When I saw this movie at the theatre when it first came out, everyone in the theatre sunk down in their seats when the mother ship appeared. It was an overwhelming experience. Especially back in 1977 on that huge screen.
The planes found at the beginning were from flight 19, a group of five US Navy planes that disappeared over the Bermuda Triangle in December 1945. The ship in the desert was the Cotopaxi. It disappeared during a tropical storm while going from Charleston SC to Havana Cuba in 1925. It’s wreckage was discovered in the 80s off the coast of Florida. I’m so glad you did this movie. I’m a huge Spielberg fan and this is one of his best.
This was the second movie I ever saw at 6 years old. It was at the drive in theater in August 1977. A star filled sky above a movie about aliens.. so cool and scary. Feel better Dasha.
Me too….but it was my fourth after Snow White, Darby O Gill/Rescuers (double feature) and Star Wars…and not a drive in theater…but everything else checks 😉
Her breakout role was in an episode of the original "Star Trek" series that was meant to be a spinoff series. She tends to be cast as the "confused" character.
Interesting fact, the French scientist, the one that decrypted the musical message, was played by the famous and highly recommended French director François Truffaut. Most of his films are now important classics in film history such as Les Quatre Cents Coups, Fahrenheit 451, La Nuit américaine or L'Homme qui aimait les femmes... I hope you'll get better 🙂
I live near Devils Tower, and I visit there just as a drive. There's always close encounters memorabilia even till this day. Lets just say, its still mesmerizing to see the monument no matter what. And the movie still holds up. Still one of my favorites.
This movie has SO much going for it, but let me single out the fantastic score, one of the very best by John Williams. Can you believe the movie he scored before this one was a little film called "Star Wars?" As a composer myself, I love how this film demonstrates how music truly is "the universal language."
So fun fact. Muncie, Indiana is a real place. Cornbread road is a real road. And the joke is that he was on Cornbread Road and that's why he couldn't find it. Also, Spielberg wanted to film in Muncie but the mayor said no. Source: my dad who lived in Muncie and was in his 40s when this came out.
32:51 I must have seen this movie dozens of times, but I never noticed the dog coming out of the mother ship until Dasha mentioned it. Thanks for being another pair of eyes, Dasha.
I went to Devil's Tower about 10 years ago, took 2 months and just drove around the United States, saw a lot of interesting shit. If you can afford it and you have the time, it's worth it, I took my 80 year, at the time, father. Like our last family trip.
I'd forgotten my joy at watching this in the theater for the first time in 1977. Thanks for the reminder. Back then, I was 19 and wanted to go with them. A lifetime of love and loss later, I still do.
Dasha, you get it. There were some folks at the time (and many, many folks now, long after Independence Day and other alien invasion movies) who had no patience for this film's slow-paced humanism and lack of violence. The irony is that after the success of JAWS and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, some critics blamed Spielberg (along with his pal George Lucas) for bringing movies down to the level of shallow spectacle and special effects. It's easier to see now how much the '70's blockbusters were about people and ideas.
JAWS was really far from a "spectacle" type of movie, even for the times. Most of the movie was actually pretty pedestrian for a drama and the effects were relatively light. CLOSE ENCOUNTERS was much more on the "dazzling effects" scale. The most important aspect of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, in my opinion, was that the aliens had no malevolent intent. That was a big departure in narrative from audiences accustomed to various forms of evil aliens in sci-fi plots.
This movie is so amazing. The wonder, the mystery, the discovery and the contact. Spielberg said if he made this movie later in his life when he had his own family, the family in the movie staying together would have been more important.
I first saw this when I was 10 years old, and that part didn't bother me. I never thought of it as him "abandoning the family", it's just that [much] bigger forces intervened. I also did not think that he was going away forever. The movie does not say either way, but my feeling was that it was more of a goodwill trip.
Very adorable reaction. I saw this movie in the theater in 1977 with my dad. Amazing with Dolby sound and the music of John Williams. Oh btw special effects company Industrial Light & Magic was around in 1977 a new company founded by George Lucas of Star Wars.
The model of the Mothership, at the end, is at the Udvar Hazy Smithsonian Air and Space in Dulles, VA. It is a magnificent, incredibly detailed and large model, with a hidden R2D2 on it.
I remember seeing this on tv as a kid, and trying to explain the plot to my grandparents the next day.😁It leaves you with a very happy feeling, and being a little freaked out at the same time.
Dasha, you are a living testimony to how uplifting this movie is. You started out by apologizing that you were fighting a cold and had low energy, but by the end you were as excited as I've ever seen you. The "cliches" of the very thin small pale aliens -- referred to by UFO people as "Greys" -- became a "cliche" shortly before this movie came out, and then this movie put the Greys into our popular culture. This was the beginning of our sense of aliens as rather creepy and mysterious tricksters who are ultimately good. Thank you so much!
Read the book "YOU'LL NEVER EAT LUNCH IN THIS TOWN AGAIN" written by CETK producer Julia Philipps about the excitement they all experienced in the editing room the first time Douglas Trumbull, the visual effects supervisor, came through on the special effects, MANY of which up until then had never been tried or realized. It was only THEN that she turned to her husband, fellow producer Michael Philipps, and hugged each other KNOWING this movie was going to be HUGE....
The appearance of the Mothership was a great cinematic experience. Such an awesome scene. According to an article I read in Starlog magazine back then, the five notes/colors/hand signs translate to "Hello". As a card-carrying paranoid, the scene with the government operation moving out in the commercially marked trucks caused me to never look at a tractor-trailer the same way again.😎 The single light that follows the ships is Spielberg's tribute to Tinkerbell from Peter Pan, and "When You Wish Upon A Star" is played throughout the soundtrack.
There is a long lasting legegend, that 12 Military people participated in a Alien/Human Exchange program. The Codename was "Project: Crystal Knight". The Idea was used by Spielberg in this Movie.
