21:31 I think the reason for that is because the ETs wish to impart Esoteric Knowledge upon those individuals. They had gone about these "Abductions" of their own accord, until they were actually able to make a contact with actual secret divisions within the US Govt. The idea seems to be how does such a seriously Advanced Race of Intelligent "Alien" beings make full on "contact" with a technologically inferior race? Just look at how Humans who have entered places like the Amazon Jungle have tried to make contact with Ancient Tribes-people who have not changed for like hundreds of years. They see the group, with their flying machines in the sky, and some come down to greet them on other side of a river, and it's gone very badly for both sides. So i think the ETs in this Film, are so far beyond Humans, both spiritually and technologically, that they cant just show up at the UN, or the White House. No average person can show up at the White House and seek a audience with the President, without first being thoroughly checked, and just deemed a threat to national security first. Now think of that scenario, only with Alien beings from another planet out in space, who are highly advanced. In such a scenario, the US Govt, Military are powerful in comparison, but America always want to "Shoot first and ask questions later". So i think this is where this whole idea of a top secret "meeting" between the two is established. The ETs psychically communicate with those specific Individuals because they have invited them, for life-changing reasons. I think in the case of the child, it's that missunderstanding, that they are indeed "Alien". They're simply not going to just land their Saucer Craft out on the Field, get out and walk upto that Mother's house, knock on the door and ask - "can we borrow your child for a short time please, we have very important knowledge to impart to him that will help change his life when he gets older, where he will help move the culture forward." lol And so those ETs communicate with the child telepathically, and Spielberg does a masterful job here, of specifically showing us that the child himself does not deem the ETs as a threat; while it's shown to us that the ETs are depicted to appear as threatening in some way. This is the idea i always got from the ETs in this amazing film. They're intentions are Benevolent as they appear to be trying to help Humanity, by selecting certain individuals to come with them, and experience and have a higher knowledge imparted unto them. Then they return them, unharmed, sometimes at much later period of time. It's like, try going to some jungle in another part of the world, living with some tribespeople and then trying to teach them things like Economics, Computer Science or something. It's going to be quite overwhelming for them. And so the ETs in Close Encounters have to handle Humans with kid-gloves so to speak. It would be very interesting in Steven Spielberg followed his classic up with a Sequel all these decades later, where Roy Neary is actually returned to earth, and he hasn't aged a day; but the whole secret ET exchange program from the Govt has long since been declassified and shut down. Maybe the movie could even be quite dark, and show how Neary tries to get in touch with his Family, and his sons, daughter, none of them recognize or want to believe it's him. They just think it's a imposter.

close encounters is an amazing movie. what a stupid takee

I agree not every Spielberg movie is a great film. You mentioned “1941” as a great example of this. But you really missed the mark in saying CE3K is a flawed film. It really isn't, and holds up much better than other iconic films by Spielberg, such as E.T. which is an inferior film in my opinion, and does not hold up compared to CE3k.

@@lestatdelc I completely agree, infact i find Spielberg's later stuff in recent years really has been some of his worst. He really needs to jump back into proper hardcore, thinking person's sci fi. Spielberg should try doing a sequel to CE3K, but make it more personal, like where Roy Neary get's brought back, dropped off at Devil's Tower in our present day, and he doesn't look a day older; make it dark, where he tries to find his Family, his kids who are all grown up and reconcile with them, but they reject him, thinking he's an impostor. It could be a very different, psychological sequel, where though the Roy Neary he's questioning himself whether it was all in his head, thinking he's gone crazy; but we the audience know the truth. And then the film could slowly build up and reveal what's happened with the Alien/ETs and that whole, secret Operation from the first film. I believe Steven Spielberg still has it in him to make such a Film.

Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull is a BADLY directed film. Spielberg clearly was on autopilot doing that movie and wasn’t interested in the story at all

An absolutely brilliant comment. That’s exactly what I felt, I wasn’t too impressed with Star Wars, it was good but Close Encounters was the best. ‘I want to believe’ but I think it’s probably unlikely.

