A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

In the fall of 1977, Arista Records (a now defunct label owned by Sony Music Entertainment) released Close Encounters of the Third Kind: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, a 10-track selection of cues and themes composed by John Williams for Steven Spielberg's eponymous "humans meet aliens" UFO film. Arista released the album as a single-disc vinyl LP, as well as on cassette and eight-track tape. It also released the disco version of "Theme from Close Encounters of the Third Kind" on a 7-inch single, which was included as a bonus on the vinyl release. The theme, if memory serves, was incorporated into the tape editions as a bonus track; this was also done with the 1990 compact disc distributed by Varese Sarabande Records under license by the original label. Composer John Williams and director Steven Spielberg began working on Close Encounters of the Third Kind (CE3K) as early as 1975, shortly after Jaws (the duo's second collaboration) was completed.

When I first saw George Lucas' Star Wars (aka Star Wars - Episode IV: A New Hope ) in the fall of 1977, not only was my imagination totally blown away by its story, characters and fantastic visuals, but I almost instantly became enchanted by the music composed for its score by John Williams. Although I had often paid attention to movie themes before I saw Lucas' space fantasy film set "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away," I'd never been so enthralled by a film score until I listened closely to Williams' neo-Romantic styled score on that Saturday in mid-October of 1977 when I finally went to see the movie everyone and his (or her) cousin was talking about . Because I was familiar with science-fiction A and B movies from the 1950s and '60s, I expected the music from Star Wars to be futuristic, minimalist and full of electronic sounds and other-worldly ambiances. To my surprise, with the exception of the two Cantina Band tracks heard in A