Close Encounters of the Third Kind rereleased to theaters

I like dated. It brings back my youth

 

I always discount anyone's criticism of a film or recording as "dated." All that shows to me is that the reviewer is incapable of setting their mental state to the time period the item was made in.

I was born in the early 1950's so my historical perspective on things in life begins there, but I am totally capable of watching a movie made in the 1930s and set my mental state to accept that time period as the norm.

With things that have happened in my lifetime, like when I watch an episode of MANNIX, I don't get all bent out of shape or even think twice because someone needs to use a phone and doesn't have one on their person. It was normal for the time and I can accept it. I've lived through that period.

I'm never perturbed by the fact that THE FUGITIVE seems to get odd jobs without references or computer checks of his background. It wasn't that way back then, and I can easily adjust my mind to fit into those times before all of the digitization of society.

If I look at an episode of MARY TYLER MOORE or BOB NEWHART, I might cringe at some of the 70s styles they were wearing, but it doesn't take away from my ability to appreciate the storyline and comedy.

When I listen to a recording with lots of synthesizers from the '80s, I can simply enjoy the sounds as they are and not worry about the fact that it was recorded in the '80s. If it sounds good - it sounds good.

So I simply never pay attention to reviews that dismiss things as being "dated."

 

Well said. I was born in 1952 so I can relate to your post.

 

You had me until 80s synths.

 

We all have our breaking points.

 

I saw the film tonight and it was magic. The eyes had to be adjusted due to not being used to seeing a classic film on the big screen. It looked amazing. You could see the filmic softness and light grain in the picture. It reminded me a lot of the current blu-ray though richer in detail especially in the daylight scenes at Devil's Tower.

 

There is something to be said for that. I'll sometimes see a relatively-old movie from the 1960s or 1970s, and think, "oh, god, I remember that crap." It's like the hot kiss at the end of a wet fist.

I'm about the same age, and all I can say is when I see a film that has really dated hairstyles, cars, makeup, telephones, TV sets, whatever, I think "man, this thing is really old." But when I see a period piece -- a movie about Lincoln or WWII or whatever -- those things don't bother me. I'm very well aware that movies are products of their time, but that doesn't mean I don't notice it and it doesn't make me wince a little bit. In some cases, I think, "gee, that was really cool back then and is now kinda trite and cornball." I don't have the same brain in my head today that I had 40 years ago, so you'll forgive me if my attitudes have changed a little bit.

I can still see something like Close Encounters and think, "wow, what a classic film," but there are also aspects of it that I would bet even Spielberg would say, "yeah, I kinda went too far on that." I'm more annoyed by all the story flaws and questionable logistics of the plot; noted screenwriter Ernest Lehman actually wrote an article in late 1977 for Film Comment on a lot of the stuff in CE3K that made no sense, and despite the fact that I loved the film and was a big Spielberg fan, I had to concede, "wow, this guy is pretty much 95% right." The flaws are a lot more apparent today -- but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy the film on a certain level.

 

And BTW, Sony has just reissued the original fall 1977 teaser trailer of the film. I had forgotten that it was a whopping 4:41 minutes long, which is very lengthy for a trailer.

 

I've never read the article in question, but I'm guessing "what are apparently benign aliens doing kidnapping people/subjects/experimental fodder for 30 odd years" might be somewhere near the top of the list of story problems?

 

But they hadn't aged, right? It was a speed-of-light thing. They weren't gone that long except from our point-of-view.

I don't have the problem you do. The returned people didn't seem any worse for wear so I don't think there was any violent experimentation done to them. Probably the found a way to communicate (a theme of the movie) and got information.

Of course the 'apparently benign aliens' forcefully take Barry. Most of the scenes involving the aliens and their ships are wondrous; that one is terrifying in stark contrast. I was closer to Barry's age than his mother when the movie premiered but it was pretty scary. I think Spielberg wanted the audience to not know how to feel about aliens, playing off the usual aliens-are-evil trope, but I think he would have done it more subtly later. (And then return him days later, which no matter how you cut it, is much shorter than they had the other people.)

I remember somewhere, the documentary on the DVD I believe, Spielberg nearly dismissed this film as juvenilia, though it was mostly in regard to Neary sacrificing his family so callously. The younger Spielberg could relate to that and the seasoned, married Spielberg couldn't.

 

And from the point of view of their loved ones who hadn't seen them for all that time and never knew what had happened to them....

 

I used to love that trailer, especially the shot of the night road with the light at the far end. It was an effective visual and I was actually somewhat disappointed that it didn't appear in the actual film!

 

I hear valid points in both above posts!

I'd like to mention, another significant type of the "dated" movie is in the Sci-Fi genre.

To generally begin with, most SciFi flicks require a Suspension of Belief, along with a Sense of Wonder.
Those 2 factors seem to come easier, when young; perhaps with fewer film experiences to mentally reflect upon and compare to.

Seeing a space drama in the Seventies may have seemed amazing to a kid.
Revisiting that same flick in 2017 may evoke many things, but not the same exact sense of awe.

Is it due to:
SciFi Fatigue?
Clunky special effects that seemed cool back then, but are a toy-model-on-a-string-silly now?
Almost 50 or 40 or 30 or 20 years after the movie was released, special effects in 2017 are hyper-real by comparison?
Familiarity with plot line, story, characters, plot twist, surprise ending, fate of characters?
Watched the VHS, DVD, BluRay a kajillion times?

Interestingly, when watching a Sci-Fi pic, and feeling any of the above "dated" aspects, sometimes an added, initially unintended aspect is added to the new viewing experience...

Overwhelming nostalgia
Sudden Recollection of long ago forgotten details from when you originally saw the flick
Memories of toys, commercials, games, candy, fast food giveaway promotions etc come flooding back

Just a thought...

