“If I ever get the chance to make a science fiction movie, I want those guys to come in peace,” Spielberg recalls thinking as a child, looking up to the skies with his father.

Originally announced last year, AMC’s “Visionaries” series will provide multi-part looks at the histories of specific genres, and first up in the series is “James Cameron’s Story of Science Fiction,” which will be premiering on the network April 30 at 10/9c.

EW got their hands on a clip this week, wherein Cameron and Steven Spielberg talk Close Encounters of the Third Kind, specifically the childhood memories that inspired it.

“From the acclaimed filmmaker behind legendary sci-fi films The Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss, Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Avatar, this documentary series explores the evolution of sci-fi from its origins as a small genre with a cult following to the blockbuster pop-cultural phenomenon we know today.”

“In each episode, James Cameron introduces one of the “Big Questions” that humankind has contemplated throughout the ages and reaches back into sci-fi’s past to better understand how our favorite films, TV shows, books, and video games were born. Cameron and his contemporaries – Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Ridley Scott, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Christopher Nolan and many more who have helped fuel sci-fi’s spectacular growth over the last several decades – debate the merits, meanings, and impacts of the films and novels that influenced them and discuss where the genre — and our species — might be going in the future.”