when out of nowhere a Velociraptor appears and attacks Sarah, eliciting a rising scream from the horn section and a new action rhythm from the percussion.
 
Luckily the raptor decides to maul Sarah’s backpack instead and so she escapes with her life. Malcolm heroically attracts the attention of the beast as Kelly and Sarah run for safety into an old shed but two more Raptors appear and immediately go after them and try to dig their way in, all the while the women try to dig their way out from the the other side of the building and Malcolm fights for his life in the courtyard. Much as in the cue Truck Stop, the percussion rhythm established at the beginning dominates while brass makes snarling and hooting interjections and drives the music forward by presenting snatches of their own action motif and the Island’s Voice, the synthesized animal noise rising to haunt the protagonists along with aleatoric woodwind screams as three raptors try to kill our heroes.
 
The Island’s Voice calls out in deadly synthesized voices around 1:25 and 2:25, receiving a more ponderous reading with brass accompaniment at 2:42 as the situation grows more dire and until all the orchestral forces, notably including wild aleatoric woodwind section, grow more chaotic by the second and finally the music comes to a staccato halt with brass and percussion hits when the women get the boards loose in the back wall and try to escape that way.

24. High Bar and Ceiling Tiles (11m3-12m1) 4:12 (LLL set D 4 Track 5)
Orchestrator: John Neufeld
Length (sheet music): 136 bars

But another Raptor is waiting outside and a sharp timpani stinger and the percussion rhythm return as the action writing in the style of the previous cue continues fresh and furious. Sarah and Kelly have no choice but to go up climbing toward the roof for safety. Malcolm who has been trapped in a car, succeeds in evading the Raptor and runs inside driven by nervous blasts of brass, only to find himself face to face with another of the vicious carnivores that has nearly gotten in. He decides to climb as well and the orchestra and percussion follow his movements while cruel rhythmic brass exclamations trail the Raptor jumping after him. In the nick of time Kelly saves her father with a well targeted gymnastic move, sending the dinosaur through a window and to its demise below, impaled on a palisade, underscored by cymbal crashes and deep fateful staccato bursts from the brass section starting at 1:19.

But the victory is only temporary and after a short pause the Raptor brass sounds return with vengeance as Sarah heads for the roof while Malcolm and Kelly escape through the shed door. Nervous aleatoric woodwinds again creep into the score alongside Sarah’s panic as the vicious beast is after her and she has to make a leap to the roof of another building with the creature in hot pursuit. Her jump falls short, leaving her hanging from the slate roof edge with the score ratcheting up the tension and drive with the ever present percussion drive and sharp trumpet figures. The dinosaur jumps ahead of her so now one Raptor waits Sarah on the roof and another on the ground below. She hangs by the roof tiles and gets a quick idea and begins to pull the slates down. Slowly but surely the shingles give away and take the precariously balanced Raptor with them. Here the raging woodwinds, quick sharp brass bursts and string figures now accentuated by cymbal hits create a feel of deadly unpredictability, the musical chaos climbing to a small crescendo at 2:31 resembling the finale of the previous cue.
 
But as Sarah loses her hold of the tiles and falls, the score shifts to new action rhythm and the two Raptors, now is midst of a scrambling fight with one another battling for the quarry, are scored by keening brass tones and a subtle quote of the Island’s Voice at 2:36. The paleontologist tries to stay out the way of the hissing, biting creatures and suddenly falls through a trap door and out of a window to land safely near Malcolm and Kelly. Brass and percussion continues in staggered bursts, repeating the action motif of the previous two cues, the Island’s Voice howling several times in the brass becoming each time more dramatic and ponderous as the heroes try to make their escape. And almost as if exhausted along with the characters the score comes to a sudden slow fading coda in the strings and weary horns as they get to the helicopter pad of the visitor center with Nick waiting for them and InGen helicopter approaching.

In the Making
In the film the Lost World theme concert version was tracked in as Sarah falls through the floor and continues when the trio heads for the main building’s helicopter pad, the triumphant feel more suitable for their rescue. Williams original music was much darker and harsher, letting the savage mood and tension continue almost up until the last minute.

25. Heading North (12m2) 2:14 (LLL set D 4 Track 6, OST track 3 Malcolm’s Journey 3:33-end)
Orchestrator: Conrad Pope
Length (sheet music): 46 bars

Weary string lines rise as the helicopter is taking our heroes off the island, offering a melancholy respite from the ordeal they have just experienced, harp and brass offering their own somber tones to the quiet moment of aftershock for the protagonists. Deeper brass creeps into the music assisted by a timpani roll when we are shown Ludlow and Tembo with another InGen team capturing the sedated T-Rex male, the CEO congratulating the hunter for his prize.
 
Tembo, who has lost his friend Ajay, is grim, remarking that he is glad to get away, having spent enough time in the company of death, timpani rumble, husky flutes and low strings underscoring his lines. For a transition shot of the helicopter appearing in the night skyline of San Diego Williams offers a grand yet dark reading of the Lost World theme complete with tambourine flourishes, but even in triumph  it is tempered by the horrors experienced on Isla Sorna. And thus the new main theme of the score musically bookends the whole experience on the island. But the story isn't over yet.

26. Ludlow’s Speech (12m3) 3:15 (LLL set D 4 Track 7)
Orchestrator: John Neufeld
Length (sheet music): 91 bars

This cue begins the last act of the film. Ludlow is desperate to re-coup his losses and is transporting the T-Rex to San Diego on a boat, having already spirited the infant Tyrannosaur to the InGen facilities in the city via helicopter. He has gathered media at the docks to greet the arrival of the cargo ship due to land in the early hours of the morning and is holding a press conference. Ian Malcolm and Sarah are there to witness this folly. The music continues very much in the jungle mood as the percussionists set up another rhythmic groove underneath the orchestra that now has both a conspiratorial and expectant feel to it, especially thanks to the dotted nervous woodwind lines that crisscross the composition. As the harbor master interrups Ludlow’s speech and calls him to inspect something in the offices, the inexorably rising orchestral and synthesizer lines of the Island’s Voice motif supported by the percussion section give us a forewarning that something is certainly amiss as the motif is taken over and repeated in turn by several sections of the ensemble.
 
The ship arrives but they can’t make contact with it, the vessel approaching the docks with an alarming speed with no signs of slowing down and when the blinking dot on the radar grows closer and closer the brass and woodwinds present their own nervous dotted figures over ominous high string lines and percussion for the nearing ship. A tense countdown motif begins in the orchestra, rhythmically taut and persistent, gathering up speed with the vessel, a ghostly synthesized wail of the Island’s Voice and full ensemble reaching terrifying intesity and a lengthy thunderous crescendo the score comes to a halt just after the ship appears from the darkness and plows into the pier wreaking chaos and destruction.

In the Making
In the film the music stops short at 1:59 as people are watching the night sea and hearing the ship approaching, the rest of the mounting tension of the scene is carried just by sound effects.

27. WOMPI’s Wrench/Wreck? (12m4) 2:22 (LLL set D 4 Track 8, OST track 10 The Compys Dine 2:47-end)
Orchestrator: John Neufeld
Length (sheet music): 36 bars

Muted horns and slow ominously tremoloing strings set the mood of building horror for the scene, the Island’s Voice motif performed cruelly by the woodwinds and then passed between different instruments, obviously announcing death. Ludlow, Sarah and Malcolm with the harbour and InGen officials climb to inspect the ship only to find carnage onboard, with bodies littering the decks, victims of unseen assailants. The Island’s Voice is heard again in ghostly synthesizer voices, Ludlow nauceously backing out from the bridge of the ship after seeing the captain’s severed hand holding the wheel.
 
Sarah and Malcolm both notice the big cargo hatch of the ship clanking as if the mechanism had stuck and notice a dead man holding the remote. With tabla playing softly in the background, the brass section starts a slow menacing series of growling bursts that grow in intesity, the Island’s Voice making another exclamation in the midst of mounting dread. Strings shudder, the brass continue their deep ponderous blasts now paced out slower for increasingly foreboding effect as Ludlow wants the cargo hold opened and while Malcolm tries to stop him, one of the police is quicker and obliges. Malcolm calls everybody off the boat.
 
