Rating: 
Summary: A Masterpiece of American Cinema!
Review: After the release of JAWS in 1975, Steven Spielberg became the most popular director in Hollywood. People were wondering what he would do for his next picture, he already knew! Steven Spielberg had wrote a script called CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND when he was 18 years old. He tried to get the movie made, but no studios wanted to take their chance with an unknown director with such a big project. With JAWS becoming the highest-grossing movie of all-time, Steven set himself to direct his movie. The movie was bought by Columbia Pictures who was facing some financial difficulties at the time. The project was given a $20 million budget, which was extremely high at the time. Steven hired again Richard Dreyfuss to play the lead role. Principal photography of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND started in November of 1975 and continued through 1976. The production was extremely big and had many technical problems. For the special effects, Steven hired ILM to produce some of the most amazing special effects in movie history. Before the release of the movie, people were pessimistic at the idea of the movie saying it was too science-fiction, but when CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND opened on November 17th, 1977, critics were all agreeing to say that the movie was a masterpiece. The movie grossed $166 million domesticlly, becoming the second-highest grossing movie of 1977 just behind STAR WARS, who beated JAWS as the highest-grossing movie of all-time. CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND was nominated many times at the 1978 Academy Awards and garnered Steven Spielberg a Best Director nomination, something that JAWS didn't do. The movie was re-released in 1982 and then released on VHS in 1988 as CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND : THE COLLECTOR'S EDITION. In 2001, it was released as a collector's two-disc DVD edition containing many bonus features.
Rating:
Summary: Watch the skies.....
Review: I admit it: I'm not a Richard Dreyfuss fan. I have only really liked him in two movies -- George Lucas' American Grafitti and Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Until recently, I had only seen bits and pieces of Spielberg's 1977 UFO classic. I never had the time or inclination to sit down and watch the whole movie. That is, until my current boyfriend (a true Spielberg aficionado) purchased the Collector's Edition DVD. We sat down in my living room and watched it. What surprised me about Spielberg's film is how well the story of a peaceful encounter between humanity and a spacefaring civilization is told. Not only are the 1977 special effects still effective, but the human interest part of Close Encounters was compelling. As seen mostly from the point of view of Indiana electrical engineer Roy Neary (Dreyfuss), the movie depicts the mystery and wonder of how we discover that we are not alone in this universe. It shows that even though Neary loses almost everything to the compulsion mysteriously implanted into his mind, he eventually finds that his sacrifices were worth it. The movie is never boring. Instead, even though it's not a film like Star Wars with ray guns and explosions, it's fast-paced and interesting. It takes its cues from actual UFO sightings and other unexplained mysteries (such as Flight 19, the 5-plane training flight that disappeared off the coast of east Florida in December of 1945) and ends up with a realistic scenario for a "close encounter" between humans and aliens. The acting is excellent, and the young Spielberg got great performances not only from Dreyfuss, but also from Teri Garr (Veronica Neary), Melinda Dillon (Gillian Guiller), Francois Truffaut (Lacombe) and Gary Guffey (Barry). Also adding to the magic was composer John Williams, whose 5-note musical phrase became famous as the proof that music is truly a universal language. The two-disc collector's edition includes the movie in wide screen format, with a second disc that contains a making-of documentary, eleven deleted scenes, plus theatrical trailers. Both picture and sound are excellent and considering it's a two-DVD set, the price is affordable. I give this movie a strong endorsement.
Rating: 
Summary: What's the purpose of a single disk set....?!
Review: It really amazes me that Colombia/Tri-Star is putiing out a single disk DVD of this movie, when they already have a two disk one still available. Why? There are no bonus features on this disk, just the movie. It looks like a marketing ploy aiming toward highway robbery. Close Encounters deserves better treatment on DVD, and so do the fans.
Rating:
Summary: We are not alone.....
