Close Encounters of the Third Kind

The blu-Ray gives you all three variations of the film. I recommend the Director’s Cut.

In 1977 George Lucas and Steven Spielberg proved to Hollywood that there was a vast audience for science fiction films if they were made as A, not B-movies and given a large enough budget to look realistic. Spielberg had quickly moved from a director of popular TV movies for Universal (“Duel”), to a shockingly huge hit with “Jaws” which made over twenty times its budget. That was the kind of thing Hollywood noticed. There was great pressure on him, with the question being “Could he do it again or was “Jaws”a fluke?” For a young director that was a question on which his future career depended. He came through spectacularly with “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”.

Spielberg was at this time a young, mostly self-taught director who worked intuitively. On both films he ran wildly over schedule due to his propensity to think up new scenes at home which often required testing out new effects to see how they worked. A perfectionist by nature, he also went considerably over budget, his original estimate of 2.7 million ballooning to 19 million. Ordinarily studios would have written him off, but the popularity of the films was so gigantic that instead, it heralded a new era of filmmaking. He began working on ideas for his new film while working on “The Sugarland Express” and when offered “Jaws II,” he said no. He went very counterintuitively and decided (in a sense) to remake “Firelight”, a movie he made when he was seventeen and still in high school. That film was about scientists investigating UFOs and their effect on a community, played by students from his Phoenix high school. It actually got a one-night showing in 1964 at a local theater and was attended by over 500 people. He was also inspired by the time his father woke him in the middle of the night to drive to the country to watch a meteor shower, an event which instilled in him the wonder of the night sky. He actually includes a scene like this in “Close Encounters” though with a less wondrous result.

Over time the idea grew and he went through several screenwriters and scripts until he decided to write it himself with the idea of an abducted child and the mood of the song, “When You Wish Upon a Star”. Because of his success with “Jaws”, Columbia gave him a lot of artistic control. It was produced by Julia and Michael Phillips, who had produced “The Sting” and “Taxi Driver”. While developing it he asked the Air Force and NASA for technical and anecdotal help and not only did both turn him down but NASA sent him a twenty-page letter telling him not to make it. This only served to convince him that he should make it and may account for the portrait of government forces in the film. He did receive help from talking with scientists including J.Allen Hynek, once a member of Project Bluebook, who created the “Encounters” index years before and who appears briefly in a blue suit at Devil’s Tower. He also talked with astronomer, engineer and author Jacques Vallee, the basis of the character Claude Lacombe. In addition to his technical and scientific books, he also wrote books about “the UFO mystery” and had actually moved away from the extraterrestrial hypothesis to a more esoteric, multi dimensional universe theory. Spielberg grew up in the 1950s and 60s, the heyday of UFOs - a subject that just wouldn’t go away no matter how much the government dismissed it. He told Vallee he was probably right, but his theory was vague and complex and he wanted to give people what they were expecting and that was extraterrestrials. His film neatly sums up the history of the UFO phenomenon up to that time.

The resulting film is full of Spielberg’s fertile imagination and everything he had learned by watching hundreds of movies over time. From the start you know you are in for something different. Right away he throws you into the total confusion of a sandstorm, howling wind, dialogue in Spanish and the sudden arrival of a dusty Dodge from which come French scientific investigator Lacombe (Francois Truffaut) and his translator, David Laughlin ( a barely recognizable Bob Balaban with a heavy beard). There are planes in the Sonoran Desert, still operable planes from Flight 19 that disappeared in late 1945. We begin to catch on. From there it’s a quick jump to a chaotic air traffic control center in Indianapolis where pilots are reporting seeing something amazing but will not make that an official report because they’d probably never be allowed to fly again. Another jump to an old white farmhouse surrounded by flat fields and a vast, starry sky (the skies here, if you watch them closely, often have lights moving in them). Here we meet Jillian Guiler and her four-year-old son, Barry, who are having a night like no other with toys self-activating and the refrigerator dumping out its contents while Barry’s record player plays “The Square Song”.

A fast jump takes us to the suburban home of Roy and Ronnie Neary and their three children where we find Roy to be a father willing to take time out to help his son with homework and who has a kids sense of humor himself. He’s suddenly called away for the night of his life that will change his whole world. In eighteen minutes, Spielberg has introduced all the main characters, given enough exposition to give the audience a sense of what is happening and set the film off on its course to places unknown.The Sonoran Desert opening was an afterthought that Spielberg added as a pickup along with several more that gave what he called a “wow factor” beyond its Indiana setting. There’s the famous scene in India with mountains in the distance and a thousand extras chanting and the brief trip to the Gobi Desert that added a world-event scope. In each case we get something unexpected.