It also goes by another name *Project Serpo.* Some Ufologists consider this to be a hoax, just like Majestic 12 or MJ12. I've been studying paranormal subjects including Ufology for almost 40 years, and to be honest I'm on the fence with both Project Serpo and MJ12.
A year ago, if you had watched this movie, you wouldn't have caught the little nuances & hints Spielberg was giving the audience or noticed the development of characters. It's a real pleasure watching your reactions now that you've become a seasoned & more mature movie watcher. Keep watching and growing. There's still a whole lot of great cinema to watch and react to.
30:10 Funny you should say it looks like a whole city. The bottom of the ship took form after Spielberg drove up into the hills of Los Angeles and looked upside down at the great expanse of city lights. The bottom of the ship is basically LA at night. This was also coming out at the same time as the original Star Wars film and Spielberg and George Lucas were friends going back to their days in college. It was an amazing time in cinema.
Thanks for being so sharing and viewing even when you feel sick. You are a special lady, thanks for the renewed joy from this movie! I hope you feel better soon.
You have no idea just how much this move awe-inspired me watching this as a kid. All I wanted to do was talk about this move for weeks afterwards. My mom rented it out on VHS for me but ended up sitting down on the couch with me because it grabbed her attention straight away. Side note: There is an R2D2 stuck to the model of the mothership in tribute to George Lucas also @31:55 there is a nod to Jaws in the bass notes.
There was a Special Edition version (1980) which did show the inside of the Mothership. It did not disappoint, however Spielberg felt that leaving it to the audience's imagination was better. Hence this Director's cut.
The Devil's Tower [mountain] in Wyoming is where some of tis was filmed, and the used a studio replica and stuff also. I was there in July 2021 on vacation. in 1977 i saw this in the theater, some guy said out loud "It's the mother ship" and another said "That's one big mother" HAHAHAHA. The Alien was the prototype for ET. Sorry your sick...get well soon. My daughter is about your age and is sick too! if you deliver groceries and food with your car, you would become known as.....[sorry really bad pun]...."Door Dasha"....
There are actually two terms for the apparent shape organisation of stars. The commonly used term is a "constellation". The second is called an "asterism". The belt of Orion that most people can see is an asterism. This is because the stars are not fixed in place relative to each other. In only a thousand years or so Orion will be unrecognizable.
Feeling a bit cr*p myself today.. again. So many bugs and viruses out there 🤧 Awesome film though, it fascinated and transfixed me as a kid when I watched this first time.. & I guarantee you’ll have the tune in your head like an ear worm for a few hours 😂
Perfect time to watch such a great film - it'll lift you up when feeling poorly! One of my favorite Spielberg films, but it's a tough call as I don't think I've ever seen a BAD film by him! Definitely watch more of his, but have a look at other UFOs visiting Earth films, there's plenty of them!- another favorite of mine is 'Starman' from 1984
The most amazing spaceships ever. It's incredible that this film came out in 1977, the same year as 'Star Wars' Episode IV. If someone released a model of the mothership from this film I would throw my money at them for it.
1977 sure was a hell of a year for science fiction, because it brought us Star Wars AND Close Encounters of the Third Kind (with John Williams doing the score for both)! Although they never made a sequel, they did do a "Special Edition" version that shows us what Roy saw when he went inside the mothership. To keep the movie approximately the same length as the original, they cut out most of the scene where he was making the Devil's Tower in his living room. This movie was nominated for or won all kinds of awards for special effects, along with Star Wars. Roy's kiss with Jillian wasn't really a romantic kiss, IMO, but more of a "we shared an amazing thing together and thank you for being there with me" kiss. Though, it's pretty obvious that he was not in a happy marriage (Steven Spielberg was going through a divorce at the time himself). This movie still holds up really well to this day (okay, the model of Roy's truck on the train tracks looked a bit cheesy, but I forgive them).
My best pal & myself had a close encounter of the 3rd kind in 1964. I'm 79 yrs old now & even to this day he refuses to talk about it as he did back then in 1964.
Hello Dasha, the railroad crossing signals in this movie are the best. Also, this movie depicts why using the kitchen window is the best entrance to one's home. Also, that seen reminded me of the Gate Guard in the movie " The Wizard of Oz ".
The kiss between the two of them is not a bad thing. His wife took the kids and left him and the two of them have a connection they have with no one else. I've seen others react to this movie and their reactions are the same as yours. Yes, he is still married, but Barry's mom is the only one who understands what he is going through. It was just a simple kiss, almost like they were saying goodbye. Also when the two are stopped in their car, when the man in the hazmat suit goes to look at the birds, you can hear a slight spraying sound and then he brings the passed out birds into view making the illusion that there is something wrong in the air. It took me many times watching this movie to fully understand the deeper meaning of the suttle bits and pieces of hidden nuances of the plot. And by the way, I love your reactions and how excited you get watching these wonderful movies. And you dog is really cute too. Peace.
Very cool reaction! Yes, the effects were amazing! The year 1977 was *great* for us Science-Fiction fans! Not just one, but *two* awesome S-F movies! _"Star Wars"_ *and* _"CE3K"_ *both* in the same year! *Both* movies left me with my mouth hanging open, the 1st time I saw them!
The Special Effects were supervised by Douglas Trumbull, and won the Academy Award for 1977, beating out "Star Wars". Trumbull was the 1960s whiz-kid hired by Stanley Kubrick to be in charge of the visual effects for "2001: A Space Odyssey", and he later invented the IMAX and OMNIMAX film format, as well as the car rides at theme parks, wherein you feel as though your car is flying and turning, even though it is stationary.
We were given this and Star Wars in the same year. The special effects have stood the test of time pretty well, but at the actual time they were out of this world!