In the Making
This cue went completely unused in the film which favours again silence over music. The music would have started immediately in the aftermath of the ship’s crash, as the survivors survey the devastation.

28. Monster On the Loose (12m5) 2:38 (LLL set D 4 Track 9)
Orchestrator: John Neufeld
Length (sheet music): 50 bars

And thus the button is pushed setting the Rex on the loose! The ponderous monstrously deep brass blasts from the previous cue return with even more commanding weight as the T-Rex emerges from the cargo hold, crying havoc, the rhythmic gait of the music underscoring its heavy steps as it disembarks the ship and heads for land. Strings spiral into a tight knot and a percussion and timpani rumble alongside the grave brass heralding a dire reading of the Island Fanfare as Malcolm announces to the trembling CEO of InGen that now Ludlow is like John Hammond, his dream in pieces and a monster set free in the city of San Diego, the theme here another bittersweet reminder of the noble pipe dream gone awry for the second time.

The T-Rex crashes past the harbour buildings to the heavy plodding of the orchestral forces, high strings presenting their own fateful rhythmic motif over the cymbal crashes, double bass and timpani, Tyrannosaurus Footfalls, the phrase ending with pounding timpani notes as we see the creature against the silhouette of the city growling its fury.

The percussion section offers some suspense accompanied by writing for strings and synthesizers, Malcolm and Sarah inquiring from the InGen technician what was used to tranquilize the beast and demanding from Ludlow where the T-Rex baby was taken, Sarah planning to use the infant to lure the monster back to the ship. The Island’s Voice on ghostly synth voices and strings makes an eerie another appearance, Ludlow sitting despondent and still in shock, telling them the baby is at the InGen waterfront facility, muted sharp horns and clarinets underscoring the duo’s decision to go and get it as they speed off in Malcolm's car.

In the Making
In the film a portion of this composition was replaced by music tracked from the following cue (A Neighborhood Visitor) when we see the T-Rex against the city lights.

29. A Neighborhood Visitor (13m1) 3:26 (LLL set D 4 Track 10 0:00-3:26, OST track 13 Visitor In San Diego 0:00-3:24; Unused in the film 0:00-22)
Orchestrator: John Neufeld
Length (sheet music): 72 bars

In the middle of the night the T-Rex wanders around a San Diego suburb, seeing a pool in the backyard of a house and stopping for a drink. Deep taiko drums, bass trombones, contrabass clarinets, bassoons, celli and double basses shudder under the steps of the monster, catching its movements, horns growling a throaty and pinched variation of the Island’s Voice motif.

The camera moves inside the house and into the bedroom of a small boy. The fish tank beside his bed vibrates to unseen footfalls, the tremors captured by the harp, metallic rub rod,skittery sul ponticello strings, woodwinds and percussion and synthesizers, the Island’s Voice subtly quoted by bass clarinets as the boy wakes up. He sees the T-Rex and backs away, goes to his parents’ room and drags the sleepy and complaining pair to his room babbling all the time about a dinosaur in their backyard, the expectant nervous orchestral effects coalescing, clarinet and flute presenting twice a jumpy variation on the Island’s Voice in a bed of bubbling woodwinds and percussion. At 1:35 very quietly at first a familiar rhythm of Tyrannosaurus Footfalls takes hold of the score, growing slowly in menace under rising string reading of the Island’s Voice, finally reaching a dramatic peak as the parents see the hulking beast through the window with a dog coop hanging by the chain from its jaws, ferocious horns repeating the 4-note Tyrannosaurus Footfalls rhythm and adding a 5th note here imitating the T-Rex’s roar.

At 2:09 the Tyrannosaurus Footfalls and its accompanying rhythmic string motif continue as we cut to Malcolm and Sarah speeding towards the InGen facilities, the cymbal crashes coinciding with the moment before the car crashes through a guardpost safety beam. The heroic and urgent Island Fanfare calls out over the string motif as the two arrive at the Jurassic Park facilities and the discovery of the caged baby T-Rex is treated to a brief ethereal passage for flute and synthesized zither, perhaps a textural nod to the earlier music for the infant dinosaurs heard in the film. As our heroes take the infant and get into the car, the forceful string motif from earlier returns and with this determined musical ally the pair prepares to go searching for the adult Tyrannosaurus.
 
In the Making
The heavy percussive opening (0:00-0:22) was ultimately not used in the film and T-Rex steps into the backyard in silence, the sound effects again carrying the suspense without musical help.

30. Streets Of San Diego (13m2) 4:14 (LLL set D 4 Track 10 3:27-end, OST track 13 Visitor In San Diego 3:24-end; Unused in the film 0:00-0:41)
Orchestrator: Conrad Pope
Length (sheet music): 105 bars

Meanwhile on the streets the panic is rising. A quick cut to a screaming woman’s face opens the cue as rapid fire trumpets and yelping piccolo runs launch her car away from the T-Rex only to crash into the side of another vehicle. Sharp snapping of piccolo snare drum, percussion, resounding cymbal hits and brass describe the on-screen mayhem with raucous fury, low thumping piano and the strings joining the fray. People flee in panic. The Island’s Voice makes a doom laden announcement in the brass further enhanced by the cymbal crashes at around 0:50. The raging orchestral forces push the action forward, Malcolm and Sarah spotting the monster, Sarah waking the baby and its voice luring the adult T-Rex after them and the beast giving furious chase all captured with brilliant aggressive and blazing music for orchestra, brass and percussion highlighted throughout the cue. Again the rhythm seems to be the key here, the ever driving momentum hurtling the action forward with unstoppable speed.
 
At 2:32 a new action rhythm appears, underpinned by deep blasts from trombones and tuba, the trumpets wild and fervent, horns howling the Island’s Voice, the music underscoring Malcolm and Sarah dashing through the streets and into the harbor, abandoning the car and cutting through the warehouses on foot with the T-Rex in hot pursuit, reaching the ship and dropping off the Tyrannosaurus baby and with the final flourish of the Island’s Voice from the orchestra the pair jumps over the ship's railing into the water, leaving baffled Ludlow to take measure of the situation.
 
In the Making
The opening 42 seconds music were not used in the film for the initial shots of the Tyrannosaur attack starting from the transition to the screaming woman backing away from the dinosaur up until the shot where the mauled bus crashes into the video rental store. Interestingly a brief snippet of High Bar and Ceiling Tiles (deep Island's Voice exclamation) makes an appearance for the shot of fleeing Japanese businessmen before the actual cue returns as the script writer David Koepp makes his cameo as the unfortunate pedestrian who gets eaten by the Tyrannosaurus.

31. Ludlow’s End (13m3-14m1) 2:52 (LLL set D 4 Track 11, OST track 12 Ludlow's Demise 1:35-end)
Orchestrator: John Neufeld & Conrad Pope
Length (sheet music): 74 bars

A string motif similar to the one heard under Tyrannosaurus Footfalls (and in snippets in the previous cue) returns in much accelerated guise with full orchestra backing as Ludlow looks down into the cargo hold with a helicopter and a sniper emergimg from the background ready to kill the adult dinosaur. In a shimmer of harp the motif dies down and atmospheric sul ponticello strings and the nervous percussion passages underscore Ludlow descending to the cargohold to find the baby T-Rex, synthesized animal howl further enhancing the edgy moment for the InGen CEO.

But soon the adult T-Rex emerges behind the cargohold doors and comes down to find its infant and the previous string action ostinato motif returns with vengeance punctuated by agitated woodwinds, fateful brass rising to an exclamation point of Ludlow’s demise, orchestral hits scoring the baby T-Rex descending on the wounded man and finishing him off. Outside Sarah and Malcolm are determined to safe the dinosaurs, Sarah loading a tranquilizer gun, the string action motif, breathlessly fast brass figures and cymbals raising the tension while in the helicopter the sniper is ready to take the T-Rex down per Ludlow’s orders. Finally the piece reaches its dramatic conclusion with the tortured string and brass lines over percussion pulse rising to a climax, a heavy orchestral thump announcing Sarah’s tranquilizer dart finding its mark.