Spielberg intuitively knows the basic setups of film scenes and he uses this to surprise or confound the audience. At one point a new visitation by UFOs is set up and the flow of the scene as well as the score leads the audience to expect something wondrous, only to have it turn out otherwise. A simple overhead shot of Roy’s lineman’s truck speeding down a country road would usually be used just to establish the general sense of where he is, becoming so much more dramatic when a large, saucer shaped shadow passes over it (in the director’s cut). In a joking scene, Roy twice waves a car behind him to pass, with a surprise the second time. This kind of playing with the expectations of the audience goes on throughout the film. Then there’s the abduction of Barry, one of the most famous episodes in the film. Here, the director showed that he could make light itself a form of terror, whether bright white lights from above or the orange phantasmagoria that appears when Barry opens the door. Spielberg was a wizard at lighting. The original pace of the film dragged somewhat in the middle, but the director’s cut fixed that with new editing. Columbia had to borrow money from EMI and Time Inc. just to complete the film. Originally scheduled for summer 1977 release, Spielberg wanted six more months to work on it in fall and then release it in summer, 1978. But Columbia was out of money and needed to release it “as is” for the holidays in November/December.

Of course he didn’t do this alone. The actors all came through, with Richard Dreyfus a perfect everyman partly because the audience didn’t know him as well as the bigger names Spielberg had considered, notably Steve McQueen. Melinda Dillon is wonderful as a caring mother driven by a search for her son. Their reunion is an emotional high point in the film. Her son, Barry, played by four-year-old Cary Guffey, was helped in his performance by the director on a ladder getting him to look up and smile by holding boxes of toys. His response in one scene is unscripted. Spielberg asked esteemed French New Wave director FrancoisTruffault if he would consider acting in it and to his surprise he said yes after reading the script. Lacombe adds a lot of humanity to the film as the person who best understands what is going on. Terry Garr is totally sympathetic as Ronnie, a wife tragically watching her husband and family life crumble before her eyes.

He was also assisted by a stellar group of assistants including cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond (“The Deer Hunter”), film editor Michael Kahn who has edited most of Spielberg’s films, special effects master Douglas Trumbull (“2001: A Space Odyssey”), model maker Ralph McQuarrie (“Star Wars”) and others. Of course this was the third collaboration of Spielberg and composer John Williams. Here Williams did a dual score with parts that are traditional symphonic melodies and other, more abstract sections that enhance what is going on without melodic development. It’s a powerful score that matches this powerful film.

One of the most persistent Spielberg themes began here, which is that magical or extraordinary events can occur even in a mundane setting like twentieth century suburban America. He also made a rare, optimistic film of an alien visitation to earth, which they usually come to conquer. It has become fashionable for some critics to be dismissive of Spielberg. They dislike his warm, family friendly sensibility and think of it as sentimentalism. From the late 60s on it became fashionable to be cynical and to prefer the trope of the tortured artist, the anti-hero and the outsider. Spielberg felt ordinary people could be heroic too, but touches on subjects like artistic obsession with Roy’s dilemma. With this film, Spielberg showed that he was a master filmmaker with few peers. “Close Encounters” leaves a few questions, but is a marvel of a film with a final half hour that is still spectacular and with Spielberg, spectacle still included a deep emotional resonance.

One of my favorites from back in the day. I enjoyed it when it first came out and was happy ti find it on sale. Now I won't worry about missing it and I can watch it again and again at my leisure.

are on blu-ray, in the 2-disc set, all are excellent, for different reasons, and all are part of cinematic history.

I like Spielberg's third Director's Cut the best, except that it excludes Roy at the power station in the beginning which was shown in the 1977 original theatrical release version. This scene was important, to show why Roy chooses not to show up for that job anymore after his initial UFO sighting (the job was thankless and his bosses were real A-holes).

Flip-flopped in the Special Edition and Director's Cut are the night sighting picnic with the India "Where did these sounds come from?" segments, which, I think, flow better in the order they were presented in the 1977 version. The cut between the night sighting picnic that turns out to be noisy helicopters and the subsequent dead-quiet of the observation station is more jarring in the latter two versions than in the 1977 version, where the noisy helicopter's search light on Roy cuts to the cars arriving in India in sunlight. But, in the grand scheme, of the timeline of chronologically telling the story, one can see why Spielberg flip-flopped the order of these two scenes.

The "pillow mountain bit" is happily removed from the latter two versions; never much cared for that.

