Releases: Original Release (1977), The Special Edition (1980), The Collector’s Edition (1998), and The 40th Anniversary Release (2017)

The initial 1977 trailer for “Close Encounters” served also as a mini-documentary on the fim:

“Close Encounters of the Third Kind’s” first one-sheet was similarly mysterious, and thought-provoking.

We didn’t know what we were getting, but most of us figured this one bore no resemblance to “Star Wars.”

The film became the year’s second highest-grosser, behind that other science fiction movie. “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” starred Dreyfuss as Roy Neary, Teri Garr as Roy’s skeptical wife, Ronnie, Melinda Dillon as Jillian Guiler, Cary Guffey as her abducted son, Barry, French director Francois Truffaut as government UFO activities head Claude Lacombe, and Bob Balaban as Lacombe’s assistant and translator, David Laughlin.

“CE3K” was nominated for eight Oscars and won two (graphic courtesy of imdb.com):

Vilmos Zsigmond won Best Cinematography, and a Special Achievement Award was earned by Frank E. Warner for Sound Effects Editing (now a regular award). John Williams won Best Score that year for “Star Wars,” and the outstanding special effects, led by a team including “2001: A Space Odyssey’s” Douglas Trumbull, also lost to “Star Wars.” However, I prefer to note that both films were winners, so grand and influential were they to our culture that in reality they could be considered nothing less.

Sequel talk occurred on-and-off over the intervening years, but Spielberg elected to focus on other pursuits.

All the success aside, Spielberg was dissatisfied with his final cut of the film, for which he wanted more time to make and release (the following summer) but Columbia needed to make good on its investment.

There would be no delay.

In 1979, however, the studio gave Spielberg an additional $1.5 million to deliver his desired cut … with one condition: He would have to show the inside of the film’s mothership for marketing purposes. He reluctantly bit that bullet, and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind: The Special Edition” was released in August of 1980, three minutes shorter than the previous release.

The new cut earned another $15.7 million, and did little to alter the status of the first film.

Finally, in 1998 following various home video releases, Spielberg released his “definitive edition” of the film during the 75th anniversary year of Columbia Pictures, with a second theatrical release for the film’s 40th anniversary in 2017. Entitled “The Collector’s Edition” for home viewing, this final release thankfully cut the interior mothership scenes, thereby retaining a much-needed aura of mystery, while slightly tweaking existing scenes from the prior version.

Put to bed once and for all, the tinkering did nothing to hurt the film’s reputation. “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” remains a cinematic landmark, and Spielberg’s definitive version is the only version presently released in any format.