Close Encounters of the Third Kind rereleased to theaters

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by primejive, Jul 25, 2017.

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  1. FACE OF BOE

    FACE OF BOE Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    "They belong here Mozambique!"
     
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  2. EddieVanHalen

    EddieVanHalen Forum Resident

    Reading your coments about the screening of Close Encounters Of The Third Kind make envious in a good way, I live in Spain and we don't have screenings of old/classics movies like this one. That means no CE3K, no Terminator 2 3D or E.T. I live in a mean and miserable country.
     
  3. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    It's been said that the day after Truffaut said that line, a lot of crewmembers wore T-shirts that said, "Zey Belong Here Mozambique" on the set the next day.
     
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  4. Jayce

    Jayce Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    I brought my 13 year-old son to see it on Friday night. He was mesmerized. Loved it. It's such a special film. I saw it when I was 9, in 1977, and just thought it was so wonderful. I was so happy he liked it.
     
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  5. I watched it myself Sunday. I couldn't interest anyone in joining me. I got to admit the movie's magic does not work for me now. I am not the 15 year old who watched this in the theater on release. I now know with about 99.999% certainty that we have never been visited by aliens and never will be (certainly not in my lifetime). When I was 15 I loved science fiction and had hopes of something for mankind beyond our world -today I have almost 40 more years of experience and knowledge that this planet is the only one mankind will live on, excepting perhaps some temporary outpost on Mars. This knowledge left me sad and depressed during the movie. That said, the movie is still very effective and a wonderful time capsule and creation of art.
     
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  6. Ringmaster_D

    Ringmaster_D Surfer of Sound Waves

    Location:
    Chicago, IL
    I took my family to see Close Encounters this weekend. This was the first time for my sons--ages 15 and 10. They loved it! I had no idea about the stupid, spoiler-ific piece before the film. What a stupid marketing idea: "Well, everyone's seen this movie already, let's just show all they key plot points before it!" I thought the whole idea was to show this movie to a new generation? Anyway, we got around it by having my boys close their eyes and cover their ears while it was on. They were glad they did.

    Overall the picture quality was good but inconsistent shot to shot. Certainly not any more impressive than my 30th anniversary blu-ray. I also found the sound mix to be off at times. While I appreciated the low frequencies in the theater the highs were very grating at times, often with the dialogue. Overall, though, it was magical to see it on the big screen again. It still holds up for me after all these years.
     
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  7. Downsampled

    Downsampled Senior Member

    Saw this myself tonight and was mightily disappointed with the presentation quality.

    No doubt I had high expectations. I saw it on a huge screen when it came out, have owned the Criterion LD (it was basically the reason I bought an LD player) and think the current Blu-ray looks (and sounds) great.

    Perhaps it was the theater's fault. Many scenes had terribly distracting oversharpened grain. Just really terrible digital grain in maybe 20% of the scenes. This was not a soft, film-like presentation. (Does anyone know if it's possible for a theater to apply sharpening to the picture?) I'd kill to see it now from a 70mm print, but I'm sure that's not going to happen.

    Sound was decent, but I had the same problem some others have noted with dialog being a little buried. Also, it seemed like one or more front channels would occasionally cut out.

    This was in a large CineMark "XD" theater, and the ticket cost extra, so I expected better. It's one of my all-time favorite films, and I still enjoyed it, but the quality of my home theater is better, which is too bad.

    By the way, I think this director's cut is okay, but I do prefer the original cut, and I really miss a few scenes that are now missing -- like the early scene where Roy reports to work, and another right after he's fired and is transfixed by the shape of the pillow on his bed (which he refers to in a later bit of dialog).

    And isn't that Fred Grandy in a TV commercial while Roy is holed-up in the house with his scale model? Never noticed that before.
     
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  8. bobbyhol

    bobbyhol Forum Resident

     
  9. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    And yet try to explain Michael Jackson and Donald Trump.
     
  10. Downsampled

    Downsampled Senior Member

    Well then everything I've read about this remaster is baffling. I've never seen color noise so bad in a commercial theater.
     
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  11. Ghostworld

    Ghostworld Senior Member

    Location:
    US

    YOU NEED TO BELIEVE
     
  12. Jason Manley

    Jason Manley Senior Member

    Location:
    O-H-I-O
    I'm curious and I'm sorry if it has already been answered here. Which version was this? Original Theatrical ('77), Special Edition ('80) or the newer Director's Cut?

    I ask because in 1999, Columbia Pictures did something like a traveling film festival (very small scale) of classics from their catalog. It happened to land in my hometown and I was lucky enough to, over the course of the week or so, attend TAXI DRIVER, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND and TOOTSIE. I unfortunately missed BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI, LAWRENCE OF ARABIA and DR. STRANGELOVE, among others.

