.... Spielberg re-released it with additional footage in 1980, then altered it again for the film's 1997 re-release on VHS with the extra footage dropped and some scenes never released put back in. Additional material aside, does the film itself deserve a place in the collection of all-time great Science Fiction? The answer is a resounding yes, as the film conveys a sense of excitement, wonder and obsession. Differing from other nihhlistic sci fi films (The Alien movies), Close Encounters is a story of a Roy (Richard Dreyfuss), who, after having an encounter with a U.F.O, starts to become fixated with images and sounds that draw him to the film's conclusion. Roy is the everyman in this movie, and the film centres on a reocurring Spielbergian theme of extraordinary events happening to ordinary people.