Review: Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Steven Spielberg's 1977 UFO classic, is the thematic antitheses to 1996's Independence Day. While Roland Emmerich's ID4 is a throwback to 1950s "invaders from space" flicks, Spielberg's vision of a "close encounter" between humanity and extraterrestrials is more mysterious and, in the end, more hopeful and awe-inspiring. Instead of exchanging bullets and "heat rays," humans and aliens communicate by using musical notes. Spielberg's screenplay divides Close Encounters roughly into three acts, basically corresponding to each of the three kinds of "encounters." In the first category, sightings of a UFO, we first see a very strange sight in the Mexican desert: an international team of researchers led by French UFO expert Lacombe (the late Francois Truffaut) and guided by several Mexican Federales finds five World War II vintage Grumman TBM Avengers. The planes are abandoned but strangely intact, as though they were brand new. "Who flies this kind of plane?" asks a bewildered cartographer/interpreter named Laughlin (Bob Balaban). "No one," replies another astonished researcher. "This is Flight 19." (Flight 19, of course, is a reference to a Navy training flight which took off from Ft. Lauderdale one morning in December 1945 and vanished, along with a Martin Mariner search plane sent up to look for the missing planes and crews. Flight 19 is now famous in the lore of unsolved mysteries related to the Bermuda triangle.) Laughlin is baffled by something else, as well. A Mexican villager, old, sunburned, and seemingly delirious, keeps repeating, "El sol salio anoche y me canto. El sol salio anoche y me canto." When Laughlin asks what the phrase mean, a researcher who is fluent in Spanish says, in an awed tone, "He says the sun came out last night. He says it sang to him." Later, in the Indianapolis Air Traffic Control Center, a more dramatic close encounter of the first kind plays out on the radar scopes as airliner pilots call in reports of bright lights in the sky and unknown contacts make their presence known. For a few tense minutes it look as though tragedy is imminent, but within moments the contacts vanish into the night sky. Torn between reporting a UFO sighting or just letting the incident slide by, pilots and air traffic controllers alike opt to keep quiet, mainly to avoid having to fill out tons of bureaucratic paperwork. As important as these sequences are, the focus of Spielberg's story is on Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss), an employee of a Midwestern power company whose life on Earth is ordinary, hectic, and somewhat unfulfilling. Sent out to investigate a section of power lines in rural Indiana (caused, of course, by the UFOs' passage), Neary has a close encounter of the first kind and impulsively goes on a truck-borne pursuit of two small "flying saucers." This sequence, which ends with a Keystone Kops-like police chase of the same UFOs, triggers an obsession within Neary that neither his wife Ronnie (Teri Garr) nor his children will understand, much less accept. Neary, along with several hundred other people from different towns and states, will soon be haunted by both a visual image and a simple five-note musical phrase. The traces of the UFO flights that leave traces behind (sunburn on people who, like Neary, were exposed to bright light at night) are known as close encounters of the second kind. Spielberg weaves Neary's everyman-faces-an-extraordinary- situation plot with the official investigations being carried out by the UN-sponsored Lacombe team and a more secretive U.S. government First Contact program. These plot threads will all lead to a climactic and awe-inspiring close encounter of the third kind: actual (and documented) contact between humanity and another space-faring civilization. The Columbia/Tri-Star Collector's Edition brings not only a newly re-edited version (trimming some excess material from the 1980 Special Edition) of the 1977 film, but also comes with a second disc loaded with extras such as a Laurent Bouzereau documentary on the making of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, a 1977 promotional featurette, and the theatrical trailers.
Rating: 
Summary: Worth seeing this encounter
Review: Close Encounters of the Third Kind was a revolutionary film for its time, which is why it is so highly appreciated by so many. Including moi. It not only wowed people with special effects, but a story line. For once, an alien film didn't include corny music and screaming women standing out in the streets, or little green men shooting lasers or what not. This film brought sci-fi films to a new degree.
So often, we see sci-fi films inter-relate with horror films, this is no horror film, it's a true sci-fi film. The suspense does not come from terror, but from wonder and awe.