    The version of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS I saw in 1999 was a newly struck 35mm print of the 'newer' DC from 1998, I believe. I found it to be the most satisfying version of the film. Having seen the Criterion Laser in the early 90s, etc.
     
  13. Deesky

    Deesky Forum Resident

    Prove it!
     
  14. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    The freeway spaceship overhead ( Dreyfuss looking up)is still the best spaceship scene ever.
     
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  15. Stop yelling at me....:D
     
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  16. Ringmaster_D

    Ringmaster_D Surfer of Sound Waves

    Location:
    Chicago, IL
    Director's Cut. Which is the best of the 3 -- IMO.
     
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  17. EddieVanHalen

    EddieVanHalen Forum Resident

    Human nature. One may excell on some areas and can be short or week on some others. Some can even excell on ONE area and be a mess on the other aspects on one's life.
     
  18. HiFi Guy 008

    HiFi Guy 008 Forum Resident

    Location:
    New England
    :laugh: I'm sorry, but this is the funniest thing I've read in a long time.
    Thanks Vidiot!
     
  19. OobuJoobu

    OobuJoobu Forum Resident

    Location:
    Yorkshire, UK
    This is, always has been, and probably always will be, one of my top 5 movies of all time.

    I genuinely can't remember whether I ever saw it at the cinema (I was 6 when it came out), so I'm very excited to be going to see this tomorrow night on the big screen in York with my daughter.

    Thanks to those on this thread for bringing the screenings to my attention :righton:
     
  20. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Just watched the 4K Blu-ray HDR reissue of Close Encounters last night, and here's my thoughts.

    [​IMG]

    Watched it last night on a calibrated OLED display. I thought the new transfer had grain THE SIZE OF CANNED HAMS. I believe this was a decision from the executives running Sony Pictures who are opposed to digital grain reduction. I understand their point, but I think there's a happy medium between sucking all the life out of a film vs. having way, way, way too much grain. A modest amount of grain throughout would have been fine. This film was extremely grainy, particularly in a lot of the desert shots and in the highlights. I found that very distracting and unnecessary, and I think the HDR brought this flaw out even worse.

    There was very nice, natural color throughout. Some occasional highlights I think were unnecessarily clipped, but it was mostly good use of HDR's dynamic range. The 4K detail was impeccable. I noticed things in this film I've never seen before, like the writing on the little pieces of paper inside Richard Dreyfus' truck, or being able to read the (mindless) text of newspaper headlines held to the camera.

    Single worst thing: the typeface in the electronically subtitled scenes looked like a 1980's-era Vidifont (which I don't think they were going for). I would've used the same typeface used for the main & end titles. BTW, the end credits were completely generated in digital, which I know some purists object to, but they got the sizing and positioning perfect. Sound mix was a little too dynamic for me; we had to adjust the volume a few times for low-level dialogue. But not drastically so. Some of the yelling voices were distorted, but I'm guessing they were distorted in the original 1976 production tracks.

    It's a dated film but it has some brilliant, iconic moments. Note that all three theatrical versions of Close Encounters (original 1977, 1980 Special Edition, and Spielberg's revised 1997 re-edit) are there, and each has things the other does not. Most missed from the 1997 version: the famous line "they can run rings around the moon, but we're light years ahead of them on the highway." Can't believe they cut that line out. I almost wish we could've had the old TV version that cut everything together -- all the deleted scenes, the works -- to create roughly a 2:45 version.
     
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  21. Spitfire

    Spitfire Senior Member

    Location:
    Pacific Northwest
    Any comparisons to the old Blu-ray?
     
  22. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    This is better, but grainier.
     
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  23. OobuJoobu

    OobuJoobu Forum Resident

    Location:
    Yorkshire, UK
    I must never have seen the 1997 cut as I've never heard that line before! Would it be worth me seeking out that version for any other parts I might not have seen that are only in that version?
     
  24. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    That line was from the 1977 version, from the famous Roberts Blossom (the crazy old man who later says "I saw Bigfoot once," which they did keep in the movie). I think it came right after the 3 spaceships and the red dot fly by. The Special Edition added one funny shot of the spaceships "examining" the McDonald's Big Mac billboard by the side of the road -- that's gone from the 1997 version as well.

    I was surprised by the number of Coca-Cola references in Close Encounters -- they're everywhere in this film. Surprisingly, this was 5 years before Coke bought Columbia Pictures in 1982, so it was just a coincidence.
     
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  25. HGN2001

    HGN2001 Mystery picture member

    Quite readable on the old Blu-ray. "Don't forget to pick up the annivers..." "...n't forget the salami" - just before he pulls down the map.

    Sometimes when we're looking at a new transfer of a film, we notice things that were always there, but they may "pop" on the new version. I just looked at that scene on the old Blu-ray on a 720p TV. But I can't say I ever noticed them before.
     
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