#237: Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Podcasts Galactic Watercooler
#21

I was 13 when Power Rangers came out, and hovering on that line where you’re still not sure if you want to be a kid or an adult. I thought Power Rangers was going to be stupid and ridiculous. My brother (who was 5) sat down to watch it and I did too. I think anyone that underrates Power Rangers probably didn’t watch it more than a couple of times.

Let me describe a show from my youth:
5 people dressed in matching white and (various color) suits are given access to giant robot animals that merge to form a massive warrior. That giant robot warrior fights evil monsters that come from space.

What have I described? Well, I’ve described both Voltron and Power Rangers (and probably a half-dozen other shows). They’re very different stories, but once you take that into account, we’re talking about the same basic premise. Saban Entertainment really capitalized on the idea of taking a Japanese produced show, overwriting the story for American Audiences, shooting the relevant parts.

Power Rangers had some complexity behind it. Some mystery (who is the White Ranger?), some intrigue (The evil Green Ranger), and like all good fans, we took to the (still very young) web and wrote Fanfic, made drawings. In our stories, there was heartbreak, death, changing of the guard, you-name-it. Tragically, even rule 34 applies (shiver)

The truth is (I think you’ll find) most of the cartoons we watched as kids do not hold up very well on a second viewing. I love transformers. LOVE transformers. But I don’t very often go back to watch the cartoon. The dialog is often incredibly awkward. Some of the stories are REALLY ridiculous. We don’t remember it that way because (I think) we were too caught up in the drama of the show to understand how silly it all was. The difference being that, at some point, we lose our suspension of disbelief. I’d argue that this is the reason why many of us hated The Phantom Menace after loving A New Hope. The Original Trilogy is definitely a better set of films, but we’re also definitely less forgiving than our 6-year-old counterparts. Go out and take a survey of the 8-year-olds in 1999. I’ll bet you find a lot of people who are quite fond of the Phantom Menace (If you can get them to admit it.) When John Stewart was interviewing George Lucas he (Stewart) said “My son says his favorite movie is ‘The Phantom Menace’, and I keep trying to explain to him, ‘No it’s not!’”

It’s interesting to qualify different “generations” as being the target audience for mainstream media. My brother and I are separated by 8 years. My parents and I are separated by 30. It’s easy to say that we’ve “come into our own” separating ourselves from the Baby Boomers. I suggest though that there’s only one target audience for mainstream media. It’s the Audience with money. The Baby Boomers have suffered a significant financial blow with the collapse of the economy. Geeks and Nerds of the 80’s and 90’s are the ones with the good jobs in high-tech sector. The Generation in high school right now stand to surpass us quickly. When we run out of disposable cash hollywood will dump us faster than you can blink. They don’t care.

I also think it’s a matter of time passage. The reason that all of these relevant movies are showing up is (IMO) two-fold:

  1. It’s very hard to come up with a unique concept that can be Franchised. Hollywood loves franchises. If they perform well, it’s practically free money.
  2. The people in Hollywood are the people that we grew up with. They want to do Transformers because they remember it. Combine that with Studios that are interested in sell-able Franchises and you’ve got a winning recipe.

When our “generation” starts getting boring in Hollywood, the studios (namely the people in charge of greenlighting projects) will move on to the next group of wide-eyed, excited kids who have a whole generation of friends to pander too. I don’t know if that’ll be Power Rangers or not. It might even be the new Spider Man movies.

#22

Listening to the 'cast now, and this discussion of first experiences getting truly absorbed into a game, plus this idea of “a game with a story” means that I must mention Faery Tale Adventure once again. If there’s anyone else out there who is a fan, let me know because I’d love to talk about it.

Browsing through a few other people’s posts here has brought back another thing which I always loved about these games - the cover art! On every manual or Atari cartridge, there is always this beautiful illustration to give you an idea of what the game is about or, rather, how the creators want you to see the game. Because when you turn on the game, the “rendering” is completely different. But, I always loved that prompt - like, yes you may see a moving square, but it’s actually a knight!

and as I side-note, it’s one of the reasons I completely fell in love with this recent interpretation of the Pac-Man “story”

Anyway, back to Faery Tale - it also looks quite primitive, but I remember after the Atari, this was actually quite beautiful and detailed with all different kinds of textures. It’s a classic story, you have save your village/kingdom by collecting seven artifacts, scattered all over the map (which is HUGE - see how big the roads are compared to what you can see in the YouTube clip below)

Here’s a quick intro via YouTube (the music always starts out a bit weird/glitchy)

For anyone interested in trying this game out, I can give you some info on emulator/game files/etc.