In the Making
In the film only the first 15 seconds of the cue are used but the suspenseful underscore is dropped and the T-Rex capturing and crippling Ludlow and feeding the man to his infant and Sarah tranquilizing the creature were tracked with the Lost World theme concert version (and End Credits intro). Williams originally scored the scene much as a continuation of the previous action cues, the string motif heavy and unrelenting, enhancing the ferocity and merciless way the dinosaurs dispatch Ludlow.
 
The film makers’ intention was obviously to highlight justice being done, the bad guy of the movie getting his rightful reward for his actions, with the dinosaurs representing the nemesis and the music celebrating the happy ending for these animals. This could be seen as a continuation of a tradition started in Jurassic Park of showing the T-Rex in a heroic light as it's appearance was re-scored with tracked music (The Island Fanfare) also in the first film to give the finale an optimistic feel. But in some way the original cue fitted the action much better even though it deprived the scene of a victorious sense of closure, which Williams reserved for the next cue.

32. The Saving Dart (14m2) 3:01 (LLL set D 4 Track 12, Film Edit LLL D 4 Track 15,  OST track 14 Finale and Jurassic Park Theme 0:00-2:23)
Orchestrator: Conrad Pope
Length (sheet music): 57 bars

Fluttering woodwinds, synthesized celesta/piano and tremoloing strings announce the Tyrannosaurus falling unconscious and into the safety of the cargo hold. Led by the horn section the orchestra rises to a noble but tragic exclamation of victory and the end for the adventure as Malcolm, weary and breathless surveys the scene in front of him, offering Sarah a grateful and relieved look.

We cut to a hotel room and see the trio on a couch with a CNN news report showing on the television, Sarah and Malcolm sleeping, Kelly alone watching the transportation of the dinosaurs back to the island. With harp accompaniment flutes, horns and strings present a luminous slow and fragmented major mode variation on the Lost World theme, here warm and comforting, the news showing the cargo ship at sea escorted by the military back to Isla Sorna. When John Hammond offers his own view on the matter in the TV interview, piano enters alone, playing the Dinosaurs theme (or the Main theme) from Jurassic Park offering its gentle blessing to the endeavor and to Hammond’s dream continuing in another form. The film then cuts to Isla Sorna and shows the dinosaurs living in their natural habitat while a wistful and slightly pensive coda using subtle interpolation of the Island's Voice motif on synthetic chorus with gentle harp arpeggio accompaniment trails into silence as a Pteranodon lands on a branch of a nearby tree, letting out a victorious cry. Life has indeed found a way.

In the Making
In the film the short 38 second ending of the cue was replaced by the Island Fanfare tracked from the concert suite material recorded for the film, ending the movie on a more positive and triumphant note. This editorial version was also included on the LLL set (Disc 4 track 15) while on the original soundtrack album the suite from Jurassic Park followed immediately after the piano rendition of the Dinosaurs theme. Williams original more subdued and pensive ending can be heard on the LLL set for the first time. 

33. End Credit Intro (unnumbered) 0:14
Orchestrator: ?
Length (sheet music): 11 bars

For the End Credits Williams wrote a revised opening for the new theme of the film featuring a bit deeper brass, horns and trombones in particular, and percussion than the original version. This is edited to flow to

34. The Lost World (End Credits) 3:34 (LLL set D 3 Track 1, D 4 Track 14 (with End Credit Intro), OST track 1 The Lost World)
Orchestrator: John Neufeld & Conrad Pope
Length (sheet music): 134 bars

The concert version of the main theme. As with many Williams’ concert suites this seems to almost tell the story of the film. Here the thematic material receives its most adventurous, celebratory and lengthiest development closing the score in the most triumphantly thrilling and satisfying way.

35. Jurassic Park Theme 5:30 (unnumbered) (LLL set D 4 Track 13, OST track 14 Finale and Jurassic Park Theme 2:23-end)
To accommodate the length of the end credits Williams re-recorded his concert arrangement of his two main themes from Jurassic Park, which he created after the release of the first film and recorded for one of his Boston Pops compilation albums, Williams on Williams: The Classic Spielberg Scores. In the suite he first presents the Dinosaurs Theme/Theme from Jurassic Park, which starts much as it does on the original soundtrack album, on solo horn, but the performance is markedly faster and there is no choral accompaniment.
 
The composition fuses together thematic development from the Welcome to Jurassic Park and the cue Dinosaurs from Jurassic Park and goes fluidly to the Island Fanfare that has also gotten embellishments in the orchestration, making it a bit more powerful performance percussion-wise than on the Jurassic Park OST and closing with the triumphant music from the end of T-Rex Rescue and Finale.
 
In the Making
In the film the Island Fanfare portion of this suite opens the end credits which is then edited to continue with the Lost World theme concert arrangement which in turn is editorially combined with theme's variations from the cue To the Island . The Theme from Jurassic Park section of the suite goes completely unused in the film and the end credits and can only be heard on the album releases of the score.

-Mikko Ojala- ©

Special thanks to Datameister, Jason LeBlanc and Goodmusician for complete cue lists, musical analysis, mock-ups and all the rest.

Notes
[1]The Lost World DVD documentary: The Making of the Lost World. © 1997 Universal Studios & Amblin Entertainment Inc. © 2001. All Rights Reserved.

[2]Wikipedia article: The Lost World Jurassic Park (film score) written by Datameister.

[3]Wikipedia article: The Lost World Jurassic Park (film score) written by Datameister.

[4]The Lost World DVD documentary: The Making of the Lost World. © 1997 Universal Studios & Amblin Entertainment Inc. © 2001. All Rights Reserved.

Nope just the baby theme.
 
It's in Stegasaurus, Spilling Petrol and Horning In, and In The Trailer. 
 
I think you'll enjoy this:
 
https://www.jwfan.com/forums/index.php?/topic/20325-score-the-lost-world-jurassic-park-john-williams-a-complete-score-analysis/

Well, some of my favorite Newman cues are just that: ambient atmospheric music. 90% of film music/classical fans will find it extra dull, but I just love the melancholic atmosphere they create:
 
 
 
 

Thomas Newman naysayers should listen to THE PLAYER.

Indeed. I dunno if I'd go for any of the MG scores, but I really like what Don Davis did (mostly). I'd buy it for sure.

Dear Film Music Fans,   Chris Siddall Music Publishing is proud to announce that the Rocketeer study score is ready for pre-ordering.  Reuniting with director Joe Johnston, following 1989’s Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, James Horner finally achieves his goal of scoring a motion picture about flying. Until 1991’s The Rocketeer, Horner had always managed to “miss out” on projects relating to his passion for flight. The Rocketeer presented the perfect vehicle for him, and the resulting score is one of the finest he ever wrote. Bristling with energy and exuberance, the score is almost Wagnerian in its use of motifs.
As well as the orchestral score featuring exquisite orchestrations by John Neufeld, Elliot Kaplan and Conrad Pope, this edition also includes the unique opportunity to study five jazz standards which were specially arranged and orchestrated for The Rocketeer by the legendary Billy May.
  Please visit ChrisSiddallMusic.com and be the first to own this classic masterpiece today.   390 pages, 9x12 inches. Paperbound, printed in the U.K.   $85.00   Available Worldwide   Note: Shipped from the UK. Please check with your country for import tax before ordering. This charge will be in addition to the item cost and shipping cost and varies by country.   THE ROCKETEER in Full Score (chrissiddallmusic.com)   Orders including The Rocketeer are expected to ship week commencing 2nd October 2023.

People like this director keep saying we have nothing to fear on A.I., but an A.I. trained with Zimmer music managed to produce 7/10 results. And if the technology improves and A.I. begins to write more, better music that is indistinguishable than those written by humans?
 
In 10 years, we won't have human composers anymore, just robots trained with older scores to provide the music producers want to their A.I.-starring and A.I.-written blockbusters.

How ironic would it be…

I'm yet to be persuaded by the idea that LLL would be pursuing Gia's scores given how new they are. (don't read that as a lack of enthusiasm - I'd buy them!)
 
But yes, given the current hype around JP there would be no better time to get JP3 out and finish the book. Nice new cover series design to finish off...
 
