Action/Sci-fi Sound

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (James Cameron, 1991) and Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993) are classic examples of the action/sci-fi blockbuster. The big budget projects appeal to the audience’s desire for heart-pounding thrills, touching swells of emotion, and wonderment at the capabilities of the medium to convey and warp reality — using sound to accomplish these goals.

With the introduction of digital audio workspaces and computer-generated images in the 1990s, T2 and Jurassic Park — both made by sound designer Gary Rydstrom — highlight new technology while using the advancements to comment on society, a hallmark of the science fiction genre.

William Whittington writes that sound is meant to flow seamlessly with image, reinforcing its realness. This is a building block of mainstream cinema and conventional editing. However, contemporary genre films also showcase the spectacle of sound and thus, divorce it from image to stand alone (192).

“As a result,” he writes, “sound design is a far more aggressive, overt, and active participant in the production of meaning and transmission of knowledge from core elements of music, effects, and dialogue to localization of effects within the theater space” (195).

This sentiment certainly applies to T2 and Jurassic Park, where score and sound effects are integral methods of establishing the sensory fun and technological themes of the action/sci-fi blockbuster.

T2 manipulates sound for impact and meaning in the scene where the Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger), T-1000 (Robert Patrick), and John Connor (Edward Furlong) first meet. As John bursts through the doors in the back hallways of a mall, he sees the Terminator. The film enters a slower, more dramatic aural and temporal frame. The score begins with a bell tolling. The Terminator’s slow-motion footsteps and the cocking of his shotgun are impossibly loud, punctuated by John’s heavy breathing.

As the T-1000 turns the corner, a mechanical drone enters the score. When the T-1000 opens fire, the vulnerable human bystander collapses with a yelp, but the bullets ricochet off the Terminator’s body with a metallic clink. The Terminator’s own gunshots are met with the schloop of the bullets passing through the T-1000’s metamorphic body.

Visually, this is accompanied by practical effect bullet wounds, metallic and conical, until the T-1000 falls to the ground. The camera lingers on his ravaged torso, the wounds now CGI as the excess metal retreats into his body with another schloop.

This scene demonstrates typical action motifs, utilizing sound to heighten drama and violence. The focus on impending footsteps, foreboding music, harried breaths, and gunshots encompasses the viewer in the sensory modes of the characters. It builds tensions as the audience is brought in on the stakes of the scene.

Whittington writes that T2 emphasizes the impact of bullets rather than the firing, reinforcing “a sound pattern that comments on human fragility in juxtaposition from the weapon’s fire to the rigid and impenetrable nature of machines and metal” (203). This can be seen in the sonic difference between the human bystander, Terminator, and T-1000 being shot — all making distinct sounds.

The Terminator and T-1000 are set apart as mechanic, on the same level as the metal weapons they wield, and yet the Terminator still seems more human. While the bullets don’t harm him, he is not othered in the way that T-1000 is by the latter’s changing form.

This is an example of how T2 manifests humanity and technology through sound, typical of a sci-fi movie and yet unique in its sound mixing; the schloop sound effects of the T-1000’s body reinforce the in-world reality of the character by morphing organic sounds digitally.

Jurassic Park also uses its score and sound effects to build tension and validate its CGI visuals. The film uses a more traditional orchestral score by the composer king of blockbusters, John Williams.

Daniel White identifies musical tropes that link certain instruments with tones and meanings, such as heroic and triumphant music — like Jurassic Park’s “Island Fanfare,” which is used when the main group approaches the park — made by trumpets and other members of the brass family, and majestic music — like “Main Theme,” used for the wonderous reveal of the dinosaurs — made by a full, lush orchestra (64).

The scene where Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), and Robert Muldoon (Bob Peck) are chased by a T-rex uses the typical attack music whose quick and busy nature induces stress just as T2’s slow droning does.

In this scene, the sound of the T-rex’s footsteps is linked with the music. Suspenseful strings begin to play in the score to anticipate the dinosaur’s arrival. We do not see the T-rex yet, but we feel its presence sonically and through its impact on the environment as a puddle ripples — a previously established motif.

As the dinosaur enters the frame, the music picks up, the string instruments becoming frantic as the characters run to the car. The T-rex chases them through the forest, smashing into branches in its path. When it roars, the film reacts with Sattler screaming back in terror in a twisted mimicry.

The creation of the dinosaur’s roar and the use of sound effects as it crashes through the environment supports its existence within the film despite being CGI. The audience is encouraged to appreciate the roar in particular, emphasized by Sattler’s reaction shot that tells the audience how to feel.

Works Cited

White, Daniel. “Sounds of the Lost World: Musical World-Building in the Jurassic Park Franchise,” The Jurassic Park Book, 2024. http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781501384820

Whittington, William. “Sound Design and Science Fiction,” University of Texas Press, 2007. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unc/detail.action?docID=3443235.