#23

For you younglings, this is not hyperbole. You literally were a square. (The dragons were slightly better rendered.)

#24

It’s weird - Elite Force was the only multiplayer where I rocked on Multiplayer. Must be the inner geek.

#25

Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

Anybody else play this? This the only Star Wars game I played, and the only First Person Shooter I ever got into. Very challenging at points. I never got through the whole thing.

#26

Did someone say Daft Punk?

//youtu.be/XhMAD7jToz8

(feel free to embed that, I’m interface limited)

#27

You should try Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy. The continueing story of Kyle Katarn who is one of the most badass characters in Star Wars.

Oh man you know what’d be a sick game? Kyle Katarn, Han Solo, Dash Rendar, and Lando Calrissian in a 4 play coop third person shooter.

Kyle is the jedi character, Han is pistols and explosives, Dash is heavy weapons, and Lando is everyman/rifles but he spits game in the cutscenes

#28

Jon Hamm has been on one of the other podcasts I listen to, Never Not Funny a few times, and the host always jokes, “Jon Hamm. He’s handsome, he’s talentented, he’s funny… God Damn him!”

#29

From that picture, he looks fine for a golden Age or Silver Age Superman. Not sure how he’d pull off a Modern Age one.

I played its precursor, Dark Forces and loved it. I loved the music and enjoyed the main theme. I bought and attempted Jedi Knight, but never finished.

#30

Considering that picture is from a role set in the 60s? Lol of course he looks like golden/silver

#31

Off Topic: Oh! 2 posts from 5,000!

But, yes. I’ve sen him out of character before. Still, I just don’t quite see him as Supes atm.

#32

Just give him black hair that sometimes looks blueish and he’s good to go imo

#33

There are two games from my childhood that stand out for being strong memories:

Dragon Warrior (the series later became Dragon Quest) was a bit of a fluke for me. I had never played and RPG before. DW though was offered for free with a subscription renewal of Nintendo Power (which I was getting at the time), I remember being tremendously surprised when my mom so willingly accepted my explanation of the situation and readily renewed the subscription. No questions, no further expansion on the topic. Just an okay (while we were on vacation nonetheless) and then she made the phone call.
It came in the mail much later, and I remember plodding my way through it. When I reached the end, my brother (who was probably 3) was scared of the Dragon King.
Dragon Warrior led to my eventually requesting Final Fantasy for Christmas (I think). I loved that game.


The Journeyman Project was a time travel adventure. It pre-dates Myst as a photorealistic adventure, but Myst had a bit more broad appeal I think. This one was significant for me because I had to save the cash up myself to buy it. $45 to a 13 year old is not a small amount of money. A month’s worth of cleaning I was doing for a disabled friend of my parent’s resulted in my copy. It’s a tragedy that Presto Studios (who made the game) went under. They did quality stuff.

#34

Loved Jon Hamm’s turn as Lex Luthor in this little video:

//youtu.be/EwwpXIiSk2k

#35

Bwahaha! Loved the ending!

#36

Star Wars was the first movie I saw in the theaters twice. The first time I saw it was fairly soon after it opened, but by the second time I went to see it the phenomenon had taken hold, and several people came in costume, including a wookiee and Darth Vader, who were aiming some sort of red-light weapon around the crowd. Three cheers for my mom, who played dead when she was “hit.”

Anyways, actually posting to share this awesome link (~calling Audra~) re: music, the universal language:

//youtu.be/ne6tB2KiZuk

Oh, and about Jon Hamm: one of the many reasons he was hired for Mad Men was b/c he was specifically not buff. He’s very attractive, but doesn’t have the body of a guy who goes to the gym like an actor from the 2000s, he has the body of a guy from the 60s (remember William Shatner’s infamous girdle?) before 6-pack abs and working out at the gym became a thing. Since Hamm’s character spends a lot of time with his shirt off, they were happy to get an actor who didn’t sport a 6-pack. Interestingly enough, they made a point last week of showing him at the club swimming laps in the pool as part of a self-improvement jag, and I wondered while I was watching it if the writers were accommodating the actor’s plans to work out more for other roles, to make a gradually more toned and sculpted body a part of the continuity.

#37

I Honestly don’t remember the first movie I ever saw twice in the theater. It could have been any one of dozens of movies. I do, however, remember the first movie I saw twice in one day. In fact, I saw this movie twice on it’s opening day. Once with my Father and sister and then again later that night with Mom. It was Return of the Jedi.

