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Post by Nora on Sept 3, 2017 22:30:01 GMT
I just saw the movie for the first time in the cinema. I saw it before on TV, when I was a teenager and found it somewhat boring or too long for my taste then. This time I really loved it. Made me cry and all. The acting there, the effects, just astounding.
But I wanted to know how other people view a particular aspect of the film:
1. Did you perceive Roy and Ronnie's marriage as troubled before he saw the UFO? Or even deeply troubled?
2. Did you have a problem feeling happy (or whatever positive) or understand Roy volunteering to go with the aliens and by that abandoning his 3 kids? F the wife, but the kids seemed to have been really into him.
Was he supposed to come across as a selfish person or were we supposed to see it as him doing something "bigger" for humanity? But that wouldn't make sense since there were other humans ready to go. So I wonder, how did you understand it?
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Post by politicidal on Sept 3, 2017 23:21:45 GMT
I got the indication that his marriage was simply ordinary with its ups and downs, to hammer home that Roy is the every-man of the story. It was upsetting to see his wife take the kids but it seemed to be the price he had to pay. Funny enough, Spielberg himself later said he wouldn't have had this happen.
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Post by Nora on Sept 4, 2017 1:00:12 GMT
I got the indication that his marriage was simply ordinary with its ups and downs, to hammer home that Roy is the every-man of the story. It was upsetting to see his wife take the kids but it seemed to be the price he had to pay. Funny enough, Spielberg himself later said he wouldn't have had this happen.what do you mean by that? Why would it be in the movie if he didnt want that (since he wrote and directed it…) |
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Post by politicidal on Sept 4, 2017 1:03:02 GMT
I got the indication that his marriage was simply ordinary with its ups and downs, to hammer home that Roy is the every-man of the story. It was upsetting to see his wife take the kids but it seemed to be the price he had to pay. Funny enough, Spielberg himself later said he wouldn't have had this happen.what do you mean by that? Why would it be in the movie if he didnt want that (since he wrote and directed it…) I dunno but he had this to say about it twelve years ago: Speilberg has said in recent years that Close Encounters couldn’t have been made later in his career. He said during his filming of War of the Worlds, “Today, I would never have the guy leaving his family to go on the mother ship. I would have the guy doing everything he could to protect his children.” Read more at Film School Rejects: filmschoolrejects.com/richard-dreyfuss-life-spielberg/#ixzz4rgAYTQQP |
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Post by Nora on Sept 4, 2017 1:10:29 GMT
what do you mean by that? Why would it be in the movie if he didnt want that (since he wrote and directed it…) I dunno but he had this to say about it twelve years ago: Speilberg has said in recent years that Close Encounters couldn’t have been made later in his career. He said during his filming of War of the Worlds, “Today, I would never have the guy leaving his family to go on the mother ship. I would have the guy doing everything he could to protect his children.” Read more at Film School Rejects: filmschoolrejects.com/richard-dreyfuss-life-spielberg/#ixzz4rgAYTQQPoh i see. he didn't have children himself at that point, so he probably didn't realize how strong of a bond that is and how insanely difficult it would have to be for a (decent father/man, which Roy did seem to be) to leave them behind like this. I am glad to read this. because that was the Only thing I had a major problem with. I would have wanted to see him care less about the kids or the kids about them (but the boy crying when he was building his mash potato tower was not only heart breaking but showed that they did have a loving relationship before), or show much more of a struggle. Or be just married without the kids. This way it felt out of character for him to leave without as much as a blink. Even when he was saying good buy to Juliane she said " i am not ready yet" and he was like "a lright, but i am, gotta go, see ya . not even a hesitation or " please tell my kids i love them". Maybe that, one line like that, would have made it better for me. that is, ladies and gentlemen, how you fuck up three people for (probably) the rest of their lives… |
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Post by Primemovermithrax Pejorative on Sept 4, 2017 2:11:57 GMT
The movie has problems. Consider all those people kidnapped by aliens who have been returned decades later to find their families long gone.
They clearly do not appear enlightened--they look bewildered as they leave the ship.
Roy's family is a nightmare!
I think his marriage was in trouble beforehand. He couldnt handle it--his wife and him were completely wrong for each other.
But I think the aliens didnt do his marriage any favors.
