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Close Encounters Of The Third Kind - 30th Anniversary
Ultimate Edition Written &
Directed by Steven Spielberg
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If you watch the film closely, from the opening scene in the desert to the eye popping end, Spielberg is right on the money using his innate filmmaking vocabulary and directorial choices. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has hit a home run with this awesome 3-DVD box set. All three versions of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS are included. Disc 1 has the 135-minute Original Theatrical Version and Part 1 of Close Encounters of the Third Kind Making of Documentary. Disc 2 has the 132-minute Special Edition and Part 3 of Close Encounters of the Third Kind Making of Documentary. Disc 3 features the 137-minute Director's Cut, Steven Spielberg: 30 Years of Close Encounters, Part 3 of Close Encounters of the Third Kind Making of Documentary, the 1977 Featurette Watch The Skies and 30th Anniversary Ultimate Edition Trailer. Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) is a cable worker who experiences a close encounter of the first kind - he witnesses a UFO above his cable truck while parked by train tracks while on the job. This leads him to chase after the aircraft and comes across several people who are watching the spacecraft from a hill above the town they live. The film actually opens with a close encounter of the second kind - government officials discover physical evidence in the form of lost aircraft from World War II and a military ship that disappeared decades earlier. As the film plays on Roy becomes drawn to a mountain-like formation, which leads him and some of the others who experienced a close encounter, across the country to a remote area where they will have a close encounter of the third kind - contact. The Making of Close Encounters is an exhaustive look back at how the film was made. It's really cool that they have divided the documentary over all three discs. Most of the principal behind the scenes crew speak about how they worked on the film. Everyone's memory is sharp as they recall detailed stories about how the film was made. Spielberg admits that when they were making the film the weren't thinking of it as a film about fictional subject matter. He had done a lot of research about the subject matter and believed the material to be real. This detail runs probably runs close to 90 minutes and I could not get enough of it. In Steven Spielberg 30 Years of Close Encounters, the writer/director states that he was writing CLOSE ENCOUNTERS before working on JAWS. He was trying to figure out how to do a story involving UFOs and Watergate. Before Watergate, Spielberg's focus was UFOs in contemporary America. After Watergate, he shifted the focus to involve a government conspiracy in combination with the UFO phenomenon. He continued working on it while working on JAWS. Spielberg was worried on to get the financing for it because people were balking at it before JAWS. Spielberg didn't look at CLOSE ENCOUNTERS as science fiction, he thought of it as science speculation. He had a deep belief that we had been visited in this century. Spielberg states he was really into the whole UFO phenomenon. He admits he's revised his thinking as he grew up and has got older. He states why with all the video cameras in the world today, why has UFO sightings diminished? Before the camcorder craze, UFO sightings were flourishing so now he's a little more skeptical than he was when he made the picture. One of the most interesting things Spielberg ran across during his research on the film's subject matter happened after befriended the man who was in charge of "Project Blue Book" for the government, J. Allen Hyneck. Supposedly Hyneck could not logical explain 10% of the UFO sightings and that those situations was so compelling that Hyneck resigned his position to pursue an investigation. The tile of the movie actually came from Hyneck who coined the term. Another interesting anecdote is that the alien at the and that communicates with sign language was the initial inspiration for ET. Spielberg even felt guilty about taking the idea to Universal (his home) but Columbia turned down Spielberg and the rest is history. Amazing CLOSE ENCOUNTERS was the first film Spielberg teamed up with editor Michael Kahn. They've worked together on every film but one since CEOTK. Spielberg as states that to this day, nothing has been harder than putting together the last 25 minutes of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS. The image Spielberg always thinks of about CLOSE ENCOUNTERS is the little boy opening the door to bright orange-yellow light outside. I must note that this documentary as well as the Making of Close Encounters were both Written, Directed and Produced by Laurent Bouzereau who has to be considered the best in the business at making documentaries on films that have been made. Running 6-Minutes long, Watch The Skies was created when the film was made. We see photos from the locations in Bombay, Indiana, Devil's Tower, Wyoming and the giant blimp hanger in Mobile, Alabama. Stills from the movie, as well as behind the scenes photos & footage is presented in three panel format which was probably more in fashion during the late 70s. It's really neat seeing Spielberg so young on the set with amazing confidence level yet he seems to remain humble. The 30th Anniversary Ultimate Edition Box Set also includes a slick foldout poster that details the difference between all three versions of the film. You also get a beautiful color book that has photos from the film and behind the scenes. CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND - 30TH Anniversary Ultimate Edition is one of those super box set collections you always hope for. It's comparable to the ALIEN Quadrilogy and DAWN OF THE DEAD Ultimate Edition box sets that have come out in years past and something all of you should yearn to get. Best DVD released in 2007.
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