Close Encounters of The Third Kind- official trailer

In theaters everywhere September 01

 

When a 40 year old movie that you have watched over a hundred times makes you excited that is coming back remastered in 4K to the big screen...you know you love this classic!

 

Great movie that's aged really well. Probably considered too slow paced for today's audiences.

 

Yup, plus there is no 'action', no villains, no threats, no one dies and you don't get hit on the head with special effects until near the last 25 minutes.

 

Close Encounters Of The Third Kind - fuck man, I can vividly remember when I first saw this: 1978, FFS....astounding then as it is now...

 

One of my favourite all-time movies.

 

So you did not watched it on its release on November 1977?

 

I was telling my wife this last week: do you know how long it took Star Wars to get general release in the UK?
January 1978!!






I think we got Close Encounters later that Summer....

 

One of my top five films. CE3K is a film with no middle ground reaction. You either love it or you just hate it. I remember the SCIFI community getting divided over it. Isaac Asimov stated he liked Star wars but detested Close Encounters which he considered had too many silly parts while Ray Bradbury called it "The most important film of our time. ... For this is a religious film, in all the great good senses, the right senses, of that much-battered word ... because for the first time someone has treated all of us as if we really did belong to one race."'. Harlan Ellison called it 'obscurantist drivel'. Keep in mind that some critics hated the film mainly because Spielberg insisted in keeping total secrecy during filming and post production and there was no advance screening for critics some who took offense in watching the film with the rest of us mere mortals! The secrecy was extreme indeed since just a month before its release the only photo Columbia pictures released to the media was the one below which was more a head scratcher than anything else.

 

Got it! Also at that time there wasn't massive wide releases even on USA. Films usually opened simultaneously like in the major cities of each state, but minor cities had to wait a few more weeks before it reached them. For big releases like the Star Wars films I had to take three buses for like a two and half hours ride just to watch each of those releases in San Juan. I remember when 'ALIEN" opened in 16 theaters out of the 60 or so in Puerto Rico and I was like 'OMG! This is MASSIVE!!" LOL

 

When Star Wars opened in the USA in ´77, all we got in the UK was:
* a few clips shown on TV - the TIE fighter atack on the Milennium Falcon, the stormtroopers going after Han Solo at Mos Eisley, the the opening scene - that was IT
* maybe three or four magazines with screen-shots, photos, plot, interviews,etc
* the paperback tie-in at Christmas ´77
* Marvel Comics adaptation of the movie

The merchandise-monster started rolling around mid-1978...

 

Well no one, absolutely NO ONE had an idea that this film was going to turn into a phenomenon, thus the little advertisement, scarce photos (always the same ones) and no toys. Lucas was smart that as part of his contract he retained exclusive merchandise rights and all creative control over everything derived from the film, including sequel rights, which demonstrated how little faith 20th Century Fox had in the film (can't blame them since most scifi films up to that date barely made any money, except for their own Planet of the Apes films). That is why on Christmas of '77 there wasn't any Star Wars toys for sale, except for a certificate promising a particular toy to be available within six months or so. I still have the very first Star Wars spin-off magazine (besides the paperback novel & the Marvel comics adaptation): an extremely lame big edition that to compensate for the lack of original photos hired an amateurish artist to paint alternate versions of the same old over-publicized photos and the articles accompanying those 'artistic images' were even more lame just making a lot of childish speculations about the characters and the boring comparisons with The Wizard of Oz, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Flash Gordon and even westerns!

 

On theaters today, bitches!

 

Who gives a fuck? I honestly think anyone who saw this back in the day goes to the movies to watch this shit again has to be brainwashed. So it has better effects, did the story change at all? I don't get this return it to the theater shit. Over here in Japan they're doing the same thing with the Terminator 2 film just because they upped the visuals. If you're watching movies for the visuals you missed the point.

 

Because I suspect these cunts will start doing it for more and more movies now.

It'll be the new trend of rescreening movies done in 'whatever-special-format-to-confuse-idiots' but on the big-screen instead of Blu-Ray.

 

To lb 4 lb: People who LOVED the film wants to watch the film again in a big screen, the format that this film can be truly appreciated for its sheer grand scale scope. No small screen has ever done justice to this film. As for T2: it was playing in the next door screen from CE3K. Same reasons I guess.

To Stepping Razor: Red X: the trend of re-releasing films is as old as Hollywood. Before the days of home video re-releases were a common treat at movie theaters. I think it was proper for a film that hit its 40 anniversary to be re-released in theaters for a limited time like is the case of the Spielberg UFO film. Other films gets the same treatment. Nothing new here.

That said, here is my reaction (not review) of this re-release. While I was happy to watch it again on an IMAX size digital screen, I was disappointed at the quality of this '4K remastered version': it looked muddy & too grainy...like if they just took the old DVD version and blow-it up bigger. The 30th anniversary blu-ray version looks head & shoulders better than this. Lazy job from Columbia Pictures. Another thing that bothered me were the tiny different details in some scenes (there is now an extra at the Devil's Tower base running around in a freaking wheelchair. Is there only for a couple of seconds, but it wasn't there before. I don't think that the politically incorrect 1977 audiences would not had have a big laugh if that was there before; the Devil's Tower sculpture in Roy Neary's living room now have a very visible section made of newspapers with handwritten black marker numbers '50' & '59' on full display...I have seen that film countless of times and that wasn't there before...nor it was raining heavily at the beginning of that same scene which makes no sense as shortly after Richard Dreyfuss looks through window and sees his neighbors outside during a SUNNY DAY wetting the grass with a hose, children playing, doing barbecues, etc. Either these scenes were added for no reason or is the fucking Mandela Effect.

