Jurassic World Rebirth

Jurassic World Rebirth, the seventh film in the franchise, hits theatres July 2nd, and today’s blog explores this film’s Official Trailer 2. Off the start we see a sterile white lab, with space age doors and technicians in full hazmat suits. Music is understated: high sustained violins and a low-pitched rumbling. A drum flourish segues into a cut at 0:05, and now technicians are fleeing a lab room that’s bathed in ominous red light. We hear screams.

I love what the music does next. Listen closely at 0:05 when the drums enter. They’re playing today’s massively popular Jersey Club rhythm. Perhaps this is a subliminal invitation to Gen Z audiences to tune into a film franchise that got started before they were born? And that synched to the rhythms of alamrs going off!

A string of trailer triplets cues a cut to musical silence at 0:13. The low growling of a massive T. Rex takes sonic centre stage as a technician pleads for his life through the door. It doesn’t end well for him, though, and a high-pitched riser leads us out just as the dino’s claws grab the unlucky tech as we cut to the Universal Pictures logo at 0:20.

From 0:23-0:35 we hear, through voiceover, the backstory of a derelict dinosaur research facility on the remote island where the story is set. Every eight counts there is a drum accent and menacing sounds of screaming animals.

The team led by Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson) and Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali), along with the shipwrecked family they picked up enroute, have arrived on the island and now encounter massive dinosaurs. As a T. Rex starts swimming at 0:38, we get an orchestral string ostinato: two notes a semitone apart. We’ve got a massive swimming predator here, so this is a great opportunity to layer in a subtle reference to the shark’s theme in John Williams’ score for Jaws and the _Jurassic Park _theme, both famously built on two notes a semitone apart. After all, John Williams created the music for both Jaws and the original Jurassic Park. The three-note half-step motive will persist throughout the trailer, both subtly and at the end, more obviously.

When the T. Rex rises out of the water and flips the boat at 0:44 the music pauses to leave sonic space for the snarling dino. Then, synched to the snap of its teeth at 0:49, the strings come back in. Not for long though, because at 0:55 we cut to a black screen and silence. This is followed by a 5-second dinosaur roar echoing across the island, grabbing the attention of all characters. The uncanny silences bring us into the realm of horror, which is cetainly part of the _Jurassic Park _vibe.

Music returns at 1:00, now with big brass chords. Bennett and teammate Dr. Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) try to harvest DNA from a avian dinosaur’s egg, but when the creature returns to its nest at 1:20, racing rhythms on big drums add a sense of urgency.

From 1:25 to 1:42 the trailer returns to the concept of a drum accent and vocal sample on the beat every eight counts, leaving the rest of the space for lines of dialogue, which reinforce the high stakes and low chance of survival. Another string of trailer triplets leads to another cut to black and silence at 1:42, just in time to jump-scare reveal another dinosaur’s growling set of teeth. The big low brass chords are back at 1:46 as intertitles tell us the release date.

The last section of the trailer (from 1:58) has the crew back on their boat, confronting a Mosasaurus. Brass chords continue, with soaring strings, big drums and, in the background, the echoing sounds of a shouting choir. The final scene of this trailer has some nice sonic-visual interplay: at 2:18 Bennet cocks her gun in a rhythm that syncs with the within trailer triplets on the big drums. The trailer ends with the title card reveal at 2:22 accompanied by full orchestral chords that echo away into space with tons of reverb at 2:31. And the three notes of the _Jurassic Park _theme close it off, to legitimate this entry into the JP legacy.

Jurassic World Rebirth’s second trailer is musically compact and clear, using a handful of cinematic music techniques tastefully and effectively. I particularly appreciated the two cultural references to Jersey Club grooves and the Jurassic Park theme. Catch the film in theatres July 2nd.

— Jack Hui Litster