Close Encounters of the Third Kind...Which version is better?

[bboisvert]

Originally Posted by Filmmaker

Way, way, way off. The alien at the end is not, and never was meant to be, Roy Neary a la Dave-Bowman-becomes-the-Starchild.

Exactly. I don't even see where someone would get that idea. Yikes.

[Ernest Rister]

Well, then the entire ending of the Special Edition makes no sense.

Roy walks up ramp.
Walks into empty room.
Roof lifts off empty room.
Pinocchio theme hammers on the soundtrack.
Roy looks up, breathing heavy, as if ready for something about to happen.
Glowing dust rains down on Roy, complete with magical harp music.
Alien walks out of empty room where Roy was standing. Roy never seen again.

Pardon me for being obtuse, but usually when a filmmaker goes to incredible lengths to reference another movie in a rather overt fashion, if said movie ends with someone being transformed from one form into another, and the filmmaker is referencing that movie like crazy, and then shows fairy dust raining down on the lead character, and then a new figure walks out of a formerly empty room while there is no explanation as to what happened to the lead character...well...

If the suggestion of Roy's transformation into an alien wasn't intended, then the shot selection for the ending of Close Encounters: SE is one of the most astounding incompetent accidents in all of film history.

Personally, I give Spielberg a little more credit than that. Why he feels he needs to back away from what he shot for the SE is his own business, but incompetent he is not. He is one of the most brilliant film directors who ever lived. But I think he knew exactly what he was doing when he staged, planned, and wrote the ending for the SE.

[Frozenpinky]

Originally Posted by Ernest Rister

Well, then the entire ending of the Special Edition makes no sense.

Roy walks up ramp.
Walks into empty room.
Roof lifts off empty room.
Pinocchio theme hammers on the soundtrack.
Roy looks up, breathing heavy, as if ready for something about to happen.
Glowing dust rains down on Roy, complete with magical harp music.
Alien walks out of empty room where Roy was standing. Roy never seen again.

Pardon me for being obtuse, but usually when a filmmaker goes to incredible lengths to reference another movie in a rather overt fashion, if said movie ends with someone being transformed from one form into another, and the filmmaker is referencing that movie like crazy, and then shows fairy dust raining down on the lead character, and then a new figure walks out of a formerly empty room while there is no explanation as to what happened to the lead character...well...

If the suggestion of Roy's transformation into an alien wasn't intended, then the shot selection for the ending of Close Encounters: SE is one of the most astounding incompetent accidents in all of film history.

Personally, I give Spielberg a little more credit than that. Why he feels he needs to back away from what he shot for the SE is his own business, but incompetent he is not. He is one of the most brilliant film directors who ever lived. But I think he knew exactly what he was doing when he staged, planned, and wrote the ending for the SE.

Interesting...

I will watch that version later. I'm in the middle of the Directors Cut now...

[ts0323]

I watched the SE ending, but I didn't get that out of it AT ALL.

[Ernest Rister]

Originally Posted by ts0323

I watched the SE ending, but I didn't get that out of it AT ALL.

Watch it again. Maybe watch Pinocchio beforehand.

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by Ernest Rister

Watch it again. Maybe watch Pinocchio beforehand.

I know it by heart, and all...ALL...the Williams/Spielberg/Pinocchio connection was "When You Wish Upon A Star"...The song, not the movie. With Spielberg nudging us "get it??" several times in the film.
We have Roy's wish to see a UFO, and they came from the stars, and his wish came true: He got to have the same trip in the ship as all those abducted pilots years ago (presumably, as these are friendly, minus the anal probing). PERIOD.

I don't remember an alien in an empty room, I remember one or two coming in to lead him off to see the rest of the ship, but it's been a while since I've seen the SE. (Too many scenes of the whiny kids.)
Don't think I've seen the DC, but I assume that one keeps the tanker in the desert, but leaves out Columbia's Folly?

I'm not sure I buy this whole idea that the SE was not precisely what Spielberg wanted to show at the time -- Columbia forced Spielberg to show the inside of the mother ship in order to fund a re-cut of the film with a couple of new shots?

