@@markmcelligott2542 I’m not sure if your closing sentence was the comedic punch line of a joke or a marital punch in the gut. If it’s the latter, you have my sympathies.
Spielberg said in an interview that if you walked out of the theatre after seeing this film and looked up in the sky instead of putting your hands in your pockets looking for your car keys, he had done his job. That was exactly my reaction.
I saw this when it came out in the theaters and the audience was so wrapped up in the story. When it was over, everybody was looking up at the sky as they came out of the theater!
It was profound seeing this movie even as a ten year old. One of the greatest movies ever committed to celluloid. Motion pictures of this standard are not so much a lost art, but a preference by production houses to turn out dross. You see this reflected in mainstream music, theatre and the arts in general.
I love that the film portrays how even a peaceful, non-threatening alien contact would still be deeply unnerving, anxiety-inducing or even terrifying at times. Simply because as humans we would have no frame of reference for such an experience and our survival instincts would go into overdrive. Also, Douglas Trumbull was a true wizard, helping to create the Sci-Fi effects for "2001: A Space Odyssey", "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "Blade Runner", not a shred of CGI.
I saw this movie as a teenager and I don’t remember ever feeling fearful at the time . Spielberg in my opinion had a hopeful innocent approach. But I do feel that today’s viewer have been programmed to expect death and destruction so the movie seems scarier. jmho
Agree! The first view of the visitor creates a visceral reaction. It's less "horrific" and more deeply unsettling, a primal instinctive gut reaction to something completely new & unknown, i.e. "alien" to any experience we've had before. When this eventually happens, and I believe it will, it will be a paradigm shift for the human race, un-mooring many of us from our current beliefs of who we are and of our place in the universe.
@syn420951 How about an Alien film based on actual true acounts? " Fire in The Sky" (93) 🔥 ( Travis Walton Story, watch Travis - Joe Rogan interview ! ) Why Science fiction with such an incredible real story? In 93 went to see Groundhog Day which sold out, opted for " Fire in the Sky" and stilll talking about it. Boggles my mind how such a brilliant film flew under the radar. Co Starring Robert Patrick his next film after potraying T1000 in Terminator 2.
How about an Alien film based on actual true acounts? " Fire in The Sky" (93) 🔥 ( Travis Walton Story, watch Travis -Joe Rogan interview!) Why Science fiction with such an incredible real story? In 93 went to see Groundhog Day which sold out, opted for " Fire in the Sky" and stilll talking about it. Boggles my mind how such a brilliant film flew under the radar. Co Starring Robert Patrick his next film after potraying T1000 in Terminator 2.
...the French researcher Claude Lacombe, is François Truffaut: One of the greatest Film Directors, a pioneer of French New Wave Cinema from 1950s to 1970s. It was Truffaut who told Spielberg to Direct children. It was Truffaut who interviewed Alfred Hitchcock, for the seminal book HITCHCOCK/TRUFFAUT. Truffaut's own films "The 400 Blows", "Jules and Jim", "Day for Night", "Small Change" and more - are all Classics....
You spotted Carl Weathers! Good eye! On behalf of all of us who have been nagging you for so long to do a reaction video for Close Encounters, thank you so much Cassie. I know it's not quite your thing, probably for various reasons including generational differences, particular tastes, etc. But this is a movie that just gets better for me over the years as I come to appreciate more and more just how well crafted it was. I could name 100 different things I love about it -- a score from John Williams that was exceptional even for him, Spielberg's approach to suburban family life that feels so real and relatable, the effects, the sound design. But what I really love about it is that, as a film only ten years removed from 2001: A Space Odyssey, it is content to leave us with a sense of awe and wonder as an end in and of itself. I could go on and on, but I do hope you let it sit with you and, knowing what you know now, give it a try again sometime to see how it hits you. Thank you again, Cassie!
@@vermithax plus Cassie watched the original theatrical version, not The Special Edition, which cut out several short scenes. I wish SS would make a definitive edition with everything from the theatrical ans SE versions together (including Roy inside the Mothership).
Carl isn't the only famous actor that made a cameo in this movie. If you go and watch this movie you can even see a young Lance Henriksen who most of you will recall playing Bishop the android in the movie Aliens years later.
In an interview from the 2000s, Steven Spielberg said that if he were making Close Encounters today, he would not have had Richard Dreyfuss leave his family and go on the mother ship. Spielberg said having his own children changed his perspective. Richard Dreyfuss has said he disagrees with that, and believes that there was no way that Roy could not have gone on the ship.
Dreyfuss is right. Spielberg too, potentially; the story could have been altered but not just that detail, it'd had to be a major rethinking. Like Roy is slightly less manic together with some brother who is the one leaving, something like that maybe.
I have to agree with Dreyfuss. It felt by the end of the film his character had nothing left to remain for, sure he had kids, but his wife has essentially left him and taken the kids. Any court would probably declare him mentally unfit and he would lose access to his children as well.
@@ashuradragosani5960Right. The government would never tell his family that he had no choice but to go to the mountain to find aliens. All experiencers were publicly derided and discredited. Shameful treatment
It also was the 70's, when the American family started to fall into ruin. So yes, Roy does come off as a selfish me-first Boomer, but that's what adults were turning into by then.
It's hard to explain the impact this film had on the viewing public. It was really the first sci-fi film that made the aliens creatures of curiosity rather than creatures of destruction or violence. My friends and I (high schoolers) were absolutely obsessed and went back to the theater countless times to rewatch it again and again. The following summer my family was taking a trip across the west and I managed to convince my dad to make a detour so we could visit Devil's Tower. It was a truly magical time in my life. (Oh, and Piggly Wiggly is a grocery store, lol.)
Thanks to this film, "Indiana Jones" and, of course, "Star Wars," the blockbuster films hit, and the single to three theater complexes gave way to today's 16-20 screen multiplexes, but sadly, leaving the one-screen drive-ins to fade. Sad now that streaming channels and home widescreen TV options today, worsened in viewership with the Pandemic, are now threatening the lives of multiplexes.
I remember seeing this when I was a kid in the theatre. For YEARS afterward, anyone roughly my age couldn't pass a piano or keyboard without playing those 5 musical notes....lol.
Barry's "bye!" conveys the feeling of a child who hadn't had a scary experience with the aliens and would be happy to have them come back. The adults who returned may provide adult insights but the basic message is that these mysterious aliens wouldn't deliberately harm a child.
Clearly Barry was never afraid of the aliens, even though the circumstances of his abduction were pretty terrifying. Maybe that's supposed to be because he had some kind of empathy with them, the way that Roy did... that he somehow intuitively knew that they meant him no harm.
@@ariochiv Yeah, it's implied fairly heavily that everyone who got the visions were the ones who could receive them - as in, they were chosen because the aliens could communicate with them. Why? Who knows, maybe just something about their brains allowing them to pick up what was being transmitted. Which explains why they gave back Barry, they wouldn't take a child from its mother.
The aliens seemed to me to be expressing trust in humans by showing us their offspring (does little aliens mean young aliens?) and allowing we and they to mingle.
@@yelnikigwawa1845 Spielberg has said that showing different types of aliens was done to suggest a diversity of species/races of aliens in the crew. Traditional UFO lore identifies different types of aliens by height, skin colour, eye shape, etc.
I saw this movie when it first came out in 1977, and nobody was prepared for it. When the movie was over, most of the audience just stood outside and looked up at the sky almost reflexively.
@@jgsrhythm100Travis Walton has always said that he would like to redo the film because they took his account and changed it to make it scarier and slimy. His actual account is much more interesting. If you haven't, watch the documentary called "Travis"
@@CTyler84Absolutely, cause those things actually physically exist, and it's left up to your brain to do what it's evolved to do and make sense of the perspective and fill in the gaps. Done well enough and the illusion is perfect.
This is one of my favorite films of all time. In 1977 it had such a profound impact. It’s meant to leave the viewer pondering alien life and what would happen during contact. The viewers are all given enough story to draw their own conclusions. It’s a work of art.
That's not true of all scientists, you can easily find some that think that things like Voyager Probes were a mistake because "broadcasting our presence" might be dangerous (which is true, even if most aliens are nice, it doesn't mean all are, bad luck could lead our 'first contact' being some sort of "Pretty Evil Empire"), but I will give you that scientists are more likely to be ruled by their logic and what facts they know or suspect then pure emotion. Crap, probably the most unrealistic part of this movie, come to think of it, is 'scientists' running this show. At the minimum, the military would want to run it , or worse the regular Foreign policy establishment (basically gets us in lots of unnecessary wars and conflicts ).
Exactly. They have to be neutral and analytical. They are there to understand the event, not run around like headless chickens screaming and shooting first.
@@andrewmurray1550 Actually, humans were pretty measured in both. The aliens in both movies started shooting first, and while there was a raised level of alertness, the explicit aim was establishment of communication and diplomacy on our end. It was only after the shooting started that everybody panicked, and pretty justifiably with how outgunned we were.
The military don't like to start wars, it's a myth. Those that have been in a war know what it's like and it's not something to rush into. It's usually civilians that have never served, that are first to pull the trigger on a war or take the first shot.
The five airplanes seen in the Mexican desert at the beginning of the movie are from the infamous "Flight 19," the five General Motors TBM Avenger torpedo bombers that disappeared over the Bermuda Triangle on December 5th, 1945. The pilots and crew of Flight 19 are seen at the end of the movie coming out of the alien mother ship, led by Lieutenant Charles Carroll Taylor.
In the city cemetery of Arkansas City, KS, there is a memorial to one of the pilots of Flight 19, forget which one. The memorial is part of his parents' headstones. Was an awesome experience just to see that memorial with the pilot's name and a reference to Flight 19.
In reality, flight 19 was never found. No wreckage or bodies anywhere. Kinda like mh340 that Malaysian flight that went missing a couple of years ago. Edit: forgot, the Navy also lost a few ships and a couple more planes looking for them.
Not forgetting that the term "Bermuda Triangle" itself was invented in a scifi/fantasy pulp magazine a decade after the disappearance of Flight 19, in a story about Flight 19. Unfortunately the author was prone to exaggeration and straight-out fabrication. He made up a lot of the details including weather at the time and supposed radio transmissions from the aircraft. The fact that some people think it's a real thing today just shows the power of falsehoods in media. Makes me wonder what AI-generated nonsense on Twitter and FaceBook today will be believed as fact in 80 years time...
