What is behind the black curtain of the sky? Buried in the deep places of our imagination? In that place we lock away at the end of childhood, tossing aside the key for lofty concerns like working 9-to-5 and paying the mortgage?
As a boy I'd look to the sky, a splash of stars like so much paint flailed against the dome above me, and in it I would see an endless, teasing possibility. A vast and spacious hope within which dwelled secrets and mysteries. Secrets that could have been dark, sinister, yet underlying them was … maybe … maybe … something beautiful.
Such is what Stephen Spielberg taps into with Close Encounters of the Third Kind, an early, hopeful film by our very own master of populist awww shucks and childlike wonder. He's older now, less prone to indulging in flights of fancy for their own sake, and more likely to peering his camera lens into the darker corners of humanity. For a time, though, Spielberg was a perpetual 12-year-old boy, ever on the cusp of discovering girls and sex and pimples, but not. Quite. There yet.
And that is why we loved him.
When Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) sees something he cannot explain - whirling, swooping lights in the sky - he discovers that his life in suburbia, his comfortable home and babbling kids and mundane wife, are not quite the beginning and end of his world. There is a tantalizing something in the back of his mind; images of a mountainous mass; looming questions. So many questions. And he needs them answered. He is restless. Searching.
 He is the man who puts his clothing in a bag at night, kisses his sleeping wife, leaves a stuffed toy for his child, gets into the car at 10 past midnight and drives. Drives for a day, for a week, for a month. Drives until his fingers have touched what he is looking for. Until his eyes see the unseen. He'll never know what he's looking for until he finds it. Sometimes he won't find it. But it's there, out there, and he cannot rest until he finds it. And so he drives.
Neary is also the 12-year-old boy consumed by what is around the next corner. Down the next path. What that thing just over the horizon is, and can he get there? And if he can, will there be another horizon to chase awaiting him? He is parting the trees and hoping the sun does not go down before he manages to get just a little farther than last time.
It has been 30 years since Spielberg let fly his second masterpiece, a tale in a way as personal as any of his films, speaking of a person he has long since left behind but who for a time was bursting with boundless energy and a desire, no, a need, to share his wide-eyed wonder with the world. He is the 12-year-old boy and the husband driving away at midnight.
 The 30th Anniversary Ultimate Edition of Close Encounters brings together three versions of the greatest first contact film ever made. First, there is the original theatrical version of the film, 135 minutes of sweep and grandeur. It did not need tinkering. It did not need to be revisited. But a few years after release, Spielberg did exactly that, shooting extra footage, cutting other scenes, and releasing to theaters a 132-minute Special Edition version that adds some excellent moments - the shadow of a UFO passing over Roy's truck, the discovery of a ship in the middle of the Gobi desert, and others - while trimming some worthwhile material from the original version. Some scenes are also re-sequenced. While the overall result is strong, several small character moments are sorely missed from the theatrical cut. But the worst aspect is his controversial decision to show Roy inside the alien mothership. Spielberg included the scene as part of his agreement with the studio; essentially, he promised to shoot the scene in order to secure funding to shoot the other additional material. It should never have happened.
 And Spielberg agrees, which is why it is gone in the new, 137-minute Director's Cut included in this three-disc set. Thank goodness! The elusive wonder of discovery is ruined when you show us that which we pursue. The imagination helps us soar to greater heights than any 1980 special effects team could muster. Even better, several scenes cut from the theatrical release for the Special Edition are reinsterted into the film, including the prelude to Roy's construction of a Devil's Tower in his home, a bizarre scene showing his mental breakdown as he is rips apart the yard for supplies.
This is good, then, this Director's Cut, merging the best of both previous versions into a satisfying new cut.
If given the chance, will you fly again? Will you once again chase the lights, only a jacket on your back, the car almost out of gas, questions taunting you from just over the next hill?
I will.
 Disc Presentation
Utterly beautiful. Night skies littered with speckles of light, doorways filled with the warm red glow of visitors, rich black evenings disturbed by dancing objects, bold colors flashing along with music that is as poetic as it is meaningless. Remastered and lovely. Soaring music and sound all around you, DTS and Dolby Digital 5.1. Rich, full, exciting. Yes.
Disc Extras
Do I ask too much? Maybe I ask too much. Maybe I do. It is not as if there are not extra features included in this three-disc set. There are. But it is not enough. Maybe I love this film too much. Maybe I want to be taken away and experience all it has to offer and I ask too much. I am unsatisfied, though for the life of me I am not sure why. Maybe it is because there is precious little that is new here; most of the extras are recycled from previous releases.
Steven Spielberg: 30 Years of Close Encounters - This is nice. A new interview with Spielberg during which he waxes poetic about the making of the film, about the special edition, about who and what he was when it was directed three decades ago. I liked this. You will like this.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind Making Of Documentary - Hmmm. Say, I think I have seen this before. Why yes, yes, I have. This is the hour-long documentary included on the Collector's Edition release of several years prior … only it has been spread across three discs. Hmmmm. Well. Odd. It is a fine documentary, excellent, even, with startling behind the scenes footage and insights into the production of the film. Yet if you are a fan of Close Encounters - and you would not spend $40 on this set if you weren't - chances are you already own this. Hmmm. That's too bad. And spreading it over three discs? Odd indeed.
Watch The Skies featurette (1977) - Hey. Well, this looks familiar, too. And for the same reason. Damn. Well. Ummmm. I liked it when I saw it on the Collector's Edition, I guess.
Feature Comparison Poster - One side is a poster, the other side compares the scenes in the three editions (though sadly not in extensive detail). IMDB will remain your friend.
30th Anniversary Collector's Book - Nice book. Pretty pictures. Great behind the scenes stuff. Little bits o' text and quotes and stuff. Nice.
 The Bottom Line
Last night the wind was tearing through the backyard, howling like a graveyard choked angry spirits. It lifted the deck furniture, turned it on its side. Slid it across the deck. Clouds roiled in the sky, maybe, but I could not see them for the darkness. Somewhere, someone was looking at the clouds, a sparkle in their eye and a growing sense of unknowable longing rising in their heart. They will take to the road and seek answers.
This is the definitive release of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. And for that, I am glad. Because I, too, am looking at the clouds churning in the sky. I am maybe, just maybe, seeing lights. And I want to once again take a drive with Roy Neary.
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