Yyyyep--Welcome to 1980, where movies only played theaters or TV, and (apart from an extended DC reissue of American Graffiti a few years before), Director's Cuts were virtually unknown to American culture.
You could reissue a film if it was free, but if you were going to spend studio money re-editing a film, you had to have a marquee hook that paid the bills, and the hook was usually a pay-to-peek at Scenes Nobody's Ever Seen Before.
And as far as "new footage" went, there was only ONE thing you could promise audiences if you wanted them to go back to see CE3K again, especially with VCR's soon on the horizon. No. Freakin'. Brainer

[Ernest Rister]

Originally Posted by EricJ

I know it by heart, and all...ALL...the Williams/Spielberg/Pinocchio connection was "When You Wish Upon A Star"...The song, not the movie.

Then why is there a Pinocchio music figurine on Roy's work desk, if the movie only references the song? Why does Roy - in the same scene - implore the family to go see the MOVIE Pinocchio instead of playing Goofy Golf, if Spielberg is only referencing THE SONG? You know the movie by heart and you forget the first extended scene with Roy and the whole family is a debate about going to see Pinocchio?

Why does the Pinocchio figurine turn up later when Roy has finished his sculpture? Roy pulls up a newspaper, and there it is. I've said it before, I'll say it again. If any filmmaker defines the term "blatant subtlety", it's Spielberg.

CE3K beats you about the head with Walt Disney's Pinocchio, the film and the signature song. It has often been said that Spielberg's films are about other films. CE3K definitely has Disney's Pinocchio on the brain.

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by Ernest Rister

Then why is there a Pinocchio music figurine on Roy's work desk, if the movie only references the song? Why does Roy - in the same scene - implore the family to go see the MOVIE Pinocchio instead of playing Goofy Golf, if Spielberg is only referencing THE SONG? You know the movie by heart and you forget the first extended scene with Roy and the whole family is a debate about going to see Pinocchio?

(Well, the only other thing they mention about the movie BESIDES the song is Monstro the Whale; is that foreshadowing anything? )

Why does the Pinocchio figurine turn up later when Roy has finished his sculpture? Roy pulls up a newspaper, and there it is.

And it's a music box! And it's playing...aww, but you'll never guess!...

CE3K beats you about the head with Walt Disney's Pinocchio, the film and the signature song. It has often been said that Spielberg's films are about other films. CE3K definitely has Disney's Pinocchio on the brain.

That's 70's Spielberg fer ya. Oh, and the TV's showing "Ten Commandments", too.

[Ernest Rister]

Which makes sense, since the idea of extra-terrestrials was fast becoming a quasi-religion in the 70's. And both The Ten Commandments and Pinocchio feature divine intervention and salvation, and in the case of the lead characters, transformation.

[Frozenpinky]

So maybe the SPECIAL EDITION was aimed and edited to showcase the Roy alien transformation/Pinocchio transformation, while the DIRECOTRS CUT was edited to kind of guide the film away from that/those references?

Is it possible that there was two potential ways Spielberg wanted to go?

[Ernest Rister]

Originally Posted by Frozenpinky

So maybe the SPECIAL EDITION was aimed and edited to showcase the Roy alien transformation/Pinocchio transformation, while the DIRECOTRS CUT was edited to kind of guide the film away from that/those references?

Is it possible that there was two potential ways Spielberg wanted to go?

/\
That's my take.

[Frozenpinky]

Originally Posted by Ernest Rister

/\
That's my take.

I'll have to watch the SPECIAL EDITION another day, as I ran out of time tonight.

I just couldnt believe the Blu-ray was $11.99 at Amazon this week. That's an amazing price for three versions of the film with awesome packaging and a thick well printed booklet

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by Ernest Rister

Which makes sense, since the idea of extra-terrestrials was fast becoming a quasi-religion in the 70's. And both The Ten Commandments and Pinocchio feature divine intervention and salvation, and in the case of the lead characters, transformation.

No. No, no, NO. Stop it.

(I was making a joke about Spielberg pasting in all his favorite lil' sentimental geek-references in ALL his films, and you know it. You have to. You can't be that weird, even with the whole "80's Fantasia" thing.)

