Things you were shockingly old when you learned

In at least one or two of the half dozen different cuts of the film, yes.

You've never seen it?

(xp)

I'm choosing to believe flappy has seen one of the Truffaut-lite cuts (because if he hasn't seen it at all, wtf). That whole extended bit toward the beginning with Francois and Bob Balaban was inserted later and I think he doesn't otherwise appear until the Devil's Tower sequence.

I've only ever seen it once tbf and Truffaut being in it was one of the highlights.

Never seen it

Me neither

It's good!

Seeing it tmrw

Ah, you can report back. I hope Truffaut's in it.

it's incredibly boring

YOU'RE incredibly etc.

boring is a fake idea

I watched some of it at a schoolmate's birthday party on VHS and all or most of us got bored and gave up

went to a newly-struck 35mm screening of the director's cut in 2013 and fell asleep around the time a squad of alienspotters were hanging out up a hill

Had no idea there were cuts without Truffaut, he adds a lot

I don't think they removed any Truffaut in the later edits, they just added more Dreyfuss.

In the original theatrical cut there's the opening scene discovering the 5 planes in the sandstorm, finding the latitude & longitude on the globe, Truffaut demonstrating the hand signals, and the scene in India where everyone points at the sky. The first recut added the ship in the Sahara scene.

Fuck any version that doesn’t include the footage of the inside of the alien spacecraft. Spielberg hated it, but the studio wouldn’t let him do the Special Edition without it. NEVER LISTEN TO THE “GENIUSES”.

AFAICT there isn't a version that doesn't omit something. It's a little ridiculous.

I wish any actually-released cut had included the scene where the plane we here in the air traffic control scene lands, and Truffaut's team shows up to confiscate the passengers' cameras. It's a good scene!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNG2FDKaZoQ

Also the scene where Truffaut tests Balaban's translation skills by having him read an erotic novel.

they should restore the footage from the aliens' homeworld imo

https://wwwcache.wralsportsfan.com/asset/voices/2018/02/21/17359747/creepy_alien_smile-DMID1-5dv72z0f6-220x242.gif

that 'alpha' + 'beta' gives you 'alphabet', realised approximately 45 seconds ago while reading an introductory bit on Ancient Greek appropriation of Phoenician symbols. seriously, that has just blown a hole in my brain a mile wide

welp

That whole extended bit toward the beginning with Francois and Bob Balaban was inserted later

Old Lunch factually wrong, cuz i saw it in '77, pal

u ppl should fall asleep to that Ridley Scott shit

was def in my 30s before I realized the alpha+beta thing

Forgiveness, Morbs, sorting out what is and is not included in the various cuts of Close Encounters requires some kind of flow chart, possibly a slide rule.

That whole extended bit toward the beginning with Francois and Bob Balaban was inserted later

Old Lunch factually wrong, cuz i saw it in '77, pal

So did I, and you're wrong. The movie has *always* opened with the black screen/credits w/swelling score crescendoing to a loud chord and the bright desert light of the Truffaut/Balaban/airplanes scene. Every cut.

This site details, down to the timecode, the differences among all extant versions, and there are none until 14 minutes into the movie. https://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=491777

Even the comics adaptation opens with that scene!

https://savacoolandsons.blob.core.windows.net/photos/13003/13003-x95y.jpg

https://savacoolandsons.blob.core.windows.net/photos/13003/13003-x95y.jpg

Also the promotional Topps trading cards were sequential and this card is #1 in the series:

https://www.tradingcarddb.com/Images/Cards/Non-Sport/75166/75166-1Fr.jpg

ANYWAY.

Okay fine, y'all are just going to badger me until I'm forced to admit that I hardly ever pay much attention to the first fifteen minutes of any movie because I'm too busy dancing around the room and singing the title over and over to the tune of Zapp's 'More Bounce to the Ounce'. Are you happy now? Are you?

Hold up, I am cuing the filmstrip proving you are wrong. One sec

And for final emphasis, Vincent Canby's NYT review of Nov. 17, 1977:

Though “Close Encounters” is strictly a product of the 70's in its dress and manners, its heart is in the 50's. This is apparent from the first scene, when a squadron of World War II fighter planes, missing on a training mission more than 30 years earlier, suddenly turn up intact, as good as new, in the Mexican desert. In classic sci‐fi manner, Mr. Spieiberg's screenplay then cuts from this general introduction to the “mystery” to encounters with the mystery by individual folks in Muncie, homespun types like you and me who draw into the adventure

Still loading the film strip

lol final emphasis, pal!

Here, lemme see that thing a sec (grabs Close Encounters screenplay, uncaps Sharpie)

Filmstrip is jammed. Gotta wait for A/V to come down

The Truffaut? The Truffaut?! I can't handle the Truffaut!

Alright, so I held 'em up to the overhead light and it turns out the first 20 images on the filmstrip are indeed of Ol' Lunch dancing around the room, but he could be singing to the tune of ANYTHING. When will the lies end.

I found out today that you can get wrist replacement operations, in the same way you can get a hip replacement op.

If only there was also a way to cure the blindness...

Leopold Stokowski was English.

The epitome of 'fake it till you make it'.

And one of his wives, the pianist “Olga Samaroff”, was actually a Texan named Lucy Hickenlooper.

nous as in cop on
derives from a Greek term not the french 1st person plural.

This just occurred to me so be nice, but the terms high brow and low brow come from phrenology don't they?

— Bill G (@morosevacuum) September 11, 2019

Makes sense!

Don't know if it's been covered here but always happy to discuss how many terms derive from printing that people are often impressed by (pun intended!)

Uppercase and Lower Case, mind your Ps and Qs, stereotype and cliché are all ancient printing terms.

The keenest print historian I know disagrees about “mind your ps and qs “ fwiw - I saw an excellent discussion on this at a letterpress conference last year. But generally yes - “bodge” is another printing term in general use (in the uk at least).

(The idea is that ps and qs is a pun on please and thank you, on the basis that (a) there’s no documented instance of it being an old printers’ phrase, and (b) what it actually means -“mind your manners”, more or less - is nothing to do with what it would mean in a printing context, which would have to be something about paying attention or being accurate.)

huh that's news to me! feeling shockingly old.