Great reaction to a great movie. Hope you feel better soon. Barry is a mischevious little kid isn't he lol! What also cracks me up is how Richard Dreyfus's character basically destroys his relationship with his family for obsessing about what basically (at least initially) looks like a huge pile of crap!! If you think they would (or indeed have plans to) let everybody know about this contact, then you are being a bit naive. Personally I'm pretty sure this is a bit of a reveal of something that may have already happened. We're talking about ten degrees of Need-To-Know clearance to be part of this stuff, and the Presidents probably don't even know about it. Yes exactly, the first three were basically just scouts sent to make sure everything was kosher!
Following the original version, there was a special edition released in 1980 that showed inside the mothership. In the version you watched, which is the director's cut, Spielberg chose to go with his original vision of the film and not show it. He did however include more scenes of Roy's obsession with the tower and sequences with the officials reaction to the UFO sightings that had previously been cut...
there is an extended version that added a few scenes more than the theatrical cut, and in it, with Roy going into the mother ship we get to see what's inside the mother ship, and then Roy is "sprinkled" with some kind of energy that transformed him into one of them. the last alien you see get out of the ship and approach the Frenchman and do the hand gestures, is Roy! then he goes off into space with them to live happily ever after.
Roy's wife is played by Teri Garr who was Inga in Young Frankenstein. Very different role. I saw this when I was 10. It still amazes me. The Frenchman is famed director Francios Truffaut (sp) whom Spielberg greatly admired. But he was sad that Truffaut said little to him about the film as they went. Finally they went to film the scene where he interviews Roy in the tiny room with just the interpreter. The set was just two walls. Truffaut sees the set, turns to Spielberg and smiled, "Now, this is filmmaking!"
In addition to both coming out in '77, this movie has something in common with the first *Star Wars* ...both had low-budget parodies of them made shortly afterward. In case anyone's interested... *Hardware Wars* and *Closet Cases Of The Nerd Kind* ...both can probably be found here.
Now you need to see the War of the Worlds (1953)....Just 6 years after the crash at Roswell. 🌎 It is the first modernized movie version of H.G. Wells novel from 1898. This movie is old but in color and most impressive for the time. I didn't see it until the late 1960s, as shown for the 1st time on prime-time TV when I was about 9 years old. And it scared the hell out of me. The storyline is very similar for most of the movie to Independence Day, including the use of a nuclear weapon, called an "atom bomb" in those days. I think this version is even better than the remake in 2005. You must ABSOLUTELY see it, especially if you were impressed with the special effects of Close Encounters (1977). You MUST see The War of the Worlds (1953). 😃
A lot of pilots would not report seeing a UFO in case they lost their jobs. Another good ufo/alien film is "Arrival". The shape of the stars you saw was The Big Dipper or The Plough a large asterism consisting of seven bright stars of the constellation Ursa Major.
29:54 "So, before, maybe it was just, like, 'checkers' -- three of them -- came in to see if it was safe or not? And then the rest followed." 😝 That's not quite the right word choice. "Checkers" first made me think of the board game, and then of the grocery store employees who ring up a customer's purchases. A native english speaker would almost certainly call them "scouts."
Someone correct me. The scene with the mom and the aliens are coming, the actress was not told what would happen and she's truly freaking out. That's what I heard
Someone may have already noted this, but the 5 planes discovered in the Mexican desert at the start of the film (and for which the missing pilots are returned from the alien ship at the end) are meant to be Flight 19, a training flight of 5 TBM Grumman Avenger bombers that disappeared on a training run of Ft. Lauderdale at the end of 1945. The disappearance was the seed germ of the modern mythology of the Bermuda Triangle. In reality, they got lost and ditched someplace out at sea. The mystery of the flight, I think, is what happened after they realized they were lost. They completed the first leg of their run, which had them on a due west course from Florida to the Bahamas. They then turned northwest. Shortly thereafter the flight's chatter indicated they thought they were lost. The leader said they were flying over broken land and assumed it was the Florida Keys. He reasoned that to get back to Florida, all they had to due was head east and they'd come over the Florida peninsula. In reality, being out over the Bahamas, an eastward path would carry them out over the Atlantic. Here's the real mystery to me - after completing their first task, I cannot understand how the leader could have assumed they were over the Keys, hundreds of miles to the southwest. Getting lost I understand. Even going with the flight leader's instructions when it was clear several pilots thought he was wrong makes sense militarily. But how and why he concluded they were over the Keys I will never understand. To date, no evidence of the planes has been found. Occasionally a wrecked Avenger will be found on the sea floor, but it's never one of these 5.
Having actually seen this in the theater when it was released, it was awesome & fun to re-live through your new millennium reaction! Such different times, it's always fun to re-live through your reactions!!
Great review of an awesome movie!!! Seen this movie like a ga-billion times and always see something different. Also, at the actual Devil's Tower in Wyoming there is now a campground where the the Army camp was located - have stayed there a few times and even hiked the areas where the soldiers were hiking. As a BONUS, at night during warm weather months the campground will actually play this movie with the Tower in the background.
The Devil's Tower part of the plot is actually the silliest. If you think about the whole setup it just looks pretty ridiculous. It would have made more sense if the location was far more remote, like in the middle of the Sahara or even on an island in the Pacific Ocean. Still, Devil's Tower is visually impressive.
@@BigTroyT Industrial Light & Magic weren't involved with Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. Douglas Trumbull (who also worked on 2001: A Space Odyssey) was responsible for the special effects.
Great reaction Dasha, I am glad you do not take the special effects for granted as some young people do. You realize what a challenge this must of been put in the mid 1970's You did a great job! Thank you very much. I was a freshman in college in 1977. My two favorite movies from that year were this one. As well as the very first Star Wars movie. Two movies that were unlike anything I had every seen before. Movies have come along way since then. Steven Speilberg's favorite movie was Lawrence of Arabia. Please consider reacting to this classic movie. Hope you feel better soon.