I've read some reviews that state that you shouldn't show awe towards aliens that kidnap and brainwash people. From what I saw, there was no brainwashing, and the kidnapping was not as big a deal as you may think at first. Richard Dreyfuss gives a hell of a performance in this. He's an ordinary guy whose life gets turned around by these phenominal events, which are the sighting of UFOs. Other ordinary people are effected as well. This is the power of the film. The heroes aren't these Indiana Jones or super experts who know "everything" about aliens. They are people, like you and I, who have a drastic change of viewpoint. Other reviewers complain about Dreyfuss's character because he becomes obsessed with this phenom. Well, excuse me, but if your entire world as you knew it was suddenly changed because you realized that there were higher forms of intelligent life out there, you might become obsessed yourself in figuring out the truth. It's realistic and human to be curious. I think this movie was very realistic and avoided the corny, unrealism of other sci-fi junk. The negatives of this movie is: 1. Not enough Alien parts, meaning there needed to be more encounters with Dreyfuss or with other people. There were only two, not counting the end. This isn't enough, at least I felt, to get a good grip that this film is about Aliens and not government cover up. Because the first third is about the Aliens impacting people's lives, while the other two thirds is government conspiracy or the recreation of Devil's Peak either through dirt, mashed potatos, or drawings.
2. As a result, to not enough encounters with the Aliens, the film can be quite boring at certain points. Now when I say encounters, I don't necessarily mean having more scenes where they fly around and buzz people with their space ships. Not at all, I mean more alien phenoms, like the ship in the middle of the desert or the lost air planes now suddenly found. These were great, there needed to be more of them.
3. The ending. I don't know, it was awe inspiring but at the same time real boring. There needed to be a climax, and I think Spielberg felt that the aliens showing themselves would be it. I'd rather they hadn't shown the aliens, that would've been more real. Think about it, making contact with an entirely different species? Not real.
Plus, Dreyfuss just suddenly given the nod to travel with them, even though he's wanted by the government? I mean come on, not real.
4. Because this film has some lengthy, boring scenes, it's more likely than not this won't be an addictive film. You may see it more than once but you'll probably allow a great deal of time to pass in between, because it's a film of wonder not a film of entertainment galore. As you can see, there are some flaws that keep this film from being totally realistic. But for the most part it is, and I liked it. I think you need to see this film, you will enjoy it for the first time at least. Seeing it again and again? I don't know about that. That's why it's four stars and not five. Grade: B
Rating:
Summary: Really worth getting
Review: To me, Close Encounters of the Third Kind is without doubt one of the best Science Fiction movies ever made. Under its seemingly simple premise, it takes us on a wonderful journey: the story of a man faced with something more formidable than him, and his relentless, unwavering drive to get the answers he seeks, whatever the cost to him. Richard Dreyfuss is the symbol of our humanity: fragile, slightly immature, drowned in his own problems, unable to face them, overwhelmed by what happens to him, but uncontrollably driven toward this unknown that touched him one night and changed his life forever. The other important role is that of François Truffaut (the famous French director) who plays the role of the scientist who attempts to understand what the aliens are doing and prepares first contact. This is the only role that Truffaut ever accepted in a Foreign film. What I like best about the movie is its positive message: it's not the military that were chosen to get on the alien ship, but the simple guy, the only true representative of humanity. Get this DVD, there are hours of goodies on both discs, and I especially liked the bits about the music, by John Williams. This is without doubt the best and richest score he made for any Spielberg movie. To those who complain that they don;t get to see the inside of the mother ship, they should know that Speilberg never intended us to see that. It was forced upon him to shoot these sequences for the previous special edition of the movie. There is no need to see the inside of the ship, we know it's formidable and here, imagination takes over.
Rating:
Summary: Great Movie-Great DVD
Review: Close Encounters Of The Third Kind has long been a favorite of mine.