Carl Weathers (Apollo Creed of Rocky fame) does a brief cameo in the 1977 version as an Army seargant who interrogates suspicious-looking Roy, who looks like a potential looter, during the evacuation sequence, when the bird salesman is doing a great scare job in the background. This bit, quirky but not really necessary, is happily removed from the latter two versions, and instead the scene hangs on the bird salesman saying "Even my dog has a gas mask! And any of you folks are worth more than a dog!" Funny.

The Roy in the bathtub fully-clothed sequence, which ends in a horrible screaming match that involves the whole Neary family, followed by the Roy yanking out the neighbor's chicken wire and throwing bricks and dirt into his kitchen window to build his ultimate Devil's Tower model next day, perfectly segues into Roy's wife, Ronnie, taking the kids and leaving for her sister's, for good, in the Director's Cut. In the 1977 cut, we don't know what the heck Ronnie is talking about when she says to Roy, in the morning, "I'm sorry about last night", and, in the 1980 Special Edition cut, the entire Roy throwing dirt into the house scene is excised, cutting from Roy realizing that Devil's Tower has a cut-off peak, to Ronnie taking the kids, which also doesn't make sense. I'm glad Spielberg finally got it right by including BOTH scenes in his Director's Cut.

This is one of the most AWESOME achievements in cinematic history, a triumph of human imagination, and a film that has a truly noble, altruistic agenda, in an era of otherwise formulaic "beastie" monster movies. It gets the awesome transfer, in all 3 versions, that it deserves. Spielberg's critics said "lightning can't strike twice" after the wunderkind young director struck a massive bolt with his last stroke of genius, Jaws. They were wrong!

This set has excellent behind-the-scenes extras, including the classic 1977 Watch the Skies featurette that was shown in cinemas (finally transferred here in HD!), a complete 1997 retrospective produced by Laurent Bouzereau, and some new interviews with Spielberg, also produced and directed by Bouzerau, that shed new "light" on the whole project. A must-have for any serious cinephile.

Great movie

I remember buying the CLV Criterion laserdisc back in the early '90s of the original release and was in awe at the detail. I later bought the ultimate director's cut LD (the same ultimate director's cut on this release) and was really disappointed at the low level of detail even though the sound was really good. I resisted buying the DVD because that I didn't want to buy it again while not being certain that the picture would be really great. LDs' sound have always put the sound on DVDs to shame. So I waited for a Superbit version of the film but it never came. When I saw that it would be released on Blu-ray I simply jumped at the change and pre-ordered it right away.

When the discs arrived I was extremely pleased that the picture at last was of a quality that the film deserves. There are film grain visible but it doesn't matter since almost all 35mm releases have visible film grain on Blu-ray disc (I expect the same is true of HD DVD releases too). The picture was quite simply magnificent, the level of detail was very rich and the colors were very vibrant. The colors of the picture of BD releases is what I really am impressed with and this movie shines.

The sound was a little different matter. I use a PS3 to watch BD movies with an optical cable to my Yamaha amp with only Dolby Digital decoder (no DTS decoder) so when I watch the movies I use the DD track if available. The DD core of the Dolby TrueHD track was only 448 kbps instead of 640 kbps (all other Dolby TrueHD titles that I have have a 640 kbps DD core) and it was a little underwhelming, being the same sound quality as the DD track on DVDs. But when I set up my PS3 to decode the Dolby TrueHD track as a 2 channel LPCM track the soundtrack really excelled. The film originally was mixed in Dolby surround so to use the surround processor on my amp to play the surround sound in mono on my back speakers didn't bother me. The detail in the sound, especially at the end of the film, was so rich. I know this is not a fair assessment of the Dolby TrueHD sound, but Sony should have but a 640 kbps core on the TrueHD track, like with the Spider-man trilogy. I am really looking forward to getting an amp with HDMI input to process the true HD sound from both Dolby TrueHD and uncompressed PCM BDs (and DTS-HD MA when the PS3 can decode it).

The extras were basically the same as on my old LD Sony release with a great in-depth documentary on the making of the movie, the special edition (released in 1980) and director's cut. It also included a new 2007 interview with Spielberg reflecting on the movie after 30 years (the documentary was made in 1997, 20 years after the original release). In the case there was a booklet with some text on the making of the film with lots of pictures and a fold out with the film poster on one side and on the other side there is a outline of the differences of the three versions of the film with three timelines (one for each version) and notes pointing to various points with comments. What I really miss is a commentary track with Spielberg on each of the versions. I don't think that there is a single movie of his that has a commentary track on either BD or DVD. It would be perfect with a commentary track.

As it stands this release is really good. Some have complained on the lack of a BD plastic cover and I can understand it but with this content it is well worth the price (some have complained on that too) and I would recommend this release to all sci-fans.