My dad has loved sci-fi films since the early days, but his favorite was The Day The Earth Stood Still, because it portrayed aliens visiting as the peaceful ones, and humans as mistrustful, dangerous, and short-sighted. He loved Close Encounters for showing how first contact could be amazing if the aliens were benevolent.
It's a shame Cassie couldn't "get on board" by that point in the film and just be swept away by the beauty and awe of John Williams' music and Spielberg's visual storytelling. Too many malicious and scary alien movies seared into your brain will do that to ya!
You’ve been ‘conditioned’ to see aliens as evil entities so you didn’t expect the ending to be so joyful, expecting to be scared. But that’s Spielberg for you.
Me, too! They showed it every night, and you could look to your left as you were watching and see the shape of Devil’s Tower not far away, silhouetted against the twilight sky. My son and I watched it two nights in a row because why not?
The idea for Close Encounters of the Third Kind came from an incident in Steven Spielberg's childhood. One night his father woke up the entire family in the middle of the night and took them all out to the middle of a field where dozens of people had gathered, sitting on picnic towels. Everyone had gathered to watch a meteor shower, and Spielberg and his family sat out there watching shooting stars streaking across the sky as they entered Earth's atmosphere. This is also why Spielberg began having a shooting star appear in all of his early films as his trademark. Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom all feature shooting stars.
IIRC, there are a number of 'moving lights/shooting stars' in many CEOT3K scenes with a night sky. I don't think it's every single scene, but it's close.
Zoltán Kodály was a composer who created a method of music education involving hand signs for the different notes of the scale as a teaching aid, especially for the hearing impaired, but for others as well. When I was in college, in the choir there, I performed some of Kodály's choral works. The choir director was a student of Kodály in his youth, and as I was subsequently his student, I have two degrees of separation from the man himself.
In elementary school, my music teacher used those hand signs as part of the curriculum. We even performed one or two pieces while making the gestures, and we'd sometimes warm up by following the teacher's signaling. It's maybe not the most intuitive way to represent the notes but once you get the hang of it, it works. Four decades later, I still sometimes find myself making the gestures while trying to identify the relative pitch of a note in a piece of music. When I saw this film as an older kid, I understood what the researchers were using the hand signs for, though no doubt Spielberg intended for it to look exotic to the audience, to go along with the mysterious re-mi-do-do-so melody. I doubt whether they'd really be used in deciphering ET communications, but it pays off at the end of the film when the alien copies the gestures. I'd love to know more about how they came to be woven into the story.
The man playing the air traffic controller is the real thing hired for the job. For Cassie: Richard Dreyfus won the Oscar for "The Goodbye Girl." You and your sister will love it.
That's so interesting, and does not surprise me at all cos' his dialogue and delivery were 100% convincing. Similar to the ER team working on Robocop, Paul Verhoeven knew he needed a real thing to write and execute the scene.
The air traffic controllers are all actors. The dialogue was checked and confirmed by an actual air traffic controller to be 100% industry accurate. This scene was shot in 1975 nearly a year before the start of the principle photography.
The theme of Close Encounters of the Third Kind was to examine the differences between how adults and children react to the unknown. The adults react to the extraterrestrials with fear and anxiety, while the child, Barry, reacts with awe and wonder, and it's only when Roy Neary begins to see the aliens with the same childlike wonder that he finally feels fulfilled and is ready to take the next step into the unknown. That's why John Williams incorporated the tune from "When You Wish Upon a Star" into the theme of the climax.
Interesting. I also noticed William’s score during the ending credits contained a bit of “ Wish upon a Star” which is a nice touch. Regardless, one of Speilberg’s best films.
Lol that is not the point of the film, that is an observation that you have made about the film. Since the film is not an allegory, it is doubtful there is one single "point" to the film.
@@d.jparer5184 That actually is the point of the film. Spielberg himself mentioned this in the DVD special features. The film was originally going to be about an Air Force officer working for Project Blue Book investigating UFOs, but Spielberg decided to change the story to a more personal tale inspired by his dad and his childhood. Spielberg also said that if he made the film today, he would not have had Roy Neary leave his family behind, so his views have changed over time.
@@44excalibureven after your last post I also agree youre somewhat conflating a theme with “the point”. If that was “the point” then he really wasted 70% of film time with distracting fluff. But cool info 👍
Imagine being a young director, in just your fourth movie, with a big hit behind you ("Jaws"), but still much to prove, and direct Francois Truffaut. I'd be shaking!
Bob Balaban (who played the translator/cartographer) said that he lied his way into this movie. He could not actually speak French, he just wanted to work with Truffaut that badly.
This was on the heels of Star Wars, ....so anything after was compared to that. But Scifi done right gets better with time, take Star Trek Motion Picture, also on the heels of a New Hope......both are epic Sci Fi movies....and the SFX at the time , were groundbreaking. 😂❤✌️
I saw this in the theater when I was twelve. It really freaked me and my brother out. It is such a great movie. It holds up so well after all this time.
Spielberg actually admitted that he made this movie when he was a single man, and now that he has a wife and kids of his own, if he made the movie today, he would never have Roy leave his wife and kids behind.
My parents fought all the time. I didn't realize their marriage had fallen apart for 30 years. If he didn't leave his family, his family was about to leave him.
@@BigMike246 He still left his kids without a father. His wife tried sticking it out with him and his obsessive behavior until he started destroying the house and became completely irrational. From her perspective, he'd lost his mind and could become dangerous.
The character of French scientist Claude Lacombe was played by Francois Truffaut, one of the most important French filmmakers in Europe. Director of the film The 400 Blows. He told Spielberg that he was like a child and that he should dedicate himself to making films of children.
@hectorraulcastro22 He hit the nail on the head with that one ! Spielberg does have a great feel for how children view the world . that's why he does so well with The Indiana Jones series , Close Encounters E.T and Hook .
my FAVORITE science fiction film of alll time....its a conflicted film....its not meant to have closure...its about the experience itself...the wonder.... the ambiguity of life .
Steven Spielberg's original choice for Roy Neary was legendary film actor Steve McQueen. McQueen read the script, and admitted to Spielberg that he couldn't do the scene where Neary has an emotional breakdown in front of his family because he "couldn't cry on cue." Spielberg offered to take the scene out of the script, but McQueen didn't want Spielberg to alter the script on his account, and suggested that he recast the role. Richard Dreyfuss, who had previously worked with Spielberg on Jaws, was cast as Roy Neary instead.
Richard dryfuss bugged Spielberg for ages about being cast for the role, but Spielberg initially didn't want to cast him as he was fresh out of filming jaws and the contrast in characters would put people off as they would only see him as hooper. But when mqueen turned it down he finally agreed to dryfuss
@@AlphaGamer1981 And whats weird is for whatever reason Dreyfuss looks a lot different in this role than he did in JAWS even though the films were only 2 years apart, so I and im sure many others had no problem distinguishing the 2 roles from each other.
4:47 He is saying Ares 31. Airlines have a callsign used by ATC along with a flight number. Some make sense, like American 733 for American Airlines flight 733. Others...don't. All British Airlines flights are called Speedbird, like Sppedbird 28 or Speedbird 112. The defunct Republic Airlines flights went by Brickyard. Ares would be the nickname for the airline, and its flight 31, Ares 31. As far as I can tell, there is no actual airline tagged as Ares.
Lmao at Cassie freaking out over that long, skinny alien come out of the ship. I’m laughing so hard because I saw this in theaters in 1977 at 6 years old and I still remember how mortified I was seeing that thing. My soul left my body lol.
I always laugh when people freak out at that alien. OMG SCARY SPIDER MONSTER when it's just a really tall skinny guy who has to crouch down in order to get out of the ship. "Jeez, Pete, you could'a stopped a little higher! I look like an asshole bending down like this. Look at 'em, they're all terrified I'm gonna get you for this, I swear..." 😂
"To get the boy to react to the aliens offscreen, Spielberg had Guffey walk up to his mark where-unbeknownst to the little actor-two crewmembers were dressed as a gorilla and a clown standing behind cardboard blinds. When Guffey entered the kitchen, Spielberg dropped the first blind revealing the clown to scare him, and then dropped the other blind to reveal the gorilla, which scared him even more. The gorilla then took off his mask, revealing the film’s makeup man, Bob Westmoreland, who Guffey recognized, causing him to laugh and smile in the final take."
For when Guffey to cry out “Toys!” Speilberg was outside on a ladder and holding up various toys! He was known as One Take Cary by the crew. He never acted in any other films.
@@IAMCAVE No he wasn't holding up various toys he had a toy in a box that had been wrapped up and Steven was on a ladder unwrapping it as slowly as possible for that scene. Steven talks about that very moment in the extras.
@@IAMCAVE That´s not true, I remembered him playing in a movie with Bud Spencer, so I looked it up and he was in about 8 films until he retired in 1985.
The pilots not aging was probably from the speed at which the alien ship traveled around and returned them to earth after studying them. To the pilots it might have been a week to them but 30 something years passed for those on earth.😊
They did actually do a CGI test for some floating cubes in the climax, but they didn’t quite manage to make them look right so the effect was left out.
No CGI was done by necessity, not by genius. You needed a Cray Supercomputer to do CGI even in the mid-80s. We simply did not have the computing horsepower to do convincing CGI until Jurassic Park.
When done right, practical effects will never age poorly. Just look at the Aliens franchise, as well. A craft that we may never (or super rarely) see again. (Siri. I want a movie where aliens visit the Earth and the Humans react badly. CG _everything_ is coming. RIP, practical effects.)
@@Ryan_Christopher Actually, I was surprised to learn that the movie WestWorld (1973) was credited with using CG. To me, that sounds like the Roman Empire having access to a dollar store calculator... but credited as having been use, it is.)
My favourite movie ever ever EVERRRRRRR. I saw parts of it as a kid and it scared me. Watching it again as an adult it blew me away and I deeply connected with Roy's inner drive and obsession that he was meant for something else. Something that wasn't a wife and kids and a blue collar job. That there was something wonderful out there for him waiting for him to gather his courage and find it. The directing style, the very light focus on the government, the lack of explanation for most of the things in the movie, the sound, the colours. Everything about this film is deeply impactful to me in a way I can't explain.
This movie helped Steven Spielberg become a major Director and Producer. I saw this in the theater and was blown away by the special effects and the plot! Top notch!
@RichardM1366 I loved this as well it definitely raises some deep questions and the soundtrack , direction and Special effects are all amazing ! and yes this propelled Spielberg to become such a visionary director . Cheers .
