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Date Posted: 08:42:32 11/20/09 Fri
Author: Officer Torch
Subject: Re: Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977 & 1980)
In reply to: Rick 's message, "Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977 & 1980)" on 03:00:51 11/20/09 Fri

I'm probably in the minority on this one...I've mixed feelings. Looking at eg, IMDb and Amazon's user's comments, seems that most gave it high ratings. I can only comment on the first version, saw it it a nice theater, have only the VHS tape ('77 version), probably since I'm not that enthused. I've no subsequent releases or dvds on this. This is purely my subjective opinion..I'll give it a fair-to-good rating at best. Again, my opinion.

The special effects were great...and the fiery UFO in the cloud near the beginning was indeed impressive. The mother ship sequence toward the end at the mesa was likewise. There were some slow moving times, and some of the domestic issues, to me anyway, bogged things down or distracted. The movie also seemed a bit long. The music note thing seemed logical, but I would have opted for an octave instead of 5 notes. (Hmm...too picky maybe. Never mind.)

Perhaps the movie soured me a tad for a reason. Being a Twilight Zone fan, I well remember the episode "To Serve Man." This had to do with earth folk eagerly boarding Alien craft...well, I won't go into details. In Close Encounters, folks from yesteryear deplane, no...they deUFO, so at least they're still around. The earth science people are elated, big time to see WW2 pilots, people from yesteryear. For those presumably abducted recently, ok, not too bad. But, what happened to the ones lives abducted perhaps decades ago and their loved ones! (Seems like an overlooked matter.)

The earth folk team making communications at the mesa seem mesmerized, and even round up more (volunteers?) to send up right away! Yes, I know it's a movie, with fantasy things and such, but somehow, it just didn't sit right enough for me to want anything beyond the 1st prerec video tape way back. To this day, what.. 3 decades or so later, I still feel likewise?? Strange.(Hmm...maybe they're out to get me.)

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[> Re: Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977 & 1980) -- Tim, 21:32:10 11/20/09 Fri [1]

I remember when CE3K hit the theaters just a few months after the 1977 Star Wars megahit, and it was almost as big!

Everyman Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) seems to be gradually going nuts, and has become obsessed with a mountain-like shape that he has visualized. The cast and special effects are fine, and the story offers answers to decades of UFO sightings and abductions. The film also made Devil's Tower National Monument in Wyoming world famous.

I have a tremendous affinity for the science fiction films of the 1950s (and a more recent fondness for the FG serials of the 1930s), and CE3K is not my all time favorite alien encounter film. And for me it doesn't top the 1977 Star Wars either, but it's still a remarkable picture with an inspiring conclusion.

Star Wars and CE3K had a huge impact on popular culture in 1977 and beyond. Due to the success of these two motion pictures science fiction attained a mainstream big box-office blockbuster status that it had never really achieved before, but has sustained ever since. 1977 was quite a year for science fiction.

Tim


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