A Few Words About A few words about...™ CE3K -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[Scott Calvert]

I thought this was supposed to have a PCM track...if it does I can't find it. My cheap bluray player doesn't do TrueHD or DTS-MA. The DTS-MA downconverted did still sound great though

 

[Jeff Robertson]

Is anyone experiencing audio dropouts while playing the TrueHD track? Out of the four Blu-Ray titles I have with TrueHD tracks, Close Encounters is the only one giving me trouble so far. The DTS-MA track plays fine, although my Sony BDP-S500 can only play the DTS core.

I suspected maybe the inexpensive HDMI 1.3a cables I installed were responsible, but I swapped them out for a better pair and the dropouts are still there. They seem to occur only during the most intense audio sequences (the flyover of Roy's truck, the police car chase, Barry's abduction, just to name a few).

Close Encounters is also the most complex of my four discs (longest load time), so I suppose there could be a compatibility issue. My player has the latest firmware available, however.

 

[EdKBecker]

I just got the set and am wondering if someone could advise me as to which one to watch first having never seen the movie to begin with.

I mean it would seem to make sense to watch the original release first, but thought maybe in retrospect those of you aficionados of it might recommend a different order for a newbie to the film.

 

[Jefferson Morris]

I think the best version of the film is actually the most recent one - the director's cut. So I'd recommend that. Or failing that, the original 1977 theatrical release. The 1980 Special Edition contains a notable extra scene that, while spectacular, spoils a bit of the film's mystery (it was filmed at the behest of the studio), and was wisely dropped from the director's cut. I'd watch that last.

That said, you can't go wrong with any version of this masterpiece. They're all four-star films.

--Jefferson Morris

 

[Travis Brashear]

I think a first time viewer should watch the original 1977 version; then, all subsequent viewings should be of the Director's Cut. The 1980 S.E. makes for an interesting take on the narrative and even though it is justifiably lambasted for stealing the audience's collective right to envision its own endings, as Jefferson Morris says, it does so as spectacularly as could be possible, so it's worth a look once the Director's Cut becomes comfortably familiar to you...

 

[24fpssean]

To me, the 77 version is vastly superior. Sometimes a director does need to be forced to finish his damned film. Shots of the ship in the desert and the UFO shadow passing over Neary's speeding truck are utterly unnecessary in the long run. What is great about the original theatrical release is the characters: rather than have an endless scene of Roy's noisy, cluttered and deeply unlikeable family, as we get in the SE and DC versions, we get Roy's toy train crashing into a ravine and a shot of him sitting back unhappily; that tells us all we need to know about his situation - toy trains are no longer doing it for him.

In the 77 theatrical cut, each character is dealt with respectively. Roy's situation is dealt with, then Jillian's, then Lacombe's, then they are all brought together at the end, a la Bridge on the River Kwai. The checker-boarding of their scenes in the two subsequent versions destroys the personal drama, it breaks up each persons' story just as it's getting underway and makes it feel like television. Adding the Cotapaxi scene and other little "cool" bits just turns it into a large screen Amazing Stories episode. All we ever need is the opening sequence with the planes because the pilots of those planes are the first to come off the Mother Ship at the end; full circle.

Adding the family fight, with that ridiculous scene of Roy sobbing in the bathtub, deflates the family fight the following morning, when Ronnie leaves him because he's shoveling dirt into the house. Without that midnight battle, Roy's actions the next morning are all the more powerful and we can absolutely understand why Ronnie would take the kids and leave.

Close Encounters has a complicated psychology and telling the story as simply and linearly as possible makes it a beautiful drama, rather than a jazzy sci fi. The 77 cut feels like a complete human odyssey.

 

[Mark_TB]

Good comments, Sean, and hard for me to disagree with. So I won't.

Also, in case anyone wasn't aware of it, Wal-mart is now selling this for only $15.00. A real bargain, if you ask me.

- Mark

 

[Felix Martinez]

Originally Posted by 24fpssean

To me, the 77 version is vastly superior. Sometimes a director does need to be forced to finish his damned film. Shots of the ship in the desert and the UFO shadow passing over Neary's speeding truck are utterly unnecessary in the long run. What is great about the original theatrical release is the characters: rather than have an endless scene of Roy's noisy, cluttered and deeply unlikeable family, as we get in the SE and DC versions, we get Roy's toy train crashing into a ravine and a shot of him sitting back unhappily; that tells us all we need to know about his situation - toy trains are no longer doing it for him.

In the 77 theatrical cut, each character is dealt with respectively. Roy's situation is dealt with, then Jillian's, then Lacombe's, then they are all brought together at the end, a la Bridge on the River Kwai. The checker-boarding of their scenes in the two subsequent versions destroys the personal drama, it breaks up each persons' story just as it's getting underway and makes it feel like television. Adding the Cotapaxi scene and other little "cool" bits just turns it into a large screen Amazing Stories episode. All we ever need is the opening sequence with the planes because the pilots of those planes are the first to come off the Mother Ship at the end; full circle.

Adding the family fight, with that ridiculous scene of Roy sobbing in the bathtub, deflates the family fight the following morning, when Ronnie leaves him because he's shoveling dirt into the house. Without that midnight battle, Roy's actions the next morning are all the more powerful and we can absolutely understand why Ronnie would take the kids and leave.

Close Encounters has a complicated psychology and telling the story as simply and linearly as possible makes it a beautiful drama, rather than a jazzy sci fi. The 77 cut feels like a complete human odyssey.

I still have a soft spot for the 77 cut. I never really knew why, and I think you nailed it.

