Meco alerted us to an article he wrote over at John Williams Central about Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and John Williams. Here's a clip from it, hit the link above to read the whole thing:

The story is well-known about how I went to see Star Wars on May 26, 1977 and was so impressed with the music that I thought I could bring that music and the power of that film into the world of pop music and more specifically, disco music. After all, I practically invented disco with the release in 1974 of my production of Gloria Gaynor's "Never Can Say Goodbye" with it's groundbreaking use of three songs strung together without a break between them. And so I was just cocky enough to think that I could combine those great Star Wars themes with my love of science fiction and classical music.