The battle rages on -- for CE3K fans, anyway

I took some time out today to organize the ol' Close Encounters of the Third Kind collection and thought I'd start sharing some of the articles.

First up: Anyone who was around in 1978 knows a debate sprung up over whether Star Wars or CE3K was the better film. Actually, it's not an argument those who love the latter film more expect to ever win, but there are many of us out there who prefer the adventure and/or the spiritual connotations of CE3K over lightsaber clashes. 

It's not as though movie lovers can't appreciate both, I certainly do. And it was never a bone of contention between our writer/director Steven Spielberg and George Lucas on the other side. Of course, diehard fans know R2D2 makes an appearance in CE3K when the mothership appears on the horizon. And the master craftsmen and good friends even made a bet about whose film would perform better at the box office -- they both thought the other would rule the landscape. So Spielberg and Lucas gave each other 2.5 percent stakes in each other's movies. Close Encounters grossed just over $300 million worldwide, but still fell short of Star Wars' $775 million intake that year.

If you're like me, you might still be trying to bring people over to CE3K's side. An article from the April 1978 issue of Space Wars stated the cases for both films. We'll see if the analysis helps ... or hurts ... these efforts. 










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