6:40 Richard Dreyfuss nailed what my reaction would have been in his shoes, shook up from the chaos yet intrigued after he realized the UFO wasn't a threat.
The stereotypical "gray" alien was one of a huge number of imagined aliens, but after this movie it did become the one image people think of when you say alien. So while the image didn't start here, this is how it became part of culture
As a kid the orange light that abducts Barry scared the hell out of me. Spielberg making the audience's imagination run riot while showing very little.
They show what's inside the ship in the extended director's cut. Some other great alien contact films similar to Close Encounters that you should react to are "Contact" with Jodie Foster, "Arrival" with Amy Adams, "2001: A Space Odyssey", and its sequel "2010: The Year We Make Contact".
What is known about "Devil's Tower is that it is a sacred Lakota Native American site. It has the name Bear's Lodge Mountain by Native American Lakota people. I heard it was the neck of an extinct volcano too.
As I remember the folklore, an Indian maiden was fleeing a bear and she she begged the Great Spirit to save her. Suddenly the land underneath her rose up into the sky. The bear tried to climb to grab her and left his "claw marks" in the tower.
I love how you said 'Oh yeah. He's not good at navigation'. I guess that was established LOL though I didn't pick that up in the 20 times or so I watched it. We saw how Roy got half his face sunburned, but what did she do?
The encampment on Devil's Tower is called, in the movie, us called the dark side of the moon after the Pink Floyd album. And the effects? All "practical"--made things, not computer generated.
There is a reboot of the tv show Project Blue Book available to watch. It is based on the Doctor who created the ‘close encounter’ scale. He consulted for Stephen Spielberg on this movie. The original series was on tv in 1978. Both versions were only two seasons and both executive producers died near the of season two.. preventing season three from being made.. spooky.
The reason the passengers on the alien spacecraft appeared to not age is due to the time dilation effect described in Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity which describes the slowing down of a clock that occurs as a spacecraft approaches the velocity of light, relative to the passage of time on a slower moving object such as the Earth. Days or weeks may have passed for the people on the spacecraft while years or decades or even centuries passed on Earth. The closer to the velocity of light the slower time passes. There are time dilation calculators online that you can play with.
Anyone feels like this was more or less a field trip for the aliens? "This is how you make contact with a primitive species class. Now we studied some of the specimen we picked up earlier, so you all know what to expect."
Great reaction again. This was made when there were supposed UFO sightings, cow mutilations, unexplained signs, etc. You would love Starman, 1984 with Jeff Bridges. Hope you feel better soon.
It’s on my bucket list to visit Devil’s Tower. I have seen it a few times in the distance while driving along I-90 in Wyoming but never had the time to go there.
This is the only movie I can think of that deals with time dilation. If you fly near the speed of light, your aging slows down inside the ship while everyone you left behind grows old and dies. It's like a time warp, but it only goes forward. There's no rewind.
Dasha another great and genuine reaction! Thanks for enduring your cold and sharing your experience with the way back machine. Yes the movie was a big deal in 1977 including the 5 tones were famous. FYI a group of stars that form an image is called a constellation. I do hope you feel better soon! Хорошо. Спасибо большое!
Everything concerning the aliens' appearance was based on actual UFO reports. The little gray ones are the most common types. If you check out the Special Editions of this movie, there is additional footage where you go inside with Roy and actually see the interior. Get well!
When I saw this movie at the theatre when it first came out, everyone in the theatre sunk down in their seats when the mother ship appeared. It was an overwhelming experience. Especially back in 1977 on that huge screen.
Its Homer Simpson backing into the bushes ... "I'm sinking into the seat, hoping they don't take me too"
The planes found at the beginning were from flight 19, a group of five US Navy planes that disappeared over the Bermuda Triangle in December 1945. The ship in the desert was the Cotopaxi. It disappeared during a tropical storm while going from Charleston SC to Havana Cuba in 1925. It’s wreckage was discovered in the 80s off the coast of Florida.
I’m so glad you did this movie. I’m a huge Spielberg fan and this is one of his best.
Yes, the T.B.M. Avenger. A wonderful airplane.
I used to read the "Bermuda Triangle" books as a kid. Those were always referenced. Smart to use that flight.
This was the second movie I ever saw at 6 years old. It was at the drive in theater in August 1977. A star filled sky above a movie about aliens.. so cool and scary.
Feel better Dasha.
Me too….but it was my fourth after Snow White, Darby O Gill/Rescuers (double feature) and Star Wars…and not a drive in theater…but everything else checks 😉
Roy’s wife was played by Teri Garr who also played ‘Inga’ in “Young Frankenstein”.
Her breakout role was in an episode of the original "Star Trek" series that was meant to be a spinoff series. She tends to be cast as the "confused" character.
This movie was a spiritual experience. So beautiful.
Interesting fact, the French scientist, the one that decrypted the musical message, was played by the famous and highly recommended French director François Truffaut. Most of his films are now important classics in film history such as Les Quatre Cents Coups, Fahrenheit 451, La Nuit américaine or L'Homme qui aimait les femmes...
I hope you'll get better 🙂
Also that character is based on the french scientist Jacque vallee who really did travel around America investigating UFOs
I live near Devils Tower, and I visit there just as a drive. There's always close encounters memorabilia even till this day.
Lets just say, its still mesmerizing to see the monument no matter what. And the movie still holds up. Still one of my favorites.
This movie has SO much going for it, but let me single out the fantastic score, one of the very best by John Williams. Can you believe the movie he scored before this one was a little film called "Star Wars?" As a composer myself, I love how this film demonstrates how music truly is "the universal language."
So fun fact.
Muncie, Indiana is a real place. Cornbread road is a real road. And the joke is that he was on Cornbread Road and that's why he couldn't find it. Also, Spielberg wanted to film in Muncie but the mayor said no.