Addition on 17. January 2008:

I have since I reviewed it bought an amp with HDMI to hear the uncompressed PCM sound from my PS3. I must say how that the sound is truly amazing. It is so full and detailed. The bass, especially in the scene with Dreyfuss in the truck in the beginning, is truly spectacular. The sequence at the end behind Devil's Tower is a feast for the ear. I have only been able to get the HD sound from the Dolby TrueHD track but I would expect the DTS HD-MA track is equally impressive since both is a lossless format.

I've always found this movie fascinating then exasperating because of all those pesky unanswered question that inevitably pop up with each viewing. Such as..............just how benign can these aliens be when they persist on kidnapping people? Yes, they eventually return them after they've ruined their lives by separating them from everyone they knew and loved (only Melinda Dillon as Jillian Guiler gets her son back in a timely fashion). The scientists never actually converse with these obviously superior beings yet self congratulate themselves for a few obscure hand gestures and a couple of musical notes. For that, they're willing to hand over a few more live specimens for the aliens to do..............what? Spielberg states there are no villains in this movie, which automatically prompts the query, just what does Spielberg consider villainous? He depicts the military as being particularly shady without explanation; willing to trample over civil liberties without qualms, killing livestock in the bargain, using scare tactics and detention as a deterrent. For what, why the great lengths to deny all this? Worse, they gas people as they are climbing a dangerously steep rock formation. What if they gassed someone who then missteps and falls to their death? Whoops? And just how great was their security anyway considering two people just waltzed into the middle of their setup with no one noticing! Then there's the case of Richard Dreyfuss' character, Roy. The man becomes instantly obsessed and not a little manic. His wife (Teri Garr) becomes instantly unhinged and not a little shrill. She dumps him and he dumps his entire family without a thought or twinge of regret; the ultimate deadbeat dad, glorified then lauded as a visionary willing to leave everything behind for the adventure of a lifetime. All I could think while he was escorted aboard the mother ship like the catch of the day..........those are mighty skinny aliens..............To Serve Man..............it's a cookbook!

Yes, this movie is incredibly pretty and terribly entertaining; with dazzling special effects and decent performances by all (especially Melinda Dillon). But. I still have issues with the way the plot was handled. Underneath all that wonder and bedazzlement there are too many questions that are blissfully ignored. Just because the alien smiled doesn't mean it was benevolent. It could have been gas.

I will not go into detail on how I feel about Steven Spielberg's wonderful science-fiction odyssey, probably one of the best movies ever made and a classic in the science-fiction genre, despite what the knucklehead academics say. Instead, I will address the minor controversy surrounding the Blu-Ray editions of the movie.

As everyone knows, there are two types of Blu-Ray editions of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". One is the 30th anniversary box set, which includes the three versions of the movie (Theatrical, Special Edition and Director's Cut) on one disc; a plethora of bonus features on the second; and a booklet (the 3-disc DVD version of the set contains one version on one disc each, a making-of documentary scattered on all the discs, and the rest of the bonus features on the director's cut disc). The other is the cheaper, newly released "Blu-Ray Essentials" version, which only contains the first disc of all the three versions but no booklet and zero bonus features (except for the Blu-Ray exclusive "A View from Above" feature, whose main purpose is to show viewers the difference between all three versions).

The reason I'm addressing this is because some Amazon.com reviewers (including myself) have expressed dismay over buying the wrong edition. Unlike these reviewers, I am not entirely angered by this since I already have the 30th anniversary edition on DVD and that I bought the "Essentials" version just to upgrade to Blu-Ray (it also helped that it was on sale for a meager $7). But I can understand the frustrations looming in the reviews section and I wish Amazon would have notified this and state the differences.

If you're going to upgrade to Blu-Ray and want to learn the history behind "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", it's highly recommended you buy the 30th Anniversary box set. However, if you just want to buy "Close Encounters" primarily for the picture and audio quality and have no care for the extras, the "Blu-Ray Essentials" version will serve you well. It also helps that it's much cheaper than the other set (at least, at this moment).

Either way, this movie is a dazzler on Blu-Ray. Columbia did a phenomenal job restoring "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" in its best condition. The picture quality is superb and the audio is dazzling, particularly on the surround sound speakers. Some reviewers complained about the existence of grain, but this movie was shot on celluloid, not digital photography, so, of course, the grain is inevitable. Even so, it shouldn't distract from the incredible experience you'll have while watching this terrific movie on Blu-Ray and with a big screen TV. When the alien mothership lands on the Devil's Tower in the movie's climax, you'll feel the experience like no other in the previous VHS and DVD versions.

