The Marvel Comics adaptation of the movie. It stayed quite faithful to the script.
It took until 2021 for me to watch through the whole of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977) - and for the first time. (It was on Netflix). This was the original, shorter edition.
The graphic novel (by Walt Simonson and Klaus Janson) took a semi-abstract, quite artful approach to depicting the weirdness of UFO encounters. (Artwork (C) Marvel Comics)
Oddly enough, I had owned and read the graphic novel version of the movie as a kid (a very good one, drawn by Walt Simonson and Klaus Janson)... but why hadn't I seen the movie until much later...?
What struck me while watching the movie:
- Did Spielberg peak so early? This 1977 movie has drop-dead gorgeous cinematography - it looks better than, say, JURASSIC PARK. (Or am I being unfair?)
- The simplistic plot is about pilgrimage - a kind of secular "Hadj" for frustrated middle-class Baby Boomer Americans in the 70s. The broken promises of the hippie era briefly come to life in the psychedelic lightshow of UFOs and benevolent aliens. Essentially it's a religious story.
- The best part is following the protagonist Roy Neary's progression - starting as a normal guy, a dreamer but a conformist. He has a mystical experience that turns his life upside down, and grows increasingly removed from "polite society." (Imagine an alternate version where there were no aliens - it was all in his mind, and he ends up committed...)
- There's a huge narrative "thud" in the finale, once the aliens have actually shown themselves in person. The movie stops dead. It's as if the script doesn't know what to do with them, apart from a few vague gestures. I was disappointed.
- What happened to Roy Neary's family after he left them to seek out the aliens? He had kids. Did they miss him? Were they traumatized? We can't know, because they conveniently disappear from the story and are never heard from again. (I can't blame his wife for thinking he's gone mad, but she's rather cruelly depicted as a narrow-minded dittohead.)
- What are the French doing in this story? France is implicated in a large, secret organized effort to track aliens and receive them, but this is never explained. (Fine. A bit of mystery never hurt a story.)
- John Williams, you wily rascal - you sneaked a few chords of your own JAWS theme into the alien "musical speech" during the finale…
- In retrospect, the movie highlights the religious aspect of UFO “belief” - and I must say it’s an aspect that I have never really shared. I am interested in the topic both as science fiction speculation, and as a quite real (but as yet unresolved) possibility…
But: To me, aliens are not and will never be some kind of “replacement angels” that will sweep down and solve all our problems. Whatever exists out there is simply life, more or less distinct from life on Earth - with its own challenges and possibilities, existing for its own sake, not to serve our wishes or fears.
(See also my novel ALIEN BEACH, and the story “Message From a Cage” in my book A MAN CALLED MISTER BROWN.)
Watch the movie - and keep watching the skies…