A Brief History of Science Fiction Film Music

Late 1970s – Present: The Revival of SF Cinema

By the end of the 1970s, music in science fiction films had become so edgy that it was beginning to no longer connect the audience to the film or create a beneficial emotional experience. Consequentially, science fiction film music returned to a more classic Hollywood film score tradition, embracing highly conservative music techniques and nostalgic orchestral styles. However, music did not make a complete return to the 1930s film music tradition, and science fiction film continued to develop the use of sound effects along with musical scoring. This conversion was in part facilitated by the improvement of playback and sound recording technologies. With the introduction of such technology as Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound, ambisonics, and quadraphonics (“Surround Sound”), how music could be recorded and presented in fuller ways. Now sound effects and music could be integrated more seamlessly, allowing for a more complex and intense audio experience that “refresh[ed] impact with audiences and rendering their music a simulacrum, a ‘more perfect copy’, of their models” ( Hayward 22). Because music and sound effects could now intertwine so subtly that the sonic atmosphere of a film was made more realistic and more emotional, as seen in films such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Blade Runner (1982), and The Day After Tomorrow (2004).

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