MV did only mention a few 60s releases coming from Universal this year, but one can hope that he wasn't being too literal.

There's a big JP fanbase out there.
 
Makes me wonder if LLL are fast-tracking JP3 and the Giacchino scores, considering 3/4 aren't subject to union fees and Universal's easy to deal with currently. Might as well strike while the iron's hot.

Following a FSM thread on this topic here are the "note from Steven Spielberg" on soundtrack albums:
JAWS (1975)
 
In doing the score for Jaws... John Williams has really outdone himself. The soundtrack is a stunning symphonic achievement and a great leap ahead in the revitalization of film music as a foreground component for the total motion picture experience.
He has accomplished on Jaws what Korngold did for The Sea Hawk and Bernard Herrmann for Psycho. Simply, he has made our movie more adventurous, gripping and phobic than I ever thought possible,
Right up there with Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss and 7,000 pounds of hungry shark, John Williams' musical vision plays a leading role.
Unlike so many traditional composer/conductors, John is an artist of numerous styles. He is chameleon-like and vulnerable to the impulses of the film he is about to score. His music on Jaws is unlike any of his previous works, including, The Reivers, The Cowboys, Jane Eyre, The Towering Inferno, Paper Chase, The Sugarland Express, Cinderella Liberty, Images and many others, including two full symphonies, a symphony for winds, a flute concerto and more. These concert works have been performed by many major orchestras in the U.S. and abroad.
Being an insatiable collector of film music, I haven't been this happy with a soundtrack since Dimitri Tiomkin's The Guns of Navarone. What more can I say? The music fulfilled a vision we all shared.
-Steven Spielberg
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE 3rd KIND (1977)
 
One day JOHN WILLIAMS told me something I never would have imagined... that creating a musical score for a nearly completed motion picture is far and away more frustrating than creating an original symphonic composition that never has to conform to the beats, measures, and boundary layers of a screen story, but instead flows freely from the composer's imagination as he tells his own story from start to finish. This is perhaps why much of John's music for CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND is so airborne and awe inspiring. He actually started work on musical ideas two years before CLOSE ENCOUNTERS was finalized, basing his impressions on the unfinished script and dinner conversations we would have twice a week.
In many instances, John wrote his music first, while I put the scenes to it much later. Because of the complicated special effects that adorn the final 35 minutes of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND John found himself composing to blank leader months before the effects were finished and cut in. This was a challenge to both of us, but it liberated John to score freely-sans coitus interruptus-and inspired me in reconstructing certain visuals to the final music.
John became more than just a composer for hire. He was a creative collaborator in all phases of post-production, spending every day for fifteen weeks in the mixing studio and editing rooms. He taught me about underrated Russian composers and good German wines, and I taught him how to pace the hallways and how to eat junk foods.
John's freedom of choice is evident in every selection on this album. Once again John Williams has taken a motion picture and interwoven his own musical story-telling skills to create higher levels of beauty and suspense... His music for CLOSE ENCOUNTERS goes beyond simply allowing the listener to recall his favorite scenes but stands on its own as a serious symphonic achievement - timeless and without restraints.
Steven Spielberg
1941 (1979)
 
On his film score for JAWS, John Williams became half Pirate, half Shark. On CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, he was part Star Child, part Super Nova. Finally, with "1941", John went half crazy and all gung-ho attempting to fit a score to a movie that tries to make World War Il a Comedy Spectacular.
Film humor is sticky business. In order for it to succeed.it must always have one foot firmly on the ground, no matter what color sock the other foot is wearing.
“1941" is about a mix of characters whose reaction to the "Invasion of Hollywood" is at times so extreme that we wonder what on earth is keeping them from blasting into orbit. John's score is a major reason. It is so brazenly dramatic, so brimming with guts and glory, that if you hear the album before seeing the movie you'll probably
wonder just how much comedy “1941" really has. We hope it's "Full of It”. And if you agree. it is due in large part to ninety minutes of incredible music that underscores the most liberal reinterpretation of American History since "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”.
STEVEN SPIELBERG
RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981)
 
A NOTE FROM STEVEN SPIELBERG
Not too long ago, in a country not so far away, adventurer archeologist Indiana Jones embarked on an historically significant search for the Lost Ark of the Covenant, Joining him on this supernatural treasure hunt was The London Symphony Orchestra under the baton of composer John Willams, Were it not for many crucial bursts of dramatic symphonic accompaniment, Indiana Jones would surely have perished in a forbidding temple in South Amorica or in the oppressive silence of the great Sahara desert.
Nevertheless, Jones did not perish, but listened carefully to the Raiders score. Its sharp rhythms told him when to run. Its slicing strings told him when to duck. Its several integrated themes told adventurer Jones when to kiss the heroine or smash the enemy. All things considered, Jones listened, and lived. John Williams saves yet another life and gives our picture, Raiders of the Lost Ark, a new, refreshing life of its own. Thanks, John.
Steven Spielberg
April, 1981
POLTERGEIST (1982)
 
I have been an admirer of Jerry Goldsmith from the moment I heard his score for THE BLUE MAX and A PATCH OF BLUE. Along with John Williams, these two men have dominated the arena of great movie music for nearly 20 years. Jerry's scores range from the unforgettable PATTON to his Oscar-winning music for THE OMEN. In between, there came such rousing challenges as STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE, THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY, CHINATOWN, PAPILLON, ALIEN, over 100 scores.
Now with POLTERGEIST, Jerry has met his greatest challenge - to scare us nearly to tears, and he has been remarkable in his efforts. Cleverly, the moments of greatest tension arise not from his brilliant off-rhythm ostinatos but more from a soothing tonal beauty.
Don't trust his melodies. Something perfectly unworldly is due to occur the moment you let your guard drop and Goldsmith proceeds to feign and attack with no "apparent" rhyme or pattern. It's to his great credit that he has plotted every blow and designed a score of such shattering intensity that nighttime is perhaps not the right time to hear this album if you have seen the film. If you haven't seen POLTERGEIST, Jerry's music conjures many classical impressions of ferocious drive and at the same time, cathedral beauty. So... let the imagination wander. Pleasant dreams
Steven Spielberg
E.T. The Extraterrestrial (1982)
 
“In our ten year and six picture association, John Williams has been an immeasurable creative force in all of my movies. This should be obvious to anyone who realized that John was the voice of Jaws, the soul of the mothership from Close Encounters of the Third Kind and the furious heartbeat from which Raiders of the Lost Ark flowed.
John's score to the movie E.T. is unlike any of his others. It is soothing and benign. It is scary and suspenseful and, toward the climax, downright operatic.
For me, this is John Williams best work for the movies. John Williams is E.T.”
Steven Spielberg
INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM (1984)
 
A NOTE FROM STEVEN SPIELBERG
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is as much a replica of, as it is a departure from, Raiders of the Lost Ark. Musically, all of the familiar marches are back, tracing the heroics of ace archeologist Dr. Indiana Jones from the turbulent streets and dark alleys of 1935 Shanghai, to the sweltering jungles of uncharted India, at which point John Williams, the maestro of movie magic, and we the audience take an unexpected detour to the far side of fear and fantasy.
In this section of the adventure, all comforting themes vanish, and we become lost in the inner sanctums of The Temple of Doom with a secret voodoo cult thought extinct for one hundred years. This sinister setting offers John leagues of musical opportunity, and he makes a feast of it in one of his best film scores ever.
In attempting a "further adventure" neither John Williams, George Lucas, nor I wanted to retrace our steps. This is a shiny new story with heroines, sidekicks and villains you've never before seen. And John Williams has composed new themes for each of them.
I am especially proud of John's "Short Round's Theme" and the nightmare choral chant in The Temple of Doom. These particular sections of the score could be the only music in the world effective enough to knock the hat off of Indiana Jones' head.
Steven Spielberg
THE COLOR PURPLE (1985)
 
