Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #37220 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-12-03
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Formats: Box set, PAL
• Number of discs: 3
• Running time: 131 minutes

Amazon.co.uk

Anybody who has written him off because of a string of stinkers--or anybody who's too young to remember The Goodbye Girl--may be shocked at the accomplishment and nuance of Richard Dreyfuss's performance in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Here, he plays a man possessed. Contacted by aliens, he (along with other members of the "chosen") is drawn toward the site of the incipient landing: Devil's Tower, in rural Wyoming. As in many Spielberg films, there are no personalised enemies; the struggle is between those who have been called and a scientific establishment that seeks to protect them by keeping them away from the arriving spacecraft. The ship, and the special effects in general, are every bit as jaw-dropping on DVD as they were in the theatre (well, almost). Released in 1977 as a cerebral alternative to the swashbuckling science fiction epics then in vogue, Close Encounters now seems almost wholesome in its representation of alien contact and interested less in philosophising about extra-terrestrials than it is in examining the nature of the inner "call." Ultimately a motion picture about the obsession of the driven artist or determined visionary, Close Encounters comes complete with the stock Spielberg wives and girlfriends who seek to tether the dreamy, possessed protagonists to the more mundane concerns of the everyday. So a spectacular, seminal motion picture indeed (albeit one with gender politics that are all too terrestrial). --Miles Bethany

Amazon.co.uk

This never-before-released edition of Spielberg's groundbreaking alien film contains all three versions of the sci-fi blockbuster. Packaged in a glorious, special edition black box set and packed with special features, this is perfect for both film buffs and newcomers to the genre.

Special features include:

Steven Spielberg: 30 years of Close Encounters

Close Encounters of the Third Kind Making of Documentary

1977 Featurette 'Watch the Skies'

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

Third Time Perfect
I can still remember getting excited watching this for the first time.

It's still a great movie, classic Speilberg (loads of subtle domestic detail) and interesting to think how much of recent popular culture has its roots in this movie. Without this would we have had X Files, a new Dr Who or any number of non-combat, alien contact movies and TV series? Probably not.

Presented in a nice, but unfussy box, the three discs come with a booklet and fold out timelines so you can see what is different about the three versions without having to sit and watch them all with a stopwatch.

In fact, the new cut is the best - more build up, but less (in fact, none) of inside the mothership. Speilberg admits it was a mistake to put that in the Special Edition.

On a good 5.1 system with the volume turned up the musical "chat" between the synth guy and the mothership is even more schoolboy-exciting than I remember it being 30 years ago.

A Beauty of a Boxed Set..........
Aside from the contents, the presentation of this set is awsome in its own right. The box is opened by lifting the lid upwards which is held shut by a small magnetic strip. Once opened there is a ribbon which when pulled raises the contents for your perusal..... The 64 page book is full of photos and info of the production crew and cast and is a nice little read in itself.... the poster is double sided with the original cinema poster on one side and a comparitive timeline of all three versions of the movie on the other. This essentially explains the major differences and when they occur in each version......

All in all I feel this is one of the best box set issues I have ever bought...

Close encounters
Classic film but for some reason the menus don't work on my main dvd player, fine on everything else.