If you want to see how amazing Spielberg is with no money making a movie watch 1971's Duel movie. It was made with almost no budget you can tell by the way its shot and done what a great director he is.
I didn't see it back then, only later on cable...Is it true the original theatrical version didn't show what was inside the ship? I've only seen the one that shows it...
@@HandofOmega The so called special edition to which you refer was done because Spielberg wasn't happy with the film as released. He told Columbia pictures he wantd to do some new scenes and they told him they would only give him the money unless he agreed to show the inside of the mother ship. He agreed and we got the special edition. Later, he said he regretted doing that, and that's what inspired him to do the so called "Directors Cut". That was the only time in his career when he released a directors cut of one of his films.
Having been born in '77, this film has been part of my life and everyone in my family has seen it multiple times. It was almost impossible to get through a dinner with mashed taters without *someone* making a "This means something!" reference!
The Smithsonian Museum has the mothership model. It's beautiful even when it is not lit up, and fun to look at all of the items stuck on it, including R2D2, a biplane, and a mailbox.
When the mothership arrives, if you look carefully, you can see R2D2 attached to the bottom of one of its sides, as a nice homage to George Lucas since he and Spielberg were good friends.
This film was so well done for it's time and like you say still stands up very well visually. I guess the point to take from this film Cassie is that the unknown, a mystery is just that, we don't understand it , sometimes in life we can't ever know the why some things happen, or the reasons for them, and we will never know the answers behind something's, despite desperately wanting to. We just have to live with it.
I was listening to a Podcast about Close Encounters and they brought up a fantastic point. Had the wife been more supportive, this movie could have played out like Field of Dreams. In both cases the husband is seemingly going crazy but only one wife stuck by her husband the whole way through. Really made me think about how important picking a spouse really is.
I feel the same way. And in this movie the wife had way more proof to believe him than in Field of Dreams. There was the sunburn, the other people who witnessed the event, and even his detailed knowledge of some unknown mountain. I was always disappointed in the wife’s desire to just move on and pretend like nothing happened.
Roy was the only one of the chosen who made it to the mother ship. None of the other “red suits” were taken because they were selected by military and did not receive the alien message in their minds.
Actually all the red suits were taken but they only like Roy. All the others that were picked by the military are constantly being bullied by the aliens. lol
@@RideAcrossTheRiver The first time I watched the movie, I assumed all the red suits were taken. Then one day I noticed that the aliens walked over and specifically grabbed only Roy. But just tonight, for the first time, I'm thinking that despite how that moment looked, the other red suits might have been taken as well. There are a lot of shots of the crowd, and I didn't see any red suits after that standing about where they would've been standing. I think in a way The_Curious_Cat might be right. The aliens like Roy the best, but maybe they took the others as well.
Such a great movie. I remember when I was a kid, my dad let me sit up late and watch this with him when it came on TV. It was a little scary at the time but I was more curious than scared. I always remembered Devil's Tower and the 5 tone coordinated with lights the government used to communicate. Good memories, and I've been a sci-fy nerd ever since.
I think I read that that Devils Tower and the town nearby, became so popular, it became like the first overrun tourist attraction, ever. Now a days ..we would call it going Viral. I wanted to go see it but I was in the USAF in freaking Arkansas :^(
Devil's Tower is such a wild place to visit. You have to be careful if you go near the tower because there are a lot of rattlesnakes. What is funny is the prairie dog colony in the park. It is like the worlds largest game of whack a mole. You see a ton of them, half out of the holes barking at you. As you walk towards them they all drop and pop up in holes at a safer distance away barking and it repeats as you move towards them.
I saw it in the theater in 1977. The sound system was brand new. When the mothership arrived, it shook the theater. I felt the sounds from the ships in my chest. I had never experienced anything like that before .Star Wars had come out earlier in the summer and I loved it but this movie shook me and left me thinking about it for months
@@zanyzander It keeps the wonder alive! Even to this day, 47 after seeing it in the theatre as a scared little kid. Because of the ominous (and to a kid, scarey) commercials, when my Mom and Dad and i went to the theater, I almost went to watch Pete’s Dragon, instead of joining them to see Close Encounters. Luckily, the line was long enough that I changed my mind. I watched other adults coming out of the theater, and they were filled with wonderment and elevated joyful moods. Thank goodness providence prevailed (and the constant “nudging” from my parents- “Are you sure you don’t want to see it with us?”). Thanks Mom and Dad!
Cassie’s concerns about the aliens being evil is likely a sign of the times. When I first saw this film way back in the early 80s, I never interpreted the film that way, even though the abduction scene of Barry was played for scares. I think that’s because Barry himself never showed fear, only the mother did.
@@Haegemon Yeah, the "in those times aliens were friendly" is a total BS explanation... Aliens invasion was THE NORM... I think Steven Spielberg is one of the rare to try to take the spectator the other way around (with E.T. too)... It was ON PURPOSES he made movies with friendly aliens BECAUSE he wanted people to think about them on the positive way... (Ironically, he did the opposite with sharks, making people even more afraid of them...)
When this came out in ‘78, I was 13 years old and my sisters and cousins went to watch this at our drive-in. We were so knocked out and just floored by the effects of the ships at the base in the end, we went back the next night to watch it again.
@@etherealtb6021 No, Roy was manipulated and brainwashed. Also, look at the abductees who were freed--dozens over hundreds of years. Did they have a choice when their and their loved ones' lives were destroyed?
this movie was an event when it came out, I was 8 years old and in awe like I was at Star Wars. One thing about the little kid "Jake", apparently he could nail his roll without multiple takes, they called him "One take Jake".
Imagine what it was like in the theaters when this was first released. There was never anything before like that huuge mother ship coming in, with the theater speakers booming out that huge bass sound. Everybody thought, if they didn't say it out lout, OH WOW!!!
In the late 60s and the 70s there were some great movies that would leave you with questions instead of answering or explaining everything. That days they people who made this movies had confidence in their audience to make their own conclussions. Nowadays it feels like most of the time you even get answers to questions you can´t comprehend just to take any act of thinking from the audience.
Problem with you watching this movie was you couldn't enjoy the movie because you're programmed to think the worst is gonna happen. You just had negative thoughts through whole movie
that's more of a "today" problem because of all the bad/mean alien movies out there. we didn't have that when we saw it in theaters when it came out because there weren't enough of them to make us feel that way.
💯 nope! I saw this at the Theaters when it first came out and there wasn't a hint of say, horror to it. More of amazement, wonder and excitement to meet the aliens...
That's the problem with "alien" movies these days is they are hostile. It would be highly improbable that an intelligent species that can transverse the stars would be hostile. A hostile species would destroy themselves before creating the type of technology to move from planet to planet. They would have to achieve a certain growth, is the best way I can describe it. Unlike humans, we're a childlike, war mongering species that is so far from that type of growth.
This was one of the first big screen movies I saw as a kid but not a theatre we went to an old drive in salinas California. It was like magic on the screen given the size of the screen and the effects of the movie. I miss those days.
I don't know if there is a better time capsule of suburban life in 1977-78 than this film. When I saw it as a kid, it felt more authentic than anything else I had seen. I only just learned a few years ago that Roy's neighborhood (and indeed most of the film) was shot in Alabama. There is a documentary about the Close Encounters Alabama filming experience called "Who Are You People?"
Two things to say about this, one is my mom loved this movie, she took me on opening weekend to see this movie n has been one of my favorite movies ever since. Two is I heRd Spielberg was close friends with Nixon during his time as president, Nixon invited Spielberg to the white house n told him about the ufo thing going on n basically Spielberg made a movie on what Nixon told him
I was in fourth grade when this came out, I remember talking about it with all of my friends after seeing it. None of us left the theater with any kind of fear, anxiety or doubts that the aliens were friendly, they were just out exploring, found us and decided to make contact once they thought we were ready to handle it.
This was a very layered movie. Terror, loss, abandonment, yet wonder and awe and beauty and more. It is more about the experience than a clear cut story with an clear goal. Both Jillian and Roy had different motivations. Jillian just wanted Barry back and she was not much interested in the wonder. Roy was like a child and drawn by something he couldn't explain. He was already a gentle soul, loving Disney cartoons and toys. He was curious to the point of obsession with this event and was not very responsible. The two main researchers, the French man and his interpreter, were there out of a deeper exploration in a very scientific but also full of wonder and amazement. Others were there in the movie seeing it all as crazy and having to deal with the "crazy" people - like Roy's family. That felt like a real family. Then there is the government doing what the government does. Then there was Barry, pure innocence and wonder just going with the flow, representing our inner child. We could understand the motives of all the characters. This was a layered movie and we are along for the ride, vicariously feeling what all the characters felt. Aliens don't have to be hostile, although these aliens were not very good about communicating intent and asking permission, yet they also were curious and trying to communicate. I love the journey. And the beautiful musical conversation at the climax. This is my favorite movie of all time. This is about ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances and it is about the wonder of the vastness of this universe. I feel alone in the world all the time, but looking up at the night sky on a calm cool night is bliss. And the music of this is spectacular and that music is a conveyance for communication is glorious. Even in the world we live in, music can say more than we can express. I am also very partial to symphonic music as it has a way of touching us in our heart and soul in ways that cannot make logical sense. I look up at the night sky when all is quiet and feel finite and infinite at the same time, alone and also completely unalone. This movie, in all its complicated interactions and themes and questions and emotional extremes, is what life is and yet also has wonder that illuminates the curiosity in me and this movie makes me feel finite and infinite and full of wonder of this whole human experience - and for a moment I don't feel like my life is a mistake.
You were perplexed about the movie that was my mums reaction after she watched it. I got it first time being a younger guy at the time I saw it in the theater John Williams music is just “it “. Spielberg said he likes to put young children into the mix as it adds to the terror. If an alien civilization exists they would be so far advanced I’m from England and when I moved to the United States I was compelled to visit Devils Tower in Wyoming it’s a magical place. They are coming !
25:53 In 2009, I went to Devil’s Tower because this film meant so much to me as a kid! My friend and I rounded the very corner as the characters in this scene and we stopped. I climbed this very berm from the scene and looked at the tower! It was UNREAL and I felt like I was LIVING THE MOVIE. 😮
"THAT sounds OMINOUS!"...Yes, Cassie. It was a massive Easter egg - the 'suspense' theme from JAWS (a Spielberg movie), wherein Dreyfuss played Matt Hooper, oceanographer, two years prior.🦈 😄 When that part was played in the theaters, everyone who'd seen JAWS (and likely many who'd only heard the theme and knew who'd been in the movie and that Spielberg had directed it) laughed. FYI, a close encounter of the first kind is one where there's no remnant physical evidence of the UFO sighting. A close encounter of the second kind is where there's physical evidence, like burn marks, downed trees, crop circles, etc. The third kind is actual contact with extraterrestrials. Speaking of ET's, Spielberg filmed E.T. just a few years later, the idea being a sort of marriage of Close Encounters with his invisible childhood friend, who 'manifested' during his kid-dom, when his family was breaking apart and his parents divorced - which is why several of his movies have such situations.