Source: my dad who lived in Muncie and was in his 40s when this came out.
32:51 I must have seen this movie dozens of times, but I never noticed the dog coming out of the mother ship until Dasha mentioned it. Thanks for being another pair of eyes, Dasha.
Love the fact that Francois Truffaut played the French scientist.
I went to Devil's Tower about 10 years ago, took 2 months and just drove around the United States, saw a lot of interesting shit. If you can afford it and you have the time, it's worth it, I took my 80 year, at the time, father. Like our last family trip.
I'd forgotten my joy at watching this in the theater for the first time in 1977. Thanks for the reminder. Back then, I was 19 and wanted to go with them. A lifetime of love and loss later, I still do.
Excellent reaction, Dasha. I’ve seen this film many times in the last 45 years but some of your comments helped me to see new things.
Dasha, you get it. There were some folks at the time (and many, many folks now, long after Independence Day and other alien invasion movies) who had no patience for this film's slow-paced humanism and lack of violence. The irony is that after the success of JAWS and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, some critics blamed Spielberg (along with his pal George Lucas) for bringing movies down to the level of shallow spectacle and special effects. It's easier to see now how much the '70's blockbusters were about people and ideas.
JAWS was really far from a "spectacle" type of movie, even for the times. Most of the movie was actually pretty pedestrian for a drama and the effects were relatively light. CLOSE ENCOUNTERS was much more on the "dazzling effects" scale. The most important aspect of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, in my opinion, was that the aliens had no malevolent intent. That was a big departure in narrative from audiences accustomed to various forms of evil aliens in sci-fi plots.
Dasha! I'm so jazzed you're doing this one. No one has reacted to this for months, and a lot of reactors haven't done it at all. :)
This movie is so amazing. The wonder, the mystery, the discovery and the contact.
Spielberg said if he made this movie later in his life when he had his own family, the family in the movie staying together would have been more important.
Yep I’ve heard similar
I first saw this when I was 10 years old, and that part didn't bother me. I never thought of it as him "abandoning the family", it's just that [much] bigger forces intervened. I also did not think that he was going away forever. The movie does not say either way, but my feeling was that it was more of a goodwill trip.
Very adorable reaction. I saw this movie in the theater in 1977 with my dad. Amazing with Dolby sound and the music of John Williams. Oh btw special effects company Industrial Light & Magic was around in 1977 a new company founded by George Lucas of Star Wars.
"Aliens hungry for Coke." Best Dasha quote ever.
*Those 5 little notes freaked the hell outta me for the longest time, as a kid. Now it's 1 of my text tones.* 👽👾
The model of the Mothership, at the end, is at the Udvar Hazy Smithsonian Air and Space in Dulles, VA. It is a magnificent, incredibly detailed and large model, with a hidden R2D2 on it.
I remember seeing this on tv as a kid, and trying to explain the plot to my grandparents the next day.😁It leaves you with a very happy feeling, and being a little freaked out at the same time.
Dasha, you are a living testimony to how uplifting this movie is. You started out by apologizing that you were fighting a cold and had low energy, but by the end you were as excited as I've ever seen you. The "cliches" of the very thin small pale aliens -- referred to by UFO people as "Greys" -- became a "cliche" shortly before this movie came out, and then this movie put the Greys into our popular culture. This was the beginning of our sense of aliens as rather creepy and mysterious tricksters who are ultimately good. Thank you so much!
*This movie is chicken soup for the soul.*
Breaking news: actress Melinda Dillon (Jillian) passes away at age 83. She is also known for A Christmas Story and Absence of Malice. R.I.P. Melinda.
Another good SETI movie, 'Contact'.
YES!
Read the book "YOU'LL NEVER EAT LUNCH IN THIS TOWN AGAIN" written by CETK producer Julia Philipps about the excitement they all experienced in the editing room the first time Douglas Trumbull, the visual effects supervisor, came through on the special effects, MANY of which up until then had never been tried or realized. It was only THEN that she turned to her husband, fellow producer Michael Philipps, and hugged each other KNOWING this movie was going to be HUGE....
Scouts. 29:55
It took me a second to realize what "checkers" meant. Thanks for sharing your sense of wonder with us.
The appearance of the Mothership was a great cinematic experience. Such an awesome scene.
According to an article I read in Starlog magazine back then, the five notes/colors/hand signs translate to "Hello".
As a card-carrying paranoid, the scene with the government operation moving out in the commercially marked trucks caused me to never look at a tractor-trailer the same way again.😎
The single light that follows the ships is Spielberg's tribute to Tinkerbell from Peter Pan, and "When You Wish Upon A Star" is played throughout the soundtrack.
There is a long lasting legegend, that 12 Military people participated in a Alien/Human Exchange program. The Codename was "Project: Crystal Knight". The Idea was used by Spielberg in this Movie.
It also goes by another name *Project Serpo.* Some Ufologists consider this to be a hoax, just like Majestic 12 or MJ12. I've been studying paranormal subjects including Ufology for almost 40 years, and to be honest I'm on the fence with both Project Serpo and MJ12.
A year ago, if you had watched this movie, you wouldn't have caught the little nuances & hints Spielberg was giving the audience or noticed the development of characters. It's a real pleasure watching your reactions now that you've become a seasoned & more mature movie watcher. Keep watching and growing. There's still a whole lot of great cinema to watch and react to.
30:10 Funny you should say it looks like a whole city. The bottom of the ship took form after Spielberg drove up into the hills of Los Angeles and looked upside down at the great expanse of city lights. The bottom of the ship is basically LA at night. This was also coming out at the same time as the original Star Wars film and Spielberg and George Lucas were friends going back to their days in college. It was an amazing time in cinema.
