New DVD release: Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Close Encounters of the Third Kind: 30th Anniversary Ultimate Edition (3-Disc Series) is now available on DVD. Here's the summary from Amazon:



It's promised as the final word on the subject, and it certainly seems definitive. Steven Spielberg's wonderful Close Encounters of the Third Kind is here collected in three different cuts, each with its own specific history.



There's the original theatrical release, never before issued to home video, which Spielberg said was rushed and not completed to his satisfaction. There's the 1980 Special Edition, which allowed Spielberg a re-edit, some new effects and scenes, and a controversial new ending that went inside the alien craft. Spielberg later said that ending was dictated by Columbia Pictures as a marketing ploy, and that he regretted showing the interior of the spacecraft. Amends were made with the 1998 Director's Cut, yet another re-edit that restored elements from the first version and eliminated the shots inside the Mother Ship. (For all the fuss, there are still fans who prefer the original version.)



A thorough, previously-available 100-minute documentary on the film is included in the package, as well as a 5-minute featurette from 1977. New this time is a 20-minute interview with Spielberg, looking back from the perspective of 30 years. A 30th anniversary collector's booklet offers some pretty pictures but a rather desultory collection of mini-biographies and quotes (some credited to the "International Movie Database," by which they presumably mean the "Internet Movie Database"). Most helpful is a glossy fold-out timeline charting the differences between the three films, a useful tool for sticklers. --Robert Horton



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