Close Encounters of the Third Kind: Collector's Edition [DVD] [2011]

I had never seen 'Close Encounters' before, so my purchase of the Blu-Ray release was something of a blind buy except, other than a positive review I glanced through on highdefdigest. I don't even know anyone that has seen it, so was getting curious because of the revenrential terms in which the film is described. Having just finished watching it about 15 minutes ago, however, let me just say wow. If you haven't seen the film it's very intense and has aged incredibly well. The special effects don't break the immersion (as happens sometimes with older effects-laden films) and the acting is great. I was totally sucked into the scenario... I read in the supplementary material included that Spielberg believed at the time that UFO contact had really happened in the 20th century, which makes sense since there is an amazing sense of realism to it. This is definitely not the recent 'War of the Worlds' film or 'Independence Day'. Basically, if you have not seen the film before you will not be disappointed by it; you can afford to blind buy this one.

For people who have already seen 'close encounters', I should mention that this includes three versions of the film, all three of which are in 1080p... the theatrical version, special edition, and director's cut. There is lots of printed material (a booklet and a small timeline poster) showing what the differences are between the various cuts. For £14, you get more than you do with a lot of Blu-Rays costing £25.

Picture quality is a huge pleasure to behold. The film is definitely nicer in high def. I was really impressed at how good it looks for its age. While not every scene is a showcase of what 'high definition' is, anyone could see the difference between this and standard def DVD. 100% recommended on picture quality.

Basically, I went from knowing almost nothing about this film to prizing this bluray as one of the best in my collection. A wholehearted recommendation which, at this low price, deserves to be on everyone's shelf.

I can still remember getting excited watching this for the first time.

It's still a great movie, classic Speilberg (loads of subtle domestic detail) and interesting to think how much of recent popular culture has its roots in this movie. Without this would we have had X Files, a new Dr Who or any number of non-combat, alien contact movies and TV series? Probably not.

Presented in a nice, but unfussy box, the three discs come with a booklet and fold out timelines so you can see what is different about the three versions without having to sit and watch them all with a stopwatch.

In fact, the new cut is the best - more build up, but less (in fact, none) of inside the mothership. Speilberg admits it was a mistake to put that in the Special Edition.

On a good 5.1 system with the volume turned up the musical "chat" between the synth guy and the mothership is even more schoolboy-exciting than I remember it being 30 years ago.

I'm a recent convert to Blu-ray, but so far have been a little disapointed with the film catalogue available, as the technology has been available for a couple of years now. However, this disc is an exception to that problem.

To start with, there's not much that needs to be said about the film itself that hasn't already been said, and most people must have seen a version or two by now, so I'll concentrate on the BR release.

To start with this is better value than most BR releases to date price-wise, and the main film disc is well presented and neatly put together. The animated menus are stylish, easy to use & neat. But what is a bigger surprise is just how much you get for your money. The package includes all 3 versions of Close Encounters, and all 3 are seamlessly put together on one disc. Also, you can select a menu which highlights every minute difference between all 3 while you watch, for real Close Encounter buffs.

The biggest shock of all is the second disc though. Normaly the extras tend to be a little cut-price on Blu-Ray, with a cheaper SD DVD second disc. So I was a little shocked to find the extras disc seems to be full HD BR too, running at 1080 (for me). Not only that, but for very lucky people with a better HD television, this release is recorded at very high-def 1920*1080. I'n not even sure if my PS3 can handle that resolution, but my TV certainly can't. No matter though as picture and sound are generaly good, but to be fair the film shows it's age slightly in darker night shots, with a little graining sometimes.

But overall, even without the cheaper price, this is easily the best value BR release I have seen to date. I just hope we can get more releases of this quality, and soon.