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This sequence of five tones was used as a doorbell sound effect in the 1979 James Bond film "Moonraker" (see Spielberg's comments above).

Jerry Garcia incorporated the five tones into a now famous improvised transition between The Other One and St. Stephan during a Grateful Dead concert at MacArthur Court on the campus of the University of Oregon on January 22, 1978.

The english rockband Muse have also used the five tones. The guitarist Matthew Bellamy plays them as a "warm-up" to the first track "Knights of Cydonia" on the liverecording H.A.A.R.P.

The song "More Than a Feeling" by Boston was also featured in the movie.

Contents 1 References and parodies 2 Director's interpretation 2.1 Differences 2.2 References to previous films

[edit] References and parodies

• Saturday Night Live spoofed the film when Dreyfuss was the guest host as "Cone Encounters of the Third Kind" featuring the recurring Conehead characters. In this case, instead of removing the cone top from the clay sculpture like he did in the film, Dreyfuss attaches it to make it right.
• The film was spoofed in a short titled Closet Cases of the Nerd Kind on the original 1980's videotape Hardware Wars and other Film Farces. In this short, the mother ship was a huge pie accompanied by marching music.
• On the episode "Who Wants It More?" of That '70s Show, Kelso (Ashton Kutcher) tells of seeing a UFO. Hyde (Danny Masterson) later mocks Kelso by sculpting Devils Tower out of mashed potatoes and saying "This means something".
• The movie is also spoofed in two episodes of The Simpsons. In the episode "The Springfield Files", while the citizens of Springfield are gathered in the field awaiting the 'alien's' appearance, the school music instructor, Mr. Largo and 5 of his students play the famous 5 note tune on marching band instruments. Finally, just before this, Kent Brockman references the title with "Close Encounters of the Blurred Kind", show Homer's photo and videocam evidence. In another episode called "Homie the Clown", Homer forms a large mashed potato circus tent after becoming obsessed with a billboard advertising a local clown college.
• In the film UHF, George Newman ("Weird Al" Yankovic) sculpts his mashed potatoes into Devils Tower and says, "This means something, this is important."
• The mashed potato sculpture is once more spoofed in the film Muppets From Space, where a fan of Gonzo presents Kermit the frog with a mashed potato sculpture of Gonzo's head.
• Close Encounters was parodied in an eighth-season episode of the British comedy The Goodies entitled "U-Friend or UFO?". Steven Spielberg was a fan of The Goodies and in 1979 he considered making a film with the British trio.
• In the movie Bruce Almighty, there is a deleted scene, which may be viewed on the DVD, of Jim Carrey's character, Bruce, parodies being crazy and sculpting what looks like Devils Tower out of cookie dough, saying "This means something, this is important!"
• In the film Canadian Bacon, Rhea Perlman's character, swept up by a faux Cold War with Canada, builds a replica of the CN Tower in Toronto out of mashed potatoes.
• The five-note musical motif of the film has been referenced many times. It was used as a code entered on a pushbutton keypad in Moonraker of the James Bond series, and the first five notes on Mr. Herriman's keypad security system in the Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends episode "The Big Cheese", and in the Power Glove sequence of the motion picture The Wizard. In one episode of the short-lived animated series The Oblongs, the tones are used for the doorbell of an alien masquerading as a teenage girl. Rock guitarist Steve Vai referenced it in his song "Little Green Men" from his 1984 solo album, Flex-Able. John Petrucci plays it before beginning the song "Trial of Tears" on the Dream Theater album Once in a LIVEtime. Jerry Garcia also quotes it in a solo from the Grateful Dead's January 22, 1978 concert at the University of Oregon. The tone is also played at the beginning of "Alien Hominid". Enigma also borrowed the motif for the song "Back to the Rivers of Belief". Daft Punk opened their 2006 U.S. performance, their first in 8 years, at Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival with the theme music from the movie, performing in an LED pyramid. Originally intended to serve as a sound check, the duo opened every show of their Alive 2006 and 2007 tours with the five-note tune. Duran Duran plays it before beginning the song The Chauffer on the Arena Album. Most recently, it was used to communicate with the Internet in the "Over Logging" episode of South Park.
• Close Encounters was parodied in an episode of That's So Raven, called "Close Encounters Of The Nerd Kind".
• It was mentioned by Captain Steve Hiller in the movie Independence Day, when he knocks out an alien. He says, "Now that's what I call a close encounter".
• The title is brought up briefly in The X-Files episode "Squeeze".
• Matt Bellamy of Muse played the musical motif from the film before Knights of Cydonia at their two massive gigs at Wembley Stadium on June 16, 2007 & June 17, 2007.
• There is an episode of the anime series Pani Poni Dash! where Miyata tries to communicate with aliens (with a piano, not a Simon as in the film), but gets shot by their laser for her efforts.
• In the first episode of the anime series Vandread, when the character Dita first meets Hibiki for the first time, she does the hand signs as a greeting, believing he is an alien.
• ImprovBoston's fourth annual "GoreFest" Halloween production, "Gross Encounters of the Nerd Kind," was named for the film although there are few similarities otherwise.
• The five note sequence was used (played on violin) in a sketch by Trev and Simon, on Live and Kicking, the main thread of the parody being related to the release of Stargate.^{[citation needed]}.
• One of the chapters in Rodman Philbrick's novel, Freak the Mighty, is called "Close Encounters of the Turd Kind".
• Belgian stand-up comedian Alex Agnew sings the five note sequence in his show "KA-BOOM"
• In the Blood Sisters, May seems to be a fan of the movie, having a poster of the movie in her room.
• In the TV series South Park, the episode Over Logging sees an employee of the Colorado internet main computer send a "Digital signal" to it in order to make it work again. This signal is the same note sequence seen in the film when the aliens first land.