The score for THE COLOR PURPLE reflects the beauty of Quincy Jones' personal commitment to both the film and his own artistry.
To successfully accomplish his assignment Quincy spent numerous days on the set of the film, in dailies, and several weekends with me in the editing room attempting to discover what secrets lay at the heart of THE COLOR PURPLE and searching for the inspiration that would provide us both with the musical voices of Celie, Mr., Nettie, Shug, Sofia, Harpo, Old Mr., Squeak, Grady, Miss Millie and that old dilapidated mailbox which became the eleventh character in THE COLOR PURPLE. Even that begged for a theme.
Quincy did us all proud. He and a gifted armada of musicians, arranger/conductors, vocalists and technicians went to work in a fever pitch and one day returned with over 100 minutes of source music, songs and score. The results for me were tear inspiring.
It is music so lucid that one not only hears it, but sees it too.
Quincy Jones has added another milestone to a career already unparalleled in today's recording industry. He has again, given us all something to sing about.
STEVEN SPIELBERG
EMPIRE OF THE SUN (1987)
 
Do not include a Steven Spielberg note.
INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE (1989)
 
A NOTE FROM STEVEN SPIELBERG
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade marks the tenth project John Williams and I have worked on together and the third in this series of adventure yarns, this one involving none other than Sean Connery playing Henry Jones, Sr. to Harrison Ford's Indy Jones... "Jr." And so the tone is set for an ebullient father-son excursion across the surface of the world, more in the vein of the funny, thrilling Raiders than the subterranean journey into darkness that made Temple of Doom so bone chilling.
I think John heard his new themes the first time he saw my assembly of the movie. He knew exactly what he wanted and eight weeks later before an 85-piece Hollywood orchestra, I experienced one of John's liveliest film scores ever. From the Grail Knight Theme written in the English, pastoral idiom in major modes with very positive intervals, to the scherzo, underlining the father and son exploits which is in a driving, brilliant orchestral idiom with 6/8 rhythm, the kind of music you might imagine for a wild fox hunt. This scene is equestrian in character, but it's transposed on something nearly contemporary. Instead of riding horses, which is what this music reminds us of, we instead hear this when they're fighting Nazis in airplanes or being pursued in motorcycles or being chased in boats. It brings, in musical terms, a classical element to these scenes.
Henry's (Sean Connery's) Theme has strong intervals that establish an emotional relationship between these two men in a lyrical way without sentimentality.
John's music has always related in a kinetic fashion to the way I rhythmically pace my sequences.
It gives the impression of one constant, adventurous trip. What is unique is that John's music rhythmically traces my action for almost 110 minutes and becomes a character in the story with as much importance as the heroes and the villains.
What I think is different in many ways about this score is that only fragments of the familiar Indiana Jones theme are used. We felt the movies had grown up to the point that we didn't have to lean on your thrill button every time something heroic occurs as we had done in the previous two motion pictures.
Having said this, John has outdone himself. which has become a habit with him. He gives new meaning to the phrase "audience involvement.”
Steven Spielberg
ALWAYS (1990)
 
Do not include a Steven Spielberg note.
THE SPIELBERG WILLIAMS COLLABORATION (1991)
 
I WANT TO SALUTE JOHN WILLIAMS - the quintessential film composer. John has transformed and uplifted every movie that we've made together. As his works are performed on this recording with the artistry of the Boston Pops Orchestra, I think you'll hear what I mean. For instance, who would have imagined the mood that two simple notes, in a heartbeat rhythm, could create. To this day, just hearing those two notes from Jaws (1975) immediately conjures shark, adrenaline and second thoughts about swimming. John's music became the character. But the magic of John's music supporting the picture is one thing: the other is the loveliness and power of the music itself.
In 1974 Universal Pictures gave me a go-ahead to direct my first feature film. I signed Goldie Hawn to star in this movie, which was based on a true story that took place in southwest Texas.
I wanted a certain sound: music I had heard in the movies The Reivers and The Cowboys, both scored by John Williams.
We met, and, to my good fortune, he agreed to do the film. He wrote a most haunting and wonderful theme so evocative of that part of Texas. He chose harmonica as solo voice for his composition and brought the world's most celebrated harmonica player. Toots Thielemans, to our recording session. And here Toots recreates that theme from our first collaboration, Sugarland Express (1974).
In the next year, for Jaws, John composed music for the boat ride that took Richard Dreyfuss and his crew in search of the shark - a truly great orchestral piece on its own. The scene ends as Dreyfuss meets his nemesis from his fragile sea-locked cage. John calls this "Out to Sea" and "The Shark Cage Fugue." John received his second Academy Award for Jaws (his first was for the orchestration of Fiddler on the Roof in 1971).
Immediately after Jaws, our next venture was Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). The challenge posed to John this time was quite literally from another world. How should mankind communicate with this mesmerizing space ship? John wanted something that was a kind of signal or musical beacon - he felt that anything longer than five notes was too close to a melody. As simple and natural as the theme now seems, it was anything but simple to compose. We consulted a mathematician who warned us that there are at least 250,000 ways to combine five notes! Undaunted, John created his inspired combination. Out of these five notes, John went on to compose a finale filled with awe, affection and reverence, a musical blessing for the transcendent encounter between humans and extraterrestrials.
For the motion picture 1941 (1979), I posed yet a whole different challenge to John: A World War Il comedy spectacle about the imagined panic in Los Angeles after the invasion of Pearl Harbor. This was a larger-than-life, special-effects movie of a war being fought on the beaches of Malibu. John composed a spirited march which when played in the studio sounded so good that I went home, grabbed my clarinet and joined the clarinet section to make sure the end result was just ragged enough. Despite my efforts, the March survived and contributed great fun to this bizarre invasion.
For Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), John rousingly heightened the spirit of adventure, wit and suspense. But, again, the power of his music, outside the context of the films, valiantly speaks for itself.
In the case of E.T. (1982), John asked that we simply let him perform this theme without trying to measure it closely with the edited film. We shut off the projector and John performed the theme for E.T., just letting the spirit come from his heart. It worked so well that we took the last scene back to the editing room and conformed our pictures to John's interpretive conducting. This score won him his fourth Academy Award (the third was for Star Wars), and my continued admiration and gratitude.
The range and variety of John's music is extraordinary. While often powerful in adventure scenes or even jubilant as in the chorus "Exsultate Justi" from Empire of the Sun (1987), his most poignant moments capture the tenderness and aspirations of the human spirit, sometimes gently, sometimes soaring to lush heights, no more so than in the "Cadillac of the Skies" from Empire of the Sun and in his theme from Always (1989).
John is the poet in me. He makes me look so good each time out. We've been friends and colleagues for seventeen years. He's been my partner in film, my partner in music and my friend in life.
- Steven Spielberg
HOOK (1991)
 
John and I wanted to do a live-action motion picture fantasy We explored a number of options: musical theatre, light opera, and most recently, a musical sans libretto.
Because of enormous pressure brought about by an early December 91 release for our latest collaboration, HOOK, John began to write the score even before he saw the completed film. His only clue into the nature of what I was doing was the screenplay and the first 5 reels (47 minutes) of edited film. These were not the ideal working conditions we had experienced over the course of an eleven-picture relationship. Yet remarkably, John has invented music with so much magic, delicacy, and simple beauty that the results have far outshone the process.
John Williams and I have enjoyed an exclusive collaboration since 1973. I have, over the span of eleven movies, found myself pen to paper trying to express myself about John Williams' music.
Ladore this score. And here is a rare instance where further words really fail me. The music needs to be experienced, not discussed. It will provide recurring memories of our movie HOOK, or like any great ballet, suite or symphony it will stand wholly on its own, sweeping you away to your own personal Neverland
- Steven Spielberg
JURASSIC PARK (1993)
 
SIXTY-FIVE MILLION YEARS AGO, DINOSAURS ROAMED THE EARTH.
Now, through the miracle of DNA cloning and John Williams talent, we're back in the Jurassic Era, listening to a score which I can only call classic, vintage Williams.
John and I haven't made a movie like this together since "Jaws" and it was a lot of fun for us to revisit a genre that we got such a kick out of 18 years ago.
When listening to this score, you should pay particular attention to the music of the raptors as well as the haunting and ennobling sounds of the brachiosaurus - in my opinion some of the most original writing John has ever done for the movies.
"Jurassic Park" marks the end of our first dozen films together.
It's the longest personal working relationship I've ever had with anyone in the motion picture industry, and I consider it a privilege to call John my friend.
- STEVEN SPIELBERG, 1993
SCHINDLER'S LIST (1993)
 