Hi Cassie, in case you don`t know & are wondering, the flight of Torpedo Bombers (Flight 19), is one of the well known mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle.
You sounded so disappointed that they didn't try to destroy everything before all the humans could blow them up - or that the humans didn't blow them up before the aliens could blow them up. No horror, no attacks, no violence (apart from what the humans did to each other - which speaks for itself). This was a thing for Spielberg - another of his is E.T. - surprisingly (or perhaps not), another reactor reacted similarly to E.T. wanting to know why they didn't try harder kill the little alien, or at least blow their ship out of the sky. The movie was about its title - a close encounter - the 3rd kind = in person, face to face. The movies was almost a whimsical "What if...?" Curiosity instead of responding to a threat (that wasn't there). The part where the ship and the 'musical instrument' were blasting music at each other = learning to speak to each other, then having information given.
Great reaction, Cassie. This movie came out at the same time as Star Wars. I was 13, and a huge Star Wars fan. Some of my best friends preferred Close Encounters. They *loved* that it was far more thought-provoking than Star Wars. Including the idea of peaceful aliens. It was a great time to be a sci-fi fan.
The special visual effects for Close Encounters of the Third Kind were created by legendary visual effects artist Douglas Trumbull, who also worked on special effects for 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and Blade Runner. He was offered the job of doing special effects work on Star Wars, but turned the job down to work on Close Encounters of the Third Kind instead.
The French Agent, is portrayed by Francois Truffaut - one of the great movie directors of France, he acted too, Truffaut was admired by Spielberg. Truffaut dies in 1984, age 52. I have fisited his grave in Paris, cemetery in Monmatre. Truffaut was an admirer of Alfred Hitchcock, and they have several interview, recorded, about each others film careers. ( The 400 Blows, Jules and JimDay for Night, The Last Metro) When I first saw "Close Encounters 3rdK" I did not know much about film, at age 9....yet, talent of the cast, and film production, it was 1978 -this is still an amazing film!
I looked it up and you were right: that's Carl Weathers, aka Apollo Creed, as the Army officer who tries to detain Roy in Wyoming. The guy who climbs part of the way up Devil's Tower with Roy and Jillian before being subdued by the military is Josef Sommer, who was Harrison Ford's corrupt chief from Witness. And the farmer in Muncie who has that great joke "We're miles ahead of them on the highway" is Roberts Blossom, who gave us the single best scene in Home Alone as Old Man Marley. May they all three rest in peace.
A local theater had a showing a few months ago and I took my parents. As someone who wasn't alive to see the original, it really was magical to see the big music sequence on the bog screen. And the effects held up amazingly well.
"Knowing" the film from a sterile home-alone environment is not the same as "experiencing" it. The audiences' collective sighs, jumps, yips, yelps is so much more powerful when magnified 500 or 1000 times with the audience.
I saw this in the theater when it was released with my girlfriend at the time who had her own incident with a UFO. We dated for 6 years and she could never bring herself to tell me what happened that night. But, we both loved this film and we went back to see it a second time and later when they released a version of it with a couple of minutes more of the aliens at the end. And years later, I even owned the VHS version which showed an even different view of the aliens. I see this as a master class in film making that doesn't tell us the ending but allows us the privilege of wonder about what we've just witnessed. I'm also proud that this movie was mostly shot in my home state of Alabama.
7:08 - Cassie thinking out loud: "Is that Richard Dreyfuss? He looks nothing like Richard Dreyfuss..." (20 seconds later) "Yep, that's Richard Dreyfuss." Pffthaha : )
The somewhat befuddled-looking young man who played the keyboard at the end wasn't an actor. He was the guy IBM sent to install and then train the movie people in how to operate the huge computerized keyboard/music/light system. This was before anybody knew what a computer was, and the story goes that the system was custom-built, and difficult to explain, and the training was going slowly. Finally, at one point Spielberg just looked at him, and said, 'Wanna be in a movie?'. Prolly saved half a day of production time. And that's why Spielberg is.....Spielberg. 😎
Every time I eat mashed potatoes, I say, "This means something." My wife always laughs. :)
Haha! I belly-laughed! Good one!! 😂
she should say "there's a fly in my potatoes"
Every time I eat spaghetti I say "this was no boating accident" and I always laugh... my wife left me
@@markmcelligott2542 I’m not sure if your closing sentence was the comedic punch line of a joke or a marital punch in the gut. If it’s the latter, you have my sympathies.
I always enjoy a big portion of mash so I too can rake at it with a fork
Spielberg said in an interview that if you walked out of the theatre after seeing this film and looked up in the sky instead of putting your hands in your pockets looking for your car keys, he had done his job. That was exactly my reaction.
I saw this when it came out in the theaters and the audience was so wrapped up in the story.
When it was over, everybody was looking up at the sky as they came out of the theater!
Still looking up
Yeah but Teri Garr 's Character broke her oath... You know sickness and health, Death do we part She took his kids and left him to hell with her
@@jamescox2822 He was acting psycho. I would have done the same thing if I had kids.
It was profound seeing this movie even as a ten year old.
One of the greatest movies ever committed to celluloid.
Motion pictures of this standard are not so much a lost art, but a preference by production houses to turn out dross.
You see this reflected in mainstream music, theatre and the arts in general.
I love that the film portrays how even a peaceful, non-threatening alien contact would still be deeply unnerving, anxiety-inducing or even terrifying at times. Simply because as humans we would have no frame of reference for such an experience and our survival instincts would go into overdrive.
Also, Douglas Trumbull was a true wizard, helping to create the Sci-Fi effects for "2001: A Space Odyssey", "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "Blade Runner", not a shred of CGI.
Agreed, and, for the most part, the visual effects hold up amazingly well.
I saw this movie as a teenager and I don’t remember ever feeling fearful at the time . Spielberg in my opinion had a hopeful innocent approach. But I do feel that today’s viewer have been programmed to expect death and destruction so the movie seems scarier. jmho
Agree! The first view of the visitor creates a visceral reaction. It's less "horrific" and more deeply unsettling, a primal instinctive gut reaction to something completely new & unknown, i.e. "alien" to any experience we've had before.
When this eventually happens, and I believe it will, it will be a paradigm shift for the human race, un-mooring many of us from our current beliefs of who we are and of our place in the universe.
Douglas was also instrumental in Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
😢🎉@@Stubbies20032à
Part of the reason this movie is so beloved is that it was like nothing we’d ever seen.
Steven's mate, George, did something similar that same year.
And nothing we will ever see again. There just arent story tellers like this anymore
@syn420951 How about an Alien film based on actual true acounts? " Fire in The Sky" (93) 🔥
( Travis Walton Story, watch Travis - Joe Rogan interview ! ) Why Science fiction with such an incredible real story? In 93 went to see Groundhog Day which sold out, opted for " Fire in the Sky" and stilll talking about it. Boggles my mind how such a brilliant film flew under the radar. Co Starring Robert Patrick his next film after potraying T1000 in Terminator 2.
You said it perfectly
How about an Alien film based on actual true acounts? " Fire in The Sky" (93) 🔥
( Travis Walton Story, watch Travis -Joe Rogan interview!)
Why Science fiction with such an incredible real story? In 93 went to see Groundhog Day which sold out, opted for " Fire in the Sky" and stilll talking about it. Boggles my mind how such a brilliant film flew under the radar. Co Starring Robert Patrick his next film after potraying T1000 in Terminator 2.
...the French researcher Claude Lacombe, is François Truffaut: One of the greatest Film Directors, a pioneer of French New Wave Cinema from 1950s to 1970s. It was Truffaut who told Spielberg to Direct children. It was Truffaut who interviewed Alfred Hitchcock, for the seminal book HITCHCOCK/TRUFFAUT. Truffaut's own films "The 400 Blows", "Jules and Jim", "Day for Night", "Small Change" and more - are all Classics....
Cassie, "I have so many questions."
Steven Spielberg. "You're welcome."
TH-cam: thirty-seven ads in forty-two minutes.
@@RideAcrossTheRiver Firefox with ublock origin extension = zero ads
@@RideAcrossTheRiver Not with the Brave browser.
@@RideAcrossTheRiverpay for TH-cam premium. And never see ads again
@@RideAcrossTheRiver Only 37?
How do you rate so good as to only get 37?
LOL
You spotted Carl Weathers! Good eye!
On behalf of all of us who have been nagging you for so long to do a reaction video for Close Encounters, thank you so much Cassie. I know it's not quite your thing, probably for various reasons including generational differences, particular tastes, etc. But this is a movie that just gets better for me over the years as I come to appreciate more and more just how well crafted it was. I could name 100 different things I love about it -- a score from John Williams that was exceptional even for him, Spielberg's approach to suburban family life that feels so real and relatable, the effects, the sound design. But what I really love about it is that, as a film only ten years removed from 2001: A Space Odyssey, it is content to leave us with a sense of awe and wonder as an end in and of itself. I could go on and on, but I do hope you let it sit with you and, knowing what you know now, give it a try again sometime to see how it hits you. Thank you again, Cassie!
@@vermithax plus Cassie watched the original theatrical version, not The Special Edition, which cut out several short scenes. I wish SS would make a definitive edition with everything from the theatrical ans SE versions together (including Roy inside the Mothership).
Carl isn't the only famous actor that made a cameo in this movie. If you go and watch this movie you can even see a young Lance Henriksen who most of you will recall playing Bishop the android in the movie Aliens years later.
In an interview from the 2000s, Steven Spielberg said that if he were making Close Encounters today, he would not have had Richard Dreyfuss leave his family and go on the mother ship. Spielberg said having his own children changed his perspective. Richard Dreyfuss has said he disagrees with that, and believes that there was no way that Roy could not have gone on the ship.
Dreyfuss is right. Spielberg too, potentially; the story could have been altered but not just that detail, it'd had to be a major rethinking. Like Roy is slightly less manic together with some brother who is the one leaving, something like that maybe.