#38

Elite Force, Jedi Outcast, and Jedi Acadmey are some of my favorite games ever! I’m glad to see so many fans here. We should do a PC game night with one of those. The orignal Jedi Knight and Dark Forces are also great, but I don’t think they hold up as well all these years later.

#39

Hey folks - Craprica here with a little on music and its role in Close Encounters.
As a musician, I loved the use of music as such a significant and beautiful plot point in Close Encounters. People often say that music is the universal language, so I thought I’d try to delve a little deeper into a little bit of why that is completely true. And also my answer to Audra’s question about the hand gestures.

On the idea of music as a universal language:

I recently was lucky to get my hands on tapes of a series of lectures Leonard Bernstein did at Harvard back in the 80’s. (Bernstein was a long time conductor of the NY Philharmonic, and perhaps more famously composer of West Side Story. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Bernstein) Before watching the lectures I knew Bernstein was a musical genius, but I had no idea what an academic he was! I’ll try to get right to one of his points.
Bernstein demonstrates in the videos below that the 12 notes of the western scale were not artificially created at some point in time. There is a natural reason for each notes tuning.

Overtones:
When you strike a note on the piano, you are in fact hearing more than one pitch. As well as the pitch of the note you strike, a series of higher pitches sound, called overtones. These overtones are a natural occurrence, and sound in the same specific order for every starting note.
Lets say you strike a the C two octaves below middle c on the piano. Pitches you will hear mixed in to that first C are: an octave up ©, an additional perfect 5th up (G), an additional perfect 4th up (C again), an additional major 3rd up (E), and many many more.

Bernstein explains it as I never could. I HIGHLY recommend you actually watch both segments, and they are critical to understanding what i’m trying to say.

//youtu.be/8n3qMB6AD_0&feature=related

//youtu.be/iDTj6tBnHlA&feature=related

In addition to the triad Bernstein mentions, there is additional evidence of music’s natural origins later in his lecture that I’ll do my best to outline.
I highlighted the “additional perfect 5th up” for a reason. The appearance of a perfect 5th in this naturally occurring series of pitches is interesting and noteworthy. If we were to start on a C, and go a perfect 5th up at a time, we would wind up with these notes:
C, G, D, A, E, B, F#, C#, G#, D#, A#, F, and then we return to C.
This is known as the Circle of 5ths, something many young music students learn about.

However if we order these notes by pitch we get:
C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#, A, A#, B, and then C…
The 12 notes of the western scale!

Remarkably, what might at first seem to be an artificial splitting of the octave is in fact based on a natural occurrence.
If the very foundation of our music is based on something natural, then who is to say that music itself is not the universal language.

Using other intervals that naturally occur in overtones, one can can discover the many other scales used in world music, such as the pentatonic scale. (the scale that uses just the black keys of the piano.)

On the hand signs:

Hungarian musicologist Zoltán Kodály developed a series of hand gestures that directly relate to the syllables assigned to notes in the solfege system.

Solfege is a system of assigning syllables to each note of a scale. If you take the C Major scale, (CDEFGAB), each note’s letter name corresponds to a syllable, (Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Si - (Like in The Sound of Music)). The hand gestures are simply a visual representation of the syllables, with each gesture equivalent to one of the syllables. However, they do have a basis in the natural tendencies of certain musical pitches to resolve to other pitches.

In some positions, the hand points up or down because certain notes have a natural desire to resolve to other notes. The easiest explanation for this is that it SOUNDS GOOD when certain notes resolve a certain way.
For example, the 7th note of the scale “wants” to resolve up one degree. For this reason it is called the “leading tone”, and its hand gesture (te, ti, or si… either name is good) points UP. Here is a chart of the hand gestures. They are NOT in sequential, stepwise order.

And a link to the wiki blurb on the hand gestures.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodály_Method#Hand_signs

The hand gestures Lacombe made were just as though he had sung those 5 notes, or played them on the organ again. Just another way of representing the notes.

The fact that the alien understood the hand gestures is a bit of a stretch, but the gestures do have some basis in universal constants.

Hopefully I’ve explained more than I have confused here. PLEASE ask me questions if you have any, I’ll do my best to answer.

Spielberg’s idea that music is the one thing that can connect us all is one of the most powerful I have seen in cinema, and I hope this has shed some more light on exactly why music is called the universal language.

#40

I am with you buddy. I hunted that Wumpus. For real. Best part? The computer I played it on didn’t have a monitor…it was essentially a keyboard and a printer. Every new line was physically printed. #geekcred