With dignity and compassion. John Williams has composed original and stunningly classical music for SCHINDLER'S LIST in a collection of themes and orchestral remembrances that will haunt you. The antihuman events beginning with Kristallnacht (1938) to the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau (1944) posed a deliberate challenge to both John and me: how to make the unimaginable factual, and how to create not so much a motion picture but a document of those intolerable times.
The choice John Williams made was gentle simplicity. Most of our films together have required an almost operatic accompaniment. which is fitting for INDIANA JONES. CLOSE ENCOUNTERS or JAWS. Each of us had to depart from our characteristic styles and begin again. This is certainly an album to be attended with closed eyes and unsequestered hearts.
Joining John in honoring the memory of the Shoah is the world renowned violinist Itzhak Perlman. His and John's contribution to the musical literature of this project is significant. 1 want to thank them both for making SCHINDLER'S LIST the most deeply moving filmmaking experience of my life.
Steven Spielberg
WILLIAMS ON WILLIAMS – THE CLASSIC SPIELBERG SCORES (1995)
 
Do not include a Steven Spielberg note.
THE LOST WORLD (1997)
 
Do not include a Steven Spielberg note.
AMISTAD (1997)
 
Music is not only an integral but an essential part of my life.
Sometimes listening to a good film score inspires my imagination even more often than seeing someone else's movie. That's because music allows free association. Sometimes film music is so specific to the identity of a cultural phenomenon, like STAR WARS, JAWS or THE GODFATHER, that there is no way to listen to those scores and not see robots, fish and cannolis. Other scores are less remembered for their perfect fit, and like classical music, allow the listener his or her own personal interpretations. Fortunately, John Williams has written both kinds of music and inspired all of us along the way.
Early favorite composers of mine, like Bernard Hermann, Alex North and Dmitri Tiomkin were so defined by their musical habits that you could clearly imagine the films they wrote for. Bernard Hermann's NORTH BY NORTHWEST was vintage Hitchcock. Alex North's SPARTACUS could not be mistaken for anything less than tortured genius. Dmitri Tiomkin's scores for THE RISE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY and THE ALAMO sounded like Tiomkin pictures.
The outstanding virtue of John Wiliams' gifts has always been John's selfless ability to create unprecedented sounds. Like the great character actors John Barrymore, Paul Muni and Dustin Hoffman, who would never impose a single personality on multiple roles, John Williams has the gift to become any character necessary to retell with music the the story of the film he is working on. AMISTAD marks our 24th year in partnership and our 15 film together. And, after all that time, John has never failed to surprise me, uplift me or make me look good.
STEVEN SPIELBERG
SAVING PRIVATE RYAN (1998)
 
With Saving Private Ryan, John Williams has written a memorial for all the soldiers who sacrificed themselves on the altar of freedom in the Normandy Invasion on June 6, 1944.
Pay particular attention to the cue entitled "Hymn to the Fallen," which never appears in the main text of the film, only at the end credit roll. It's a piece of music and a testament to John Williams sensitivity and brilliance that, in my opinion, will stand the test of time and honor forever the fallen of this war and possibly all wars.
In all of our 16 collaborations, Saving Private Ryan possibly contains the least amount of score. Restraint was John Williams' primary objective. He did not want to sentimentalize or create emotion from what already existed in raw form. Saving Private Ryan is furious and relentless, as are all wars, but where there is music, it is exactly where John Williams intends for us the chance to breathe and remember.
As with Schindler's List, John Williams chose the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the deeply resonant qualities of Symphony Hall to record the score for Saving Private Ryan. I would like to give special mention to Tim Morrison, Thomas Rolfs (trumpets) and Gus Sebring (French horn) for their heartfelt solos, and to Kenny Wannberg, who has been a close collaborator of John Williams and mine from almost the very beginning of my career.
- STEVEN SPIELBERG
A.I. – ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (2001)
 
A.I. means Artificial Intelligence.
But there is nothing artificial about John Williams' organically emotion and our 17th collaboration in film. A.I. studies the unique fellowship human and machine and John has woven a musical interface. John’s score pierces the mystery of a robot (mecha) child's short existence. His name is David and he never had a birthday, but was engineered to give and receive the love of the family he is placed in. The music underlines and then transports David on his journey of discovery from his inception to his transcendence and John does this with wit, majesty, and soul. John's music is of our world and of theirs and finally of a world shared by both orga and mecha. And like so many of John's scores front my movies, you really don't need the images to have the story told to you.
He is the greatest musical storyteller of all time.
STEVEN SPIELBERG
MINORITY REPORT (2002)
 
John Williams has done a masterful job in his musical presentation of Minority Report. The plot and story find their roots in the combination of American film noir and the classic "whodunit" mysteries that were so popular in the era of Humphrey Bogart and filmmaker John Huston. John Williams and I have often marveled at the way Bernard Herrmann was able to contribute so much musical suspense to an Alfred Hitchcock picture.
So in that tradition of mystery, suspense and film noir, John has fashioned a fast-paced, yet dark portrait of America in the year 2054 when the murder of one human being by another can be foretold through the miraculous gifts of three precognitives. Unlike our other collaborations, John's score for Minority Report is not lush with melody; it is nonetheless brilliant in its complexity and forceful in its rhythms. It is the kind of music that will start in your spine and eventually find its way to your heart in the section titled "Sean's Theme."
If most of John's scores for my films have been in color, I think of this score as his first one in black and white. But as in most of John's music quite often you don't need the pictures to understand the musical story that John is telling you. After all, John Williams is the greatest musical storyteller the world of the movies has ever known. - STEVEN SPIELBERG
CATCH ME IF YOU CAN (2002)
 
John's 20h score for our 20" film is like a 20" anniversary surprise. For the first time in our long association, John has composed a score in the idiom of progressive jazz prevalent in the 50s and 60s. Charlie Parker would have been proud. Inspired by the true-life adventures of Frank William Abagnale Jr., CATCH ME IF YOU CAN is about a great imposter whose scams, forgeries and frauds made him one of the youngest people to ever be placed on the FBI's Most Wanted list. Many movies taking place in the 60s rely on a parade of popular tunes from the period. AMERICAN GRAFFITI started the trend although it was most recently realized in Bob Zemeckis' FORREST GUMP and while CATCH ME IF YOU CAN employs several popular tunes from the era, John Williams chose the timelessness of jazz along with the talented saxophonist, Dan Higgins, to underline the cat-and-mouse chase between FBI agent, Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks) and master paper-hanger Frank Abagnale Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio).
And while you may swear that the E flat sax solo was improvised,
John wrote every single note of it.
Another haunting section of this score draws from Frank Jr.'s relationship with his father played by Christopher Walken. It inspired John to write a five minute concert piece entitled, Recollections (The Father's Theme). It is a bravura composition and further illustrates that as John's music matures he continues to get younger and more daring each day.
- Steven Spielberg
THE TERMINAL (2004)
 
The Terminal is a romantic adventure of the human spirit. While Viktor Navorski (Tom Hanks) may be a man without a country, he is not a man without a score, written with love and a sense of Krakozhian humor by maestro John Williams. Viktor's theme is performed by clarinetist, Emily Bernstein, who gives Viktor a clear and profoundly moving voice throughout his journey within the confines of an international terminal while he waits for the visa that could finally get him into New York City and the American dream.
But Viktor is not the only character John has written for. The love theme for Amelia (Catherine Zeta-Jones) may only be eight bars, but it will become instantly memorable after hearing it only once.
There is so much beauty in John's score for The Terminal. Beauty without bathos. And that's what dignifies Viktor and Amelia's story, always keeping it far from sentimentality but never too far from our hearts. For me this is the "feel good" score of John's entire repertoire, and I am again honored that he has given so freely of his musical gifts to another one of my films.
- Steven Spielberg
WAR OF THE WORLDS (2005)
 
