8mm Forum: Close Encounters of the Third Kind (400ft. C/S)

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Topic: Close Encounters of the Third Kind (400ft. C/S)

Osi Osgood
Film God

Posts: 10204
From: Mountian Home, ID.
Registered: Jul 2005

posted February 23, 2007 02:02 PM

I'm suprised that this one has never been reviewed so I thought, hey, lets give it a go.

Along with STAR WARS, this was one of my favorite films of the late 70's, as well as one of the most common 400ft. releases that I see on ebay as well as elsewhere, so it must have been a very common release.

The story is as follows, (following the flow of this digest)

Digest opens with the UFO officials investigating the flight 19 (true fact this flight did dis-appear over the Bermuda Triangle, never to be seen again) planes that have miraculously reappeared. They then investigate an old man who says that last night, "The sun came out and sang to me last night."

We then turn to the air traffic controllers, who get a report of a UFO that hassles a commercial airline flight.

"Do you want to report a UFO, over?"
"Negative, we don't want to report."

We now zoiom to the power plant that is losing power up and down the grid. They send Roy neary out to investigate.

This leads to the first major UFO scene and a classic moment. A vehicle pulls up behind Roy Nearys work truck. neary motions for the vehicle to go by him. Instead of going around him, the vehicle RISES STRAIGHT UP. The floodlights come on and the whole scene goesw crazy, railroad crossing signs rocking madly, and Roy even experiences loss of gravity in his truck, (as well as a bad case of sunburn!)

Cut to Jillian and Barry Guiler. She catches her son on the road. Roy neary almost hits them. They are still on the road when FOUR magnificent UFO's roar by. (beautiful scene)

We then move forward to the officials investigating the signal they have recieved. They pinpoint it to a place in wyoming, (which ends up being Devil's Tower). They also decide
on a GM nerve gas attack as the way to get civilains out of the area.

This does't deter Roy, Gillian or little Barry, who are out to see more of the UFO's. He sees Barry making a mud tower, he keeps on seeing this shape.

he also, when shaving, (as well as eating Mash Potato's), sees the same shape.

He is then driven to build a massive copy of Devils Tower, (which, by the way, he has never seen.) His family leaves him, thinking that he is crazy. He now sees Devils Tower on a news report and things connect.

This sends him off on a mad dash to Devils tower, (after seeing the TV). he finds Jillian on his trip there. They both head out together and find Devil's Tower!

They head up with another fellow, (who's name escapes me), after being detained by the army, and about to be shipped away.
The third fellow is stopped by GM nerve gas, but Roy and Gillian reach the top of Devils Tower and find the UFO landing base behind it.

This leads to the magnificent ending when the mother ship ends, people abducted are released, and the little Alien freinds visit.

Lastly, Roy is selected to go up and leave in the UFO, and Little Barry is reunited with his Mommy. barry has the last line as he watches the mothership leave.

"Goodbye"

exit mothership. The End

This was a very well edited digest, considering that this is a longer length movie (135 minutes, the digest runs 19 minutes.) and they did a very good job, giving us all the major UFO moments, (excellent oscar winning special effects by Douglas Trumball) and giving us enough story from all angles to make this quite enjoyable.

and ... thank God, no rediculous voice over narraration, which some Columbia digests have!

The contrast is very good. It is slightly high on the grain level, but it's not too distracting.

The sharpness is pretty good, though not perfection for Super 8 (look to Deraan and CHC for that!), but it is certianly passable.

The sound is a booming mono and has great audio. I hear that some people have actually re-recorded this is stereo, which must have been quite a feat!

Colour is an issue. While the original release of this no doubt had excellent colour, this is a print that has not tended to age well. There are many very bad copies out there, concerning the colour. My copy has a slight fade, but very little and quite passable.

Curiously, the opening Columbia logo, (with the classic "sundial effect") tends to have much more faded colour then the rest of the film, mostly red at the beginning. I am curious as to whether there were different colour versions of this particular logo, as I have a print from the same era and the colour scheme for the logo is absolutely perfect, but I have noted that some other studio';s have tended to have slightly faded logo's while the features are perfect.

Also of note is that this was released with two different clamshells/boxes, (a less known German box was also released with different design.) The main two is the far more well known classic road with the light at the end. I have the lesser known white/blue plastic clamshell, with the same image on the front, but photo's and description on the back, a much nicer box.

A classic release on Super 8 and one which many of us no doubt have in our collection.

There may be a optical sound copy of this on super 8 as a feature flat, not scope. I had heard of one, but have never seen it anywhere.

Please note : This was released by Derann as a feature, but was cut short in number of prints. Numbers vary, but the number is between 10 to 20 prints released. (God I'd love to have one of those!! Hey Kevin, wanna sell?!!!) I would love to hear about those prints, which were a scope release.

Also of note : There were at least two super 8 trailer releases. One was the original long trailer, released as a cinevision print. This trailer has very little actual footage from the film and is basically an interview between director Steven Speilberg, doctor J Allen Hynek (UFO specialist) and Richard Dreyfuss, (who plays Roy Neary). The other trailer was the re-release entitled, "Close Encounters of ther Third Kind:
Special Edition. "

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"All these moments will be lost in time, just like ... tears, in the rain. "