Just saw Spielberg’s 1977 masterpiece again for the first time in many years, and it holds up very well. A few questions…
In the extended edition, the alien-contact team finds an ocean-going cargo ship deposited high in the Gobi Desert. One of the guys says the ship’s name (“Cotopaczi,” or the like), but I can’t find anything like that via Google or Wikipedia, and the ship’s name isn’t clearly visible on the bow in the pan-and-scan video of the movie I have. Was that an actual ship from history, or just made up for the movie?
What was the name of the alien-contact program? Was it really broadly international, do you think, or just the U.S. and France?
What kind of adjustment/transition process do you think would be necessary for the abductees after the aliens return them?
I hadn’t realized that Lance Henriksen (“Aliens,” “Millennium,” “AVP,” etc.) is in the movie - he’s with the French guy and Bob Balaban’s translator character in the scene in India, where everyone points to the sky when they’re asked where the sounds came from.
What do the French guy and Balaban say to each other, in French, at the conclusion of Neary’s debriefing near Devils Tower?