I am a fan of scary scores. From the old B-movie sci-fi films of the 1950s and '60s, to the haunting melodies created in 1935's Bride of Frankenstein by Franz Waxman.
Selfishly, I feel the scariest music written for film was Jaws by John Williams. That was music that when you heard it, you knew it was time to be scared. For War of the Worlds, John reached for something not of this earth and composed a score that you feel on your skin, even before you become aware that you are actually hearing it. He has laid down a musical foundation of atmospherics and textural events, achieving a rhythmic propulsion that is so utterly primal it crawls up inside of you and makes you wonder how one composer could make such a radical departure in style from such masterworks of melodic phrasing as the flying theme from E.T., to the enduring themes of the Star Wars series and come up with a new sound that gives War of the Worlds much of its ultra-realism. But that is the genuine genius of John Williams and the many characters he has played throughout a musical career that will never be equaled.
-Steven Spielberg
MUNICH (2005)
 
In the world of film scores, 2005 will be remembered as a John Williams red-letter year. Incredibly, John composed and conducted four scores: STAR WARS: EPISODE THREE REVENGE OF THE SITH, WAR OF THE WORLDS, MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA and MUNICH. Each of these scores only had the composer in common. The compositions couldn't be more diverse, and clearly illustrates what I have been saying for years in my liner notes, that John Williams is a master of disguise. From deep space to deep history, from the further reaches of the Japanese culture to the darkest notes John has ever written to depict the collapse of civilization, fans of film music were treated to a John Williams concert in four acts. His last act of 2005 was to compose the music for a film inspired by the tragic event 1972 and the Games of the Twentieth Olympiad in Munich, Germany where Black September kidnapped and murdered eleven members of the Israeli Olympic team. For me, the quintessential movement of John's score for MUNICH entitled "A Prayer for Peace” embraces the history of this tragedy while deeply honoring the memory of the members e Israeli team who were murdered on September 6, 1972.
Steven Spielberg
INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL (2008)
 
Nineteen years have passed since the last Indiana Jones adventure.
And where all of us are nearly two decades older, the music hasn't aged a bit. During the filming of our fourth Indiana Jones adventure, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, hardly a day would pass before someone on the cast or crew could be heard humming the "Raiders March." That piece of music has grown instantly familiar, probably along with the Jaws theme, in creating a thrill or chill out of the thin air on which music travels. And that is the John Williams legacy of which I am his most grateful beneficiary.
When you listen to the music for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, it too will be all at once familiar and original. It travels through the mysteries and folklore surrounding a secret army base in the Nevada desert, to the world of academia and Indy's day job as a tenured professor, to the Chauchilla Graveyard and sudden attack of the living dead, then on to the deepest jungle of a lost Mayan civilization with a secret that promises the power of the Universe to all who dare seek it.
John's music outlines the action and, as always, leads the narrative.
His music is just as legendary as the McGuffins that Indiana Jones is chasing after. When you think of Indiana Jones, all you need is the silhouette: the jacket, the hat, the whip, and the music that made him a legend. Thank you, John.
Steven Spielberg
THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN (2011)
 
Considering the number of the action movies he's scored, from Star Wars to Indiana Jones to The Adventures of Tintin, it surely can be said that, "if adventure has a name, it must be John Williams. When I first heard the Tintin score, I felt as though John hadn't aged a bit since his work on Jaws and Star Wars. This new music has the same energy and exuberance, and it's so intricately interwoven into the story, characters, and images that it makes me feel like a youngster again - and you will too, if you're not one already!
In this instance, a traditional score was the perfect match for another tradition - the beloved comic books by the Belgian writer and artist working under the nom de plume Hergé, who created the Tintin series in 1929.
Tintin was the first animated film I directed and the first one John had scored. But when he saw my initial rough cut, he understood immediately what needed to be done, and we soon found ourselves on familiar ground. John's stirring theme for our title character Tintin is perfectly suited to a young reporter who somehow always becomes the story. The second most important character in the Hergé series is the oftentimes drunken sea captain Archibald Haddock, and for him, John created a theme that sounds like it's from the bottom of a bottle - until Haddock's redemption, that is - when his theme sobers into one that is lovely and noble.
The two detectives working for INTERPOL, Thomson and Thompson, are look-alikes who can only be told apart by the spelling of their names. They never seem to get anything right, and John captured them perfectly in his cue, "Introducing the Thompsons." Then there's Snowy, Tintin's dog and constant companion, whose theme is fast, funny, and deliriously breathtaking. At the heart of our adventure is a search for honor and identity, as Captain Haddock must discover, through his soggy memories, a family secret dating back to the 17th century. And for this, John returned to his movie roots and composed a pirate theme rivaling anything from the sketchbooks of Max Steiner or Erich Wolfgang Korngold.
Personally, I cannot hear this score too many times... whether in my car, or from the music library on my phone, or whenever I see the brilliant images from the film, animated by the geniuses at Peter Jackson's company WETA in Wellington, New Zealand. Tintin brought together so many gifted artists who created a breakthrough in photorealistic animation. And accompanied by John's brilliant score, we all can return to our roots through the genre of action/adventure movies, filled with memorable characters, laughter, and total escapist entertainment.
Enjoy.
- Steven Spielberg
WAR HORSE (2011)
 
The dramatic countryside of Dartmoor has inspired John Williams to compose a score of such beauty and quiet majesty that one might think the earth was speaking through him, much as the heavens have done for nearly five decades. When I first heard John's sketches of the four central themes for War Horse, I didn't need my memories of the film to underscore the feelings I was having.
The music was a stand-alone experience and it affected me deeply, as have so many of John's scores during our nearly 40-year collaboration.
I feel that John has made a special gift to me of this music, which was inspired not only by my film but also by many of the picturesque settings of the poet William Wordsworth, whose vivid descriptions of the British landscape inspired much of what you are going to hear. I'm not sure what I can give John in return, other than a promise of more films to come... for as many more years as we both can imagine!
- Steven Spielberg
LINCOLN (2012)
 
LINCOLN is a milestone for John and me. This is our 40th anniversary making movies and music and we are celebrating by way of a subject that has fascinated both of us separately for most of our lives. Trying to acquit a story of our greatest President at the bloody crossroads of abolishing slavery and reunification of a nation torn in two by four years of Civil War caused both of us to proceed with the utmost restraint.
My lens and John's orchestrations linger in quiet support of a man who articulated more powerfully than any other American President and as beautifully as any of our greatest writers what America is, what it means, why it had to go through the crucible of the war. He guided our country through its worst crisis and, more than any other single person, helped the United States survive. In doing so, he helped the idea of democracy as a viable political system survive. He combined vision and practicality more successfully than any other political leader we know of and kept these in a kind of near-perfect balance. He had faith in the people and in the democratic process and he helped prove that faith well founded.
John and I were here to guide and support this story, but not to make our voices heard above his. I am so honored not only to have been able to tell a story of Abraham Lincoln but to have had this story coincide with a landmark anniversary of the best creative collaboration of my whole career.
- Steven Spielberg
THE BFG (2016)
 
Set in a land ruled by giants and inspired by dreams, The BFG is about an unlikely friendship between two orphaned souls who find each other, humor, adventure, strength, and courage.
If you know the Roald Dahl story, you can close your eyes and just by listening to John Williams' compositions, you will emotionally experience what we experience with our eyes open.
A light symphony of musical poetry that complements Melissa Mathison's adaptation, John's score brings out all the heart, mystery, and magic in the performances of Mark Rylance as the BFG, and newcomer Ruby Barnhill as our headstrong and soulful Sophie.
The greatest film composer of our generation has written music so timeless and youthful, it makes me believe he is actually aging backwards.
BFG says, "All my dreams is beginning here," and I feel the same way about John's score. In fact, it is my dream come true.
Steven Spielberg
THE SPIELBERG/WILLIAMS COLLABORATION PART III (2017)
 
Do not include a Steven Spielberg note.
THE POST (2017)
 
