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Reporting for duty. (I'll get to Beowulf in a mo.)
I'm buying the new CE3K DVD - maybe tonight in fact, if it was released yesterday, as scheduled - - with the hopes that it will have the 1977 original. But I seriously, most seriously doubt that it will.
Back in the days of laserdisc, the reputable Criterion company put out what it billed as the original 1977 version of CE3K, but it wasn't. If Criterion would either commit such fraud, or fall for false representations by Columbia Pictures without doing even a modicum of research ... then I don't put it past Columbia to tell such lies again now. And I fear the 2 lost scenes and 2 missing miscellaneous shots may be lost forever to the mists of time and careless film preservation.
Keep in mind that Lucasfilm recently issued a DVD which it advertised as the original 1977 version of Star Wars ... which it wasn't. But it was closer than the new CE3K DVD is likely to be. Star Wars had several sound differences and the opening crawl was most likely a recreation of the '77 version. But Close Encounters will, unless I will be overfreakingjoyously wrong, be missing two entire scenes (plus some other footage).
If the DVD is already available, I will report back tomorrow.
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