I don’t need to remind you about the most memorable line in this movie, when a little boy looks out his front door, sees aliens, and says “They’re heeeeeere”. Wait, what? That didn’t happen. In my mind it happened, but once I realized I had never seen this movie, I was able to work past the fact that I combined memories of this film with memories of Poltergeist. But hey, that’s what happens when you’re a retard. Not only did I vaguely remember a scene where a little kid looks out a door and sees alien spaceships, but I also remembered a scene where Richard Dreyfuss is smashing things in his house and building a huge pile of mud. Oh, and Teri Garr was pissed at him for doing so. Since this movie has aliens and mud, two of my favorite things, I figured it was about time to hunker down and watch the whole thing.

BLACK HOLE SUN, WON’T YA COME…AND WASH AWAY THE RAAAAAAAIN.

A bunch of scientists find airplanes in the desert with no pilots and are all like “WTF” and confused and shit. It also happens with a giant ship and everyone gets more confused. Then Richard Dreyfuss takes over. He works for the power company and while the power is going all apeshit in Indiana, he goes out to figure out what’s going on. The problem? MOTHERFUCKING ALIENS. A UFO flies by him and gives him a sunburn, and a few other people witness the same UFO that night. Dreyfuss starts acting like an asshole to Teri Garr, drawing an image he has burned into his mind over and over again, and eventually building models of it. Teri gets pissed at him for ruining the kitchen and leaves. Some other little kid gets abducted or kidnapped or whatever, and his mom is bummed, and it’s the mom from A Christmas Story! Whoa! So I guess Dreyfuss sees a picture of what he’s been imagining, and when he finds out it’s a real place, he goes to hang out with aliens and shit and brings Christmas Story mom with him. When they’re hanging out, they realize the army knew this was going to happen and these two have to be all sneaky to figure out what’s happening. Aliens land, they play some music, humans play some music, everyone parties, and Dreyfuss gets picked by the aliens to go on a magical spaceship ride. Oh, and the abducted little boy shows up, along with the pilots of the airplanes and crew of the ship that were found empty in the beginning of the movie.

Those dickhead aliens chopped the top off of that mountain! Noooo!!!!!!

For a movie about alien encounters, this film might seem pretty tame by today’s standards, but I’d say that’s why this film is so successful. I can’t think of the last time I saw a film involving aliens where the aliens weren’t trying to be dickheads and kill us. I thought it was interesting that in 1977, the concept of aliens was so intriguing to people, that simply by having them show up and prove they exist was cool enough, but nowadays they need to be starting shit with Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum or maybe trying to kill Milla Jovovich. Even with The Abyss in 1989, the original version shows the aliens threatening to destroy everything with tsunamis like a bunch of dickheads. Close Encounters of the Third Kind was a trip back to the time where science fiction didn’t always have to be dangerous and scary, and just the belief that we aren’t alone in the universe was enough to satiate viewers.

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