Steven Spielberg’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial came out 40 years ago. The score of this movie contains one of John Williams’s most iconic movie themes, the the “Flying Theme”:
The sense of child-like wonder and imagination, mystery, and triumph that shines through both the movie and the score is astonishing. I would lie if I said that I wasn’t in some ways influenced by John Williams’s writing. His harmonic language often contains starkly contrasting triads, which I love; the sudden Ab in measure 5, the alternating G major and B major chords in the bridge, the dramatic F# minor in measure 22, followed by an even more dramatic D minor in the next:
It has to be said that this device of contrasting triads was by no means invented by Williams; Wagner and Strauss used it a lot, as well as Bernard Hermann (who was heavily influenced by Wagner) and many other film composers. However, Williams has this exceptional capacity to tie these unconventional harmonies to extremely singable and powerful melodies that are catchy yet unpredictable.
Sometimes Williams gets slack for being too “popular”, or “cheesy” but I think this is misguided. Writing a memorable melody is truly an art. Think of all the memorable themes that Williams has created and that are forever linked to the movies and characters in them: E.T., Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Harry Potter, Jaws; You can’t even imagine these movies without their score (and in some instances the score literally saved the movie).
As you can see in my reharmonization below, I’ve added many more of these contrasting harmonies, including a variety of slash chords.
Hope you enjoy this arrangement!