I have to agree with Dreyfuss. It felt by the end of the film his character had nothing left to remain for, sure he had kids, but his wife has essentially left him and taken the kids. Any court would probably declare him mentally unfit and he would lose access to his children as well.
@@ashuradragosani5960Right. The government would never tell his family that he had no choice but to go to the mountain to find aliens. All experiencers were publicly derided and discredited. Shameful treatment
Who's to say he never came back? All the others did.
It also was the 70's, when the American family started to fall into ruin. So yes, Roy does come off as a selfish me-first Boomer, but that's what adults were turning into by then.
It's hard to explain the impact this film had on the viewing public. It was really the first sci-fi film that made the aliens creatures of curiosity rather than creatures of destruction or violence. My friends and I (high schoolers) were absolutely obsessed and went back to the theater countless times to rewatch it again and again. The following summer my family was taking a trip across the west and I managed to convince my dad to make a detour so we could visit Devil's Tower. It was a truly magical time in my life. (Oh, and Piggly Wiggly is a grocery store, lol.)
Thanks to this film, "Indiana Jones" and, of course, "Star Wars," the blockbuster films hit, and the single to three theater complexes gave way to today's 16-20 screen multiplexes, but sadly, leaving the one-screen drive-ins to fade. Sad now that streaming channels and home widescreen TV options today, worsened in viewership with the Pandemic, are now threatening the lives of multiplexes.
Even though you didn’t see the aliens in the movie 2001 was probably the first to show a non-human entity as being benign.
When they're communicating with the ship and you say "That sounds ominous" That was a Spielberg easter egg of the Jaws theme.
Yep, I caught it and loved it!
R2D2 is also on the mothership 34:28 R2D2 is glued upside down to the mothership as a joke to George Lucas :D
I remember seeing this when I was a kid in the theatre. For YEARS afterward, anyone roughly my age couldn't pass a piano or keyboard without playing those 5 musical notes....lol.
And if you see Monster vs Aliens, the President plays those notes in an attempt to communicate.
@@Soupie62 They're in _Moonraker_
It is catchy.
those five notes are my lunch break alarm on my iPhone
I actually had to pause, walk over to my piano and play it while watching this. Once it's in your head, it's in your head.
Barry's "bye!" conveys the feeling of a child who hadn't had a scary experience with the aliens and would be happy to have them come back. The adults who returned may provide adult insights but the basic message is that these mysterious aliens wouldn't deliberately harm a child.
Clearly Barry was never afraid of the aliens, even though the circumstances of his abduction were pretty terrifying. Maybe that's supposed to be because he had some kind of empathy with them, the way that Roy did... that he somehow intuitively knew that they meant him no harm.
You sound like someone who's had a leg "grabbed" before. I've experienced this,
@@ariochiv Yeah, it's implied fairly heavily that everyone who got the visions were the ones who could receive them - as in, they were chosen because the aliens could communicate with them. Why? Who knows, maybe just something about their brains allowing them to pick up what was being transmitted. Which explains why they gave back Barry, they wouldn't take a child from its mother.
The aliens seemed to me to be expressing trust in humans by showing us their offspring (does little aliens mean young aliens?) and allowing we and they to mingle.
@@yelnikigwawa1845 Spielberg has said that showing different types of aliens was done to suggest a diversity of species/races of aliens in the crew. Traditional UFO lore identifies different types of aliens by height, skin colour, eye shape, etc.
I saw this movie when it first came out in 1977, and nobody was prepared for it. When the movie was over, most of the audience just stood outside and looked up at the sky almost reflexively.
As I did
@@davidleedutton nailed it
How about a film based on actual true acounts? " Fire in The Sky" (93) 🔥
( Travis Walton Story)
Why Science fiction whith such an incredible story?
@@jgsrhythm100Travis Walton has always said that he would like to redo the film because they took his account and changed it to make it scarier and slimy. His actual account is much more interesting. If you haven't, watch the documentary called "Travis"
1977...almost 50 years old and the SFX were really good, must have blown peoples minds in cinemas back then!
It certainly did. Absolutely awestruck. Marveled at what could be. Amazed at what we were seeing.
Honestly, thorough miniature work and good in-camera effects beats CGI for me any day.
Same year as Star Wars.
@@CTyler84Absolutely, cause those things actually physically exist, and it's left up to your brain to do what it's evolved to do and make sense of the perspective and fill in the gaps. Done well enough and the illusion is perfect.
Yes still one of the greatest movie experiences i have ever had.
This is one of my favorite films of all time. In 1977 it had such a profound impact. It’s meant to leave the viewer pondering alien life and what would happen during contact. The viewers are all given enough story to draw their own conclusions. It’s a work of art.
"How are they so calm?" Because scientists were running the show. To them, a potential alien encounter is an opportunity or a discovery, not a threat.
That's not true of all scientists, you can easily find some that think that things like Voyager Probes were a mistake because "broadcasting our presence" might be dangerous (which is true, even if most aliens are nice, it doesn't mean all are, bad luck could lead our 'first contact' being some sort of "Pretty Evil Empire"), but I will give you that scientists are more likely to be ruled by their logic and what facts they know or suspect then pure emotion. Crap, probably the most unrealistic part of this movie, come to think of it, is 'scientists' running this show. At the minimum, the military would want to run it , or worse the regular Foreign policy establishment (basically gets us in lots of unnecessary wars and conflicts ).
yeah, if you want total panic, go for Independence Day....or Mars Attacks! (for comedy anyway)
Exactly. They have to be neutral and analytical. They are there to understand the event, not run around like headless chickens screaming and shooting first.
@@andrewmurray1550 Actually, humans were pretty measured in both. The aliens in both movies started shooting first, and while there was a raised level of alertness, the explicit aim was establishment of communication and diplomacy on our end. It was only after the shooting started that everybody panicked, and pretty justifiably with how outgunned we were.
The military don't like to start wars, it's a myth. Those that have been in a war know what it's like and it's not something to rush into. It's usually civilians that have never served, that are first to pull the trigger on a war or take the first shot.
The five airplanes seen in the Mexican desert at the beginning of the movie are from the infamous "Flight 19," the five General Motors TBM Avenger torpedo bombers that disappeared over the Bermuda Triangle on December 5th, 1945. The pilots and crew of Flight 19 are seen at the end of the movie coming out of the alien mother ship, led by Lieutenant Charles Carroll Taylor.
In the city cemetery of Arkansas City, KS, there is a memorial to one of the pilots of Flight 19, forget which one. The memorial is part of his parents' headstones. Was an awesome experience just to see that memorial with the pilot's name and a reference to Flight 19.
He has ties to my area.
In reality, flight 19 was never found. No wreckage or bodies anywhere. Kinda like mh340 that Malaysian flight that went missing a couple of years ago. Edit: forgot, the Navy also lost a few ships and a couple more planes looking for them.
Not forgetting that the term "Bermuda Triangle" itself was invented in a scifi/fantasy pulp magazine a decade after the disappearance of Flight 19, in a story about Flight 19. Unfortunately the author was prone to exaggeration and straight-out fabrication. He made up a lot of the details including weather at the time and supposed radio transmissions from the aircraft. The fact that some people think it's a real thing today just shows the power of falsehoods in media. Makes me wonder what AI-generated nonsense on Twitter and FaceBook today will be believed as fact in 80 years time...
@@jamesbednar8625I live in Arkansas City, KS. I never knew about this. Thank you.
This movie is more Arrival than Independence Day, but I love how Cassie keeps expecting chest busters and Martian tripods.
War of the Worlds messed her up I think.
My dad has loved sci-fi films since the early days, but his favorite was The Day The Earth Stood Still, because it portrayed aliens visiting as the peaceful ones, and humans as mistrustful, dangerous, and short-sighted. He loved Close Encounters for showing how first contact could be amazing if the aliens were benevolent.
@@rikk319 I actually liked the Keanu Reeves one a lot. The message of it was really interesting.
I will always remember Klaatu Barada Nictu just in case I might need to know it someday. 😉
@@ct6852 I think she's repressed ever seeing that movie. She didn't even mention it in her intro when she was naming alien movies.
I love that John William's music gets to be not just a part of the plot, but an entire scene of dialogue in this film.
The last 20 minutes (or so) are one of the most beautifully filmed moments ever captured on film, in my opinion. In general, a pure masterpiece 👏
It's a shame Cassie couldn't "get on board" by that point in the film and just be swept away by the beauty and awe of John Williams' music and Spielberg's visual storytelling. Too many malicious and scary alien movies seared into your brain will do that to ya!
You’ve been ‘conditioned’ to see aliens as evil entities so you didn’t expect the ending to be so joyful, expecting to be scared. But that’s Spielberg for you.
I actually watched this film in a temporary outdoor movie theater at Devil's Tower. :)
"You'll know it when you see it."
Lucky 🍀 I’ll bet that was amazing!!
Me, too! They showed it every night, and you could look to your left as you were watching and see the shape of Devil’s Tower not far away, silhouetted against the twilight sky. My son and I watched it two nights in a row because why not?
It's funny how Roy uses a trash receptacle to fashion the aliens' implanted 'meeting place'.
@@kell_checks_in That would have been epic; and so hilarious 😆
The idea for Close Encounters of the Third Kind came from an incident in Steven Spielberg's childhood. One night his father woke up the entire family in the middle of the night and took them all out to the middle of a field where dozens of people had gathered, sitting on picnic towels. Everyone had gathered to watch a meteor shower, and Spielberg and his family sat out there watching shooting stars streaking across the sky as they entered Earth's atmosphere. This is also why Spielberg began having a shooting star appear in all of his early films as his trademark. Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom all feature shooting stars.
Back to the Future 3 during Doc and Emma's kiss
@@orangeandblackattackWell, technically that was Robert Zemeckis.
I had always heard it was an accidental shooting star caught on film in Jaws and he then started putting them in his films.
@@namelessjedi2242 Nah, that shooting star in Jaws was added in post-production.
IIRC, there are a number of 'moving lights/shooting stars' in many CEOT3K scenes with a night sky. I don't think it's every single scene, but it's close.
Zoltán Kodály was a composer who created a method of music education involving hand signs for the different notes of the scale as a teaching aid, especially for the hearing impaired, but for others as well. When I was in college, in the choir there, I performed some of Kodály's choral works. The choir director was a student of Kodály in his youth, and as I was subsequently his student, I have two degrees of separation from the man himself.
