Close Encounters of the Third Kind vs. E.T. | Movie Death Match

10:51Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:Likely so. Actually, we know that it did kind of spin out of discussions of a possible sequel, a possible continuation. Thank you, Margaret. Jen, why do you say Close Encounters, but no cigar? Well, Margaret is right.

11:05Chris Klimek:That one was first. And so in some ways, maybe that makes it more important. but I think E.T. is ultimately the superior and more enduring film. If you want to do this purely on like data points, which is not necessarily the best way to do it, but it was nominated for more Oscars. It won more Oscars. It made more money, but I want to read something from, and this may not be the last time I read from this particular piece, but Anthony Lane wrote a piece about E.T. for the New Yorker in 2002 when the 20th anniversary was happening. And he opened the piece by talking about what a travesty it was that E.T.

11:41Chris Klimek:lost Best Picture to Gandhi, which I agree. That was another very pivotal moment for me. So he writes, they were right to want the uplift, the kick of a bursting heart. They just picked the wrong movie. E.T. and Gandhi both feature fine central performances by shrunken, wise-faced vessels of benevolence. But where Attenborough chose to tell his story in a churning three-volume novel, Spielberg wrote a poem. And all the best movies are poems. And to go back to what I was saying earlier, that is what is so special about this movie, which I was watching for the millionth time at one o 'clock in the morning.

12:13Chris Klimek:It's just such a beautiful, special, intimate portrait of this friendship. And, you know, Chris, you and I have talked about this, I think, many times about how the movie is shot. And so much of it is from the perspective of Elliot or E.T., who, like a kid, is really close to the floor and is a very short person. Maybe that spoke to me. I don't think I ever got taller than I was when E.T. came out. And I just think that like, I'm sure we'll talk more about the influence of these films, but there were all these kind of silly spaceman type movies that came out after E.T., like Mac and Me. But also just I think the idea of what an 80s movie is started with E.T.

12:55Chris Klimek:because you wouldn't have the Goonies without E.T. And you wouldn't have Stranger Things without E.T.

13:06Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:Well, the opening round, round one, we are going to focus on the movies in their time. This is where we will discuss how they were received when they were new. So we've said they were both critical and commercial hits, but this is going to allow us to contextualize them in the late 70s and early 80s. We will be discussing in this category each film's screenplay, musical score, and impact on the zeitgeist. Screenplays are first. I'm going to start with you this time, Jen. Melissa Matheson got a Best Original Screenplay nomination for E.T. I think you mentioned already. Tell me why you think E.T.

13:38Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:has the more original premise.

13:40Chris Klimek:Well, that's interesting. I mean, I think there are a lot of different ways to interpret what E.T. is about. In many ways, it's kind of like a reverse Wizard of Oz. So there are things in it that come from other films and stories, but it still feels like its own unique creation. And I guess you could say this about Close Encounters too, but in early sci-fi, it was always the aliens are a threat and we should be scared of them. And in Spielberg's movies, there was more of a sense of wonderment. And you get some of that certainly through Richard Dreyfuss's character and other characters in Close Encounters, but the intimacy, the one-on-one relationship, the sense of trust that is immediately built.

14:20Chris Klimek:and it's such a simple, simple story. I feel like Close Encounters has more storylines and it's totally fine that it does, but I love the just simplicity of what is going on in this movie, especially as a child watching it. It's very easy to follow and understand and to immediately get invested in it. And I just think it's just really, really elegant in a way that, not to sound like an old fuddy-duddy, but we don't make movies that take their time like this in the same way that E.T. does.

14:48Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:But it also really moves. I mean, it's under two hours. Minute two, we see the spaceship. E.T. and Elliot are face-to-face for the second time where they're not afraid of each other at the 20-minute mark. I mean, it is clearly a movie that's meant to hold the attention spans of kids along with everyone else, right? But it is certainly when you watch it in close proximity with close encounters, it's a much pacier journey.

15:13Chris Klimek:Yeah, and I was thinking about this last night. I have no idea how E.T.'s speak and spell contraption works. I understand that he has taken apart his speak and spell. I don't understand why they need that buzzsaw thing that cuts Elliot on his finger. I don't know what that does. But I don't care. It doesn't matter. That's the other thing that's interesting about this movie is that it doesn't go into all the little details that I feel like so many movies now feel like they have to. It just lets you just be like, you know what? This is kind of a fairy tale. Just go with it. And it doesn't bother me at all that I don't understand it because I feel like I believe that E.T.

15:47Chris Klimek:does and that's all that matters.

15:48Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:Yeah, boy. I hope we will find a use in this episode for that clip of E.T. spelling nuisance on the speak and spell. It's correcting his spelling of nuisance. S-W-V-U-A-L-G. That is incorrect. The correct spelling of humans is N-U-I-N-A-N.

16:15Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:You make a strong case, Jen. Okay, Margaret, Close Encounters, one of the few screenplays on which Spielberg has a writing credit. Why is this one better?

16:24Jen Chaney:I think it's better because it starts from imagination and then it really digs into the specifics. So Spielberg has said that this was inspired by the Disney song, When You Wish Upon a Star. And it's not actually included in the movie directly, although there are various allusions to Jiminy Cricket. And it kind of echoes at some point. But he went from that to then a version of this screenplay that used the work of Northwestern University astronomer Ellen Hynek and to the point where they got sued and then they bought the rights to his book and incorporated that into the film. But Hynek was really deep into working on the Air Force studies of UFOs.

17:07Jen Chaney:And there was serious work being done by the Air Force starting as early as the 1940s. But Project Sign, Project Grudge, Project Blue Book, anywhere between 47 and 69, there were a whole series of studies looking into UAPs, as they're now called, unidentified aerial phenomena. but at the time simply called UFOs, Unidentified Flying Objects, which could just be something you saw from an airplane that you didn't recognize or saw in the sky that you didn't recognize. But the Air Force had really been seriously looking into these things. In my association with Project Blue Book, I know very well that it was not a scientific project.