"Aliens are hungry? For Coke?" So cute :D
Thanks for being so sharing and viewing even when you feel sick. You are a special lady, thanks for the renewed joy from this movie! I hope you feel better soon.
When Jillian is looking out the window at Barry running away below, you see the night sky with stars. One of the stars is moving.
You have no idea just how much this move awe-inspired me watching this as a kid. All I wanted to do was talk about this move for weeks afterwards. My mom rented it out on VHS for me but ended up sitting down on the couch with me because it grabbed her attention straight away.
Side note: There is an R2D2 stuck to the model of the mothership in tribute to George Lucas also @31:55 there is a nod to Jaws in the bass notes.
There was a Special Edition version (1980) which did show the inside of the Mothership. It did not disappoint, however Spielberg felt that leaving it to the audience's imagination was better. Hence this Director's cut.
It also had Richard Dreyfuss "enjoyment".
@@robertmcclafferty6001 Yes he must enjoyed the pies he consumed during the intervening three years as his gut testifies. 😂🤣
I could do without the Directors cut.
Wow I've never heard of special editions from that long ago... was it on laserdisc?
@@stevem.1853 It got a cinema release. Thence to video.
Close Encounters was inspired by real events. Spielberg was told about the event and that became his inspiration.
Okay
Not sure what "real events" the plot was inspired by. I take that with a grain of salt, factually.
Yes Dasha, descriptions of aliens "magically" changed after this movie, lol. Very good observation!
The Devil's Tower [mountain] in Wyoming is where some of tis was filmed, and the used a studio replica and stuff also. I was there in July 2021 on vacation. in 1977 i saw this in the theater, some guy said out loud "It's the mother ship" and another said "That's one big mother" HAHAHAHA. The Alien was the prototype for ET. Sorry your sick...get well soon. My daughter is about your age and is sick too! if you deliver groceries and food with your car, you would become known as.....[sorry really bad pun]...."Door Dasha"....
There are actually two terms for the apparent shape organisation of stars. The commonly used term is a "constellation". The second is called an "asterism". The belt of Orion that most people can see is an asterism. This is because the stars are not fixed in place relative to each other. In only a thousand years or so Orion will be unrecognizable.
All stars move over the course of several years but i get your point.🤓
Hope you're feeling better, and thanks for being a trouper and doing a reaction video for your fans. You're the best.
Feeling a bit cr*p myself today.. again. So many bugs and viruses out there 🤧
Awesome film though, it fascinated and transfixed me as a kid when I watched this first time.. & I guarantee you’ll have the tune in your head like an ear worm for a few hours 😂
Perfect time to watch such a great film - it'll lift you up when feeling poorly!
One of my favorite Spielberg films, but it's a tough call as I don't think I've ever seen a BAD film by him!
Definitely watch more of his, but have a look at other UFOs visiting Earth films, there's plenty of them!- another favorite of mine is 'Starman' from 1984
The most amazing spaceships ever. It's incredible that this film came out in 1977, the same year as 'Star Wars' Episode IV. If someone released a model of the mothership from this film I would throw my money at them for it.
Right? Like Lego, what are you doing
1977 sure was a hell of a year for science fiction, because it brought us Star Wars AND Close Encounters of the Third Kind (with John Williams doing the score for both)! Although they never made a sequel, they did do a "Special Edition" version that shows us what Roy saw when he went inside the mothership. To keep the movie approximately the same length as the original, they cut out most of the scene where he was making the Devil's Tower in his living room. This movie was nominated for or won all kinds of awards for special effects, along with Star Wars.
Roy's kiss with Jillian wasn't really a romantic kiss, IMO, but more of a "we shared an amazing thing together and thank you for being there with me" kiss. Though, it's pretty obvious that he was not in a happy marriage (Steven Spielberg was going through a divorce at the time himself). This movie still holds up really well to this day (okay, the model of Roy's truck on the train tracks looked a bit cheesy, but I forgive them).
My best pal & myself had a close encounter of the 3rd kind in 1964. I'm 79 yrs old now & even to this day he refuses to talk about it as he did back then in 1964.
I am so glad you tuned in to the family chaos. Spielberg was a master of that kind of "real" family behavior.
Hello Dasha, the railroad crossing signals in this movie are the best. Also, this movie depicts why using the kitchen window is the best entrance to one's home. Also, that seen reminded me of the Gate Guard in the movie " The Wizard of Oz ".
I am from Cheyenne and still live here. You should have heard the screaming and hollering in the theater when they do the Devils Tower reveal.
The kiss between the two of them is not a bad thing. His wife took the kids and left him and the two of them have a connection they have with no one else. I've seen others react to this movie and their reactions are the same as yours. Yes, he is still married, but Barry's mom is the only one who understands what he is going through. It was just a simple kiss, almost like they were saying goodbye. Also when the two are stopped in their car, when the man in the hazmat suit goes to look at the birds, you can hear a slight spraying sound and then he brings the passed out birds into view making the illusion that there is something wrong in the air. It took me many times watching this movie to fully understand the deeper meaning of the suttle bits and pieces of hidden nuances of the plot. And by the way, I love your reactions and how excited you get watching these wonderful movies. And you dog is really cute too. Peace.
Very cool reaction!
Yes, the effects were amazing! The year 1977 was *great* for us Science-Fiction fans! Not just one, but *two* awesome S-F movies! _"Star Wars"_ *and* _"CE3K"_ *both* in the same year! *Both* movies left me with my mouth hanging open, the 1st time I saw them!
The Special Effects were supervised by Douglas Trumbull, and won the Academy Award for 1977, beating out "Star Wars". Trumbull was the 1960s whiz-kid hired by Stanley Kubrick to be in charge of the visual effects for "2001: A Space Odyssey", and he later invented the IMAX and OMNIMAX film format, as well as the car rides at theme parks, wherein you feel as though your car is flying and turning, even though it is stationary.
We were given this and Star Wars in the same year. The special effects have stood the test of time pretty well, but at the actual time they were out of this world!
I’m sorry you weren’t feeling well Dash, I hope you enjoyed this movie. It’s one I like coming back to every summer.
Great reaction to a great movie. Hope you feel better soon. Barry is a mischevious little kid isn't he lol! What also cracks me up is how Richard Dreyfus's character basically destroys his relationship with his family for obsessing about what basically (at least initially) looks like a huge pile of crap!!
If you think they would (or indeed have plans to) let everybody know about this contact, then you are being a bit naive. Personally I'm pretty sure this is a bit of a reveal of something that may have already happened. We're talking about ten degrees of Need-To-Know clearance to be part of this stuff, and the Presidents probably don't even know about it.
Yes exactly, the first three were basically just scouts sent to make sure everything was kosher!
Following the original version, there was a special edition released in 1980 that showed inside the mothership. In the version you watched, which is the director's cut, Spielberg chose to go with his original vision of the film and not show it. He did however include more scenes of Roy's obsession with the tower and sequences with the officials reaction to the UFO sightings that had previously been cut...
there is an extended version that added a few scenes more than the theatrical cut, and in it, with Roy going into the mother ship we get to see what's inside the mother ship, and then Roy is "sprinkled" with some kind of energy that transformed him into one of them. the last alien you see get out of the ship and approach the Frenchman and do the hand gestures, is Roy! then he goes off into space with them to live happily ever after.
Roy's wife is played by Teri Garr who was Inga in Young Frankenstein. Very different role.
I saw this when I was 10. It still amazes me.
The Frenchman is famed director Francios Truffaut (sp) whom Spielberg greatly admired. But he was sad that Truffaut said little to him about the film as they went. Finally they went to film the scene where he interviews Roy in the tiny room with just the interpreter. The set was just two walls. Truffaut sees the set, turns to Spielberg and smiled, "Now, this is filmmaking!"
In addition to both coming out in '77, this movie has something in common with the first *Star Wars* ...both had low-budget parodies of them made shortly afterward.
In case anyone's interested... *Hardware Wars* and *Closet Cases Of The Nerd Kind* ...both can probably be found here.
Yes, those two film parodies are goofy gold.
C-3PO’s “stand-in” for Hardware Wars is called 4Q2. That pretty well sums up the spoofs, lol.
Now you need to see the War of the Worlds (1953)....Just 6 years after the crash at Roswell. 🌎 It is the first modernized movie version of H.G. Wells novel from 1898. This movie is old but in color and most impressive for the time. I didn't see it until the late 1960s, as shown for the 1st time on prime-time TV when I was about 9 years old. And it scared the hell out of me. The storyline is very similar for most of the movie to Independence Day, including the use of a nuclear weapon, called an "atom bomb" in those days. I think this version is even better than the remake in 2005. You must ABSOLUTELY see it, especially if you were impressed with the special effects of Close Encounters (1977). You MUST see The War of the Worlds (1953). 😃
A lot of pilots would not report seeing a UFO in case they lost their jobs. Another good ufo/alien film is "Arrival". The shape of the stars you saw was The Big Dipper or The Plough a large asterism consisting of seven bright stars of the constellation Ursa Major.
29:54 "So, before, maybe it was just, like, 'checkers' -- three of them -- came in to see if it was safe or not? And then the rest followed." 😝 That's not quite the right word choice. "Checkers" first made me think of the board game, and then of the grocery store employees who ring up a customer's purchases. A native english speaker would almost certainly call them "scouts."
Someone correct me. The scene with the mom and the aliens are coming, the actress was not told what would happen and she's truly freaking out. That's what I heard
Wow, if that is true, it really worked out because she looks and acts truly terrified.
Look for the ending from the Director's Cut. It shows Roy inside the ship after he boards. Pretty cool!
In the 1970s, human exploration of space seemed right around the corner.
Someone may have already noted this, but the 5 planes discovered in the Mexican desert at the start of the film (and for which the missing pilots are returned from the alien ship at the end) are meant to be Flight 19, a training flight of 5 TBM Grumman Avenger bombers that disappeared on a training run of Ft. Lauderdale at the end of 1945. The disappearance was the seed germ of the modern mythology of the Bermuda Triangle. In reality, they got lost and ditched someplace out at sea. The mystery of the flight, I think, is what happened after they realized they were lost. They completed the first leg of their run, which had them on a due west course from Florida to the Bahamas. They then turned northwest. Shortly thereafter the flight's chatter indicated they thought they were lost. The leader said they were flying over broken land and assumed it was the Florida Keys. He reasoned that to get back to Florida, all they had to due was head east and they'd come over the Florida peninsula. In reality, being out over the Bahamas, an eastward path would carry them out over the Atlantic. Here's the real mystery to me - after completing their first task, I cannot understand how the leader could have assumed they were over the Keys, hundreds of miles to the southwest. Getting lost I understand. Even going with the flight leader's instructions when it was clear several pilots thought he was wrong makes sense militarily. But how and why he concluded they were over the Keys I will never understand.
To date, no evidence of the planes has been found. Occasionally a wrecked Avenger will be found on the sea floor, but it's never one of these 5.
Having actually seen this in the theater when it was released, it was awesome & fun to re-live through your new millennium reaction! Such different times, it's always fun to re-live through your reactions!!
Great review of an awesome movie!!! Seen this movie like a ga-billion times and always see something different. Also, at the actual Devil's Tower in Wyoming there is now a campground where the the Army camp was located - have stayed there a few times and even hiked the areas where the soldiers were hiking. As a BONUS, at night during warm weather months the campground will actually play this movie with the Tower in the background.
The Devil's Tower part of the plot is actually the silliest. If you think about the whole setup it just looks pretty ridiculous. It would have made more sense if the location was far more remote, like in the middle of the Sahara or even on an island in the Pacific Ocean. Still, Devil's Tower is visually impressive.
