Looking back 40 years, it’s clear now that Steven Spielberg’s 1977 science-fiction thriller “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” — hitting theaters this week in a remastered edition — is the Rosetta Stone for understanding everything Spielberg did after.
Remarkably, the movie holds up exceedingly well, even better than its box-office rival in 1977, George Lucas’ “Star Wars.” While the two movies are evenly matched in terms of special-effects wizardry, “Close Encounters” holds a slight edge in the wonder department because it deposits its visual marvels not in some galaxy far, far away but in the American heartland.