"Close Encounters of the Third Kind" belongs in every movie collection and now thanks to Blu-Ray, it looks and sounds better than ever. If you are hesitant to replace your DVD player with a Blu-Ray player, then this version of this film should force your hand.

Strongest recommendation.

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.

Classic sci-fi movie.

Forgive me as I slap on the sentimental hat, because watching this glorious film on Blu-ray with a full high definition experience... Well, lets just say it pains me that so few films are released like this anymore.

I would even suggest this to be a bold production, given that so much patience is required before the audience can finally witness their reward. But thats largely the mood that Spielberg wants us to fall into - the waiting game that these wonderful characters are feeling. Richard Dreyfuss (playing Roy Neary) steals the show as a father who believes he is all but an lone figure when a mysterious group of flying 'crafts' dazzle him late one night on a car journey, causing his behaviour to become erratic and his motivation to find answers relentless. The problem is, he wants answers to questions that those around him don't believe to exist. After his family leave home when they become more and more concerned, nothing holds him back from making the ultimate journey to where he believes the answers will come...

In typical Spielberg fashion, the film is saturated with clever motifs reaction shots - just a couple of the trademarks he would later go on to develop and perfect. But this is a film that is quite contrary to his later efforts, as it excels in confusing the audience as to whether the 'force' that is meddling with the characters has good or bad intentions. The films resolves this at the end, but its exciting to watch because it plays on the idea that alien activity could be either a positive or negative experience, depending on how you view their actions.

Before I bought this particular product, I noted that a 'Close Encounters...' Blu-ray was actually already available from Amazon (this one), but I held back from buying for a couple of reasons. Firstly, another 'Close Encounters...' Blu-ray was available for Pre-Order here (the one on this page), so I made my order and received it after a lengthy delay, which Amazon attributed to stock problems. In comparing this particular product to the former U.S version, the only difference is that this is an official U.K release, so it actually doesn't matter which one you buy as they will both play in your Blu-ray player and both are the same price. Over on Amazon US, you also have the option of buying an 'Ultimate Edition' that includes a Bonus Disc and smart packaging... Looks like the U.K has been duped yet again!

As for the transfer, I was absolutely overwhelmed by the integrity of the picture. This is a very, very faithful restoration that doesn't look over-processed at all like you get with many Lowry restorations, and certainly hasn't been over laboured. Grain is intact throughout and is never drops out artificially. Matting shots/special effects look like they've come straight off the film. A bit of gate weave is present, but heck, that happens anyway in a theatre. The colours are surprisingly rich and very stable - a surprise to me because 70's films can often look drab or coarse. This is absolutely not the case here. George Lucas should take note; this was released the same year as 'Star Wars: A New Hope', and yet this product looks MILES better than the latter which was recently released on Blu-ray. Spielberg really does care about his films, and the added bonus of course is that this product contains all three versions of the film; the Original, the Special Edition and the Directors Cut. Super Duper!

Despite the flawless transfer and option for editions, this product does not contain any special features which is very much disappointing. Although the back of the case states that one is present, this feature is largely irrelevant unless you're interested in the different versions of the film, since it allows small 'graphics' to appear on the bottom corner of the screen (during the film playback) which indicate when a particular scene was not part of the original film. Interesting, but I guess part of the reason this product is so cheap is because you're just getting the film itself.

I can't give any less than 5-Stars because this is precisely how a Blu-ray should be released. Its selling at a very affordable price (thats actually cheaper than many new DVDs, which in my honest opinion have become worthless due to file sharing), its got a flawless transfer that looks completely natural and its a classic film. What more you could want? Buy it now!

This is one of the best spielberg movies ever, and it came after the success of jaws. Its perhaps the most believable aliens meet humans films out there and was groundbreaking at the time for its analog special effects. It's on the level of 2001 a space odyssey but maintains conventional commercial storytelling. In brief, aliens make contact with humans and invite some psychically to come to a special landing they plan. The modern workingman's finds a compulsion to go....and at no cost....and goes existentially beyond....its touching, Insightful with the right small touches of comedy too. This 4k uhd hdr disc unfortunately shows how weak the original negative is. I wonder what the source is/was. Its thin and grainy, best they can do. It's not like the criterion laserdisc from the early 90s when the negative was just over 10 years old. However the hdr colors and contrast are blissful. This was know to be a colorful movie..all the differently lit spaceships etc are in full glory. The hd soundtrack is decent though I always found the music tobe mid fi on purpose. I give the visuals 4 out of 5 and audio 4 out of 5. Theres all 3 cuts of the film here but not much extra. The only valid and super interesting aliens-meet humans film is 2016's Arrival...

Great film for the collection.

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