Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

I was six years old when this had its theatrical release. I saw it at the cinema with my parents and sister, and even though I was young, the experience made its mark on my imagination.

Earlier that year, Star Wars worked its magic on me, though these were two very different types of sci-fi. Star Wars was a swashbuckling space fantasy full of laser swords, dogfights, and mythic heroes. Close Encounters felt like it was happening in the world I actually lived in. It was the first “aliens-might-be-real” movie I remember seeing.

Spielberg didn’t set his story in a galaxy far, far away. This was set in Indiana and Wyoming, with suburban living rooms with toys scattered on the floor and parents arguing about the minutiae of daily life. The UFOs felt like something that could appear over my own neighborhood.

Close Encounters was a modern take on 1950s flying saucer movies like The War of the Worlds (1953), It Came from Outer Space (1953), and The Quatermass Xperiment (1955). Those were before my time, but when the VHS explosion hit in the 80s, I discovered them on my own and devoured them. They were fun, sometimes eerie, sometimes campy, and nearly always filled with Cold War anxieties. Aliens in those stories were typically invaders, threats, or inscrutable forces.

Close Encounters broke from that tradition. While it was technically a flying saucer movie, its premise was radically different. The aliens were benevolent. They weren’t here to conquer or destroy. They were reaching out, trying to communicate. That transition from fear to curiosity, from paranoia to wonder, gave the film an uncommon feel. The iconic five-note musical tones, the colorful light displays, and the final encounter at Devil’s Tower all felt like an optimistic yearning infused with inquisitiveness and awe. It suggested that the universe might be mysterious and vast without being hostile and cold. It made me look up at the night sky and imagine what other forms of life might be out there among the stars.

It is interesting from my perspective now, all these years later, to reflect on how the old tropes of invasion and fear reasserted themselves in the genre, how the third kind of encounter became alien abduction, being taken against your will, poked, prodded, experimented on and then carelessly abandoned to muddle your way through the trauma in the aftermath. There are exceptions. Villeneuve’s Arrival (2016) being the first that comes to mind. But for the most part, hostile aliens became the norm again.

Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy a good sci-fi horror. Alien (1979) is on my top ten favorite movies of all time list. And honestly, Close Encounters is perhaps a bit naive. If an advanced species of beings came to visit, they would probably squash us like bugs. That’s my more cynical side talking. Yet, somewhere in there is still the little boy that hopes maybe there would be a less hostile kind of disclosure event. I can trace that back, in part, to Spielberg’s vision.