17:46Jen Chaney:I also know that they never, never would notify the media when an interesting case came up. They did everything they could to keep it down.

17:55Chris Klimek:So they definitely withheld information.

17:57Jen Chaney:And Hynek comes up with this idea of like six different levels of documented contact with something alien. Could just be identified, could be alien. We tend to slide over that distinction. And you can see in the screenplay the way that Spielberg is kind of running through that then. The idea of close encounter of the first kind being lights in the night sky, a close encounter of the second kind being some sort of alien or unexplained presence in a daytime sky, which we see with the scene with the air traffic controllers who are real air traffic controllers. It's easier to hire real air traffic controllers than to teach actors to speak like that.

18:37Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:Aries 31, descend on 19, flight level 310. Great. Gallagher, 444, turn right 30 degrees.

18:51Jen Chaney:And then the third being actual contact with aliens, what we would now perhaps say just first contact. And so we kind of through the movie see him working through that. And in doing that, I think he does both things. is trying to tell a kind of imaginative story of these ordinary people who get caught up in something bigger than themselves, and at the same time trying to bring in the information from what was known at the time about UFOs. And perhaps our viewers would also be familiar with the news around these various Air Force projects and real investigations into that. And then paying off with a wonderful musical interlude between the aliens and the humans, where it turns out that, you know, being able to riff on a core musical theme turns out to be your sign of intelligence and communication.

19:45Jen Chaney:So I would argue that when you rewatch it and you can really see how he's building the story in that way, this is the superior film.

19:54Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:Yeah, Daft Punk's entire career comes down to the finale of Close Encounters.

20:09Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:All right, so as we segue into the music here, Jen, that five-note alien greeting that Spielberg and John Williams settled on after reportedly trying hundreds of different five-note combinations, that instantly becomes as much a part of the lexicon as any line of dialogue, as the jaws, It's quoted in Project Hail Mary this year. How could it not be? Doesn't that indicate a superior expression for Close Encounters over E.T., at least musically?

20:40Chris Klimek:I'm going to say that if you went up to a random person and you did the Close Encounters musical interlude, but then you said, they would know the second one before they would know the first one. Not because the first one's not great. It is. But the score of E.T. I mean, John Williams did the score for both.

20:59Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:So it's sort of like 50-50, really.

21:01Chris Klimek:They're both great. But E.T. is the one that more people know. Also, did Neil Diamond write a song about Close Encounters? No, he didn't. He wrote a song called Heartlight that was a top 40 hit about E.T.

21:15Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:Turn on your heartlight In the middle of a young boy's dream Don't wake me up too soon

21:30Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:We're gonna take a ride across the board

21:35Chris Klimek:So on music, I mean, this is silly. E.T. wins.

21:40Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:Well, yes. And you point out the stranglehold that Big Williams had on movie scoring in the late 70s and early 80s. Only now starting to slacken his grip a little bit.

21:50Chris Klimek:And I believe he did win the Oscar for the score for E.T. And he was nominated for Close Encounters, but he didn't win for that one. Hence, E.T. is better.

21:58Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:Right. He lost to himself for Star Wars.

22:01Chris Klimek:Right.

22:02Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:All right, Margaret. So we've heard the Neil Diamond case, the aforementioned Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones, E.T. album recorded during the thriller sessions. You know, how can that five note interstellar greeting possibly compete?

22:16Jen Chaney:Well, I think if you need to layer all that other stuff on in order to make your case. I think that the best case to make for Close Encounters is really the centrality of the music and the score, the way that it sets the tone. It helps us to understand from the very beginning the sense of unease that comes from encountering these UFOs in whatever form they're being encountered. And then ultimately that music becomes the form of communication. And I think there are ways in which thinking of the Voyager Interstellar record and the world music that was sent out into the universe, there was actively scientific thinking between Carl Sagan, Frank Drake, John Bomberg, Tim Ferriss, along with Salzburg, Sagan and Andrian putting that record together.

23:07Jen Chaney:How do we communicate without words? And the answer is music. And I think that those five tones that you sang right at the top, certainly the E.T. score is memorable. But these are the pieces that not just pull at the heartstrings, but in fact, communicate the core meaning of the film. And so I think for music and for virtuosity on a tuba, which is a very hard instrument on which to play complex melodies, and thus that was part of where John Williams made a choice to make the mothership answer in those deep, deep bass tones.

23:41Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:Oh, right. Yeah.

23:47Jen Chaney:and he snuck a little bit of jaws in there's a moment where the aliens kind of aren't quite sure if everybody is getting what they're laying down and they uh drop in a little bit of jaws in the middle of that film so as the mother of a trombone player i've got to vote for the low bass yeah you know you gotta love it's uh i'm told the loudest instruments that don't need amplification So always lovely to have in your home.

24:17Jen Chaney:And so I would say that that idea of musicality shot through the film, Close Encounters doesn't exist without its music. And its music is memorable. If you sing those five tones, people will remember it. So I got to go with Close Encounters.

24:39Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:On the subject of Williams quoting himself, I did also notice in that Halloween trick-or-treating scene when E.T. turns to chase the kid in the Yoda costume, Williams does give us like a quick little quote of Yoda's theme from Empire Strikes Back.

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27:18Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:captures the mood of its era five years after Close Encounters as persuasively as Close Encounters gave us the gestalt of 1977? As I ask you this, I am remembering that I think I first learned the phrase latchkey kids from reading something about E.T. and I had to figure out what that meant.

27:36Chris Klimek:Yeah, it strikes me more watching it now in retrospect, how much it was capturing that. because one of the things about the movie that's a little bit ridiculous and they they play it for humor is that d wallace who plays their mom is completely oblivious to the fact that there's an alien in the house even though he's like standing in the kitchen with her even though he's supposed to look like gertie in this ghost outfit and he's like at least two feet shorter than she is

28:02Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:okay mom you can look now

28:13You look great. Thank you.

28:17Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:Thank you. Thank you.

