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Close Encounters of the Third Kind Reaction! (Patreon)

Published:
2025-05-11 16:13:51
Imported:
2026-06
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Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

Full Reaction You can either stream the Full reaction below using the embedded video player, otherwise you can click the 'Download' button which will take you directly to Google Drive, enabling you to save the video to your computer instead. You must provide your own footage to watch alongside the full reactions.

Comments

Dave Hampton

I knew you would not love that Roy got on the ship and essentially left his family behind. I think I remember, and I see Ryan has already commented which makes me think I remember correctly that Spielberg said after being a father he would not have gone that direction with the film. Maybe they can manipulate time like the TARDIS so he won't be gone long but it seems unlikely as the people taken 30 years prior are just coming home (unaged due to relativity, but their families aged of course). I did not see this in theaters but remember seeing it on TV as a young kid and some of the scenes were quite scary at that age. As an adult I am FASCINATED by the subject of UFO's (now called UAP's). I have never seen one, but I used to investigate sightings for MUFON as a volunteer. I have researched the subject a lot and currently follow all the hearings going on in congress of witnesses and whistleblowers. What I see on the news (even some "mainstream" news) and in those hearings it astounds me that this does not get more attention today. I know (99% sure) that you are not very interested in the topic, but it was fun to see your reaction to this film. It touches on some interesting things that seem to be true, but it seems if the phenomenon is real (and to me it seems to be as real as anything I have not personally experienced), it is actually much more complicated and interesting. Spielberg is making a new movie that I heard has been retitled "DISCLOSURE" (not confirmed I believe) from what he was calling it. I think it is about the stuff I mentioned in the last paragraph. It would be fun to see you reaction to that when it comes out. Thanks for watching and reacting to this one Jess. A link to the wiki on the new Spielberg film I mentioned. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untitled_Steven_Spielberg_film

