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Author
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Topic: CLOSE ENCOUNTERS (SCOPE, 1977 VERSION)
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Osi Osgood
Film God
Posts: 10204
From: Mountian Home, ID.
Registered: Jul 2005
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posted November 09, 2007 05:37 PM
I want to start this review by saying that i have been waiting 15 years to write this, as I had longed for a print of this feature on Super 8mm scope, and never thought I would have it, and this has become an even bigger mystery than I ever expected!
Though many know the story of this feature, I'll give a short version of the story.
Roy Neary is an everyday man. He works for his local power company and is happy with his life.
The films begins with a UFO inspection team. They find, in the middle of the desert, a long lost group of world war 2
fighters. (Flight 15, which actually DID disappear over the Bermuda triangle, a true fact and an unsolved mystery). While there they find an old man who witnessed the fighters arriving.
"El Sol, el noche, y mi canto"
"He says the sun came out last night. He says it sang to him."
We then move to flight control, where they have an incident of an UFO incident ...
"Do you want to report a UFO, over?"
"Negative, we don't want to report."
This is followed by power outages all over the grid. Neary is called into work in the middle of the night and is sent out to inspect the outages. While out, he is hit with a full force UFO encounter, (one of many outstanding scenes in the film!). Neary hears reports of additional sitings over the radio and rushes off.
Meanwhile Jillian is out hunting for his young son, Barry, who has run off into the night. Neary comes careening around a corner and almost hits Barry, who's standing in the middle of the road. We now have the second fantastic incident
of UFO's, a number of them, followed by a number of police cars in hot pursuit. Neary follows. Heading home afterwards, Neary annoys his family with his wild stories of the night.
After this point, (actually, from the beginning), we now follow two stories which will coincide and join at the end of the movie; Roy Nearys collapsing relationship with his family, (who pack up and leave him)as well as his annoying habit of finding hidden meaning in everything from mashed potato's to pillows or chicken wire, AND the UFO team, tracking down the trail of UFO sightings. The UFO's are laying down a trail of signals, (being heard all over the world) that will lead them to a meeting site at Devil's Tower, Wyoming, (which while known before, has been made famous by this movie!). The UFO team realize that the language of the aliens is a "tonal vocabulary" (a very unique idea and very appreciated, myself being a musician!) They find that sign language, developed by Zoltan Coldai, is a way of speaking with the aliens, (a fact that becomes important at the end of the film!)
Meanwhile, Jillian's son Barry, (who seems to have some kind of connection with the aliens), is kidnapped by the aliens.
The UFO team, meanwhile have been given the longitude numbers for the exact place of the contact, which is the before mentioned Devil's Tower, and must now come up with a reason to get rid of all the population around there. They come up with a poison scare much like anthrax. It works.
Both Roy and Jillian have the "epithany" at the same time. Roy goes off in search for Devil's Tower, and while on the way there, finds Jillian. They are captured by the army and detained.
The head of the UFO team tries his best to convince the army general that all these people have been brought here against there own will by some signal ...
"It is a mystery to me why they are here, even they don't
know why."
He is not able to convince the general, but fortunately Roy, Jillian and another fellow run for the Tower. The army get wind of this and decide to stop them with GM nerve Gas. It stops the other fellow, but Roy and Jillian make it sucessfully to the top of Devil's tower, and find the UFO landing base before them in the valley behind.
"Watch the skies please. We now show un-correlated targets approaching from the north northwest"
We now begin the absolutely spectacular finale of the movie, as UFO's come down from the clouds. First, there are three who come down to say hello. The UFO team play the familiar tonal "hello" and the UFO's respond, then take off. The UFO team believe that they have been successful.
The UFO's are not done. In spectacular fashion, they now engulf the landing site with a myriad of wondrous lights. Roy decides to head down. Jillian can't because "Barry's not here."
Right as Neary goes down, the UFO's leave. The rumbling builds slowly, until the greatest sight from this movie is revealed, an immense mother ship, (in my opinion, the greatest "reveal" in movie history. Please note the homage to Star Wars by Speilberg, as there is an R2D2 upside down on the rising ship, in the first shot of it coming up from behind, right after Jillian, in shadows says "Oh my God".). the Mother ship comes to a landing. First off are all the people that were abducted over the years, (including the pilots off the
fighters from the beginning of ther film!)
"They haven't aged a day. Einstein was right."
"Einstein was probably one of them!"
... and little barry is returned!
"Are they going away?"
"Yes"
After this, the Aliens make there way down and say hello.
Meanwhile Roy is being ready to be part of a team that they expect to be taken on the UFO. The Aliens select only Neary, who is taken into the mother ship.