28:18Chris Klimek:But it reflects this idea that parents are just not paying as much attention. And especially a mom like this who her husband has left her. She's a single mom. She's got to work.

28:29Jen Chaney:Yeah.

28:29Chris Klimek:And if Elliot pretends to have a fever, well, stay home for the day, kid, and please don't burn the house down. Like, she doesn't have a choice. So these kids are kind of running around a little bit unsupervised. And that is what we now, and I say we, I mean Gen X, like sort of glorifies. It's like, those were the good old days when you didn't have helicopter moms and everybody could just kind of go run around and do what they wanted to. But I do think it captures that. And that's part of what makes it, I think, so appealing even to younger kids now. They watch it and they're like, wow, what must that have been like, you know?

29:00Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:All right. To go back to Margaret. Now, you did speak on this idea a little bit in your opening statement. The idea that contact with a clearly more evolved species would be friendly rather than threatening in close encounters. Some of the participants, notably Richard Dreyfuss and Bob Balaban, have said like that was what drew them to the script, made them want to do it. Why was that such a powerful idea at the end of the 70s?

29:23Jen Chaney:I think it's because you've got this optimistic moment as humanity is starting to explore beyond its own Earth orbit and, you know, to the moon and then beyond to other planets to start thinking about humanity's position in the universe and the idea that we might want to make contact. And then I think that what Close Encounters does so well, zeitgeisty-wise, is really a combination of this optimistic moment, because it's not entirely clear that the aliens, they are coming seemingly in peace, but not without significant disruption, not without abducting people and then returning them unaged years later in ways that certainly would have for those World War II pilots who disappeared in 1945 and show up at some point in the mid-1970s.

30:13Jen Chaney:changed for the young mother who watches her son toddle off and then be returned to her, fortunately, just some weeks later. But you have to, there's some therapy that's going to have to come from that. And so I think you've got both this optimistic moment grappling with the complexities of even a friendly encounter with aliens. And then this really, I think, perceptive conversation that has more in common with Three Days of the Condor or All the President's Men or even Capricorn One, this idea that, you know, the government is involved in all kinds of things that they are just not telling you about.

30:52Jen Chaney:So this whole farce where they are going to pretend and infect gas farm animals in order to create the props that demonstrate that Devil's Tower shouldn't be approached because there's been a giant chemical spill that is noxious and is going to kill you if you breathe the air. You've got this moment where they're bringing truckloads in that have innocuous everyday brands on them. And then when they're pulled off, it's big aerospace companies, honestly, that are helping the government to create this massive cover up because they know the aliens are coming. So I think in terms of Zeitgeist, you've got the several different notes, if you will, being played at the same time.

31:35Jen Chaney:And I think that's part of what makes Close Encounters a powerful commentary in the mid-1970s.

31:42Chris Klimek:There is distrust of government in E.T. as well. Like, that just is a running thing. I mean, Peter Coyote's character, who's just called Keys, he is sort of the benevolent figure among those men and women who come in. But they want to operate on E.T. And he even says to Elliot, I'm glad he found you first. because if he hadn't, he would already be in a lab and they'd be doing autopsies and whatnot. So that is a running thread in both these films, but it's a more prominent one probably in Close Encounters.

32:11Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:Yeah, I was kind of struck by how benign the G-Men in both of these movies seem. And I mean, maybe that's just a function of where we've gone in the almost 50 years since. But even in Close Encounters, as far as we know, yeah, I mean, they're staging a hoax, like a fake chemical spill or a fake nerve gas exposure, but they don't actually kill anyone, right? Like we see the guy who actually does succumb to what we're told is just some kind of sleep gas climbing Devil's Tower.

32:36Jen Chaney:They send helicopters and they gas people in order to knock them out and get them out of the way. And you've got a brief cameo there by a young Carl Weathers as one of the military MPs telling them to go away.

32:49Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:We got orders to shoot anybody looting around here. Shit. I know. Pass it on, huh? Carl Weathers after Rocky, by the way.

32:58Jen Chaney:Pleased to see him there. But yeah, some complexity there about to what extent I think you see a struggle within that between the Francois Truffaut character, who is the head of this project that is really interested and curious in learning about the aliens and tracking these encounters around the world and then ways in which that's being overrun by, you know, a military that is curious, but at the point of a gun.

33:28Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:As we come to the end of round one, I have you ladies scored at a draw.

33:40Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:We move into round two of the movies in our time. In the more than four decades since they were new, how their power has grown or dimmed, strengths and weaknesses that have revealed themselves over time. First category is shelf life. I always feel like it's ungenerous or unimaginative or just lame to knock an old film, particularly for unconvincing visual effects. But I love the way both of these films look. And particularly part of the appeal of Close Encounters for me is just the sort of otherworldly, pun intended, I guess, quality of the fact that you get from the fact that so many of the exteriors or exteriors in quotes, including the big finale concert with the mothership, were shot indoors in this giant Alabama blimp hangar that production designer Joe Alves had converted into what was, I think, the world's largest makeshift soundstage.

34:36Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:certainly at that time. Not how you would make a movie like this now, but the anachronistic look of that is definitely a feature for me, not a bug. So that's me editorializing a little bit, but I want to ask you, Margaret, are there elements of Close Encounters that now seem dated to you in a pejorative way?

34:55Jen Chaney:I think mostly what a dude fest it is at the very end, right? Where you've got the mothership coming down and when you start to look around, You've got our red-suited members of Project Mayflower who are going to be sent with the blessing of a priest to onboard this alien mothership, although the aliens then only choose Richard Dreyfuss' Roy Neary. And it's not clear that any of the rest of these self-selected folks are going to get to go. There are a couple of women in that group. There is one African-American man that you see. But when you pan across the military and the scientists and everyone else who is assembled there at the base of Devil's Tower in Wyoming, there are not any women sprinkled through at all.