I watch this annually. I find one afternoon when everyone's out of the house, turn off the phones, no interruptions, crank up the volume so the initial "sting" music cue before the Mexico sequence pushes my hair back like that Maxell ad, and I'm back in Dec. 1977.

Wonderful Blu-ray. And it's a steal at the $15-$18 range which I've recently seen at Costco and other places lately. I wouldn't be surprised if the current deluxe release gets retired for a 1-disc version sometime down the road.

 

[24fpssean]

Same here, guys, perhaps it's nostalgia - my preference for the 77 cut - but I don't think so. On Amazon, love for the 77 version is unanimous. It just feels like a complete film, a real movie. Both subsequent cuts feel like tedious tv movies.

Anyway, I could really go on dissecting the pros and cons of each version. I watch it several times a year, maybe three. I never cease to be amazed by the shot of Barry opening the door to the orange light; the sound on this blu ray nearly rattles my windows out. I love the film because the characters who are called to the mountain have imagination - the aliens reject the team of scientists and philosophers lined up in the orange/red suits and take Roy instead - because he built a train set. I love that!

 

[KMR]

Count me in with those who prefer the 1977 version (although I do like the extension of the mashed potatoes scene--in fact, I thought that the longer scene worked very well in the novelization of the film, and when I read that Spielberg was working on the "Special Edition" I wrote him a letter expressing my concerns about what I had read, and asked him to please consider extending that scene in the film--the article I had read implied Spielberg was considering shortening or deleting that scene).

Here's a question that I asked sometime back in this forum or some other: Does anyone recall Francois Truffaut saying the line "Run, Mr. Neary!" in a quiet voice, as he looks out the window watching Roy escaping toward the mountain? I saw the original many times during its initial run, and this moment sticks in my mind very clearly. Yet it is nowhere to be found on the DVD or Blu-ray. What is there, though, is what seems to be a very crude transition in the soundtrack during that sequence, in the spot in which I believe the line may have been. (Or was the line never there in the film, and perhaps what I am remembering is a line in the novel?)

 

[Dave H]

Awesome Blu-ray. I'll have to give the '77 cut a spin - have only seen the Director's Cut.

 

[24fpssean]

You may be remembering a line from the novelization. I don't recall that line at all but that crude cut may have happened when the short shot of Roy screaming, "Go for the mountain!!" and shoving his way out of the helicopter was dropped for the SE and never put back in - a pity. There were also other illogical trims: In the SE and DC, there is an awful trim at the end when Roy is walking up into the Mothership and it cuts to a long dolly shot of Truffaut. That shot was shortened and no compensation was made in the music so the score switches unnaturally in the middle of the shot. The crude cut was left in the Director's Cut. Just awful.

I don't know why the Cotapaxi scene was left in, it does nothing for the story and the "wow" factor just is not enough anymore to make it worth looking at. Also, the remains of the sunken Cotapaxi have been found in the bottom of the ocean, many years ago, which renders this scene obsolete.

Glad to have the original theatrical release on blu ray, though. We're lucky Columbia didn't get lazy and just slap the DC on blu ray. Unfortunately, any revival screenings in theatres will only be the Director's Cut.

Ran into Michael Kahn a few weeks ago (whom I'ld worked with shortly on Reindeer Games) and was itching to ask him about the different versions, to get his opinions about why certain things were dropped and others retained. But since he fought to get the wretched bathtub scene put back in, I never brought it up.

 

[Mark_TS]

also in the '77 version we have that great chaotic scene at the power station where the incredulous Neary is assigned the job of getting 'The Sag' area lines back up and working, as munincipalities are asking to be cut from the grid, and the supervisor barking "...were going to candlepower in 10 minutes!"

 

[24fpssean]

Yes, the '77 version is more down to earth, which makes the extraordinary occurences even more so. And it has that great little Rod Serling touch of the farmer saying, "They can fly rings around the moon, but we're years ahead of them on the highway."

 

[Worth]

Originally Posted by Mark_TS ">[/url]

also in the '77 version we have that great chaotic scene at the power station where the incredulous Neary is assigned the job of getting 'The Sag' area lines back up and working, as munincipalities are asking to be cut from the grid, and the supervisor barking "...were going to candlepower in 10 minutes!"[/QUOTE]


[QUOTE]Originally Posted by [b]24fpssean[/b] [url=/forum/thread/267168/a-few-words-about-ce3k-in-bd/30#post_3683066]

 

[PaulDA]

Just ordered this (thanks to this thread) so I'm looking forward to seeing it. I've never seen this film, surprisingly enough (I'm a fan of film sci-fi and I'm 42 years old).

 

[24fpssean]

No. Rings around the moon is not in the 98 director's cut, or it wasn't in 98 when I saw it projected in the theatre.

 

[Worth]

Originally Posted by 24fpssean

No. Rings around the moon is not in the 98 director's cut, or it wasn't in 98 when I saw it projected in the theatre.

Interesting. I saw this projected digitally a couple of months ago and the line was in there, as was the power station scene - but it wasn't the '77 cut as the ship in the desert scene was also there.

 

[24fpssean]

Perhaps SS added it since 98? I haven't watched the 98 cut on my BD yet.

 

[cafink]

Originally Posted by 24fpssean

No. Rings around the moon is not in the 98 director's cut, or it wasn't in 98 when I saw it projected in the theatre.

I have no clue which version(s) of the film contain that line, but, respectfully, I would be extremely skeptical about trusting my memory of watching a movie twelve years ago in making that kind of determination, especially for a movie that's had as many different versions as Close Encounters. Think about all the people who insisted that the theatrical version of Hannibal included a more graphic "dinner" scene than the DVD, or the continued debate about Poltergeist's infamous, weird jump-cut.