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Post by Nora on Sept 4, 2017 2:17:52 GMT
The movie has problems. Consider all those people kidnapped by aliens who have been returned decades later to find their families long gone. They clearly do not appear enlightened--they look bewildered as they leave the ship. Roy's family is a nightmare! I think his marriage was in trouble beforehand. He couldnt handle it--his wife and him were completely wrong for each other. But I think the aliens didnt do his marriage any favors. interesting. i didn't mind the people returning to earth decades later, to me they were all abducted (didn't go voluntarily like Roy). Was I wrong? Were they chosen to go? Then yes, that would be off-putting. Well thats what I am wondering about. Were they wrong for each other and was their marriage in trouble? I actually kinda liked their banter and chemistry and thought it was quite playful. But even if you forget the wife and (potentially) broken marriage, to me the problem (as in inconsistency) is that Roy who in my eyes was a loving father would so easily chose to leave the kids. a lot of my friends say the movie is boring. I don't get that at all, to me it was pretty suspenseful and certainly entertaining. |
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Post by Primemovermithrax Pejorative on Sept 4, 2017 2:38:41 GMT
interesting. i didn't mind the people returning to earth decades later, to me they were all abducted (didn't go voluntarily like Roy). Was I wrong? Were they chosen to go? Then yes, that would be off-putting. Well thats what I am wondering about. Were they wrong for each other and was their marriage in trouble? I actually kinda liked their banter and chemistry and thought it was quite playful. But even if you forget the wife and (potentially) broken marriage, to me the problem (as in inconsistency) is that Roy who in my eyes was a loving father would so easily chose to leave the kids. a lot of my friends say the movie is boring. I don't get that at all, to me it was pretty suspenseful and certainly entertaining. The pilots look bewildered like they don't know what was happening-and there's a 1950s-dressed housewife who seems to be searching for someone. Did she leave willingly? They did call them alien abductions one can theorize though--if Roy had a bad marriage then maybe the aliens only abducted people who had crummy lives-but the pilots scene might dispute that--they had girlfriends judging from the pictures on the plane. Maybe they had an ok marriage before kids--but you can tell they had different viewpoints because she was worried what the neighbors would think while he didnt care. I think the best scene is when he is in the house making the mud mountain and looks outside and realizes he has really lost his marbles. lol |
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Post by Nora on Sept 4, 2017 2:45:27 GMT
I think the best scene is when he is in the house making the mud mountain and looks outside and realizes he has really lost his marbles. lol to me the best scene was the mashed potatoe s scene or the Pinocchio scene. Dreyfus did a great job. I read he had to talk Spielberg into casting him and that Steve McQueen turned the part down because he couldn't cry on cue. Would have been interesting to see Steve McQueen do this role but Dreyfus did great. |
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Post by Primemovermithrax Pejorative on Sept 4, 2017 3:01:19 GMT
Really? Steve McQueen?
Hmm would have been interesting for sure.
Mashed potatoes!
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Post by Nora on Sept 4, 2017 3:05:50 GMT
Really? Steve McQueen? Hmm would have been interesting for sure. Mashed potatoes! maybe it was one giant genetically engineered potato they were all sharing…  |
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Post by lenlenlen1 on Sept 9, 2017 19:14:45 GMT
I just saw the movie for the first time in the cinema. I saw it before on TV, when I was a teenager and found it somewhat boring or too long for my taste then. This time I really loved it. Made me cry and all. The acting there, the effects, just astounding. But I wanted to know how other people view a particular aspect of the film: 1. Did you perceive Roy and Ronnie's marriage as troubled before he saw the UFO? Or even deeply troubled? 2. Did you have a problem feeling happy (or whatever positive) or understand Roy volunteering to go with the aliens and by that abandoning his 3 kids? F the wife, but the kids seemed to have been really into him. Was he supposed to come across as a selfish person or were we supposed to see it as him doing something "bigger" for humanity? But that wouldn't make sense since there were other humans ready to go. So I wonder, how did you understand it? I've always been on the fence about the issues you bring up too. I don't know if you're supposed to be thinking about the family by the end of the movie though; more about him finally fulfilling his ambition, I guess(?)
Spielberg himself has also gone back and forth about that aspect of the movie. He does say that he was going through a divorce at that time (which would also influence the script of ET) and that the story reflects what he was feeling/going through at the time.
Personally I could see him leaving his wife, after all they weren't getting along anymore, but the kids is another story.
Still, great movie!