@@stephenbarrette610 WHY is it probably unlikely? The *Truth* could be much deeper and darker than you realize. What if certain World Leaders had been taken to actually meet with Extra-terrestrial Beings? What if they had been warned that Man's messing around with the "splitting of the atom" was dangerous and such ETs had not intended for such esoteric knowledge to be deciphered and used in such a way? What if there was a governing body, a "organization" that acted of it's own accord, above any "President", and could not be prosecuted by the law?

That is exactly why, as a seven-year-old, I loved the adventure of Star Wars, but Close Encounters scared the crap out of me. I wanted to hang out with Jedi and hot princesses, not get taken from my family by all-too-plausible aliens!

Yes Cary Guffey was amazing and in that iconic scene when he smiles at ‘an alien’ it was someone dressed in a a tiger costume who jumped out on set I think. A real piece of cinema history. Just a wonderful film I have adored for 40 odd years.

They did! Like when the day Roy Neary and his Wife are having a fight, the kids get upset, that whole scene, with them crying was extremely REAL.

@@RaikenXion And the mashed potato being shaped in Devils Tower.

​@@stephenbarrette610there's a dead fly in my mashed potatoes"

@@stephenbarrette610 Yes that whole scene was really good.

McQueen was a serious tough guy. Playing Neary would be really be out of his comfort zone. And no one does manic as well as Dreyfuss.

Glad you got to see Devils Tower. My Dad and I (from Australia) travelled on a US road trip 8 years ago and I nominated Devils Tower on our travel itinerary from seeing it in Close Encounters as an 80's kid. I'm still very glad we visited it. It's impressive as a geological structure, and it does indeed have a kind of 'not of this world' feel to it.

So true. Everything is possible now with cgi. Great time to be a kid

I just find it amazing that 2 such historically groundbreaking sci-fi blockbusters came out on the same year. What a year it was!

❤ ❤

Hollywood science fiction is so either obsessed with making everything and everyone a cartoonish, comic book character come to life or trying to plumb the depths of the human soul through misery and betrayal...it's so rare to see a movie that's just grounded, authentic, made with a keen observational eye about ordinary people. Hollywood stopped making movies about regular folks a long time ago and, in some ways, I feel like it's made audiences forget how to read ordinary people characters in grand scale films like this.

@@SPVFilmsLtd Well put, I concur.

I was born a few years after the film was released. I've seen it countless times though, including once in the theatre. I don't see how it's disjointed either.

Me too. I was 17. I had just been wowed by Star Wars. This movie wowed me all the same. I didn't find the movie boring or disjointed. It made perfect sense to me and it sort of answered all of the UFO curiosities we had back then. I gues you had to have been there when it first came out.

Its not disjointed. Its stuff that happens. Not everything needs a perfect answer. Some of those questions could be answered by the aliens playing all their cards for the best possible outcome.

Agree. It ties together well. Neary is given a vision which is so overpowering it takes over his life. This is similar to how people who are into stuff like UFOs can become, totally obsessed and single-minded about something. It is never boring, I'm not sure which bit he was bored by!

You can’t front on that. What a mother.

Certain films and TV shows when done right can come off as being a story that started being told midway through and ends just as it started. Hints of its past that leads up to what we're watching on screen and then leaves with hints of the future story left to interpretation. Recent shows that have been canceled after one season come to mind. The show Humans that came out on the BBC a few years ago always come to mind.

Dude! That sounds so cool!

Totally agree, a brilliant director like Spielberg.

William Wyler. Coppola. This author doesn't know enough about past Hollywood. Like most of today's people, he only knows about what he's lived through.

@@jgrab1 Well first off, William Goldman died in November 2018, if you are referring to him. And he won two Academy Awards for his scripts and had been involved in the movie industry since the 1950s. And William Wyler and Francis Ford Coppola are / were great directors. Personally Kubrick is my favourite.

Robert Wise was a great storyteller. Spielberg is a great filmmaker and storyteller.

@@Stonecutter334 I totally agree.

Exactly. There can be no real plot because we have no definite answers about UFO's. As I said below I find it odd he has no grasp of the film.

Is that a complaint that people have? I wonder how they would react to 2001: A Space Odyssey?

Es moy Bueno!

Yeah, the ending of the movie didn't - and still doesn't - work for me, for that reason.

There was a spoof that came out called Closet Cases of the Nerd Kind not long after the movie.