Intrada Soundtrack Forum

The first score is chalked full of emotion. The happy, upbeat promenade montage piece; the heroic three barrels chase piece; the touching father and son piano piece; the dramatic attack music at the beginning; the building climax; the emotional somber, sad end credits -- that's off the top of my head.

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"Questions are a burden to others; answers a prison for oneself"
"Unlike me, many of you have accepted the situation of your imprisonment and will die here like rotten cabbages."
"Everyone votes for a dictator."
THE PRISONER

Couple of thoughts to add here. I think nearly all would agree that as far as the films go, the Spielberg original is a genre-creating classic and a great action film overall. The second is a mildly entertaining rumination on some themes from the first, with nearly all the "bite" removed. So I would never put the films themselves in the same league or even consider them from the same perspective. We are, or should, be talking scores only here.

Second, I think that, while the second score definitely has the more exuberant, joyful Williams scoring that we have come to love post-STAR WARS, there is plenty there that is truly dark and turbulent. The two "Attack" cues in particular (water skier and helicopter) achieve some pretty horrific effects, and there are desolate moments throughout the score. Conversely, the score for original, as several are pointing out in this topic, has some truly joyful moments, especially "The Menu" and nearly all of the barrel chasing music. (Of course, that is more the case with the re-recorded LP than the score as heard in the film.)

Anyway, I think both of these works resist being easily described as darker or lighter, etc. when you really get down to it. Just my two cents on that aspect of the debate.

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Randy Wilson
Dallas, TX

I'm listening to JAWS 2 right now and mostly recalling that this is the same year or so that this man wrote THE FURY. Darkness.

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Randy Wilson
Dallas, TX

Forgive the extra post but if I am not much mistook, Doug has now publicly gone to bat for both John Williams Jaws end titles in separate threads. Rightly in both cases if I may say so. My hat must go in the ring of the second one, though they both have charms to sway.

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Randy Wilson
Dallas, TX

Another observation I have about Jaws 2 is that it is, in many ways, a teen movie. Take away the shark and you have a film about kids who spend their time hanging (and making) out, defying their parents and making the awkward transition to adulthood. Pretty much all such movies have been scored / tracked with pop music (be it American Graffiti in the 70s or all those John Hughes flicks in the 80s).

But thanks to circumstances -- John Williams having set a bold, symphonic template for the first film (and more importantly having made orchestral scoring fashionable with Star Wars) Jaws 2 is perhaps the only teen movie to have such a bold romantic, symphonic score. And how well it works -- that film would never have had anywhere near the same impact had it used disco tunes and the kind of lite pop instrumental scoring that was "in" during the mid-70s.

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Randy Wilson
Dallas, TX

Here we are discussing the magic and merits of JW's Jaws 2 and the soundtrack is OUT OF PRINT! OOP for quite some time. Intrada, help us out here

I think "nontune" here simply means that there wasn't a popular song attached to the soundtrack album.