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Post by joekiddlouischama on Sept 13, 2017 9:56:53 GMT
I just saw the movie for the first time in the cinema. I saw it before on TV, when I was a teenager and found it somewhat boring or too long for my taste then. This time I really loved it. Made me cry and all. The acting there, the effects, just astounding. But I wanted to know how other people view a particular aspect of the film: 1. Did you perceive Roy and Ronnie's marriage as troubled before he saw the UFO? Or even deeply troubled? 2. Did you have a problem feeling happy (or whatever positive) or understand Roy volunteering to go with the aliens and by that abandoning his 3 kids? F the wife, but the kids seemed to have been really into him. Was he supposed to come across as a selfish person or were we supposed to see it as him doing something "bigger" for humanity? But that wouldn't make sense since there were other humans ready to go. So I wonder, how did you understand it? Do you mean at the end? If so, I frankly missed that part. I viewed Close Encounters of the Third Kind last week, in Extreme Digital. (I had never seen the film before, just a bit here or there on television years ago.) Although some of my thoughts are positive and I plan to see the movie once more next week, I thought that Close Encounters became less intriguing later on, as it sort of dropped its character explorations. Worse, at least in Extreme Digital, the film played way too loudly, especially given how long it happens to be. I will just be seeing it "regular" digital next week, and hopefully there will be some improvement in that regard. I did find Roy's abandonment of his wife and willingness to romantically embrace this other blonde woman (who perhaps serves as a double for his wife) to be surprisingly risqué for this kind of film— Close Encounters strikes me as essentially a children's movie. Nevertheless, for what is essentially a children's movie, the film is surprisingly intense and potentially ironic for quite awhile—one wonders if Close Encounters is using Roy's saga to say something about mental health or mad genius. But once the film reaches Devil's Tower, spectacle takes over and character exploration becomes an afterthought. That said, Close Encounters—which constitutes a compendium of B-movie tropes placed on a spectacular scale, a trademark of Spielberg's early career—is visually impressive and features some memorable compositions and location shots, which is why I want to see the film once more in the theater. Overall, though, I much prefer Spielberg's later alien movie, E.T., which is at once funnier, more tragic, more soulful, more intimate, and more creative. Yet largely because it is visually memorable, I still consider Close Encounters to be "pretty good/good" based on a first viewing. Nora, what parts of Close Encounters did you find especially affecting? Are you referring to certain shots, Roy's meltdown or epiphanies (depending upon one's perspective), the climax, or basically everything? My plot questions pertain to why the aliens abducted those earlier people, what the connection between those people and the kid may be (if there is any), and why the aliens are releasing them all now ... Even if you are just referring to his initial decision to head out to Wyoming, Roy abandoning his kids may be a sign of derangement or telepathic transcendence or a metaphor for frustration with everyday existence. Whatever it is, the film may have been better if it had explored the issue more and carried it all the way through the film. As for his marriage, I do sense that it was troubled before the extraterrestrial events, but it probably did not seem as troubled as it really happened to be. As in a Hitchcock movie, a seemingly irrational episode unearths a lot of internal tumult that had previously been buried. |
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Post by Nora on Sept 13, 2017 18:15:35 GMT
joekiddlouischama - well in the end he goes onto the alien mothership and efffectively leaves not only his wife but also kids. For god knows how long. maybe decades - like the last round of people that seem to have been gone for a few decades. or maybe just weeks, like young Barry, who was returned fairly quickly after the abduction. We simply dont know why any of that happened…  The most powerful moments for me were two (both made me tear up) 1. the mashed potato scene, where he is making the Devil Tower out of his potatoes, and his son is just staring at him, while tears are dripping dow his face. Without words, to me that was such a powerful moment. 2. when the mothership first returns the tune they are playing at it. It tries a few times and fails but then gets it right. The " symbiosis" or "communication channel finally tuned right" felt very intense. I also found it odd that he shared a romantic kiss with Barry's mom. It surprised me and felt a bit out of character/genre. But my biggest problem remains the fact he just left his young kids. I was very glad to read that Spielberg himself wouldn't have made it this way should he make the movie again, later, once he has already had kids…
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Post by Primemovermithrax Pejorative on Sept 13, 2017 18:36:07 GMT
I forgot he kissed the single mother.
For a long time I assumed he was an alien all along-because in the version I knew, he gets hit by a glowing shower and then an alien appears--I assumed he was either an alien or turned into one.
I also read the novel but forgot how they explained the ending.
His kids were presented in an unsympathetic way, unlike Melinda Dillon's child.
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Post by ShadowSouL: Padawan of Yoda on Sept 14, 2017 4:33:51 GMT
As Steve McQueen proved by his words, this movie was too unmanly for him.
While Roy Neary "abandoning" his kids was kind of reflective of Steven Spielberg's earlier perspective (or lack thereof), that in itself does not make the movie not good. Good movies challenge our pre- and post-conceived notions, whether or not they are legitimate, and especially make us uncomfortable.
Unlike Spielberg's "sequel" to Close Encounters of the Third Kind -- E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, which is a cotton-candy confection of a movie -- Close Encounters doesn't wrap everything up neatly in a pretty, bow-tied package that makes us all warm and fuzzy inside. It challenges us with discomfort, making us question whether we agree with what transpired and whether it is right or wrong, acceptable or not acceptable -- it really makes us think and question, all signs of a great, fantastic movie, especially one loaded with visual effects and dealing with this particular subject matter.