35:39Jen Chaney:You can write in or call and tell me if I'm wrong and I miss somebody. But overwhelmingly, just that depiction of science and expertise is entirely besuited men, whether in actual suits or in military uniforms. And that, I think, is something that really, along with kind of really underusing Terry Garr, is just one of the things that I think doesn't necessarily age well. You know, she is a little whiny. Admittedly, her husband is crumbling before her eyes and just increasingly losing his grip on reality, or at least his only holding on to a reality she can't see. But I think that some of the gender portrayals are some of the things that have aged not as well.

36:27Jen Chaney:The special effects, I think, actually, because they had to come up with ways to do things physically, really do hold up. And even necessarily on HD, because you have things on film that were shot with physical effects, that side actually holds up quite well. It's the all-guy reception party for the aliens that starts to make me wonder, and that I think dates it as a moment that's a little bit before you really see the full effects of the second wave of the women's movement in the U.S.

37:01Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:All those tall white guys were chosen on merit, Margaret. I don't know what to say to you. No, no, fair point, fair point. All right, what about E.T., Jen? Is there aspects of this film that do not fly in 2026?

37:13Chris Klimek:Well, and this is true of Close Encounters. It's true of like pretty much every movie, mainstream movie from this time. It is very, very white. You don't see any people of color anywhere. And every time I show my son some movie from this era, he's like, well, this is racist. Like it's just, he just, it doesn't make any sense to him. There's a line that I still think it's kind of funny, but if I remember correctly, it was taken out of the film at one point where they're getting ready for Halloween and you can hear Dee Wallace tell Robert McNaughton, like, you are not going as a terrorist. And he's like, all the guys are going as terrorists.

37:48Chris Klimek:They probably wouldn't do that now, I'm guessing. But to the effects of it all, I mean, the fact that E.T. was a real tactile creature that was walking around as opposed to something they would just have done in post later, I think is so important. And just as one example, Drew Barrymore really thought that E.T. was real. And you can see on the special features, and I think you can find a clip of this on YouTube, where during the scene where E.T. seems to be dying, she is hysterical. And Spielberg is making her more hysterical on purpose because he wants her to cry.

38:24Jen Chaney:They put the machine on his chest, and they're going to give him a shock to try to make him come back. And when they give him the shock, it's very loud, and it makes you jump and cry even more. They're putting it on his chest now, and he presses the button. And it goes, pow! Make her apple. Okay, you don't like it in time for that.

38:47Chris Klimek:But I'm sure she was traumatized by that a little bit. But I don't think she would have responded or had that sense of love, or not even just her, because she was obviously very young, but any of them, any of the actors, without being face-to-face with this thing that felt very, very real. So I think I like the effects in the original. If I have the choice between watching the quote-unquote enhanced version, I'll always go back to the original. That's the movie I first saw, and I think it still works.

39:11Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:I know Spielberg talks about the experience of making E.T. that made him think, oh, maybe I do want to have kids. After all, not something that was on his mind when he was making Close Encounters. He said many times how he would never have ended the movie with Roy going off with the aliens and leaving his family behind had he been making that film later in his life when he was himself a parent.

39:34Jen Chaney:There is an argument that part of why he's leaving is very clearly she has taken the children and gone to her sisters and she is not coming back anytime soon. And we do see them having an argument on a corded phone that he is carrying around the living room where ultimately she hangs up on him. And it does not seem like they're going to reconcile anytime soon. But very much, I agree, I think that perspective of, oh, yeah, sure, I'll, you know, I'm curious as to what's on this ship? Where could I go? With the willingness to just walk away from one's life, I think also perhaps speaks to the implanted obsession that comes with this close encounter with the aliens, which I think makes the benevolence of them a little less

40:20Chris Klimek:clear cut.

40:21Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:Yeah, yeah.

40:22Chris Klimek:I would like to see a version of Close Encounters entirely from Terry Garr's perspective, because I feel like the story would be very different. 100%.

40:31Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:The second half of the movie is entirely inside that wood paneled station wagon where she's wearing like her slip. And like, you know, her husband's big objection is crazy. You're not even dressed.

40:44Chris Klimek:What? What?

40:52Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:All right. Jen, we're going to link in the show notes to your wonderful The Washington Post essay from 2012 from the 30th anniversary of E.T., where you wrote about how that movie is about the transition from childhood to adulthood. But can you tell us a little more about that, about your evolution with this movie from your own childhood to seeing it through the eyes of the parent of an almost adult son yourself now?

41:15Chris Klimek:Well, I have to say watching this with my son, which I always thought would be this amazing experience, was not that memorable. Like he liked it, you know, he enjoyed it, but it didn't have like some huge impact on him. I was much happier with his response to The Simpsons than I was with how he reacted to E.T. So I don't know if it's changed because I'm a parent, although I will say, as I talked about earlier, I do relate more to what Dee Wallace's character is going through and the things that you don't see that she's probably struggling with, which is something I gave zero thought to when I was younger.

41:43Chris Klimek:but it's just more as you grow older and you go back and you watch this movie it resonates with you in a slightly different way and what i talked about in that essay is how you know obviously elliot doesn't have a father he doesn't have a father figure and by coming here he becomes kind of a father to et and he he learns about oh i have to make sacrifices for other people which is clearly not behavior he was learning from his dad, but he really learns how to be generous. And I think that's just a classic coming of age story type stuff. And I just find that more beautiful and moving the older I get when I go back and watch it.

42:25Yeah.

42:25Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:The line that really slayed me that I had never taken note of before when I watched again last night was when Elliot is trying to explain to his family what he saw in the backyard and they're skeptical. Mike is mocking him. And he says to his mom,

42:40Chris Klimek:Dad would believe me.

42:41Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:That is so brutal.

42:44Chris Klimek:Yeah, yeah, that is really bad. Maybe you ought to call your father and tell him about it. And he's the one who says, I can't. He's in Mexico with Sally. Which she did not know. Right. She didn't need to know that. And I love how it's so, like, the three kids who are these slightly different ages, Michael's the one who at least has the brains to be like, idiot, why did you say that? You shouldn't have said that to mom. Elliot doesn't care. He's just brutally honest. And then Gertie's like, what's Mexico? Where's that? I don't know what's happening.