Look: no numbers in the tower sculpture nor no rain outside!

 

Like I said: it's shit.

 

What's shit, alias?

 

All the things you listed that are detrimental to the movie and have no relevance or add anything to it.

Plus, I dont recall movies from the 50s, 60s and 70s getting these grand ´anniversary´ releases.
I remember some movies got re-released for a limited time only, but nothing extravagant!

 

There is nothing extravagant about this particular release. In my case I DO remember re-releases of older films because I watched them on the big screen! To name a few:
The Ten Commandments (was released on every Easter weekend for many years...same as King of Kings, The Bible and Ben Hur...oh and 'Samson & Dalilah' too!)
War and Peace
Fiddler on the Roof
Planet of the Apes
2001: A Space Odyssey (still gets re-released every decade...wait for it next year!)
Blade Runner
War of the Worlds (1953) and When Worlds Collide (1951) I watched them both on a double bill in 1977!
Barbarella (watched it on 1980)

After the arrival of home video older movies re-releases on theaters have dwindle, but they still get limited release. Heck last week in my favorite multiplex they had 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' for crying out loud!

 

They've been re-releasing older movies on the big screen, since they started making movies.

I'm actually contemplating going to see "Close Encounters" if I get a chance. I've never seen it on the big screen that I can remember, and I can justify spending money on that a lot easier then I can most of the dreck that's out there right now.

What am I going to see "The Hitmans Bodyguard", instead?

 

Good point...

 

Good film. I liked when Dreyfuss made a mountain in his family room. That was the last straw for his wife...

 

Went to go see it last night on the big screen. Brought my daughter with me who's a Science Fiction fan but had never seen this before. She loved it.

Has held up incredibly well through the years, and still has stuff in it that studio films are afraid to do with their Sci-Fi/Family movies all these years later.

I had almost forgotten how unsentimental the Richard Dreyfuss character was about his family. He just fucked off and said laters to his wife and 3 young kids. He's a missing person to them now. LOL!

 

Teri Garr is great in this movie



Remember when Topps bought out cards for movies, Panchy?

 

Teri Garr was good at the beginning, but then was acting silly in that very dramatic shower scene (that was added for the 1980 Special Edition as Spielberg originally had deleted it). I collected those Topps cards and remember that Richard Dreyfuss was not on any of them as he had not authorized to be in the film's merchandise.

 

Spielberg, who wrote the screenplay, was young and single at that time and admittedly was a little out-of-touch with the role of a father and husband. He has stated that if he had made that film today he would never had Roy Neary leaving his family behind.

I tried to have my two daughters to watch the movie with me, but at the last minute they bailed out. I went alone. Sad.

 

Yeah, but that's part of what makes it so great. They would never have the balls to have a father be the "hero" of a movie like this, and still not give much of a shit about the family he's leaving behind.

In fact, he's not a "hero" at all, and the movie is unapologetic about that. They didn't try to make his character something it wasn't, just to satisfy an audiences sentimentality.

My kid told me after the movie, that if Barry's Mom had acted the same way, it would have taken her out of it, because that's not how her character was set up.

Roy Neary as played by Richard Dreyfuss, really was a self-absorbed obsessive. His kids knew it (especially the older one), and his wife knew it. It's debatable whether he was self-aware enough to realize it himself. Richard Dreyfuss really was the perfect actor to play that sort of a role. In the short doc before they played the movie, Spielberg says that Dreyfuss essentially played himself in the movie, which is why he was so great in it. In a roundabout way, Spielberg was calling Dreyfuss an asshole, which he certainly was during that part of his life.

 

Did you know that when Spielberg wrote CE3K he had an older actor in mind to play Roy Neary? specifically Jack Nicholson? Reportedly Spielberg send the script to Jack, but after reading it he said "I want no part in this movie" as he was concerned that his performance would take a back seat to the special effects. Since Dreyfuss worked with Spielberg in 'Jaws' he had heard more than enough about Close Encounters since during the 'jaws' filming that was all Spielberg seemed to talk about. Dreyfuss was begging Steven to cast him in CE3K, but Stevenkept saying, "No, you are too young" as the Neary character originally was a 40 something widower. When Nicholson rejected the role Spielberg was crushed, as he had no other actor in mind, but Jack. That was when Richard Dreyfuss grabbed him by the shoulders and told him in his face, "Listen, asshole, cast me in the lead! You have no one else!" Spielberg agreed, but the producers and the studio, Columbia Pictures, were nervous to put Dreyfuss in the lead of such a big movie (the original budget was $11 million, but at the end it cost $20 million). Even though Dreyfuss was one of the leads in two box office hits "American Graffiti" and "Jaws" he was no bonafide star. At the end Dreyfuss ended with the role and his performance receive mixed reviews: some critics viewed him as nothing more than another prop for the special effects, but other critics praised his performance. Ironic that he was nominated and won an Oscar that same year for another movie, "The Goodbye Girl". Close Encounters received 9 Academy awards nomination including Best supporting Actress (Melinda Dillon) and Best director, but it wasn't nominated for Best Picture. It won only an award for Best Cinematography.