By the way, I would consider E.T. a children's movie -- basically about a boy and his alien -- and Close Encounters, while suitable for viewing by children and families, an "adult" movie, especially in terms of the thematic material, as evidenced by the very nature of this discussion thread itself.
Going back to the deadbeat dad thing, Roy Neary actually wanted his family to be part of his quest, but his wife would have none of that and took the kids with her. The kids themselves were not fully on either parent's side -- they really were literally caught in the middle. But Roy didn't just haplessly let them go; he tried to stop them from leaving, but eventually he lost out and moved on with his life. He went on to bigger if not necessarily better things, following his first best destiny, at least from his point of view.
I would never want to see a sequel made to this movie; it's one of those movies that absolutely does not need a sequel and would be soiled by a sequel.
Also, I wouldn't want Spielberg to remake this movie, especially with the perspective and life experience he has gained over the years, because it would be a completely different movie. It would be like George Lucas constantly re-editing and retooling the original trilogy over and over again (Han Solo shoots/doesn't shoot first), which he would still be doing to this day if he hadn't sold Lucasfilm to Disney. Or Gene Roddenberry trying to turn Star Trek into something it wasn't (The Motion Picture), which he did again with The Next Generation until Rick Berman and Michael Piller righted the ship in the third season.
Although I strongly believe there should never be a sequel, I've wondered every now and then, where is Roy Neary in his life and evolution now, 40 years later and in his seventies, if time and age even have any meaning anymore for him? And also, where are his wife and kids? What became of them over the last four decades?
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Post by joekiddlouischama on Sept 14, 2017 5:48:08 GMT
joekiddlouischama - well in the end he goes onto the alien mothership and efffectively leaves not only his wife but also kids. For god knows how long. maybe decades - like the last round of people that seem to have been gone for a few decades. or maybe just weeks, like young Barry, who was returned fairly quickly after the abduction. We simply dont know why any of that happened… The most powerful moments for me were two (both made me tear up) 1. the mashed potato scene, where he is making the Devil Tower out of his potatoes, and his son is just staring at him, while tears are dripping dow his face. Without words, to me that was such a powerful moment. 2. when the mothership first returns the tune they are playing at it. It tries a few times and fails but then gets it right. The " symbiosis" or "communication channel finally tuned right" felt very intense. I also found it odd that he shared a romantic kiss with Barry's mom. It surprised me and felt a bit out of character/genre. But my biggest problem remains the fact he just left his young kids. I was very glad to read that Spielberg himself wouldn't have made it this way should he make the movie again, later, once he has already had kids… ... good connection; I had not made it. Did you understand at the time of that scene that he was making Devil's Tower with his mashed potatoes, or did you reflect upon that idea later? |
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Post by joekiddlouischama on Sept 14, 2017 5:52:27 GMT
I forgot he kissed the single mother. For a long time I assumed he was an alien all along-because in the version I knew, he gets hit by a glowing shower and then an alien appears--I assumed he was either an alien or turned into one. I also read the novel but forgot how they explained the ending.
His kids were presented in an unsympathetic way, unlike Melinda Dillon's child.... good point. And although I do not see Roy as an alien, that theory is intriguing. |
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Post by Nora on Sept 16, 2017 4:35:50 GMT
I forgot he kissed the single mother. For a long time I assumed he was an alien all along-because in the version I knew, he gets hit by a glowing shower and then an alien appears--I assumed he was either an alien or turned into one. I also read the novel but forgot how they explained the ending. His kids were presented in an unsympathetic way, unlike Melinda Dillon's child.really? i never felt that way about his kids. |
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Post by Nora on Sept 16, 2017 4:39:26 GMT
As Steve McQueen proved by his words, this movie was too unmanly for him. While Roy Neary "abandoning" his kids was kind of reflective of Steven Spielberg's earlier perspective (or lack thereof), that in itself does not make the movie not good. Good movies challenge our pre- and post-conceived notions, whether or not they are legitimate, and especially make us uncomfortable. Going back to the deadbeat dad thing, Roy Neary actually wanted his family to be part of his quest, but his wife would have none of that and took the kids with her. The kids themselves were not fully on either parent's side -- they really were literally caught in the middle. But Roy didn't just haplessly let them go; he tried to stop them from leaving, but eventually he lost out and moved on with his life. He went on to bigger if not necessarily better things, following his first best destiny, at least from his point of view. ¨ true, but I felt very little time passed between "dont go" and "I am moving on". to me it was a few days i between. But maybe I am wrong and it was a few weeks or months? I agree good movies should make us think. And I do think this was a great movie. Its just it looked a bit out of character for the dad to give up his kids this quickly. But maybe more time had passed…. |
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