43:13Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:Yeah. And I mean, kind of telling, right? Close Encounters ends with these long beauty shots of that Doug Trumbull model. It's behind the end credits as we're just watching the ship kind of elegantly sail up into the atmosphere and into orbit. E.T. ends with a shot of Elliot's face. That's the last shot of the movie.

43:32Chris Klimek:Yeah. I think I wrote something. it was for something for the dissolve where we were doing like a countdown of you were on that too chris of the best blockbusters and i talked about that shot of elliot looking up in the sky and like that is what you look like when you were watching et when you were a kid you were looking up at the screen and you had that same look on your face that he does that sense of wonder and i love that that's the last shot of the movie it's perfect it's like a mirror reflection of

43:58Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:you as a child margaret have your kids seen close encounters i don't know that they have

44:03Jen Chaney:which perhaps says something. I was just thinking about that last shot of the movie, though, and then there's a way in which part of what the film does is gives everyone who has watched this that experience of first contact, right? And so watching that spacecraft, and I had forgotten how much the camera really lingers on it as the mothership comes over Devil's Tower, as it turns itself over and reveals itself to be this kind of floating city in the sky with all of these little different kinds of aliens that come out at the end and then that we get to watch it again. I was struck watching the film by how much you see star fields in the sky when they're in other scenes and then I think you pair that with the final shots of that spacecraft heading back into space And the audience has then been party to a close encounter of the third kind on their own of being able to be a part of that visualization.

45:10Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:Okay, I'm going to go to versions and revisions. Now, Jen, you mentioned the line where Mike wants to wear a terrorist costume trick-or-treating. I think that was one of the revisions to the 2002 20th anniversary edition of E.T. The more noted one was the digital replacement of the guns in the hands of the cops and the G-men in the big chase scene at the end of the movie with walkie-talkies. So Spielberg did that for the 20th anniversary, subsequently said he regretted it. He regretted messing with his own film. And apparently the movie that remains in print now is the 1982 theatrical version.

45:48Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:So do we deduct any points for him revising his own movie and then promptly revising it back?

45:54Chris Klimek:No, actually, because as you recall, when that was coming out, a lot of people were doing this whole revision thing, especially his friend George Lucas, whose revisions were far more egregious. But, and I understand the impulse to say, like, I don't want to show kids guns because it's obviously a different world now in terms of the prevalence of guns and how they affect children than it was in the 80s. but I remember watching that version and then watching the original again and realizing how much the guns need to be there because what I thought he was missing is that in that scene, they get the guns out and you, and you go right in and you see the fear on ET's face.

46:36Chris Klimek:And that's when they start to be able to elevate and go up into the sky. And so there's this, whether he intended it or not, it's this beautiful metaphor of like, they are rising above the guns. The guns actually can't hurt them. And to me, that was so much more powerful than just taking the guns away because then there isn't a threat. And you're also not sending that message that, which is really what the movie is kind of about is, you know, the power of love to cross universes and just supersede everything. And so I thought that was just a beautiful way of getting that across. And he was absolutely right to put it back the way that it was.

47:13Yeah.

47:13Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:Watching that moment again last night, you know, I was thinking in that moment, well, E.T. really only has to levitate the bike that he's on with Elliot, right? We don't need the four other kids riding in formation. But then I'm thinking, but E.T. has been separated from his group, right? That's the whole movie. He's not going to then separate Elliot from his group. He understands that he needs the team.

47:32Chris Klimek:He needs to see Thomas Howell. It's really important.

47:35Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:Yes. All right. On the versions and revisions tip, Margaret, Close Encounters famously issued, in not one, not two, but three different versions. Is there some authorial uncertainty here? Do we deduct for that?

47:50Jen Chaney:I think rather it's how much that story is close to Spielberg's heart, right? This is something that he, it's one of the first films he made as a feature length film was a version of this story. It's something that had been kind of noodling around in his head for a long time, inspired by this Disney movie, as we've talked about, and the Disney song of When You Wish Upon a Star. And so I think the temptation with better tools to revisit a story that is so close to the author's heart. And it's also a place where the changes, I think, were less substantive and more artistic. And so perhaps I think we can forgive the temptation to go back and, you know, what author amongst us wouldn't like to revise just a little bit something that you've already put out in print or on celluloid and get a chance to, you know, make it just a little bit more.

48:51Jen Chaney:I think anybody who's created anything is always aware at the end of it, if I had more time, if I had more skill, I would have done this or that differently. And so given the access and the ability, I don't think we can fault Spielberg for taking advantage of that.

49:09Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:Yeah, fair enough. Now, looking into this, I was kind of surprised to learn that some of the stuff in the 1980 special edition, these were not restored, deleted scenes that he had cut in 1977. These were things he did not have the time or money to shoot in 1977. So he actually went back and shot a couple of new scenes. The one that was inserted at the behest of Columbia Pictures was the interior of the mothership at the end where Roy Neary goes inside and they asked for that so that they could market that scene specifically. And Spielberg didn't like it. He didn't like the idea of it, didn't want to do it, but he agreed so that he could get the funds to shoot some other things that he did want.

49:47Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:And I know he then later removes the scene of Roy inside the mothership at the end for his definitive version. And I say all of that only as a way of setting up the fact that in E.T., we're inside E.T.'s ship in minute three. We go straight inside as soon as the movie begins. Had I not watched these two movies in close proximity to one another, I never would have picked up on it. Okay. Yeah. And I still have you scored at a draw. I'm no help.

50:12Chris Klimek:What are your scoring? Like what is the rubric that you're using?

50:17Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:That's proprietary, Jen. What level are you cleared at?

50:21Chris Klimek:I don't know because you're being very secretive about all of this. I don't trust you. I don't trust the government, I don't trust you either.

50:26Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:We never had this conversation.