[edit] Director's interpretation

Writer/director Richard Kelly does not deny personal interpretations, but has expressed his own theories through the extra commentary on the two DVDs, his own (fictional) book The Philosophy of Time Travel, and in various other interviews.

According to Kelly and his Philosophy of Time Travel, at midnight on October 2 a Tangent Universe branches off the Primary Universe around the time when Donnie is called out of his bedroom by Frank, immediately before the appearance of the Artifact, the faulty jet engine. The inherently unstable Tangent Universe will collapse in just over 28 days and take the Primary Universe with it if not corrected. Closing the Tangent Universe is the duty of the Living Receiver, Donnie, who wields certain supernatural powers to help him in the task.

Those who have died/will die within the Tangent Universe (and would not have died otherwise) are the Manipulated Dead (Frank, Gretchen Ross). Manipulated Dead Frank, at least, is also given certain powers in that he is able to subtly understand what is happening and have the ability to contact and influence the Living Receiver via the Fourth Dimensional Construct (water). All others within the orbit of the Living Receiver are the Manipulated Living (e.g. Ms. Pomeroy, Dr. Monnitoff), subconsciously drawn to push him towards his destiny to close the Tangent Universe and, according to the Philosophy of Time Travel, die by the Artifact.

There are two "Franks" in the story: the living boyfriend of Donnie's sister Elizabeth (at the end of the film he is killed by Donnie) and the Manipulated Dead Frank who appears to Donnie as a premonition from the future in the disturbing rabbit suit (the second Frank is dead, or undead). Dead Frank is aware of Donnie's fate and destiny.

[edit] Differences

In the director's cut:

