The Close Encounters of the Third Kind 30th anniversary box set is an interesting item. The set includes the film's original version, special edition, and director's cut. Among its special features is a three-part "making of" documentary. Usually the purpose for such behind-the-scenes footage is to provide average audience members with a bit of insight into "movie magic", which is especially true for films with elaborate set-pieces. What's interesting about this documentary is that every person from Steven Spielberg to Richard Dreyfuss seems to be promoting some sort of agenda, which "” at least for me "” has an adverse affect on the movie.

Considered a timeless classic, Close Encounters was highly regarded after its initial 1977 release. Audiences were given a fantastic story with revolutionary special effects in one of the first films to explore the notion that extra terrestrials might not be aggressive. But why do many considered this either a science fiction or alien movie? In actuality, the sci-fi elements, while integral to the plot, are only prevalent in the film's first and third acts.

The film's central character is Roy Neary (Dreyfuss), an Everyman, father of three in Muncie, Indiana whose life is flipped upside down by a chance encounter with an alien spacecraft. Initially, the encounter has little effect on him beyond general excitement from the colorful spectacle; he drools like a monster chasing his kids around the house and flirts with his wife (Teri Garr) as if nothing happened. But while shaving one day, he stares at his hand full of shaving cream and something hits him; he begins shaping the cream into a figure he knows he's seen but can't pinpoint. He asks his wife, and the shape means nothing to her. But it means something to him. Something big. The entire second act is devoted to him figuring out this abstraction.

Though its science fiction elements are legendary, Close Encounters is really about obsession and, more specifically, the obsessions of artists. One of the film's subplots tracks a local mother and her toddler son, both of whom also encountered the spacecrafts. The mother inexplicably begins sketching dozens of unknown figures (the same ones in Neary's head), while her son repeatedly chimes a five-note refrain on his toy xylophone. Additionally, the climax of the film shows a large group of scientists led by Claude Lacombe (Francois Truffaut) communicating back and forth with the spacecrafts using the same musical refrain. Lacombe dictates the volume, speed, and continuousness of the refrain like the conductor of a symphony.

And then there's Neary, the sculptor. His obsession is the most serious, and consequently the most damaging. It keeps him from listening to his children at dinner, and when he suddenly begins sculpting his mashed potatoes, he looks up to see he's made his oldest son cry.