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52:43Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:Offers may vary. Visit JuleOsco.com for more details. Round three, the movies for all time. We are going to talk about how Close Encounters and E.T. echo through eternity. We're going to talk iconic moments, influence on later films and artists, and emotional impact. Margaret, you hear the title, Close Encounters. What's the image, the shot, the line, whatever? What's the first thing that flashes through your mind?

53:09Jen Chaney:I think it required a little bit of explanation. And I think that, you know, that is part of where they really went through a couple of different titles as they were getting to this. And it took getting Hynek's work to really get them to the final look at this. Instead of thinking about this, it was originally going to be called Watch the Skies, which is a line from The Thing from 1951, which would be very Spielberg to have this kind of homage to another film in there. And I think that it's only then that Close Encounters becomes the explanation of, you know, it becomes a little circular. It requires the explanation in the film of what that kind of Close Encounter of the Third Kind is.

53:52Jen Chaney:But it also speaks to its 1970s-ness, the way that Heineck's book would have been out. And these kinds of reports coming out of the U.S. Air Force about what UFOs were provide the context for understanding that title.

54:05Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:Jen, the image of Elliot on his bicycle with E.T. on the handlebars, silhouetted against the full moon. That is as famous a shot as I can think of from 130 years of cinema, give or take. Does the fact that that is so recognizable, so contained, so simple, does that argue for its expressiveness or just for its simplicity or both?

54:26Chris Klimek:I think both. And I think thank you for making that argument, because to me, that's that's like endgame. Is there one shot in Close Encounters that's as memorable as that shot in E.T.? And there's not. There's just not. And some of that is Spielberg because he made that like Amblin Entertainment. That's the logo. And you see it every time you go see a movie that he's made, even if you hadn't seen E.T. for some reason. So we all know it for that reason. But it's also just this wonderfully, like, I talked earlier about this being a fairy tale. Obviously, the moon, I mean, it's ridiculously huge.

55:00Chris Klimek:It's an image that isn't in reality, but it's reflecting the beauty of the moment of Elliot realizing that he can basically fly with E.T.'s help. But again, like, you're going to love what I'm about to do, Chris, so much, because I'm about to briefly make this about Harry Styles. So that image.

55:19Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:To tell us who Harry Styles is first. I refuse. If you don't know, I'll do that. He's an actor who, he appears briefly in the Christopher Nolan film Dunkirk. Has he done anything else?

55:28Chris Klimek:He's been in a couple of other films, but he's got a full-time job as a musician. Oh. Yeah. Anyway, like that image of the bike, like it's just, you see it, people riff on it all the time. And I mentioned Harry Styles because in his recent music video for American Girls, there is an image of him riding a bike with a moon behind it. and you can't see it and not think of E.T. So, yeah, I mean, you said it. Can you think of a more iconic image? Nope.

55:54Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:I mean, I can try to make a case for the shot in Close Encounters when little three - or four-year-old Barry opens the door and the orange light is spilling in, and it's from the perspective of Melinda Dillon's character, the mom. I mean, I think even people who maybe haven't seen the movie probably might recognize that frame.

56:11Chris Klimek:For sure. Yeah, and I mean, I think Spielberg is doing a lot of the things that he's now so famous for with light in both of these movies. But it's really at its apex in E.T., just the constant, the use of light, the shafts of light that come in through the closet doors in Elliot's room and the slats and his, you know, just the door to his room. That's what Spielberg is. And I feel like it really crystallizes in E.T.

56:33Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:Okay, so moving on to influence. Margaret, I have a hard time picking out too many films that I see as direct descendants of Close Encounters. One of them, My Cause Celeb, the film for which I will never stop beating the drum. Jim Cameron's one box office bomb, The Abyss from 1989, really, really does kind of play as like an underwater version of Close Encounters in large part. I'm thinking about maybe Starman, the John Carpenter movie, slightly Arrival, possibly, that didn't even live. I don't know. What do you got? Can you think of other films that we can trace their lineage to Close Encounters?

57:10Jen Chaney:I think that when you get movies like the ones that you've just mentioned, which are about that kind of first contact and what is it to put ourselves in with the crew of people who are grappling psychologically with what this means and what this means for who they are as well as how they behave in that scenario. I think that you've covered that. I would argue that part of the widespread influence of Close Encounters actually comes to Devil's Tower, which I think as a natural phenomenon out in Wyoming has now, I think, wider reputation and recognition as like, oh, that's that thing from Close Encounters.

57:54Jen Chaney:As opposed to, you know, when you're making your trip across the West and there are quite so many really striking natural landmarks to be able to encounter, it becomes worth the side trip. And the distances in that part of the country are quite, quite large. So it is a significant trip to decide to get yourself to Devil's Tower. And I think that it becomes the destination that you add to your giant road trip across the American West because of Close Encounters, because you want to go see that actual space, because it in real life shows up as it was imaged in the film. And I think that as much as The Close Encounters has an impact on other films, I think it also has that real life impact on a place that has now become a part of the American lexicon of someplace that you would want to make the side trip to go see in Wyoming.

58:53Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:I mean, when I lived in L.A., I would sometimes go out of my way to drive by the Die Hard building, which is not as impressive and singular and as remote a feature within its own landscape as Devil's Tower in Wyoming. So, yes. All right. Full points for that one. Jen, let's talk about these 80s E.T. knockoffs. Short Circuit, Flight of the Navigator, Mac and Me. I had batteries not included on this list until I discovered that Spielberg was actually involved with that one. And that Matthew Robinson, the writer-director of Batteries Not Included, apparently contributed to the E.T. screenplay. Some sources put him as the originator of the scene where E.T.

59:34Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:gets drunk. And Elliot is having the sympathetic inebriation, you know, in science class at school. So a lot of kid-centered movies about cute robots and aliens. Even as a kid during the Reagan era, I recognized these as the inferior E.T. knockoffs that they were. Is Spielberg responsible for this, for what was happening after his great achievement when he goes off to make things like The Color Purple and Empire of the Sun?

