Released by Universal Music in 2001, the 16-track Jurassic Park III soundtrack album contains music from the movie. The soundtrack cover declares "Original Themes by John Williams" and "New Music Composed and Conducted by Don Davis."
The disc itself is actually an enhanced CD with features accessible by a computer, while the music tracks themselves are still usable by a regular CD player.
The insert features stills from movie scenes, the largest picture coming from the Tyrannosaur-vs-Spinosaur battle scene.
The track listing follows:
- Isla Sorna Sailing Situation
- The Dinosaur Fly-By
- Cooper's Last Stand
- The Raptor Room
- Raptor Repartee
- Tree People
- Pteranodon Habitat
- Tiny Pecking Pteranodons
- Billy Oblivion
- Brachiosaurus on the Bank
- Nash Calling
- Bone Man Ben
- Frenzy Fuselage
- Clash of Extinction
- The Hat Returns/End Credits
- Big Hat, No Cattle - Performed by Randy Newman
Differences from John Williams' Score
As the cover of the album suggests, most of the tracks are based on Williams' original score for Jurassic Park. In this soundtrack, Don Davis takes the original and adds his own style to it, creating a sound quite distinctive from the original. Fans have complained about a lack of "weight" to the score, particularly Davis's take on the original theme, as well as Brachiosaurus on the Bank (which borrows heavily from the Jurassic Park score), which lack certain elements that gave a sense of wonder to Williams's compositions.
Also different on this album is a vocal soundtrack performed by Randy Newman (a prominent feature and recognizable voice from many movie and television soundtracks, including the theme from Monk and songs from Toy Story). This track stands out because of the absence of any singing from the previous two movie soundtracks. The song "Big Hat, No Cattle" comes from the background music in the restaurant meeting scene where Alan Grant gets convinced to go to Isla Sorna.
Enhanced CD Features
An autorun feature opens up to a full, black screen with thunder sounding and flashes of lightning. One flash reveals a T-Rex facing the camera and roaring, an image apparently taken from the original movie. Once that disappears, a soundtrack of birds and other quiet jungle noises begins while a square opens up in the middle of the screen. Here are a collage of trees, faces of characters from the movie, the movie's logo, and two raptors. The eye of the raptor in the foreground blinks.
Superimposed on this background and aligned to the right are the buttons for the features: Movie Trailer, Dino-Chart, Photos, Website, A Conversation with Composer Don Davis, and Jurassic Park: Survival Video Game Trailer. Also at the bottom left of the screen is a Quit button. Clicking on any of these buttons triggers a raptor hissing sound as the menu switches to the selected feature. This is referred to as the Control Room.
All but one of the feature pages have a "Return to the Control Room" button at the bottom left of the screen with a compy standing at the end of it. When clicking that button, the compy squeaks and runs across the screen to the right. The Dino-Chart page just has a button at the top to return to the control panel, which it does without any flair. Clicking "Quit" changes briefly to a credits page for the enhanced part of the CD, then the program and screen closes.
Movie Trailer
On the Movie Trailer menu is a control panel made to look like something that may have been left at InGen headquarters at Isla Sorna, with trees framing either side of the image and a small screen located in the middle. Present on the right of the screen are circular buttons marked "Full Screen" and "Play;" located just below the screen is a large red button marked "Emergency Stop." The movie trailer automatically plays in the center screen.
Dino-Chart
This page is a height-comparison chart. It is comprised mainly of a graph of lines with pictures of a man and dinosaurs at proportional heights and underneath them the average height and length (in feet and inches) of that creature. At the top is the button to return to the control panel, a Left- and a Right-facing arrow, and instructions to click on the descriptions to view them larger.
The picture of the man is Alan Grant, listed at six feet tall. The dinosaurs shown (in order) are Brachiosaurus, Raptor Male, Raptor Female, Spinosaurus, Ankylosaurus, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Compsognathus, Parasaurolophus, and Corythosaurus. Clicking the descriptions for each dinosaur brings a larger image of that dinosaur next to the human.
Photos
The default background of the photos page features the faceoff between the T-Rex and Spinosaurus (the same image also found in the insert). Above and below this image in filmstrip style are a total of 17 pictures. Clicking any of these pictures brings up a larger view of that image. Clicking it again goes back to the default.
Website
Clicking the website button opens the Jurassic Park website in the computer's default Internet browser.
A Conversation with Composer Don Davis
This page has a similar control panel to that from the Movie Trailer page, but the screen resembles an old CRT computer screen, with a black background and green letters. The video control buttons are absent here. Instead, a Next and a Previous button are placed on the left and right of the screen (respectively and counter-intuitively). The conversation is Q&A format transcript of a discussion with Don Davis. Clicking on the buttons moves the reader through the pages of the conversation.
JP: Survival Video Game Trailer
This page is the same control panel from the Movie Trailer page. Here a trailer plays for the Jurassic Park: Survival Video Game.
The Original Jurassic Park III Score
Jurassic Park 3 Soundtrack Suite (Don Davis)
JP 3 Theme