In elementary school, my music teacher used those hand signs as part of the curriculum. We even performed one or two pieces while making the gestures, and we'd sometimes warm up by following the teacher's signaling. It's maybe not the most intuitive way to represent the notes but once you get the hang of it, it works. Four decades later, I still sometimes find myself making the gestures while trying to identify the relative pitch of a note in a piece of music.
When I saw this film as an older kid, I understood what the researchers were using the hand signs for, though no doubt Spielberg intended for it to look exotic to the audience, to go along with the mysterious re-mi-do-do-so melody. I doubt whether they'd really be used in deciphering ET communications, but it pays off at the end of the film when the alien copies the gestures. I'd love to know more about how they came to be woven into the story.
“That’s Apollo Creed!”
I’m so proud of you. Your pantheon of cinema knowledge has expanded exponentially!!!
Yay, you!!!
The man playing the air traffic controller is the real thing hired for the job.
For Cassie: Richard Dreyfus won the Oscar for "The Goodbye Girl." You and your sister will love it.
I’ve been imploring Cass to watch The Goodbye Girl for a few years now….and without a doubt she will love it!
That's so interesting, and does not surprise me at all cos' his dialogue and delivery were 100% convincing. Similar to the ER team working on Robocop, Paul Verhoeven knew he needed a real thing to write and execute the scene.
The air traffic controllers are all actors. The dialogue was checked and confirmed by an actual air traffic controller to be 100% industry accurate. This scene was shot in 1975 nearly a year before the start of the principle photography.
The theme of Close Encounters of the Third Kind was to examine the differences between how adults and children react to the unknown. The adults react to the extraterrestrials with fear and anxiety, while the child, Barry, reacts with awe and wonder, and it's only when Roy Neary begins to see the aliens with the same childlike wonder that he finally feels fulfilled and is ready to take the next step into the unknown. That's why John Williams incorporated the tune from "When You Wish Upon a Star" into the theme of the climax.
Interesting. I also noticed William’s score during the ending credits contained a bit of “ Wish upon a Star” which is a nice touch. Regardless, one of Speilberg’s best films.
Lol that is not the point of the film, that is an observation that you have made about the film. Since the film is not an allegory, it is doubtful there is one single "point" to the film.
And he's also trying to get the family to go see Pinocchio in the beginning of the movie. A very nice call back to that conversation.
@@d.jparer5184 That actually is the point of the film. Spielberg himself mentioned this in the DVD special features. The film was originally going to be about an Air Force officer working for Project Blue Book investigating UFOs, but Spielberg decided to change the story to a more personal tale inspired by his dad and his childhood. Spielberg also said that if he made the film today, he would not have had Roy Neary leave his family behind, so his views have changed over time.
@@44excalibureven after your last post I also agree youre somewhat conflating a theme with “the point”.
If that was “the point” then he really wasted 70% of film time with distracting fluff.
But cool info 👍
Imagine being a young director, in just your fourth movie, with a big hit behind you ("Jaws"), but still much to prove, and direct Francois Truffaut. I'd be shaking!
yeah, that is such a rockstar lifestyle, i'd be pissing myself
Bob Balaban (who played the translator/cartographer) said that he lied his way into this movie. He could not actually speak French, he just wanted to work with Truffaut that badly.
The lady will always be the mom from a Christmas Story for me lol.
Wow I never put that together until just now.
You should watch SlapShot. lol
No, you'll shoot your eye out.
I always think of Magnolia.
Melinda Dillon. A wonderful actress who only passed away a year or so ago.
This was on the heels of Star Wars, ....so anything after was compared to that. But Scifi done right gets better with time, take Star Trek Motion Picture, also on the heels of a New Hope......both are epic Sci Fi movies....and the SFX at the time , were groundbreaking. 😂❤✌️
I saw this in the theater when I was twelve. It really freaked me and my brother out.
It is such a great movie. It holds up so well after all this time.
47 years later and this film is still a masterpiece of cinema.
And I'm so glad that Cassie got to experience and react to it.
If only she weren't so xenophobic 😂
I predict it will never be close to the truth. By that I mean, aliens are just the bubbles in too many peoples' imaginations.
Spielberg actually admitted that he made this movie when he was a single man, and now that he has a wife and kids of his own, if he made the movie today, he would never have Roy leave his wife and kids behind.
my kids would EXPECT me to go, to not pass up THIS chance. I would definitely be torn tho- and, I would ask the govt to $$$ set up my kids for LIFE.
With the mess he left in the house Roy is a dead man if he comes back to his wife.
My parents fought all the time. I didn't realize their marriage had fallen apart for 30 years. If he didn't leave his family, his family was about to leave him.
@@BigMike246 He still left his kids without a father. His wife tried sticking it out with him and his obsessive behavior until he started destroying the house and became completely irrational. From her perspective, he'd lost his mind and could become dangerous.
Maybe the aliens picked him because they knew he was willing to go.
The character of French scientist Claude Lacombe was played by Francois Truffaut, one of the most important French filmmakers in Europe. Director of the film The 400 Blows. He told Spielberg that he was like a child and that he should dedicate himself to making films of children.
True!
Correct.
The 400 Blows? Sounds amazing😉Giggity
@hectorraulcastro22 He hit the nail on the head with that one ! Spielberg does have a great feel for how children view the world .
that's why he does so well with The Indiana Jones series , Close Encounters E.T and Hook .
He was also based on Dr. Jacques Vallee, who did NOT have a positive opinion about "aliens."
my FAVORITE science fiction film of alll time....its a conflicted film....its not meant to have closure...its about the experience itself...the wonder.... the ambiguity of life .
The Jaws theme from the mothership is always a nice touch from John Williams
It is funny how few people catch that.
@@robertjames-life4768 Yeah, the ship is a predator.
The guy who said “we’re years ahead of them on the highway “ was the old guy from Home Alone and the judge from Doc Hollywood.
The great *Roberts Blossom* 👏🏻 I also loved him in _Always_ and _Christine_
Also the convict in Escape from Alcatraz that chops his fingers off.
@@erikfedderly5587 now I have to watch it again!!
@@dnasty312 creepy guy in Christine. He's in Resurrection, as well, as a co-star to Ellen Burstyn.
In a film with a lot of funny moments, that's one of my favorites.
Steven Spielberg's original choice for Roy Neary was legendary film actor Steve McQueen. McQueen read the script, and admitted to Spielberg that he couldn't do the scene where Neary has an emotional breakdown in front of his family because he "couldn't cry on cue." Spielberg offered to take the scene out of the script, but McQueen didn't want Spielberg to alter the script on his account, and suggested that he recast the role. Richard Dreyfuss, who had previously worked with Spielberg on Jaws, was cast as Roy Neary instead.
That's an amazing story if true because McQueen was known as a bit of a prima donna and always wanted things changed to suit him.
Richard dryfuss bugged Spielberg for ages about being cast for the role, but Spielberg initially didn't want to cast him as he was fresh out of filming jaws and the contrast in characters would put people off as they would only see him as hooper. But when mqueen turned it down he finally agreed to dryfuss
@@AlphaGamer1981 And whats weird is for whatever reason Dreyfuss looks a lot different in this role than he did in JAWS even though the films were only 2 years apart, so I and im sure many others had no problem distinguishing the 2 roles from each other.
The first time I heard the people in India sing those tones, I got goosebumps. 😊
Every Gen-X American has those five notes stored in our memory somewhere
and then they point to the sky. what a powerful scene. just brilliant
@@rockero1313 Yes - really powerful. A new religion.
the same with the old man saying in spanish (my language) "el sol salió y cantó para mi"....it was amazing, it still is
Ronny was played by Teri Garr. You might remember her from Young Frankenstein. She was Inga. The German accent was not her's
4:47 He is saying Ares 31. Airlines have a callsign used by ATC along with a flight number. Some make sense, like American 733 for American Airlines flight 733. Others...don't. All British Airlines flights are called Speedbird, like Sppedbird 28 or Speedbird 112. The defunct Republic Airlines flights went by Brickyard. Ares would be the nickname for the airline, and its flight 31, Ares 31. As far as I can tell, there is no actual airline tagged as Ares.
Lmao at Cassie freaking out over that long, skinny alien come out of the ship. I’m laughing so hard because I saw this in theaters in 1977 at 6 years old and I still remember how mortified I was seeing that thing. My soul left my body lol.
@NemeanLion, and 11 year old me had the same reaction. I never liked this movie because it creeped me out too much.
You felt mortified??? The large alien made you feel embarrassed or ashamed? I think you mean horrified.
It looks like a stick figure I would have drawn at 5 yrs
I always laugh when people freak out at that alien. OMG SCARY SPIDER MONSTER when it's just a really tall skinny guy who has to crouch down in order to get out of the ship. "Jeez, Pete, you could'a stopped a little higher! I look like an asshole bending down like this. Look at 'em, they're all terrified I'm gonna get you for this, I swear..." 😂
You'll notice how Cassie references "Signs" and how it scarred her. I think that's what brought it on, lol.
"To get the boy to react to the aliens offscreen, Spielberg had Guffey walk up to his mark where-unbeknownst to the little actor-two crewmembers were dressed as a gorilla and a clown standing behind cardboard blinds. When Guffey entered the kitchen, Spielberg dropped the first blind revealing the clown to scare him, and then dropped the other blind to reveal the gorilla, which scared him even more. The gorilla then took off his mask, revealing the film’s makeup man, Bob Westmoreland, who Guffey recognized, causing him to laugh and smile in the final take."
Cool info!
For when Guffey to cry out “Toys!” Speilberg was outside on a ladder and holding up various toys! He was known as One Take Cary by the crew. He never acted in any other films.
@@IAMCAVE No he wasn't holding up various toys he had a toy in a box that had been wrapped up and Steven was on a ladder unwrapping it as slowly as possible for that scene. Steven talks about that very moment in the extras.
@@IAMCAVE That´s not true, I remembered him playing in a movie with Bud Spencer, so I looked it up and he was in about 8 films until he retired in 1985.
The pilots not aging was probably from the speed at which the alien ship traveled around and returned them to earth after studying them. To the pilots it might have been a week to them but 30 something years passed for those on earth.😊
And to think this was done with all practical effects and no CGI. Steven Spielberg is a genius.
it's hard to get ppl to think how great movies n tv shows were made before computers showed up
They did actually do a CGI test for some floating cubes in the climax, but they didn’t quite manage to make them look right so the effect was left out.
No CGI was done by necessity, not by genius. You needed a Cray Supercomputer to do CGI even in the mid-80s. We simply did not have the computing horsepower to do convincing CGI until Jurassic Park.