59:59Chris Klimek:I mean, well, clearly he was partially because of batteries not included. But no, I don't think he's responsible for it. But I want to talk about it in a slightly different context, which is we tend to talk about E.T. as a sci-fi movie, which it obviously is. That's primarily the lens we're talking about today. But as I mentioned earlier, it's a coming of age film and it's important because it's a coming of age film and it takes the kids seriously and it centers the children and it's not talking down to them. It's giving them emotional intelligence. and you know this is not like a high school movie which those movies started to become very popular after this but the idea that young people would be the characters that you care about and that they would be treated and depicted with such care there's a legacy in that as well and I think every kind of sci-fi movie that's done with this sort of like emotional centeredness owes a debt to E.T.

1:00:59And I mentioned Stranger Things earlier, but like that owes a huge debt to E.T.

1:01:05Chris Klimek:And I don't think a lot of the other things that they riff on in Stranger Things would have existed were it not for E.T. So I don't think I can overstate like the influence of it.

1:01:14Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:All right. So as we circle a finale here, we are moving into emotional impact. Margaret, do you cry when you watch Close Encounters?

1:01:24Jen Chaney:I wouldn't say that I cry when I watch Close Encounters, but I would say that I recognize how influential it was in that big shift from the monster alien movies of the 1950s to then really opening the door for something like E.T., which is this idea of aliens as awe-inspiring, as benevolent, as something that we would both reach out to and that might reach back to us. I think that there are ways in which that provides the incentive for studios to then look at science fiction as a bankable genre on the basis of Close Encounters and also Star Wars from 1977. And that really, I think, shapes the 1980s into the 1990s and the aughts in ways that are profound.

1:02:15Jen Chaney:So a couple of tears, I think, is not the benchmark that we want. I think it's going to be long-term influence. And for that, I think Close Encounters holds its own.

1:02:25Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:A mere autonomic response. Not rational, not admissible in this court. I will say, I think Richard Dreyfuss's crying in Close Encounters struck me. Well, I guess you've noticed something a little strange with Dad.

1:02:45Jen Chaney:It's okay, though. I'm still dead.

1:02:51Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:This is not a film where I have a lot of sympathy for his very annoying, loud children. But the scene at the dinner table where Roy breaks down in the foreground and then behind him, you see his oldest son is clearly has never seen his old man cry before. His performance in that scene is really, really extraordinary. Jen. All right. I have a friend in his mid 40s. Hello, Harley. You've met Harley, who has refused my suggestion that we show E.T. to his eight-year-old and his 11-year-old because he can't handle it. We have watched Predator with his kids, but he won't show them E.T. because it is too emotionally draining for him.

1:03:27Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:He's like, if you want to come over and show my kids E.T., have a good time. I'll be in the garage. All right. So where I assume this isn't an if. At what point during a viewing of E.T. do you do you start crying, Jen?

1:03:39Chris Klimek:I always cry at the end when he has to say goodbye. I think that's like one of the most classic weepy scenes in cinema. But I have found myself as I've gotten older being really moved by the scene where Elliot and E.T. are in the closet and they're listening to his mom read Peter Pan to Gertie and doing the, you know, clap if you believe in fairies. And it's right when E.T. like heals his hand.

1:04:04Jen Chaney:She says she thinks she could get well again if children believed in fairies. Do you believe in theory?

1:04:10Chris Klimek:Say, quick, did you believe? I do, I do, I do. If you believe, clap your hands. And it's just this beautiful parallelism. It's shot beautifully. So sometimes that's what gets me. But I want to come back to something we were just talking about, about whether E.T. was scary. Another remarkable thing about this movie is that you did not know what E.T. looked like before that movie came out. And in fact, I tried to go see E.T. and we couldn't get in because it was, you know, selling out. which is why I end up seeing Poltergeist in an absolutely inappropriate age which is another movie that's really interesting to look at in parallel to E.T.

1:04:46Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:Yeah, another summer 82.

1:04:48Chris Klimek:So I didn't see E.T. until early August of 82. It had been out since June and I still didn't know what he looked like. I only knew what the hand looked like. They did such a good job of not showing you that and that's like absolutely the opposite of what people do when they market movies now. They would be like, three years beforehand here's the initial sketch of E.T. now here's a different version of it. And I loved that I didn't know what he looked like. And I actually was going into it thinking I might be scared because I'd just seen Poltergeist. And the way that they advertised it with him like hiding in the shed, you're like, oh, this might be really scary.

1:05:21Chris Klimek:And so I think the fact that it ends up not being scary also adds to the emotional resonance of it. If you were able to go into it without that knowledge, it was kind of amazing.

1:05:31Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:As our concluding question, sense of wonder. E.T. shows us how an unexpected relationship can change your life. Close Encounters shows us how just the unknowability and vastness and mystery of the universe may show you that whatever is troubling you is utterly inconsequential compared to what could be. So which of these films engenders a more powerful sense of wonder? Margaret, tell me.

1:05:59Jen Chaney:I think that I've underplayed the role of Francois Truffaut. Monsieur Lacombe. Yes. And the way that Spielberg brought in the French filmmaker and had him embody the leader of the investigative team that's looking at these UFO sightings and appearances around the world. And I think that it's because, to come back to this question of awe, they're grappling with the knowability of this encounter with aliens. And also, he then voices the sense of we need to respect kind of what the aliens are doing. The military is trying to control this encounter with the aliens coming in. But these ordinary people who've had these encounters are finding themselves drawn to this.

1:06:52Jen Chaney:And that's where you come up with this famous line, they belong here more than we, which he struggled to articulate in English to the point where the crew had T-shirts made up that said, they belong here Mozambique, because that's really what it sounded like when he said that. But I think then you have not just kind of a tug at the heartstrings kind of awe, but an awe that comes from a reality of this engagement with aliens and also this happening in a multi-layered way that needs to be policed so that that organic relationship between the abductees, between the people who've had these earlier other close encounters of a first or second kind, deserve to be respected in the call to come and be a part of this close encounter of the third kind.