• The opening-scene song was changed from Echo and the Bunnymen's "The Killing Moon" to INXS' "Never Tear Us Apart". The INXS song was the intended original number. "The Killing Moon" later replaces "Under the Milky Way" by The Church during the party scene, although it's a remixed version of the song. "Under The Milky Way" now plays on the radio in the car scene with Donnie and his father.
• In the original cut, when Donnie walks into the kitchen at the end of the first scene, the opening music fades and the "The Killing Moon" is playing on a radio in the kitchen. Yet this is not so for "Never Tear Us Apart" in the Director's Cut.
• Donnie follows a transparent "spear" while watching the football game; the spear does not form a finger and beckon him, as in the original.
• Donnie's psychiatrist informs him that his pills are placebos, and tells him that he is an agnostic, and not an atheist as he thinks.
• The Holiday Inn scene is longer.
• The scene with Cunningham in the school is longer. Cunningham goes through the kids' problems in greater detail.
• Several scenes in Ms. Pomeroy's classroom are re-inserted: Donnie reading his own poetry about Frank in class, the teacher announcing the banning of Graham Greene's The Destructors and its replacement with Watership Down, and the class later watching the animated adaptation of Watership Down.
• Frank does not apologize in the theater during The Evil Dead.
• In the theatre, Frank's voice is changed from the usual whispering heard in the original, to the same 2-layered, distorted voice as heard when he is first heard.
• Karen Pomeroy's firing is shorter, while the scene in which Donnie asks her about the words "cellar door" is longer and contains almost entirely different dialogues.
• Various transition scenes show chapter excerpts from Roberta Sparrow's The Philosophy of Time Travel.
• There is more of Donnie and Gretchen, including an arcade scene with Donnie playing the race-car game Outrun. In the game the car is red, as is human Frank's TransAm.
• In a new scene, Donnie's mother and father are eating dinner in a restaurant as they discuss Donnie's situation.
• Donnie and Elizabeth are shown carving jack-o-lanterns. Donnie carves his into the shape of Frank's mask. In the original version, this lantern is still present on the kitchen bench but is not seen being carved.
• The shot of Donnie's eyes bulging as his face enters the spear at the Halloween party is removed.
• A series of fireworks, clips from the animated film Watership Down, and shots from the Outrun video game are superimposed over the montage at the end of the film.
• The scene in which Frank first wakes Donnie is longer.
• Certain events first appear as images within Donnie's eye, described as deus ex machina by director Richard Kelly in the audio commentary for the Director's Cut. The first image of Frank flashes in Donnie's pupil as Frank wakes him; the second image is that of rushing water to represent the flooding of the school; and there is a shot of fire in Donnie's eyes before Frank tells him to burn Cunningham's house down (instead of a full-screen shot of Cunningham's house on fire). The eye appears every time Donnie is commanded to do a task.
• Near the beginning of the movie, when Donnie's mom comes into his room, "Voices Carry" by Til Tuesday is playing in the background.
• The deleted scenes (included in the first DVD release) are hidden as easter eggs.
• In the original, when Frank shows Donnie a portal in the movie theater, the portal transitions into a picture of Cunningham's house as Frank tells Donnie to "burn it to the ground." In the Director's Cut, the portal transitions to a shot of Donnie's eye with flames in the eye's reflection as Frank then tells Donnie to "burn it to the ground."

[edit] References to previous films

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There were several references to the previous three films. Some of them are:

• In one scene when a sword fight was going on between two moving cars, a lot of aspects of that scene were very similar to the coal-car scene in Temple of Doom.
• When Marian and Indy were bickering in the back of a Soviet truck, one of the Soviets attempted to gag Marian the same way Marian was gagged in a tent in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
• When Mutt caused the Soviets to crash into a statue of Marcus Brody, the statue's head fell off and into the truck. Mutt, who was driving a motorcycle, chuckled and looked at Indy, at which time Indy gave him a disgusted look. This could be a reference to a scene in The Last Crusade in which Indy chuckled after causing Nazis to wreck their motorcycles, and Henry Sr. giving Indy a dirty look.
• Hangar 51 is the warehouse from Raiders of the Lost Ark where the lost Ark of the Covenant was placed. The ark is seen in the movie when one of the crates is busted open in the chase sequence. During the moment the Ark's crate is glimpsed, there is a musical tribute to the Ark’s theme from the Raiders Soundtrack. The same theme is played when the doors to the hangar are opened.
• When Indiana is looking at the pictures on his desk and commenting about his father and Brody, there is a musical tribute to the Holy Grail’s theme from the Last Crusade Soundtrack
• At the end of the film, after Mutt wants to get going back home, Indiana says for him to hold it then calls him “Junior.” After a beat, Indiana begins to chuckle and says, “Somewhere your grandpa is laughing.” This is a reference to The Last Crusade, where Henry Jones, Sr. kept calling Indy “Junior”.
• Spalko's death is mirrored by how the Nazis are killed by the Ark of the Covenant in the Raiders of the Lost Ark.
• During one scene in the movie, Indiana says "I've got a bad feeling about this", which is a refrence to the famous recurring line first said by Han Solo (Played by Harrison Ford) in the Star Wars films.
• In one scene while being chased Indiana says "This is intolerable!" Henry Jones, Sr. spoke that line three times in The Last Crusade.
• At one point Indiana tells Mutt that when he was younger, he rode with Pancho Villa. This is a reference to the first episode of the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, "Young Indiana Jones and the Curse of the Jackal", in which Indy, played by Sean Patrick Flanery, rides with Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa.