Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1322 in DVD
• Released on: 2001-06-25
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 2
• Formats: Anamorphic, Box set, Collector's Edition, PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English, French, Hindi, Spanish
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 131 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Released in 1977, Close Encounters of the Third Kind was that year's cerebral alternative to Star Wars. It's arguably the archetypal Spielberg film, featuring a fantasy-meets-reality storyline (to be developed further in E.T.), a misunderstood Everyman character (Richard Dreyfuss), apparently hostile government agents (long before The X-Files), a sense of childlike awe in the face of the otherworldly, and a sweeping feel for epic film-making learned from the classic school of David Lean. Contributing to the film's overall success are the Oscar-winning cinematography from Vilmos Zsigmond, Douglas Trumbull's lavish effects and an extraordinary score from John Williams that develops from eerie atonality à la Ligeti to the gorgeous sentiment of "When You Wish Upon a Star" over the end credits.

Not content with the final result, Spielberg tinkered with the editing and inserted some new scenes to make a "Special Edition" in 1980 which ran three minutes shorter than the original, then made further revisions to create a slightly longer "Collector's Edition" in 1998. This later version deletes the mothership interior scenes that were inserted in the "Special Edition" and restores the original ending.

On the DVD: CE3K is packaged here with confusing documentation that fails to make clear any differences between earlier versions of the film and this "Collector's Edition"--worse, the back cover blurb misleadingly implies that this disc is the 1980 "Special Edition" edit. It is not. A gorgeous anamorphic widescreen print of Spielberg's 1998 "Collector's Edition" edit occupies the first disc: this is the version with the original theatrical ending restored but new scenes from the "Special Edition" retained.

The second disc rounds up sundry deleted scenes that were either dropped from the original version or never made it into the film at all--fans of the "Special Edition" can find the mothership interior sequence here. The excellent "making-of" documentary dates from 1997 and has interviews with almost everyone involved, including the director speaking from the set of Saving Private Ryan. Thankfully the superb picture and sound of the feature make this set entirely compelling and more than compensate for the inadequate packaging. --Mark Walker

Video Description
DVD Special Features
Disc One:
Widescreen "Collector's Edition" version
Disc Two:
1977 "Watch the Skies" featurette
Making of Documentary
14 Deleted Scenes
Filmographies
Original Theatrical Preview Trailer
Special Edition Trailer

Animated Menus
Dolby 5.1
DTS
2.35:1 ratio enhanced for 16:9 widescreen TVs
Subtitles: English, Czech, Hungarian, Icelandic, Hindi, Hebrew, Dutch, Bulgarian, Turkish, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Greek, Norwegian, Arabic, Polish

Synopsis
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND is Steven Spielberg's extraordinary film about a man named Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) who becomes obsessed with meeting extraterrestrials after encountering a UFO on an abandoned road one night. Against the wishes of his wife (Teri Garr) and children, Neary, along with another witness to the sighting (Melinda Dillon), travels to a mysterious mountain where the government has built a landing strip hoping to attract the aliens. Director Francois Truffaut costars as Claude Lacombe, one of the organizers of the project. Spielberg hoped to follow up the huge success of JAWS with a low-budget film that would be an easy shoot, but, thanks in part to the complicated special effects, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS quickly snowballed into being an expensive endeavor but a commercial and artistic success. No one who has seen the film has ever looked at a plate of mashed potatotes the same way again.

Customer Reviews

This means Silly
Special effects should be convincing, even when this was made, but relying on an upside down turned car and mashed tatties and dodgy miniatures spoils the story. As if aliens are going to travel all this way after kidnapping pilots and sailors just to have a jam session on top of a mountain with a hippy scientist and his organ. Like Jean Michel Jarre and ET having a duet. Its silly. Aliens also are supposed to be green and not like the ones here. Aliens are hardly going to visit us if this is what we think of them. Unless they are the For Mash Get Smash aliens which is where the mashed potato could actually mean something.

cinema is best
If you had seen this film in the cinema when it first came out, it was absolutely spectacular. I came out of the cinema and immediately looked up to the sky expecting to see the space ship. I wish it could be released again so people can see the excellence of the film.

The Definitive Version!!!
"Close Encounters of a Third Kind -The Special Edition" is the definitive version of this very enjoyable movie. The final entrance by Richard Dreyfuss into the Mothership has been removed to the betterment of the whole and certain scenes that explore further his descend into madness have been restored. This film represents a Spielberg oozing with talent and confidence. The only reference he makes to another director is to Kubrick and these are in the first reel. After that we are left with Spielberg the visionary not the successful journeyman we have today.

At the time of release no one had seen anything like this on the big screen and I feel the film holds up remarkably well today. The effects are faultless and jaw dropping. The music is inspired and profound.

It is a shame Spielberg can't find that unselfconscious talent he once had in abundance and so produce another film of this quality in the new millennium. It is about time because he has made us suffer a lot in the last few years.

The DVD features the most in depth "Making Of" documentary of any film I have ever seen. It is nearly as long as the feature itself yet well worth watching. It is a shame that Spielberg and Dreyfuss could not find the time for a commentary track but I suppose everything had been covered in the documentary.