Refiner’s Fire: Fantasy of Alien Good: ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’

As fredy Buchet wrote about the film Love Story, the reaction of the public was far more interesting than the movie itself. Something similar can be said of Steven Spielberg’s film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Columbia Pictures) and the accompanying “novel” (Dell, 1977). Francis Schaeffer predicted in the late 1950s that the last third of the twentieth century would be characterized by “contentless mysticism.” This prediction was to some extent confirmed by the phenomenon of Star Wars, which began a spectacularly triumphal tour of the world’s movie houses in mid-1977 and generated a host of commercial byproducts (see September 23 issue, page 28). Close Encounters appeared too soon after Star Wars to be an imitation. In fact, it would appear that if Star Wars accidentally capitalized on the tremendous public readiness for some kind of moral-seeming mysticism (the “Force” of Obi-Wan Kenobe and Darth Vader), Steven Spielberg has consciously addressed himself to that readiness and indeed tried to present a message to it.

The motto of both the movie and the book, “We are not alone,” is more than a sub-title. It is as it were a scriptural verse of which the movie is the exegesis and interpretation. The fact that it is not Holy Scripture as we know it does not mean that it is not deliberately religious. It is evidently a religious counterfeit, intentional or not. Star Wars too involved a certain amount of spiritual counterfeiting with its apostrophization of the “Force,” as nearly as one can tell, a sort of pantheistic élan vital indwelling and in a sense governing the universe. But in Star Wars that was very subliminal, perhaps not even intentional on the part of George Lucas. In Close Encounters we are not confronted with such an evident pantheism, but do face a more explicit religiosity. The success of Spielberg’s film, following so closely on that of Lucas, demonstrates that what Paul said to the Athenians can also be said to the American public: “I observe that you are very religious in all respects” (Acts 17:22). But we may no more be content with this kind of non-specific religiosity in America than Paul was in Athens. He went on to proclaim, “God now declares that all men everywhere should repent” (Acts 17:30).

If Star Wars had stood alone, or been followed only by imitations that one could interpret as nothing but mere further commercialization, it might not warrant serious attention from Christians. But the fact that it has been followed so quickly by Close Encounters should give rise to some serious analysis on our part. Evidently Close Encounters too is a commercial venture—and an extremely lucrative one. But this is not all that it is. It is sufficiently different from Star Wars to count as a second witness, and offers evidence to convict the American public of an openness to non-specific, contentless mysticism. During the early centuries of Christianity, believers had to contend with what Adolf von Harnack called the “alien god,” namely the Marcionite-Gnostic idea that our universe was ruled by an evil, hostile power from whom we needed to flee into a sort of Gnostic other-worldly spirituality (a similar theme is present in the nineteenth-century American cult, Christian Science). Today, it seems that Christians have to contend with what we might call an alien good—the optimistic but illusory view that somewhere out in the impersonal universe are unknown but benevolent powers that will ultimately cause everything to turn out all right. Theologically, alien good like alien god (as in Athens) bypasses both incarnation and judgment—incarnation is bypassed because the good comes from outside and does not “dwell among us” (John 1:14), and judgment because its coming is precisely not a coming to judge (Mark 13:26–27). As such, the concept of alien good is a dangerous illusion. While the presentation in Close Encounters may be entertaining, it is also deluding, and all viewers, Christian and non-Christian alike, will do well to ask themselves not merely whether they enjoyed it but whether they understood it—and agreed.

For one who is familiar with the writing of many of the giants of the science fiction genre—Van Vogt, Asimov, Heinlein, Herbert, to name but four—Close Encounters must appear a rather thin effort. Technically, the book should be called a novella rather than a novel, for it lacks depth. It is entirely built around a single incident—the anticipated and finally realized touchdown of an interstellar vehicle. One of the generally accepted canons of good science fiction is that the story has to be internally consistent and make sense on the basis of its own assumptions. In this respect, Close Encounters is deficient. The prodigous alien intelligence capable of maneuvering something that looks like Manhattan by night superimposed on Los Angeles—as one reviewer said—between the stars, and of impressing a vision of a Wyoming mountain on the minds of people all around the world, certainly ought to be able to produce something more in the way of communication with us than a five-note sequence, hand signals, and a bit of touching and feeling at the first personal encounter.