 

I haven't seen the movie in eons, but why can't some specific actions by the characters just be seen as people that can make impulsive, rash, thus potentially dangerous decisions?
Wasn't the mash potato scene a depiction of a person with a compulsion and irrational thoughts, thus bizarre action?
(...i.e. Human...)

Perhaps because it's a Spielberg movie, we like to believe his protagonists are altruistic, wise beyond normal folk, all-knowing, etc
Sure, character flaws can be unpleasant, irrational decisions can make us squirm in our seat, but isn't one great aspect of The Cinema that it has the ability to reveal all of our human foibles?

 

I saw this yesterday at an 11:30am matinee in a Regal RPX theater. It was everything I had expected all of these years in being able to finally see this on the big screen. It's amazing that Douglas Trumbull's special photographic effects from 1977 of the spaceships not only still look great but hold up on the big screen. Even though I've seen it countless times—probably 30 or so—since the mid-80s (when did this first premier on cable movie channels or VHS?) I got a bit choked up and overwhelmed with emotion during the climactic scene with all the grandeur between the visual and aural components of the finale combined with John Williams' wonderful score. "It's the first day of school, fellas."

I'm so glad Sony released this to theaters and gave us an opportunity to see this on the big screen as I never thought I would get the chance. This has been a great year for me to see a few of my favorite films in the theater (one again and others for the first time) as I got to see Mulholland Drive in 35mm and 2001: A Space Odyssey in 70mm from a brand new print. It would have been nice to have gotten to see Close Encounters of the Third Kind projected from film, but I don't really have much to complain about with this 4k DCP.

 

Just got back from seeing this today. I didn't think the presentation was that great. It was okay, and I still really like the movie. But it wasn't on a very big screen and I didn't think the resolution looked particularly impressive. Not any better than what I can see at home with my blu-ray. Another thing that annoyed me was that after sitting through all the previews (about 15 minutes) and finally being ready for the movie to start, there was about a 12-15 minute EPK style puff piece of Spielberg, JJ Abrams and Denis Villanueve talking about the movie, showing some behind the scenes footage and showing a lot of scenes of the movie. Some key scenes, even. I guess they just assume everyone has already seen it. And I have, of course, but there was a lady a few rows in front of me with four young girls, looked to be between age 8 to 16. This was probably their first time to see it. Not sure who it is for. It would have been fine to have that AFTER the movie. They could have just put a short bit on screen about how you could stay after the film to see an interview with the director about the movie. It wasn't interesting to me and it was absolutely a spoiler for anyone who hadn't seen it before. A bad idea, I think.

 

"I saw Bigfoot once. It made a sound I would not like to hear twice... in my life."
"This MEANS something!"
"Toys!"
"Who are you people?"
"Einstein was probably one of them!"
"Zey belong here more zan we!"

Lotsa good lines in this movie.

I think the story was the studio's ad agency created that for the trailer and for the original posters. I think the idea was, "just show a night highway going to infinity with a glow at the end -- no aliens, no spaceships, no Devil's Tower, just something mysterious."

 

I think the aliens chose certain people and implanted the image of Devil's Tower in their minds. It manifested in different ways, from mashed potatoes to paintings, etc. until they figured out what it was and were driven (metaphorically) to go there.

 

Effective, though I, too, was disappointed it didn't appear in the film. But compared to all the re-released ads with the mothership and Devil's Tower, I'll take the original.

 

Don't say I didn't warn you (see my earlier post [#95] in thread).

 

I thought the best ever was Percy Rodriguez' voiceover for Close Encounters: The Special Edition. "NOW... there is MORE!"



His announcing makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Great, great voice. Brilliant ad campaign, even if it did give away a lot of the best visuals from the movie.

I wish Rodriguez had lived to see the 4K HDR re-release, so he could say, "Now... there is more... BRIGHTNESS AND DETAIL!"

 

Yeah, I didn't see your post. I would have adjusted my arrival time had I known.

 

Got to see it Saturday afternoon. In a Dolby Theater setup that one of our local AMC theaters recently built in one of their original existing rooms. Never been in one before. Huge curved screen.

I don't actually like curved screens - hate them on TVs that Samsung is desperate to push,

In fact, the last time I saw it in the theater was in 1977 on another big curved screen showing it in 70mm.

But, I dealt with it. The visual curve it adds to things that should be straight across a flat screen is something that usually bothers me. But since there was a lot of use of wide angle lenses that adds its own curve to the image in this movie, the effect seemed less bothersome.

The sound was a bit piercing in the mid-range to my ears. Loud doesn't usually bother me, but it was sometimes hard to hear the dialog. Not something I've had problems with on the Criterion LD, the DVD or the Blu-ray. I assume a new sound mix was done for this release, but a good bit of the 70's flavor may still reside there playing havoc on a modern system. Or, maybe it was just this theater.

Still, I was able to thoroughly enjoy the movie. I was with my 20-year-old son who also liked it. The effects do still hold up, and the way it was done helps it. Seeing the mother ship up on that big screen again after all these years was great.

I will say that I also didn't like that little mini-documentary at the start. It was only 9 minutes? Seemed like 15.

And, before that was what seemed like a 10 minute commercial just for the Dolby Theater we were in. Telling us how great the projector and sound was. It was probably more like 2 or 3 minutes, but it just dragged on. And this was after the standard 8 to 10 trailers we had to sit through. That, I really didn't expect to get, but it was like a typical movie.

 

Rated it highly when it came out along with Grease.

 

I had trouble hearing some of the dialog too, particularly in the early scenes. I didn't think the volume was overly loud at all. I actually thought it was too low for the majority of the movie. It seemed fine by the end, but maybe i just adjusted.