If you believe. It’s fact. If not. Fiction.
Spielberg called it “science speculation” back in ’77. He was talking about Close Encounters of the Third Kind. It might be the ultimate UFO movie because it balances wonder with dirt under your fingernails. There is never a bad time for a rewatch. But this month matters more.
Why? Disclosure Day. Spielberg’s new conspiracy thriller drops soon. A whistleblower wants to prove aliens are real. It makes the 1977 film mandatory viewing. Essential.
Roy Neary isn’t having a great life. An electrical lineworker in Indiana. Richard Dreyfuss plays him like he’s stuck in mud. His wife Ronnie is there. The kids are there. The noise is everywhere. Resentment simmers in the basement of every happy home eventually.
He needs meaning. He doesn’t get it until the sky tears open.
A routine blackout check. His truck idling. Something flies over. Not a bird. Not a plane. An obsession takes root immediately. It’ll kill him before he backs down.
He’s not the only one. Billy is three years old. Wakes up to toys humming like engines. They move toward a craft outside the window. Jillian his mom barely saves him from drifting into the dark.
Roy and Jillian become fixated on one shape. A mountain with a flat top. Nobody knows where it came from. The government agents swarm the site. Chase people away. Be vague. Terrifying.
While all that happens scientists dig up secrets. Missing Navy ships appear somewhere else. The crew is gone. The hulls are intact. It doesn’t make sense.
Close Encounters did a lot. It mainstreamed J. Allen Hynek’s UFO classification system. The visuals alone demand a look. That prog-rock light show? Iconic. You can’t ignore it.
But it’s the sentimentality mixed with brief sharp cynicism that defines it. Classic Spielberg.
Half a century later the family drama hits harder. Spielberg regrets the bittersweet ending now says he’d fix it. Controversial stuff. But it fits. A fractured family needs a broken ending.
He’s changed his mind since ’77 though. Or maybe he hasn’t. Just louder now.
At South by Southwest recently he dropped this bombshell: “I have a very strong suspicion that we are not on Earth alone.” He said he made a movie about that suspicion. Back then it was speculation.
Disclosure Day feels different. To him at least. Closer to fact.
Whatever you think about fringe theories. Look at the mind behind it again. Spielberg is looking up. Again. But this time. Both feet are off the ground.
Worth the Shelf Space
If you want to trace how we got here check this out:
- Title : Spielberg: A Retrospective
- Author : Richard Schickel
- Publisher : Thames & Hudson
It’s thick. But reads easy. Goes all the way to The Fabelmans (2022). Best part? Early work. His debut Firelight? Yes. A UFO movie. Gasp. It happened.