Many questions of motivation simply are inadequately worked out in Close Encounters. Why would the United States government allow an encounter of this magnitude to be supervised by a fifty-year-old field grade officer—a major—and in effect directed by a French scientist who not only has difficulty speaking English and requires the constant presence of an interpreter, but whose French profanity is actually franglais—English translated back into French, apparently for the benefit of partially French-speaking viewers and readers? Why would the wise and competent aliens pick a miscellaneous group of individuals, from all over America, to encounter, and then in the last analysis settle for one, the power company lineman turned mystic, Neary? Why do people of all sorts, from Indian multitudes to space-age technicians, go into apparent transports of joy when confronted with the arrival of an immense alien vessel? Spielberg wants to communicate the fact that the aliens are benevolent and can be trusted, but it seems a bit strange that so many humans automatically trust them and are—as the novel text frequently repeats—“very happy” at the mere prospect of catching a glimpse of their portable metropolis. The motto of the movie, “We are not alone,” is plainly intended to be comforting. But—such is the nature of fallen man and such has been his experience with unknown of his own kind—the arrival and presence even of human strangers is usually the occasion of a certain amount of suspicion and fear—sentiments strangely lacking in Close Encounters. Surely at least some earthlings would react with the suspicion that the alien visit might turn out like that of the Martians in H. G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds—a mission of conquest, exploitation, and enslavement. Of course Mr. Spielberg knows in his heart that the aliens are good, but would the U.S. Army know that? It is refreshing that the organs and institutions of man in this production appear merely somewhat obtuse, not totally pernicious, but even so they contrast poorly with the undifferentiated goodness of the aliens.

Close Encounters, even more so than Star Wars, is weak as science fiction—or at least weak in a different way, since Star Wars is plainly science cowboys and Indians, while Close Encounters poses as something more like science Seagull (Jonathan Livingston, of course). The genuine, great science fiction has never had a really big public anywhere in the world. When first Star Wars and now Close Encounters attain something like cult status, at least for a few months, it is probably less a sign that science fiction has come of age and is widely accepted, than that the vehicle of science fiction is being used to transport merchandise of an entirely different nature—the contentless mysticism that is so popular in a sceptical but still deeply credulous and spiritualistic age. The success of Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, one of the earliest examples of what later came to be called science fiction, did reflect the openness of the age to the wonders of technology. But the success of Close Encounters really isn’t based on any widespread interest in science and technology. The only technically interesting scene is the docking of the great migrant city, and little or nothing specific is shown of the alien technology. The real interest is in the encounter, and—since so little is shown of the aliens—in the apparently spontaneous and natural transformation of the humans involved into devotees of the alien good.

One of the most puzzling scenes in the film—and book—is the chapel scene, in which a “priest”—specific religion undefined—leads the hastily assembled group of astronaut volunteers, prepared (for unknown reasons) for a cruise on the starship. The priest is wearing a clerical collar and looks rather Roman or Anglican, but the litany he leads and the astronauts’ responses must have been composed especially for the occasion, as it does not reflect anything recognizable. One would think that the arrival of a profound alien intelligence would pose at least a problem or two for some of the familiar religions of earth, yet we have the astronauts praising God and asking the Lord (not further identified) to grant them a happy journey—whether to the stars or to heaven is also left vague.

In short, the verdict on Close Encounters, and perhaps on the whole culture that produced it and that fills its producer’s coffers, must be this: scientifically clever, technically impressive, religiously and emotionally affected and even affecting, but almost altogether without coherent intellectual content. Close Encounters is Romans 8:28 abbreviated: “All things work together for good.” But Romans 8:28 dare not be abbreviated, for incomplete, it is false: “… for them that love God, the called according to his purpose.” As a symptom of our age, it is very enlightening; as a cure, if any were so misguided as to perceive it as such, it is no better than the Athenians’ altar to their Unknown God.

Harold O. J. Brown is chairman of the systematic theology department at Trinity seminary in Deerfield, Illinois.

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