Conversation Through Tones
Before there was language, there was music. That’s the profound, optimistic core of *Close Encounters of the Third Kind* (1977). The film’s most iconic element isn’t a spaceship; it’s a five-note musical
phrase. This simple sequence is the key that unlocks interspecies communication. For Spielberg, first contact isn’t an invasion or a lecture—it's a jam session between civilizations. The sound design, a collaboration between composer John Williams and a team of audio wizards, treats the alien signal not as a threat, but as a question. The responding tones from the human scientists on Devil's Tower aren’t a surrender; they’s an answer. The film’s climax is a conversation conducted entirely through light and synthesized sound, a brilliant symphony of call-and-response. The low, resonant rumble of the mothership doesn’t inspire fear, but overwhelming awe. It sounds like a gentle giant, a cathedral in the sky. The sonic stakes here are galactic diplomacy, and Spielberg and his team wager that the universe, given the chance, wants to make music together.
The Sound of Empathy
If *Close Encounters* was about collective wonder, *E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial* (1982) shrinks the stakes down to a single, beating heart—and its sound is everything. Sound designer Ben Burtt was tasked with giving a voice to a creature that had to be immediately vulnerable and lovable. The result is a masterpiece of sonic character-building. E.T.’s voice, a gravelly, gentle rasp, was primarily performed by Pat Welsh, a woman Burtt discovered whose heavy smoking gave her voice a unique, non-human quality. This was blended with the sounds of 17 other animals and noises, including raccoons, sea otters, and even a burp from Burtt’s old film professor. The final product is a voice that sounds ancient, frail, and wise all at once. It’s a voice you instinctively want to protect. Beyond his speech, the film’s soundscape is built on empathy. The squishy, careful footsteps, the signature click-and-glow of his healing finger, and the resonant thrum of his heartlight aren’t just sound effects; they are emotional cues that bypass language entirely. We love E.T. because we can *hear* his gentleness and his pain.
The Roar of Annihilation
Decades later, Spielberg’s optimism soured into post-9/11 terror with *War of the Worlds* (2005). Here, the sound design is a brutal inversion of everything he built with *Close Encounters* and *E.T.* There is no conversation, no empathy—only the deafening sound of obliteration. The aliens do not announce their arrival with a hopeful tune but with a terrifying, gut-wrenching horn. That iconic tripod sound, a horrifying blend of a didgeridoo and digitally manipulated roars, was designed by Gary Rydstrom to be the sound of an ancient, implacable evil. It’s not a call for communication; it’s a death sentence. Spielberg deliberately ensures the aliens themselves are mostly silent, their motives and biology a mystery. Their sound is their only form of expression, and it expresses one thing: annihilation. The shattering of glass, the splintering of wood, and the chilling electronic shrieks of the Tripods’ heat rays create a soundscape of pure panic. The stakes are no longer about understanding the alien, but simply surviving it. The sound design’s purpose is to deny the audience any comfort and plunge them directly into the chaos on the ground.