1:07:45Jen Chaney:So I think that it is a grown-up intellectual sense of awe that is multi-layered and I think articulated and embodied in that figure that is played by Francois Truffaut, the famous French director.

1:07:59Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:All right, Jen, why do you still think E.T. engenders a more powerful sense of wonder in the audience.

1:08:05Chris Klimek:I mean, I just feel like wonder is the guiding principle of the whole film. And I think the story that Close Encounters is telling, and it has to do it this way, is you're starting from a place of paranoia. And what is the deal with these aliens? Are they benevolent figures or are they actually bad? And that question exists in E.T., but it's gone so fast as soon as he meets E.T. And just the sense of... him just getting to know this character, this creature who looks so different from himself. And I mean, that's when you asked earlier about, you know, what do you think of when you think of E.T.?

1:08:44Chris Klimek:Aside from the bike riding across the moon, I think about just the looks on everyone's faces when they look at E.T. or at the end when they're all looking up in the sky. Everybody looks like they are in wonderment constantly in that film. Like it's, I don't know what else to tell you. Like it's just, it embodies that more than any other movie I can think of. All right.

1:09:04Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:Closing arguments. Jen, is there anything in your quiver that you haven't had an opportunity to fire off before now?

1:09:10Chris Klimek:I mean, this just feels like a game over type of thing to say. But and correct me if I'm in any way misrepresenting Mr. Spielberg. But I believe he still says when asked that E.T. is his most personal film. And I think he even says like probably the one that he'll be remembered for the most. and he made the movie and he made Close Encounters. So if he thinks E.T. is better and more memorable, who am I to argue with Steven Spielberg?

1:09:39Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:Margaret, do you have a closing statement?

1:09:41Jen Chaney:I think as we get to 2027, which is going to be the 50th anniversary of 1977, I think we're going to be remembering Star Wars, Close Encounters, the launch of the two Voyager spacecraft, which are just now getting to be one full light day away from Earth, which is the farthest than any human-made thing has ever gone, and that carries on it a message written in math and music about who we are. And I think that Close Encounters is going to be talked about in that conversation as a visualization of that kind of profound encounter carried out through math and music. And so I think that Close Encounters will stand up and be a part of that 50th anniversary conversation next year, not only on its own merits, but because of its place in that context as a real turning point year, 1977.

1:10:44Jen Chaney:I quoted Latin at you. Come on.

1:10:46Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:Boy, you're really just pulling out all the stops. And yet, with respect and gratitude to both advocates for the substance and the passion of their scholarship the court finds here today on the basis of the evidence that E.T. is the superior Spielberg-friendly aliens flick.

1:11:10Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:Margaret, you had the harder job. It's a more sprawling, more inscrutable, less cuddly movie. You have been an eloquent and incisive advocate for it. Very honorable, very honorable. But the court does find in favor of VT. Listeners, now it's your turn. Please go to moviedeathmatch.com and vote for which of these two Spielberg masterpieces you believe to be the more masterful piece. Whether you've been persuaded by one of our expert combatants today or whether you've had a clear favorite from which you will not be moved, let us know. vote at moviedeathmatch.com. Jen and Margaret, thank you both for being here.

1:11:50Chris Klimek:Thank you.

1:11:50Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:This was a treat. Thank you.

1:11:51Chris Klimek:Yeah, it was really fun.

1:11:52Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:Let's take a moment to mourn the erasure of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, a beloved and influential Spielberg classic slain in single combat. Also, listeners, if you have any feedback for us, or if you'd like to suggest a Deathmatch pairing, you can email the show at moviedeathmatch at filmspotting.net. That's moviedeathmatch at filmspotting.net. Jen Cheney, where can listeners find your work?

1:12:16Chris Klimek:It's probably best to follow me on Blue Sky if you're on Blue Sky. I'm also on Instagram at JenCheneyTV. I write for the New York Times watching email and for the Washington Post and a bunch of different other places, but social media is the best place to keep track of it all.

1:12:32Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:All right, well, we'll post those handles in the show notes along with a link once again to your 2012 Washington Post essay about the 30th anniversary of E.T. Your book, As If, The Oral History of Clueless. It is the definitive behind-the-scenes account of one of the major films of the 90s. Check out As If, The Oral History of Clueless for another film that is almost as formative to Jen Cheney as E.T. I say this from a place of knowledge. Margaret, if it's okay with you, I would like to offer all movie deathmatch listeners absolutely free admission to the National Air and Space Museum. Can they do that?

1:13:06Jen Chaney:For the building downtown on the National Mall, you do need free time tickets. So I would encourage people to go to our website first and get their ticket and come see us. For the Stephen F. Udvar-Hazy Center out by Dulles Airport, you could just drive up. There is a parking fee. But other than that, come on in.

1:13:23Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:Anything else you would like to plug?

1:13:24Jen Chaney:I will plug that the National Air and Space Museum's building on the National Mall will be a major part of the semi-quincentennial celebrations this summer. for the 250th birthday of the United States, which is also the 50th birthday of that building, which was itself a bicentennial present to the nation, from the people to the people, as Gerald Ford said at the time. And so look for extra programming, but also look for the museum to be opening seven new galleries by the end of the calendar year, completing a major transformation, a renovation that began in 2018. So that is our part of the 250th.

1:14:02Jen Chaney:50th. And then please come out to the Udvar-Hazy Center and in the McDonald's space hangar, you will find Greg Jean's model built at Doug Trumbull's shop. And you can bring your flashlight and you can look for all of the little hidden inside gotches jokes that are a part of that great tradition of movie model making.

1:14:23Dr. Margaret A. Weitekamp:I want to see whose gravestones are in the little cemetery plot on the hull of the mothership. They're super tiny.

1:14:28Jen Chaney:I don't think they contain any actual text, but they're a fun find. And R2-D2 is riding out on the edge there, speaks to the kind of closeness of that model-making community. Some of the same people who were working on Star Wars also then came over and were working on Close Encounters. So these are very much in conversation.

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