This leads to the last alien, (it has always been my idea that this was the instantly transformed Roy Neary, as this Alien looks completely different from the other aliens), who comes out, and the UFO team leader does the hand signs for "hello" and the Alien responds with the same gesture.
The Mother ship then takes off to the sad little Barry looking up and saying a soft "goodbye". Roll credits as we are delighted with the UFO from various angles spiraling up into space!
This is one of the truly seminal sci-fi flicks, as important as Star Wars or Metropolis (1926) It was the first time that we really had a kind friendly alien culture that isn't dead set on "brain eating", like most other un-friendly aliens. This also sported a very intelligent story line. The special effect were largely ground-breaking, (under the capable hands of the 1970's wizard Douglass Trumball)for instance the rolling cloud effect and even after, gasp, 30 years, they are still awe inspiring. Part of the charm of this film is Roy Neary (played by Richard Dreyfuss) as an everyman you could indentify with. It should be noted that this film came out right at the very peak of UFO mania in the 1970's. The blending of the two narratives, (Roy's and the UFO team's) is expertly done, all the way through, and the conclusion is so much better than you would expect. the film builds as you would expect one to.
NOW!! Onto the print!
This print is an enigma!! Except for a few people, no one knew, except for rumors and such that there were any other prints of Close Encounters in scope, except for the short run of the Derann release, which was limited to only 19 prints. From what I understand, Speilberg got wind that it was being released on Super 8, (and Speilberg is noted to be VERY protective of his films) and he put the Kibosh on the release.
This then became one of the Holy Grails of Super 8mm.
But Derann released the Special edition, which includes the "inside the Mother ship" sequence added to the 1980's re-issue. This print is a review of the, perhaps, even more rare 1977 version of the film on Super 8. It was probably manufactured according to number of orders, which means, for all we know, five prints could exist.
FILM STOCK
The film is, (not totally verified) either VERY GOOD kodak SP, (or very early generation Eastman LPP), the coding on it is
O square X. I have been told that this is Kodak SP, but it may be a hybrid SP, as the run of O square X was around 1982, right at the time when L.P.P. was just coming to the forefront. I can say that there isn't a single bit of fade at all. Absolutely perfect blacks to the image. It also states Prt Crt #1. I don't know if this means "First print" or what.
COLOR
The color is pristine! Perfect assortment of colors and doesn't look any different than the color scheme of the original release on laserdisc. This also leads me to believe that this was a German release as well. The print has a certain "bluish cast" which I have noted from the German and or British film labs. I am rather certain that if this was from the British film labs however, Kevin faulkner and others would have had full knowledge of these prints.
SHARPNESS
This has a pin sharp focus, very easy to focus and is lovely to look at! Right up there with Derann prints.
CONTRAST
This is one of the only slightly weak points. Don't get me wrong, this print is 98 percent perfect, but I notice that in some scenes during the finale, the Alien's almost disappear from the image, the scene being bright, and yet, when it would come back to a shot of Jillian taking snapshots, the color and brightness are spot on. This must have been a very hard print to get right. I would love to hear from Kevin and others how these scenes are on thier Derann prints.
SOUND
This is a very sharp mono, (Derann's release was in stereo), but it can be easily re-recorded with the Laserdisc release from Criterion laserdisc of the 1977 release, (which has never been released on DVD)
SCOPE
Sometimes a scope film won't transfer well to Super 8mm (I don't know why), but this looks absolutely gorgeous on Super 8mm. It doesn't have the problem of "cinevision" prints and the image is perfectly sharp from side to side!
OTHER ISSUES
The only other print problem, is that as the end credits are running, there are two splices in the original negative where there were breaks in the film. Not too bad, but if you re-record the ending music, you don't have the skips in soundtrack.
The print also has a few slight condition issues. There is a very skinny green scratch for a 30 or so seconds during the last reel, and some wear at reel changes, but it is not too bad, very acceptable.
The running time is 135 minutes, (the special edition is 132 minutes long). It fits very nicely on 5X600ft reels, but it also fits (barely, right to the very brim) on 2X1200ft reels.
This is very hard to come by, hey, it took 15 years for me to come up with a print, and I may have gotten an even rarer print of this, so keep your fingers crossed and tell santa want you really want! With this print, i have truthfully all but finished my Super 8mm collection, (except for the odd optical sound film feature) and can now invest more heavily in extra deluxe projectors and equipment!
Please excuse my long review, but I feel this film defintely deserved it!
LONG LIVE SUPER 8!!!!!!!
[ November 09, 2007, 10:45 PM: Message edited by: Osi Osgood ]
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"All these moments will be lost in time, just like ... tears, in the rain. "
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