Thomas Corp

Rather like that you went into this one relatively blind, Jess. Hope you received favorable word about the surgery that you mentioned. Now to the movie. Like Rocky last month, this one doesn’t quite make my top ten of the year, though it is close to it. Steven Spielberg sure is a man who knows how to make a very impressive film. Particularly when it comes to suspense, which I like how you greatly appreciated that. He did the damn thing, as you tipped your hat to him. This not quite being what was expected is a shared experience. I think this is perhaps the first major alien movie that ends with the aliens being confirmed(?) to not be threatening. It’s nicely ambiguous in that respect and it could have gone either way. The tone aimed for is hopeful, and like yourself, I have reservations on that, and I like it better thinking of it being deliberately vague. Our primary viewpoint character is Roy. Richard Dreyfuss brings his skill and likeability (This being years before he tanked his reputation.) to the role. We had the assessment regarding him going loopy. You were kinder to him than I was. Helping the somewhat lack of kindness is that Ronnie is played by Teri Garr. Still reeling from her death back in October. I was saddened to hear about that. Though she doesn’t have the strongest, or at least most nuanced role, Teri still shines very brightly in this as she always did. Love how you gave her the shout out of bringing up therapy. Our patience reaches the limit with the dirt throwing scene. You looked like you’d have committed murder at that one, frankly, I’d endorse your stance on that. Clearly the neighborhood reaches the consensus view that Roy’s cheese has slid off his cracker more than that time when he tried to put Bob through Death Therapy. (It’s a guaranteed cure.) Ronnie can only take so much, and it reaches a point she gets her own clear vision, which reads, “S-said, said a give. Give him a sedagive!” Alas, she seems to be short on those, though she gets the kids in the car and leaves. Good for her. We raise a glass to her in solidarity. And she has a bright future ahead of her, particularly when she’s responsible for creating the very successful commercial for Schooner Tuna, the tuna with a heart! (Cue the Patton theme.) Sort of figured you’d be on Ronnie’s side on this one, or at least, like you said, you don’t blame her not one bit for just taking the kids and vamoosing. You do have the great empathy for Roy in that yeah, he is something of a victim himself, but when he’s that far gone, Ronnie’s easily got every right to do what she did. And her call ended up being dead on the money, more on that in a second. Jillian, your heart goes out to her. Melinda Dillon does so well. Loved your concern throughout the whole plotline with her. Nice that she and Barry are reunited. Barry doth cause the stress levels to rise when staring out the window with the enraptured look on his face. Could have used far more of the underrated Bob Balaban and the legendary François Truffaut. You clocked the visions that Roy and Jillian were getting. You kept asking was the image going to come into play or just drive people cuckoo for cocoa puffs, and I kept saying, “...Yes?” I felt bad during the period of the film where it looked like all the animals were killed. They do, as you saw, clarify that the animals were simply knocked out, so that was good to see that ended up being a mild relief to you. All the praise in the world to Douglas Trumbull for the visuals. Bringing us to John Williams. He has a rather sparse score for this being one of Spielberg’s blockbusters/crowd pleasers. It’s still John though, and those five notes have entered into legend. Love his use of the dies iræ as he often favors that motif, here well used in some of the tenser scenes in this. The score is popular in John’s concerts as evidenced by its inclusion in the Boston Pops albums, and he had a great arrangement with his magisterial concert with the Vienna Philharmonic five years ago. The score was nominated for the Oscar. And he lost. To himself. The only time he’s ever lost to himself, and he lost for this because there was another little sci-fi film that year called Star Wars, and, well, I mean, the win speaks for itself. Still a mild shame that he didn’t win for this, nor was he nominated for the underrated and underseen film Black Sunday which also came out in 1977. But the victory of Star Wars, again, can’t argue that one, at all. And combined with his win for Jaws two years prior, it REALLY launched John’s career to the heights that it’s reached. You dancing to John’s music in the big light show was great. It was serving sound from Fantasia vibes, like you said. See you caught the little Jaws snippet in all that. The whole sequence is terrific. LOVE the low brass. Now concerning your read on the ending. You spoke of not thinking yourself a pessimist. I consider you a cautious realist, Jess. I hear what you were saying, and yes, the ending could have been Twilight Zone, Black Mirror, and maybe it was. Again, the vagueness of it, lack of concrete information in certain respects, that kind of improves the film if you question the supposedly happy ending. One thing for sure, the ending makes it impossible to like Roy anymore. Yes, I do believe Roy more or less just said, “Fuck my wife and kids.” at the end, and left with the aliens. Oh, what an inspiring happy ending that is! Yeah, the assessment made today is that in doing that, it saps Roy of what was left of audience sympathy. Spielberg himself agrees with this anymore, as I see that Ryan and Dave have made note of as well. Spielberg attributes Roy’s storyline ending as it did to the fact that this is before he became a father himself as this was years before he had his son with Amy Irving, and before he had his kids with Kate Capshaw. He’s gone on record saying that were he a dad back then, he never would have ended Roy’s story as he did back then. Or I would argue that if it was going to end that way, you’d be more overtly critical of the character of Roy. I loved all your thoughts on the ending, and this reaction was terrific. Other highlights: You asked about the sunburns. Honestly, fair question of how Roy’s sunburned face doesn’t hurt like hell. As someone who’s bald on top, that gets sunburned like how Roy’s face was, your scalp feels like it’s made of leather. And it was rather sweet how you were advocating caution with taking kids to see Pinocchio as you say it’s traumatizing and scarring as SHIT. Which, of course, it is. Then again, I was like the only kid in preschool who wasn’t horribly traumatized by Large Marge in Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, plus the scarier and traumatizing parts of Disney films never quite disturbed me much, so, you know, I’m not one to talk. The Disney Villain deaths did traumatize some; those were the parts that made the biggest impressions on the psyche. The one in Tarzan standing out the most where you outright ask, “What the HELL, movie!?” Again, a great reaction, Jess, thank you.

Ryan
>>173750971

Really, you'd think Ronnie would be a bit more into this after all her very interesting adventures with Gary Seven. I'm currently filling all the gaps in the Best Pictures I've seen, and because of the way my autism works, I decided to chart out who did the scores for each one and came to the shocking discovery that Williams only has one, Schindler's List. Meanwhile, the record is a three way tie between Max Steiner, Hans Zimmer, and Howard Shore with four each. It seems nuts that a movie so much about music could lose it (I'm fully expecting Ludwig Goransson to take it for Sinners next year for this reason) but everything about Star Wars is just that good. Unless you're a romantic comedy by a sex monster, I guess. There really was a rerelease of Pinocchio at this time, which even got Siskel and Ebert to do a review of it, and it's pretty neat to see them take their style to something that old. Though for proper context, the Disney animated film that's currently the same age is Oliver and Company. As a child of the '80s, I've always just laughed when people get worried about these movies being too much for kids to handle. We had Littlefoot's mom!