When done right, practical effects will never age poorly. Just look at the Aliens franchise, as well. A craft that we may never (or super rarely) see again. (Siri. I want a movie where aliens visit the Earth and the Humans react badly. CG _everything_ is coming. RIP, practical effects.)
@@Ryan_Christopher Actually, I was surprised to learn that the movie WestWorld (1973) was credited with using CG. To me, that sounds like the Roman Empire having access to a dollar store calculator... but credited as having been use, it is.)
As someone born in Muncie and having to make a few trips back for legal docs, it's great to see the all those famous "cliffs of Muncie".
My favourite movie ever ever EVERRRRRRR. I saw parts of it as a kid and it scared me. Watching it again as an adult it blew me away and I deeply connected with Roy's inner drive and obsession that he was meant for something else. Something that wasn't a wife and kids and a blue collar job. That there was something wonderful out there for him waiting for him to gather his courage and find it.
The directing style, the very light focus on the government, the lack of explanation for most of the things in the movie, the sound, the colours. Everything about this film is deeply impactful to me in a way I can't explain.
This movie helped Steven Spielberg become a major Director and Producer. I saw this in the theater and was blown away by the special effects and the plot! Top notch!
@RichardM1366 I loved this as well it definitely raises some deep questions and the soundtrack , direction and Special effects are all amazing !
and yes this propelled Spielberg to become such a visionary director .
Cheers .
If you want to see how amazing Spielberg is with no money making a movie watch 1971's Duel movie. It was made with almost no budget you can tell by the way its shot and done what a great director he is.
I didn't see it back then, only later on cable...Is it true the original theatrical version didn't show what was inside the ship? I've only seen the one that shows it...
@@HandofOmega The so called special edition to which you refer was done because Spielberg wasn't happy with the film as released. He told Columbia pictures he wantd to do some new scenes and they told him they would only give him the money unless he agreed to show the inside of the mother ship. He agreed and we got the special edition. Later, he said he regretted doing that, and that's what inspired him to do the so called "Directors Cut". That was the only time in his career when he released a directors cut of one of his films.
@@cvonbarron Hm, interesting. What was up with the infamous "walkie talkie" edition of ET, then?
Having been born in '77, this film has been part of my life and everyone in my family has seen it multiple times. It was almost impossible to get through a dinner with mashed taters without *someone* making a "This means something!" reference!
The Smithsonian Museum has the mothership model. It's beautiful even when it is not lit up, and fun to look at all of the items stuck on it, including R2D2, a biplane, and a mailbox.
As the mother ship comes over the mountain, you can see R2D2, upside down.
When the mothership arrives, if you look carefully, you can see R2D2 attached to the bottom of one of its sides, as a nice homage to George Lucas since he and Spielberg were good friends.
This film was so well done for it's time and like you say still stands up very well visually.
I guess the point to take from this film Cassie is that the unknown, a mystery is just that, we don't understand it , sometimes in life we can't ever know the why some things happen, or the reasons for them, and we will never know the answers behind something's, despite desperately wanting to. We just have to live with it.
This came out the same year as Star Wars (another John Williams project). You can imagine the impact on people's fascination about space.
@@jp3813 Don’t need to imagine. I was there for both. They changed the World (at least for me).
I was listening to a Podcast about Close Encounters and they brought up a fantastic point. Had the wife been more supportive, this movie could have played out like Field of Dreams. In both cases the husband is seemingly going crazy but only one wife stuck by her husband the whole way through. Really made me think about how important picking a spouse really is.
A lot of people miss that.
I feel the same way. And in this movie the wife had way more proof to believe him than in Field of Dreams. There was the sunburn, the other people who witnessed the event, and even his detailed knowledge of some unknown mountain. I was always disappointed in the wife’s desire to just move on and pretend like nothing happened.
I always put it off to Hotter wife with shlubbier husband in Close Encounters.
Roy was the only one of the chosen who made it to the mother ship. None of the other “red suits” were taken because they were selected by military and did not receive the alien message in their minds.
In the book they (red suits) were taken too.
All the astronauts are taken.
Actually all the red suits were taken but they only like Roy. All the others that were picked by the military are constantly being bullied by the aliens. lol
@@RideAcrossTheRiver The first time I watched the movie, I assumed all the red suits were taken. Then one day I noticed that the aliens walked over and specifically grabbed only Roy. But just tonight, for the first time, I'm thinking that despite how that moment looked, the other red suits might have been taken as well. There are a lot of shots of the crowd, and I didn't see any red suits after that standing about where they would've been standing.
I think in a way The_Curious_Cat might be right. The aliens like Roy the best, but maybe they took the others as well.
@@The_Curious_Cat “Now, that’s what I call a close encounter!” Sorry, wrong movie…😉😉😂😂😂
Such a great movie. I remember when I was a kid, my dad let me sit up late and watch this with him when it came on TV. It was a little scary at the time but I was more curious than scared. I always remembered Devil's Tower and the
5 tone coordinated with lights the government used to communicate. Good memories, and I've been a sci-fy nerd ever since.
I think I read that that Devils Tower and the town nearby, became so popular,
it became like the first overrun tourist attraction, ever.
Now a days ..we would call it going Viral.
I wanted to go see it but I was in the USAF in freaking Arkansas :^(
Devil's Tower is such a wild place to visit. You have to be careful if you go near the tower because there are a lot of rattlesnakes. What is funny is the prairie dog colony in the park. It is like the worlds largest game of whack a mole. You see a ton of them, half out of the holes barking at you. As you walk towards them they all drop and pop up in holes at a safer distance away barking and it repeats as you move towards them.
So true. The entire time I walked around it I could hear rattle snakes, didn’t see one luckily. The drive up was heads popping out of the ground.
I saw it in the theater in 1977. The sound system was brand new. When the mothership arrived, it shook the theater. I felt the sounds from the ships in my chest. I had never experienced anything like that before .Star Wars had come out earlier in the summer and I loved it but this movie shook me and left me thinking about it for months
Summer of '77 was...OUT OF THIS WORLD (I'll see myself out)
25:06 So proud that Cassie recognized Carl Weathers. ❤
I actually thought, “She’s come so far!”
This one was way ahead of its time. Loved it when I was 7, love it more now.
The ambiguity is what makes it legendary and rewatchable. Brilliant film-making.
@@zanyzander It keeps the wonder alive! Even to this day, 47 after seeing it in the theatre as a scared little kid. Because of the ominous (and to a kid, scarey) commercials, when my Mom and Dad and i went to the theater, I almost went to watch Pete’s Dragon, instead of joining them to see Close Encounters. Luckily, the line was long enough that I changed my mind. I watched other adults coming out of the theater, and they were filled with wonderment and elevated joyful moods. Thank goodness providence prevailed (and the constant “nudging” from my parents- “Are you sure you don’t want to see it with us?”). Thanks Mom and Dad!
Cassie’s concerns about the aliens being evil is likely a sign of the times. When I first saw this film way back in the early 80s, I never interpreted the film that way, even though the abduction scene of Barry was played for scares. I think that’s because Barry himself never showed fear, only the mother did.
💯
However in 50-60s all the alien movies were about invaders destroying the world.That from the times of the War of the Worlds era.
@@Haegemon Yeah, the "in those times aliens were friendly" is a total BS explanation... Aliens invasion was THE NORM... I think Steven Spielberg is one of the rare to try to take the spectator the other way around (with E.T. too)... It was ON PURPOSES he made movies with friendly aliens BECAUSE he wanted people to think about them on the positive way...
(Ironically, he did the opposite with sharks, making people even more afraid of them...)
When this came out in ‘78, I was 13 years old and my sisters and cousins went to watch this at our drive-in. We were so knocked out and just floored by the effects of the ships at the base in the end, we went back the next night to watch it again.
The last 30 minutes of this film are perfection. They combine everything in film, visuals, story, music and acting perfectly.
The perfect kidnapping.
@@RideAcrossTheRiver Lol. Except he goes willingly.
@@etherealtb6021 No, Roy was manipulated and brainwashed. Also, look at the abductees who were freed--dozens over hundreds of years. Did they have a choice when their and their loved ones' lives were destroyed?
this movie was an event when it came out, I was 8 years old and in awe like I was at Star Wars. One thing about the little kid "Jake", apparently he could nail his roll without multiple takes, they called him "One take Jake".
I love the ambiguous. It leaves room for your own mind to work and ponder. Those are the stories that stick with me.
"They're ghosts? *Alien* ghosts?! Frick!" - Never change.
Alien Ghosts would make a sick horror movie. They actually kind of did that already with Dark Skies.
This is one of my all-time favorite movies. I'm so glad you're doing it. This is one of those movies that I have legitimately seen 100 times
"Hers was a little less messy." 🤣 🤣 🤣 Great line, Cassie!
"That's what she said."
Yeah but his was 3D rendered, giving him the details they would need for he climb :)
Saw this opening week. Totally thrilling. The air traffic control scene is my favorite
Imagine what it was like in the theaters when this was first released. There was never anything before like that huuge mother ship coming in, with the theater speakers booming out that huge bass sound. Everybody thought, if they didn't say it out lout, OH WOW!!!
In the late 60s and the 70s there were some great movies that would leave you with questions instead of answering or explaining everything. That days they people who made this movies had confidence in their audience to make their own conclussions.
Nowadays it feels like most of the time you even get answers to questions you can´t comprehend just to take any act of thinking from the audience.
Its annoying AF, is humanity becoming more stupid?!
Spielberg said when he looks back on this film he can see his own immaturity where he never reconciled the story arc between Roy and his wife.
Problem with you watching this movie was you couldn't enjoy the movie because you're programmed to think the worst is gonna happen. You just had negative thoughts through whole movie
that's more of a "today" problem because of all the bad/mean alien movies out there.
we didn't have that when we saw it in theaters when it came out because there weren't enough of them to make us feel that way.
💯 nope!
I saw this at the Theaters when it first came out and there wasn't a hint of say, horror to it.
More of amazement, wonder and excitement to meet the aliens...
That's the problem with "alien" movies these days is they are hostile. It would be highly improbable that an intelligent species that can transverse the stars would be hostile. A hostile species would destroy themselves before creating the type of technology to move from planet to planet. They would have to achieve a certain growth, is the best way I can describe it. Unlike humans, we're a childlike, war mongering species that is so far from that type of growth.
i found that a pretty enjoyable aspect of the reaction. love watching people worry and then learn that it was for nothing.