When John saw my final cut of The Post, his first thought was to assess the size and the scope of the musical accompaniment needed for the film. He envisioned his contribution to be like that of an anonymous source... giving the film weight without bearing any, and stirring the audience's sense of justice without leading the story. What John wrote is subtle, deft, very expressive and achingly beautiful.
When we spotted the film to determine where the music would and would not play, John wisely avoided many obvious choices, opting instead to let Meryl Streep (as The Washington Post publisher Katherine Graham) and Tom Hanks (as editor Ben Bradlee) be the "solo artists," and to allow Liz Hannah's and Josh Singer's brilliant, illuminating and relevant screenplay to carry those moments unaccompanied. The result is a magnificent balance through which we feel the painful losses our nation bore in the Vietnam War, as well as our collective pride in the journalists who risked their careers, reputations and even imprisonment, to stand up to the Nixon Administration and to find and print the truth for the American public.
We are both so proud to have collaborated on a story that is neither partisan nor political, and which hopefully will stand the test of time as the pendulum of history continues to swing.
- Steven Spielberg
SHINDLER’S LIST (2018 25th anniversary edition)
 
“With dignity and compassion, John Williams composed one of his greatest scores for Schindler's List in a collection of themes and orchestral remembrances that will haunt you. The inhumane events beginning with Kristallnacht (1938) to the liberation of Auschwitz- Birkenau (1944) posed a deliberate challenge for John and me.
Most of our films together have required an almost operatic accompaniment, which is fitting for Indiana Jones, Close Encounters, or Jaws, but each of us had to depart from our characteristic styles
to honor this story of the Shoah.
This is certainly an album to be absorbed with closed eyes and unsequestered hearts.
When I directed Schindler's List 25 years ago, my greatest hope for the film was that it would speak to audiences, to continue our conversation and advance our determination to prove that love is stronger than hate I continue to hope for this today.
Joining John in honoring the memory of the Shoah is the world-renowned violinist Itzhak Perlman. His and John's contribution to the musical literature of this project is significant. I want to thank them both for making Schindler's List the most deeply moving filmmaking experience of my life.”
- STEVEN SPIELBERG
READY PLAYER ONE (2018)
 
When Amblin Entertainment hired Alas Silvestri to write his first fully orchestrated score for Kevin Reynolds’ movie FANDANGO in 1984, I just knew, after hearing the tracks, that this young composer was destined for greatness. Sure enough, his very next score made movie music history - BACK TO THE FUTURE! A score that kids learned by heart and 33 years later can still hum (and often do). And after you see READY PLAYER ONE, you may notice a fragment of Alan's BACK TO THE FUTURE score, which is our homage in a film filled with 80's cultural nostalgia. This nostalgia for the 1980s is the central conceit of the reimagined society in the year 2045 in Ernest Cline's brave new world novel upon which our adventure movie is based. While all sorts of culturally iconic references populate READY PLAYER ONE like a garden of partially hidden Easter eggs, the score that Alan Silvestri composed is completely and intoxicatingly original. It's bound together by multiple themes that identify plot and character and is infused by such percussive adrenaline and soaring strings that Alan has made READY PLAYER ONE appear to fly. That's the magical marriage of music and film. And it's what Alan believes in.
Alan is thrilled to help someone tell a story. He doesn't write music outside of film, he doesn't have a need to write an "opus." This is because Alan has a very personal and distinct point of view, and that point of view has nothing to do with music-it has to do with story. And as proof of his devotion to the musical narrative, just listen to his music from FORREST GUMP, CASTAWAY, THE AVENGERS, WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT?, THE ABYSS, THE POLAR EXPRESS, and more films than I can possibly list. I've worked with Alan before as an executive producer; this however, was my first collaboration with him as a director and it was a huge rush for me. Alan's work will contribute to the rush we all hope audiences will experience when they get to see and hear READY PLAYER ONE.
STEVEN SPIELBERG
February 2018
THE FABELMANS (2022)
 
A NOTE FROM THE DIRECTOR
The Fabelmans marks John Williams' 90th year of life and 50th year in my life reshaping my stories through his music, and giving audiences all around the world countless musical memories that have often become cultural touchstones… from Jaws to E.T.; Jurassic Park, to Indiana Jones; and now, our thirty-first collaboration, The Fabelmans, by far the most personal film of my career, John knew my parents well. Down through the years they'd offen attend our scoring sessions and Johnny loved introducing them to the orchestra which made my Dad so proud, and left my Mom beaming (and me kvelling). So when Johnny watched this movie for the first time and saw Michelle Williams and Paul Dano on screen as Mom and Dad, the musical notes just seemed to pour from the heavens. He wrote his score as a gift to them and, when he first previewed it for me on his Steinway, I knew he had made this his most personal gift to me as well. What a beautiful culmination for our 50th anniversary, one that leaves me wanting more... more movies with Johnny, as I am joined by a billion people the world over who will never stop shouting to John Williams... encore, encore!
Thank you, maestro.
- STEVEN SPIELBERG, 2022
 

Average film score collectors trauma dumping to their therapists like 

I collect CDs and my CDs collect dust... Why not just cut out the middleman and start collecting dust straight away!

Are you kidding me?
 

Same here.. I love Skyfall. I remember I heard it for the first time in the film in the cinema. That was an incredible experience, I thought.
Writing's On The Wall is fine. I also really like No Time To Die, but that's probably because I've always liked Eillish's vocals.
 
Another Way To Die is awful. Together with Die Another Day those are the worst Bond songs.
 
You Know My Name is actually is a really great song. It just took me a while to warm up to it

Certainly during the Craig era, one wonders what the hell they were thinking with 3 of the tracks (the aforementioned Another Way To Die, Sam 'balls* in a vice' Smith's Writing's On The Wall and mumblin' Billie Eilish's No Time To Die). 

*Of course, by now there is every chance that he/she/they/it is no longer in possession of said dangly bits.   

This went from a thread about hiding tastes to an exemplification of why sometimes we hide our tastes.

I think that leaves me as the biggest Desplat fan of the forum 
 
His scores for The Light Between Oceans is one of my top 10 scores of all time, and his masterpiece in my opinion.

I'm sure this has been discussed before, as it appears on the 2016 release as well, but what's with the strange hiss at 2:41 in Ludlow's Speech?
 
Additionally, on the alternate of Rescuing Sarah, there's a one-off electronic sounding blip that happens around 1:00, just before the piccolo/flute accents. I assume this is something present in the original recording... Perhaps some synthesiser/mic going haywire during the first recording session?
 
Loving this release so far aside from those minor issues. I'm currently trying to find the time to sit down and listen to LLL JP1 and 2 back-to-back for the ultimate musical experience.

It's Giacchino.
 
There's nothing he's done that is iconic.  Everything is 'surface level' quality, he has rode the coattails of famous franchises but I still to this day can't 'hum' a single one of his themes. Stupid argument sure, but to me that counts for something...only because he's been involved with so many iconic franchises.
 
And his action music is also incredibly boring too.
 
I understand his scores can sound warm and that's fine and all, but I'm not tricked into listening to them anymore.
 
I also hate his cue puns.  Write a cue that's amazing and then we can get cute with the names.
 
And just for reference on my musical knowledge, I have none. I might as well be a caveman trying to explain why I don't like an iPhone....but here we are. "me no like"

In order for a composer to be overrated, he'd have to be rated above a baseline rate for similar composers, be showered with constant praise and attention despite uninspired and repetitive efforts, and come up in conversations about comparing great composers.
 
I can't see how any of that applies to Howard Shore. He was a mostly unknown film composer until his score for Silence Of The Lambs got recognition because of its approach and association with a great film. Then he got the appreciation and laurels he deserved for the LotR achievement, after which he remained mostly a composer for directors he knew, and, despite a few big budget pics like Aviator and Twilight, stayed true to the genres and lower tier films he had worked on before his Academy Awards. With the exception of The Hobbit, for which he did not in fact get the big praise you think he did, he didn't have a significantly different film scoring career than before LotR.
 
None of the phases in his career were/are accompanied with significantly more attention and critical praise than they deserved, he's working more on streaming things and his concert music now, he is barely mentioned in film scoring conversations anymore, his thread on this board is dead, and despite LotR and The Hobbit, he got sidelined for Rings of Power in favor of Bear McCreary.
 
So it's hard to see why exactly Howard Shore is "overrated".
 
You confuse your opinion of LotR being overrated with him being overrated as a composer in general.
 
Aside from LotR, he's a strong contender for most underrated.