This film has been released in three seperate versions.(original-1977,Special Edition-1980,and Collector's Edition-1998)
This DVD features the Collector's Edition(in my opinion the best cut of the film).It basically combines elements from both previous editions,and eliminates the interior of the mothership ending from the special edition,which Spielberg really didn't want in the first place.(Columbia basically forced him to do it in order to get his Special Edition made) The DVD has a good picture and excellent sound.(Dolby Digital 5.1,DTS 5.1,or Dolby Surround 2.0)
There is a short featurette from around the time the film was originally released,and trailers from the original and special editions.
The real meat of the bonus materials is the feature length documentary on the making of the film.It is extremely interesting,and full of interviews and behind the scenes stuff.It is definately one of the best making of documentaries I've seen.Very cool! If you enjoy this film at all,I'd highly recommend this DVD!
Rating: 
Summary: Deadly Encounter
Review: A Steven Spielberg movie, as all the world knows, is generally a masterful assemblage of special effects concealing an entirely brainless script. "Close Encounters" was made on the credit Spielberg ran up for steering "Jaws" to box-office success, and it is just as dim-witted as the fish story. At least when Hollywood made flying saucer movies in the 1950's nobody expected the audience to take them seriously. It was pretty shocking to discover that a man in Spielberg's position actually believed the UFO claptrap incirculation by the mid 70's. Still, it all might have worked if his aliens had amounted to something; they're like a race of speechless squeeze toys. A very poor effort.
Rating:
Summary: Why did they destroy the movie.....
Review: This thrid version of Close Encounters is really terrible. It has even more scenes that do not enhance or make the movie any better, in fact it makes the movie weaker. The decline of Roy Neary's family life in pursuit of the UFO's now plays like a soap opera and why did they remove the showings of the insides of the Mother ship, that made the movie so good. We get to see the inside of the ship and see that the quest was worth it. The DVD bonus features run too long and get boring. I now can not stand this movie, they have destroyed it.
Rating:
Summary: Nice DVD package, movie seems somewhat dated
Review: Steven Spielberg's second smash hit, Close Encounters of the Third Kind is an effective, optimistic, and visually appealing film. In the light of current special effects, it's showing its age, but the story still retains wonder and interest. Richard Dreyfuss is very effective as the man who sights a group of U.F.O.'s and then becomes obsessed with them. Others that have made sightings share the obsession, including a woman whose child is abducted by the aliens. A seed is implanted in their minds that draws them to Wyoming. Their stories are intercut with the story of two scientists (played by Truffault and Baliban) who are investigating the strange re-appearance of ships and planes that have been missing for years, and which turn up in strange locales. They, too, receive a message (along the more conventional method of radio contact) to head to Wyoming. Dreyfuss logs the bulk of the screen time, and he easily carries the film. As his marriage melts down in the wake of his obsession, he manages to maintain our sympathy and interest. Truffault is a surprisingly effective actor, even when speaking through an interpreter. Even the child that gets abducted has a great performance. Likewise, the pacing and suspense through the first 2/3 of the film is flawlessly executed by Spielberg, not revealing too much and intercutting short bursts of action with more contemplative and personal scenes. Unfortunately, the film grinds down to a deadly pace in the last 1/3 of the film. It is essentially 40 minutes of a faceless mob (of scientists) and Dreyfuss staring at the sky and watching lights appear and disappear. Yes, the effects are good, even by today's standards, but it is boring! Similarly, Teri Garr as the protagonist's wife is nothing but a carricatured harpy, and their breakup is clumsily handled by the immature (at the time) director. All in all, though, the film holds up well to time and repeated viewings. This DVD edition is quite nice, with a 100-minute feature with commentary and insight from most of the principle filmakers and stars (except Truffault, who had passed away). Spielberg does not do commentaries for his films, but he talks a lot in the feature which should sate the film buffs. There are also some deleted scenes, including the "new" ending Columbia demanded for the "Special Edition" release in 1980. The original 1977 ending is maintained for the film on this DVD (and rightfully so!).
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