REVIEW: Getting closer to ‘Close Encounters’
Logo: Courtesy of Smithsonian Channel / Provided with permission.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind is one of the most cherished science-fiction movies of all time. Steven Spielberg’s late 1970s creation tapped into so many wonderful genre tropes, including flying saucers, government conspiracies and monolithic land masses (sometimes fashioned out of mashed potatoes).
Smithsonian Channel’s successful series, The Real Story, goes deeper into some of the best-known movies out there in order to investigate the facts behind the fiction, and recently the show turned its eye to Close Encounters. Although concrete evidence about extraterrestrial life is still debated, with skeptics saying there is no definitive proof, Spielberg’s film apparently wasn’t a figment of the imagination.
The 45-minute docuseries suggests that the sci-fi film was based on a bevy of eyewitness testimony, which doesn’t necessarily prove the existence of E.T., but it does give the Richard Dreyfus-starring flick a little more grounding in the real world. Specifically, the TV special looks into the testimony of those who allegedly saw UFOs in the summer of 1966 over the skies of Michigan.
For the uninitiated, a UFO is an unidentified flying object, so technically a tennis ball thrown high enough into the air that may look mysterious to a neighbor a few houses down could be classified as a UFO, at least to the neighbor. These classifications are all about perspective, and it would appear an actual space-sent UFO would need to have all eyewitnesses on the ground in agreement about the “unidentified” nature of the “flying object.”
Complicating matters of these 1966 sightings is the government intervention. Did the government know about these sightings? Did they cover them up? The theories run far and wide, and the deep recesses of the Internet still debate this occurrence and others.
The Real Story: Close Encounters of the Third Kind is not interested in proving the theories correct; they are simply trying to draw a narrative connection between the real world’s many stories and the fictional film by Spielberg. For fans of the sci-fi classic, this docuseries should be seen to be believed.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
The Real Story: Close Encounters of the Third Kind, running 45 minutes, is now available on DVD from the Smithsonian Channel. Click here for more information.
