I just got the three-disc all-versions of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I love this movie and it always makes me think of how I would have reacted in such a situation. Spielberg has said that, now, he wouldn’t have given the movie the ending it had at the time.
My question to Dopers is this: Would you have volunteered for the Mayflower Project if there were an imminent landing of extraterrestrials coming up? The Mayflower Project was the one headed by Claude Lacombe and culminated in the red jumpsuit team that eventually boards the mother ship at the end? Would you do it? Would you join that team and go on an alien vessel never knowing if and when you’d return?
He said that he made the movie before he had kids and now that he’s had kids, there is NO way he’d have Roy taking off in a spaceship and abandoning his family. Actually, I kind of think it fits in with his character that he’s so obsessed and this is, literally, (and I feel I am using “literally” correctly here) perhaps a “once-in-a-lifetime” unique experience that he or someone like him would take the chance and go on the trip. I was 11 when it came out and when I first saw it in the theaters, and I remember thinking “YES! I would sooo go on the spaceship just to see other worlds!”
I thought that the “red jumpsuit team” was not invited on the mothership; that only Roy was invited to go. (He was the only one there who was specifically invited.)
And BTW, I had a theory that the other people who were invited to Devil’s Tower (the others that Roy and Gillian met on the helicopter) were the relatives of the returnees, there to greet their family members as Gillian was there to meet Barry.
That’s interesting. I guess he really identifies with that character. Then think about Poltergeist, made a few years later – all about a guy who goes through hell, literally (and I think I’m using that word correctly also ;)), to save his little kid. Maybe he had a child in between those films?
I think I heard an interview with Spielberg wherein he said he identified with Opum, the ex-ET kid from Saving Private Ryan. A guy who really puts himself into his work. Maybe that’s one reason he’s so good at what he does.
I don’t know. I always assumed that the rest of the red-jumpsuit people went onboard as well, after Roy was singled out. Still, the people who volunteered would have been volunteering to go regardless, right? You still would’ve been signing up to leave. As far as the people on the helicopter go, I noticed something I hadn’t noticed before. In the earlier scene when there is a picnic/festival-like atmosphere where there are a bunch of people waiting to see UFOs and two helicopters show up and scare them off, there were two old people who got a lot of close-ups. Later, they are also on the helicopter at the end. I figured that they somehow saw the UFOs on an earlier date, went to see them again like Roy and Jillian did that night of the “halloween for grownups” and also had the implanted vision like Roy and Jillian. I always felt bad for the other guy who escaped the helicopter with them. I thought, “shit, so close and now he just sleeps through the most amazing event in history.”
Also, what do they do with all the returnees? How do they deal with reintegrating them? They left minutes ago to them and it’s years later for them. Do they take them to “debriefing” and "BLAM!–You’ve been ‘debriefed?’
I’ve always thought that there was some negotiation going on so that some Earth-picked humans would go. The aliens also made their own selection, but only Roy made it.
Oly, I had not realized he had written the Poltergeist screenplay. I stand informed.
Hmm… after rewatching Close Encounters though, man, Roy’s home life was kind of out of whack. I mean, his wife is not really supportive. He obviously needs help and support even if she thinks he’s crazy, but she doesn’t seem to really want to help or listen. She even goes out of her way to cut out any articles referencing anyone else’s seeing the same UFOs he saw the night before. I think it would be easy to justify leaving her, at least. But the kids, yeah, that would be hard to do. His kids seemed nice, normal kids.
What if you asked your family and they said it was okay to go?
Roy’s kids sucked. They were awful kids. I’m totally OK with him going. In fact his wife and family abandoned HIM.
Yes I would go. I don’t have kids but even if I did I would go. The aliens show and say Zebra, you can come or we go home alone, of course I go. I’d do it for all of humanity and my kids would be part of humanity, unlike Roy’s kids were were a bunch of monkeys who would prefer Goofy Golf over Pinocchio.
We will be making random grammar checks of all potential Terran Ambassadors.
Anyone who tries to defend using “literally” figuratively will be used as fuel.
Zebra, I don’t know if your assessment of the kids is accurate. The little girl is hardly in the movie. She seems innocuous enough. The middle boy actually defends his dad and wants to help him put trash in the house to help build the monument. The oldest boy is probably just freaked out that his dad is going a little whacko and his parents continue to get into fights. I can’t blame him for acting the way he does. He seems genuinely concerned about his dad when he (the son) starts crying at the table when his dad starts messing with the mashed potatoes.
Re-reading this last paragraph and thinking it must seem bizarre to anyone unfamiliar with the movie.
Roy was an jerk to his kids. His son asked him for help with fractions homework, and his response was “I graduated. I don’t have to do problems anymore”. Then he goes back to playing with his trains. Sure, he made a show at a token attempt to help the boy “how far do we have to move this boxcar off the track? Quickly, lives are at stake”, but he obviously didn’t care about his son’s education. No wonder his kids were a mess, look who raised them?
Yes, his wife was less than supportive, but she was Terry Garr 1976. She probably married Roy on the rebound from James Kirk.
He was only a jerk in the “special edition” and subsequent versions. In the original, there is no scene with him discussing fractions with his kid. He’s simply playing with his train when the call comes in that the power is going out all over. And Teri Garr was obviously having some kind of affair with Gary Seven, not Kirk.
) awesome cinema experiences for me.
If I’m not returning, I would like to bring along my iPod, my DVDs of Supernatural, Eureka, etc. and my laptop 