Close Encounters Of The Third Kind's Original Title Paid Homage To A Classic '50s Sci-Fi Movie

While "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" has become a certified classic and one of Steven Spielberg's most well-regarded films, you wouldn't be alone in thinking the title is a bit on the clunky side. Spielberg himself had a different title in mind when he was first drafting the script for the film, one based on a '50s sci-fi classic entitled "The Thing From Another World," often referred to simply as "The Thing" (not to be confused with the 1982 John Carpenter horror film of the same name). The director originally wanted to call the movie "Watch the Skies," based on the final line from the '50s film.

The line "Watch the skies!" serves as the film's ominous closing warning, encapsulating the paranoia and cosmic unease that defined the era's alien invasion stories, tracing a lineage back to Orson Welles famous radio broadcast in 1938, adapting H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds." By evoking The Thing, Spielberg signaled that his own film would be in conversation with that earlier generation of science fiction (an inspiration he also drew on for his underrated miniseries, Taken), even as he schemed to take the genre in a very different direction.

The title change wasn't motivated purely by creative impulses; there was also a legal impetus involved that would ultimately become key to the identity of the entire project. According to Ray Morton's book "Close Encounters of the Third Kind: The Making of Steven Spielberg's Classic Film," the title change was triggered in part in reaction to a letter from a lawyer representing Dr. J. Allen Hynek.

Hynek had written a non-fiction book entitled "The UFO Experience" that arranged extraterrestrial encounters into different categories, including "close encounters of the third kind," which referred to direct contact with alien beings. Negotiations between Columbia Pictures and Hynek's legal counsel eventually led to the studio purchasing rights to the film, and to Hynek being assigned as technical advisor on the film, ending the temporary title change. Reverting to the original title helped to ground the film more firmly in Hynek's classification system and reinforce the scientific and conceptual framework of Spielberg's story.

The final title ended up being a much better fit for the themes and narrative captured by the film. While "Watch the Skies" is punchy and evocative of some of the movie's influences, it suggests a fundamentally different type of story, one rooted in paranoia and suspicion. Spielberg's film, much like his later work in "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial" and some of his other alien movies, portrays alien life not as an existential threat to humanity but rather as something profoundly mysterious and even beautiful. The final title of the film hints at this kind of association, with an emphasis on classification and understanding rather than fear.

Later iterations of the film retained and honored the now-iconic name. The 1980 re-release, which featured new and reedited footage, was marketed as The Special Edition of Close Encounters of the Third Kind (though it was frequently referred to in the press as Close Encounters of the Third Kind: The Special Edition). Onscreen, however, the title remained unchanged, further cementing its place in film history (despite Spielberg's bet with George Lucas that Star Wars would outperform it).