This was one of the first big screen movies I saw as a kid but not a theatre we went to an old drive in salinas California. It was like magic on the screen given the size of the screen and the effects of the movie. I miss those days.
Gosh, I miss this era everyday. I can smell the summer nights of '78 when I watch this one!
I don't know if there is a better time capsule of suburban life in 1977-78 than this film. When I saw it as a kid, it felt more authentic than anything else I had seen. I only just learned a few years ago that Roy's neighborhood (and indeed most of the film) was shot in Alabama. There is a documentary about the Close Encounters Alabama filming experience called "Who Are You People?"
Two things to say about this, one is my mom loved this movie, she took me on opening weekend to see this movie n has been one of my favorite movies ever since. Two is I heRd Spielberg was close friends with Nixon during his time as president, Nixon invited Spielberg to the white house n told him about the ufo thing going on n basically Spielberg made a movie on what Nixon told him
"I was not prepared for this, I was not mentally prepared for this"
Every single one of us when they actually arrive
"when" oh please. It's just us bud.
@@Etrius10 Seems like an awful waste of space.
Yup.
Nobody is arriving except Jesus at some point.
@@JohnLoutsenhizer Probably as an illegal immigrant.
Most people will probably shrug.
“Her’s was a little less messy” is one of the best comments in one of your videos ever. 😂
I still fly in that 1945 TBM avenger shown in the beginning of this movie
I was in fourth grade when this came out, I remember talking about it with all of my friends after seeing it. None of us left the theater with any kind of fear, anxiety or doubts that the aliens were friendly, they were just out exploring, found us and decided to make contact once they thought we were ready to handle it.
This was a very layered movie. Terror, loss, abandonment, yet wonder and awe and beauty and more. It is more about the experience than a clear cut story with an clear goal. Both Jillian and Roy had different motivations. Jillian just wanted Barry back and she was not much interested in the wonder. Roy was like a child and drawn by something he couldn't explain. He was already a gentle soul, loving Disney cartoons and toys. He was curious to the point of obsession with this event and was not very responsible. The two main researchers, the French man and his interpreter, were there out of a deeper exploration in a very scientific but also full of wonder and amazement. Others were there in the movie seeing it all as crazy and having to deal with the "crazy" people - like Roy's family. That felt like a real family. Then there is the government doing what the government does. Then there was Barry, pure innocence and wonder just going with the flow, representing our inner child. We could understand the motives of all the characters. This was a layered movie and we are along for the ride, vicariously feeling what all the characters felt. Aliens don't have to be hostile, although these aliens were not very good about communicating intent and asking permission, yet they also were curious and trying to communicate. I love the journey. And the beautiful musical conversation at the climax.
This is my favorite movie of all time. This is about ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances and it is about the wonder of the vastness of this universe. I feel alone in the world all the time, but looking up at the night sky on a calm cool night is bliss. And the music of this is spectacular and that music is a conveyance for communication is glorious. Even in the world we live in, music can say more than we can express. I am also very partial to symphonic music as it has a way of touching us in our heart and soul in ways that cannot make logical sense.
I look up at the night sky when all is quiet and feel finite and infinite at the same time, alone and also completely unalone. This movie, in all its complicated interactions and themes and questions and emotional extremes, is what life is and yet also has wonder that illuminates the curiosity in me and this movie makes me feel finite and infinite and full of wonder of this whole human experience - and for a moment I don't feel like my life is a mistake.
What a fantastically heartfelt comment!
Your take deserves more attention. I hope Cassie reads it and pins it to the top of these comments.
You were perplexed about the movie that was my mums reaction after she watched it. I got it first time being a younger guy at the time I saw it in the theater John Williams music is just “it “. Spielberg said he likes to put young children into the mix as it adds to the terror. If an alien civilization exists they would be so far advanced I’m from England and when I moved to the United States I was compelled to visit Devils Tower in Wyoming it’s a magical place. They are coming !
25:53 In 2009, I went to Devil’s Tower because this film meant so much to me as a kid! My friend and I rounded the very corner as the characters in this scene and we stopped. I climbed this very berm from the scene and looked at the tower! It was UNREAL and I felt like I was LIVING THE MOVIE. 😮
It's funny how Roy uses a trash receptacle to fashion the aliens' implanted 'meeting place'.
I camped out at the Devils Tower KOA, and every night they play Close Encounters on a big screen tv for the campers
@@johncasey281 did you get to see the gopher colony?
"THAT sounds OMINOUS!"...Yes, Cassie. It was a massive Easter egg - the 'suspense' theme from JAWS (a Spielberg movie), wherein Dreyfuss played Matt Hooper, oceanographer, two years prior.🦈 😄 When that part was played in the theaters, everyone who'd seen JAWS (and likely many who'd only heard the theme and knew who'd been in the movie and that Spielberg had directed it) laughed.
FYI, a close encounter of the first kind is one where there's no remnant physical evidence of the UFO sighting. A close encounter of the second kind is where there's physical evidence, like burn marks, downed trees, crop circles, etc. The third kind is actual contact with extraterrestrials.
Speaking of ET's, Spielberg filmed E.T. just a few years later, the idea being a sort of marriage of Close Encounters with his invisible childhood friend, who 'manifested' during his kid-dom, when his family was breaking apart and his parents divorced - which is why several of his movies have such situations.
Devil's Tower is worth a visit. It's just as strange and impressive as it looks in this movie. Great hiking around it.
Hi Cassie, in case you don`t know & are wondering, the flight of Torpedo Bombers (Flight 19), is one of the well known mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle.
You sounded so disappointed that they didn't try to destroy everything before all the humans could blow them up - or that the humans didn't blow them up before the aliens could blow them up. No horror, no attacks, no violence (apart from what the humans did to each other - which speaks for itself).
This was a thing for Spielberg - another of his is E.T. - surprisingly (or perhaps not), another reactor reacted similarly to E.T. wanting to know why they didn't try harder kill the little alien, or at least blow their ship out of the sky.
The movie was about its title - a close encounter - the 3rd kind = in person, face to face. The movies was almost a whimsical "What if...?"
Curiosity instead of responding to a threat (that wasn't there). The part where the ship and the 'musical instrument' were blasting music at each other = learning to speak to each other, then having information given.
It's kind of sad how scared you were throughout this film. Not everything is a horror movie.
Quite true.
Great reaction, Cassie. This movie came out at the same time as Star Wars. I was 13, and a huge Star Wars fan. Some of my best friends preferred Close Encounters. They *loved* that it was far more thought-provoking than Star Wars. Including the idea of peaceful aliens.
It was a great time to be a sci-fi fan.
"Hers is a little less messy" - I LOLed!
The special visual effects for Close Encounters of the Third Kind were created by legendary visual effects artist Douglas Trumbull, who also worked on special effects for 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and Blade Runner. He was offered the job of doing special effects work on Star Wars, but turned the job down to work on Close Encounters of the Third Kind instead.
He also directed the ride film for Back to the Future: The Ride.
@@jdude9314 _Silent Running_ and _Brainstorm_ too! Two incredibly underrated sci-fi films
Trumbull directed the 1972 SF film SILENT RUNNING.
Wasn't he in charge of the special effects for the original Battlestar Galactica?
@@asciishallreceive3871 That was John Dykstra.
The French Agent, is portrayed by Francois Truffaut - one of the great movie directors of France, he acted too, Truffaut was admired by Spielberg. Truffaut dies in 1984, age 52. I have fisited his grave in Paris, cemetery in Monmatre. Truffaut was an admirer of Alfred Hitchcock, and they have several interview, recorded, about each others film careers. ( The 400 Blows, Jules and JimDay for Night, The Last Metro)
When I first saw "Close Encounters 3rdK" I did not know much about film, at age 9....yet, talent of the cast, and film production, it was 1978 -this is still an amazing film!
I looked it up and you were right: that's Carl Weathers, aka Apollo Creed, as the Army officer who tries to detain Roy in Wyoming. The guy who climbs part of the way up Devil's Tower with Roy and Jillian before being subdued by the military is Josef Sommer, who was Harrison Ford's corrupt chief from Witness. And the farmer in Muncie who has that great joke "We're miles ahead of them on the highway" is Roberts Blossom, who gave us the single best scene in Home Alone as Old Man Marley. May they all three rest in peace.
there's a special extended edition that add a couple of extra scenes and also shows what Roy sees inside the ship.
It's 2024 already. I'm surprised that she didn't watch the extended, or was even told to watch it, instead of this one.
The “Ominous” chords are from Jaws
This is SOOOO much better in a big-screen theater. It shows up in film festivals frequently - I hope everyone has the chance to experience this.
Definitely! I got to see it in the theater when they rereleased it for its 40th anniversary, it was like seeing it for the first time all over again!
A local theater had a showing a few months ago and I took my parents. As someone who wasn't alive to see the original, it really was magical to see the big music sequence on the bog screen. And the effects held up amazingly well.
@@IsoscelesKramer it was showing in a theater about 30 minutes from me, but each ticket cost about $30, I think.
"Knowing" the film from a sterile home-alone environment is not the same as "experiencing" it. The audiences' collective sighs, jumps, yips, yelps is so much more powerful when magnified 500 or 1000 times with the audience.
An absolute masterpiece
I saw this in the theater when it was released with my girlfriend at the time who had her own incident with a UFO. We dated for 6 years and she could never bring herself to tell me what happened that night. But, we both loved this film and we went back to see it a second time and later when they released a version of it with a couple of minutes more of the aliens at the end. And years later, I even owned the VHS version which showed an even different view of the aliens. I see this as a master class in film making that doesn't tell us the ending but allows us the privilege of wonder about what we've just witnessed. I'm also proud that this movie was mostly shot in my home state of Alabama.
7:08 - Cassie thinking out loud: "Is that Richard Dreyfuss? He looks nothing like Richard Dreyfuss..."
(20 seconds later)
"Yep, that's Richard Dreyfuss."
Pffthaha : )
The somewhat befuddled-looking young man who played the keyboard at the end wasn't an actor. He was the guy IBM sent to install and then train the movie people in how to operate the huge computerized keyboard/music/light system. This was before anybody knew what a computer was, and the story goes that the system was custom-built, and difficult to explain, and the training was going slowly. Finally, at one point Spielberg just looked at him, and said, 'Wanna be in a movie?'. Prolly saved half a day of production time. And that's why Spielberg is.....Spielberg. 😎
Richard Dreyfuss actually looks exactly like Richard Dreyfuss. 😆