35:33 Scientifically correct as long as they were travelling at close to the speed of light. It's the same principle used in 'Interstellar'.
" super cliche aliens" 😂😂😂 spot on, bless their hearts though, it was 1977 lol
Really, you can portray the "aliens" to look and act any way you choose. You can't be proven wrong.
In 1977 they had to build physical models of the space ships, rather than creating them on computer. :)
Imagine all of us in 1977 seeing these special effects in the theater for the first time!!! It was astounding! Tha Magic of Spielberg!!!
Technically, it was the magic of Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), but, yeah. :)
@@BigTroyT Industrial Light & Magic weren't involved with Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. Douglas Trumbull (who also worked on 2001: A Space Odyssey) was responsible for the special effects.
Great reaction Dasha, I am glad you do not take the special effects for granted as some young people do. You realize what a challenge this must of been put in the mid 1970's You did a great job! Thank you very much. I was a freshman in college in 1977. My two favorite movies from that year were this one. As well as the very first Star Wars movie. Two movies that were unlike anything I had every seen before. Movies have come along way since then. Steven Speilberg's favorite movie was Lawrence of Arabia. Please consider reacting to this classic movie. Hope you feel better soon.
RIP Melinda Dillon
Back in 1984 I took a trip to Devils Tower. It was pretty cool.
6:40 Richard Dreyfuss nailed what my reaction would have been in his shoes, shook up from the chaos yet intrigued after he realized the UFO wasn't a threat.
The stereotypical "gray" alien was one of a huge number of imagined aliens, but after this movie it did become the one image people think of when you say alien. So while the image didn't start here, this is how it became part of culture
As a kid the orange light that abducts Barry scared the hell out of me. Spielberg making the audience's imagination run riot while showing very little.
Me too. It was a cool looking but very scary
The kid playing the younger son of Richard Dreyfuss here was actually his real-life nephew.
"How did they make this in 1977?" A LOT of lights and a lot of electricity!!!!
Stephen Spielberg was excellent at capturing the average American family household.
Dasha , you were searching for the word " Constellation " the ships were forming the Big Dipper that is in the Constellation " Ursa Major ".
I was in junior high school when this came out. Amazing to see on the big movie screen. Hope you feel better Dasha.😘
They show what's inside the ship in the extended director's cut.
Some other great alien contact films similar to Close Encounters that you should react to are "Contact" with Jodie Foster, "Arrival" with Amy Adams, "2001: A Space Odyssey", and its sequel "2010: The Year We Make Contact".
What is known about "Devil's Tower is that it is a sacred Lakota Native American site. It has the name Bear's Lodge Mountain by Native American Lakota people. I heard it was the neck of an extinct volcano too.
As I remember the folklore, an Indian maiden was fleeing a bear and she she begged the Great Spirit to save her. Suddenly the land underneath her rose up into the sky. The bear tried to climb to grab her and left his "claw marks" in the tower.
I love how you said 'Oh yeah. He's not good at navigation'. I guess that was established LOL though I didn't pick that up in the 20 times or so I watched it. We saw how Roy got half his face sunburned, but what did she do?
The encampment on Devil's Tower is called, in the movie, us called the dark side of the moon after the Pink Floyd album. And the effects? All "practical"--made things, not computer generated.
There is a reboot of the tv show Project Blue Book available to watch. It is based on the Doctor who created the ‘close encounter’ scale. He consulted for Stephen Spielberg on this movie. The original series was on tv in 1978. Both versions were only two seasons and both executive producers died near the of season two.. preventing season three from being made.. spooky.
The reason the passengers on the alien spacecraft appeared to not age is due to the time dilation effect described in Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity which describes the slowing down of a clock that occurs as a spacecraft approaches the velocity of light, relative to the passage of time on a slower moving object such as the Earth. Days or weeks may have passed for the people on the spacecraft while years or decades or even centuries passed on Earth. The closer to the velocity of light the slower time passes. There are time dilation calculators online that you can play with.
Back in the day, reporting a UFO was a good way to be grounded. The Aliens were made to look like what people have described that they have seen.
Anyone feels like this was more or less a field trip for the aliens? "This is how you make contact with a primitive species class. Now we studied some of the specimen we picked up earlier, so you all know what to expect."
30:39 "🤨 Huh. Right? Huh."
Right! Maybe. Maybe not. . . Huh. 🤔
🤣🤣🤣
Great reaction again. This was made when there were supposed UFO sightings, cow mutilations, unexplained signs, etc. You would love Starman, 1984 with Jeff Bridges. Hope you feel better soon.
27:46 stars make shapes we recognize from many years is word--constellations.-Ernie Moore Jr.
"Look, the aliens helped their relationship." Uh, no they didn't.
It’s on my bucket list to visit Devil’s Tower. I have seen it a few times in the distance while driving along I-90 in Wyoming but never had the time to go there.
This is the only movie I can think of that deals with time dilation. If you fly near the speed of light, your aging slows down inside the ship while everyone you left behind grows old and dies. It's like a time warp, but it only goes forward. There's no rewind.
You didn't see the original "Planet of The Apes" (1968)movie with Charleton Heston?
Dasha another great and genuine reaction! Thanks for enduring your cold and sharing your experience with the way back machine. Yes the movie was a big deal in 1977 including the 5 tones were famous. FYI a group of stars that form an image is called a constellation. I do hope you feel better soon! Хорошо. Спасибо большое!
Everything concerning the aliens' appearance was based on actual UFO reports. The little gray ones are the most common types. If you check out the Special Editions of this movie, there is additional footage where you go inside with Roy and actually see the interior. Get well!
What is cool in this movie is that if you look at the starry sky shots carefully, you sometimes see certain "stars" moving.