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You ever found yourself surrounded by a maelstrom of hyperactive kids/dogs (what's the difference?) screaming their lungs out chasing one another around the room while trying to carry on a polite conversation with the owner(s)?
That's Jungle Cruise.
Have you ever wondered what a nondescript adventure score in the Williams/Broughton/McNeely/Debney mold that avoided any form of copyright infringement as output by an AI might sound like?
That's Jungle Cruise.
JNH had four orchestrators on this one.
He had five on Waterworld and six on Atlantis.
Yeah, I don’t think number of orchestrators is necessarily the issue, I think it’s contemporary uses of the orchestra. Zimmer has influenced a much thicker wall of sound approach that has led to other composers using the orchestra in multiple layers with less emphasis on dynamics and separation between musical groups. Early James Newton Howard scores were much more sparse, partly due to his self-acknowledged lack of experience with writing for orchestras, but now I think he has been pulled into the loudness trend. I always sensed that he was uncomfortable under the pressure of writing for large orchestras and tended to shine most with quieter cues or cues that had a focus on much more intimate assemblies of instruments. But his action music often tends to be a bit weak and overly loud.
Same here, the few moments where the score kind of has that old fashioned JNH shine is the quieter parts.
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"Waterworld" was a rush job replacing Mark Isham, and I think he wasn't the original composer announced (or somebody else was supposedly going to score) "Atlantis". Not great choices. And maybe, just maybe, you know, he's busy and wants to give work out to people he knows.
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"Waterworld" was a rush job replacing Mark Isham.
Never knew that. I always thought that was one of his weaker efforts at the time especially after Atlantis and Dinosaur. Weak may not be the right word, but I like the other two a lot more.
Wow what?!?! I had no idea.
I thought the score was great and had a great main theme as well as quiet/mystical moments. Some of it feels a little like filler here and there but overall the score snaps, crackles, and pops.
At the time though I don’t know what else JNH had really done at the scale of WATERWORLD - possibly WYATT EARP, and while it was slightly smaller scale also THE FUGITIVE.
Would be super interesting to have heard a Mark Isham version of WATERWORLD.
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Oh wait, it’s all coming back. Mark Isham wasn’t rejected I believe, he was just busy and literally only had time to begin scoring the music box theme which is still in the film. And that’s it.
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Interesting. Now that I'm searching, here's what I found on filmtracks:
"One of the many problems identified with the project was Mark Isham's score, which took an introspective and restrained approach to the bleak futuristic setting. With an opening date fast approaching, Universal threw out most of Isham's music (the music box source material heard in the film is his, though) and commissioned James Newton Howard to write an emergency score for the project. Costner had been impressed with Howard's music for Wyatt Earp and hired the composer for a few of his subsequent projects. With only about six weeks to work, Howard managed to assemble enough of an ensemble of synthetic, orchestral, and choral ideas for a score far more common to blockbuster expectations. The science fiction elements of the story were addressed by Howard's collaboration with the Porcaros of Toto fame, creating a variety of synthesized percussion noises to populate the film. Some samples, however, were lent to Howard by emerging friend Hans Zimmer."
"An electric xylophone effect is altered for a wet, underwater sound in several of the story's ethereal moments, accompanied by an elegant solo female voice in the soothing "Swimming" cue, where the Porcaro influence is most evident."
I don't have the album booklet with me, but I think it also discussed this as well.
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For me, JNH was writing action music, during the 90's, that was more akin to the 'old Goldsmith' style I had grown up with and loved, moreso than what JG himself was actually doing, since his writing had become more streamlined/programmed, during that same period.
I would choose ANY of those big, action/animated adventure scores JNH did during the 90's and early 2000's over some of the anaemic sounding, John Barry wannabee's Goldsmith was doing during the same time.
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CD release, please! 
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it's a shame one of the beautiful pieces is not included on the soundtrack from the finale of the film after the "one last cruise" track and before the "i want you to rest now" track plays in the film.
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…the anaemic sounding, John Barry wannabee's Goldsmith was doing during the same time.
Goodness, there were so many you couldn't possibly even cite one.
I don't know how to explain his style. It's sort of popcorn bombastic.
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