Close Encounters of the Third Kind (2 disc set) (UK)

I must admit that this was the very first time I`ve watched this movie. It is considered by many to be a landmark. Well, I guess you could call it that. It`s a bit slow and not 100% rewarding, but hey - 25 years ago the perspective was a bit different.
The video transfer is very good. There are no compression signs at all and great efforts were made to clean up the movie. Excluding the ridiculous special effects, this movie does not look 25 years old. It`s absolutely clean of scratches and blemishes and the colors (mainly the flesh tones) were restored beautifully.
The DTS and DD 5.1 soundtrack are average. While I did not expect a lot from the soundtrack, I was kind of hoping for at least SOME usage of the surrounds. However, they are kept mostly silent. The last 15 minutes of the movie include a lot of LFE activity. My subwoofer had actually moved about 1 meter during those minutes.
The menus are mostly still with music.
The extras on the second disk include a VERY extensive behind the scenes look (almost an hour and 45 minutes long) and 11 deleted scenes (which are quite awful, both in content and visually - they haven`t been cleaned up).
Bottom line - while it is definitely not the masterpiece so many people described it as, you should watch it. But, I cannot find any reason why anyone would want to watch it more than once.

Close Encounters gets a welcome release on the DVD format in this two disk set. The film itself is presented in a re-edited version of both the original and special edition removing the `Inside the mothership` ending.
The film is considered by many to be a masterpiece and it lives up to it`s reputation well as this is a very good film with some great perfomances especially from Richard Dreyfuss as as your average family man and Francois Truffaut as the french scientist Lacombe.
The extras are all on the second disk and include an hour long making of documentary, very in-depth and informative. An original 1977 featurette (5 mins) entitled `Watch the Skies`.
There are 14 deleted scenes that vary in quality. It should be noted that the last deleted scene is the mothership ending.
Two very naff trailers one for the original release and one for the Special Edition. Also included is filmographies for the stars and director.
Picture and audio quality of the film are superb with a rare DTS soundtrack also included.

what a wonderful film this is. Along with "Jaws", this is Spielberg at his best, and this version including Roy Nearys breakdown in full, reminds us that the director wasn`t always as prone to sentimentality as he has been since ET. My only gripe with this version is the ommision of the scenes inside the mothership. These appear in the deleted scenes, but they are non-anamorphic and pro-logic. I think this short sequence is fantastic and really belongs at the climax of this
film.

The anamorphic picture is fairly good, but not as good as you would expect. I was always struck by the exceptionally poor quality of the digitally remastered VHS version so I think this is more to do with the original film print that anything else. The same goes for the sound, I can`t comment on the DTS track, but the DD 5.1 is good, however the surrounds aren`t used much (even in the scenes with helicopters!). Bass is another thing entirely, especially when the mothership comes around the mountain. Lovely.

The extras disc includes the aforementioned deleted scenes, some really naff trailers, and best of all a 100 min documentary which is even better than the documentary on the Jaws DVD. Very entertaining and informative.

All in all a classic film and a must have replacment for your nasty old VHS copy!

It looks great, It took some time for to appreciate the cut though...