Originally Posted by Frozenpinky

So maybe the SPECIAL EDITION was aimed and edited to showcase the Roy alien transformation/Pinocchio (stop it!!), while the DIRECOTRS CUT was edited to kind of guide the film away from that/those references?
Is it possible that there was two potential ways Spielberg wanted to go?

Yes: His way, or Columbia's way.
Now, it's just possible that, being a director to gamely stretch himself to try and make the best of a contractual situation (qv. Indy IV), he might have said, "Okay, so what would an interior scene look like?", and try to come up with an idea that would have fulfilled his studio duties--Hey, it sounded like a good idea on paper to the rest of us at the time, too.
As it happens, he didn't have too many ideas, and kept it in character for the movie's emphasis on Roy, but it was a good stab at an effort.

[Ernest Rister]

Originally Posted by EricJ

No. No, no, NO. Stop it.

(I was making a joke about Spielberg pasting in all his favorite lil' sentimental geek-references in ALL his films, and you know it. You have to. You can't be that weird, even with the whole "80's Fantasia" thing.)

Weird? This from the man who called Steven Spielberg a "wigger" because Spielberg adopted children of african descent?

Spielberg riddles his films with references to other films. But to my "weird" mind, never without purpose. Most times, I think he assumes we're all in on the joke (see the noir references in Minority Report or the David Lean nods in Empire of the Sun or the De Sica and Reed nods in Schindler's List, or the Ford homage in E.T. or the Hitchcock nod in Jaws, etc etc etc).

[PeterTHX]

Spielberg added the alien ship interior to get the extra money to finish what he really wanted to finish. I don't look for special meaning in any of it, and that's why it's so easily deleted in the Director's Edition.

I came here to say I prefer the Director's version, save one change: the scene where Roy, Jillian, and Barry on the road first see the ships whip past them and the old man goes "They can fly rings around the moon, but we're years ahead of them on the highway." That is cut for some reason. For me, a great line in a great film was lost.

[Ernest Rister]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

Spielberg added the alien ship interior to get the extra money to finish what he really wanted to finish. I don't look for special meaning in any of it, and that's why it's so easily deleted in the Director's Edition.

I came here to say I prefer the Director's version, save one change: the scene where Roy, Jillian, and Barry on the road first see the ships whip past them and the old man goes "They can fly rings around the moon, but we're years ahead of them on the highway." That is cut for some reason. For me, a great line in a great film was lost.

I'm not debating why he added the scene. Far more interesting to me is *what* he added.

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Ernest Rister

I'm not debating why he added the scene. Far more interesting to me is *what* he added.

I think he just added whatever to satisfy the studio and concentrated on the other stuff, like the Cotopaxi discovery.

[Ernest Rister]

Doesn't it seem odd, though, that in order to get something as basic as extra time in the editing bay and including the brief Cotapaxi scene, the trade off was an extremely expensive sequence requiring extensive f/x work and extensive sound and scoring...I don't know, fellas. I'm just not sure I buy the story.

Bless Spielberg, he's been known to tell conflicting stories about his films before -- Roger Ebert claims Spielberg told him he agreed to shoot JAWS on the condition that he would be allowed to not show the shark for the first hour of the movie, but anyone who knows the production history of JAWS can tell you the truth is a bit different. The shark was broken, Spielberg had to find ways to shoot without it.

Which version is true? Both? Who knows...

That's why I don't want to get into a debate about why the SE footage was shot (no one here is going to be able to answer it). It is far more interesting for me to hear people respond to what was actually shot.

[KubrickFan]

Spielberg never wanted to shoot inside the spacship, it was only added because he wanted to shoot additional stuff he never got around to, and the studio only wanted to give him the money when he took the viewers inside the spaceship. Spielberg did so begrudgingly, and was even more horrified when he found out that people made the assumption that Neary somehow turned into the alien. That's why it (thankfully) was removed in his final version of the movie.
This theory to me sounds as ludicrous as the ones that C-3PO and R2-D2 are secret agents, or that Ferris Bueller is a figment of Cameron's imagination.

[Ernest Rister]

Originally Posted by KubrickFan

Spielberg did so begrudgingly, and was even more horrified when he found out that people made the assumption that Neary somehow turned into the alien.

Source?