AFTER Close Encounters of the Third Kind

I’ve been thinking about some post Close Encounters of the Third Kind scenarios. I am well aware it’s a work of fiction, and there is no after-story to it. But just think about it…

At some point, maybe a year, maybe even a decade, Roy returns to earth the way those pilots and Bermuda Triangle people did. And, Cary Guffey was only gone for less than a week, right? So let’s say Roy is back. His family has no idea where he went. He just up and left his house with the big mountain in the living room with everything on and nothing packed. Nothing. Just disappeared. I’m sure there was a mortgage on his house which he was probably the primary income for, so I don’t see how they could’ve kept it.  Not to mention other bills, and I never had the feeling that Teri Garr had a job. They probably spent a lot of time trying to find him. A very strange mystery that probably partially wrecked their lives.  Probably even some guilt that the very last time they saw him, he was flinging off the hood of the station wagon!

Now he comes back. I’m sure he goes to find them. The last time they saw him, he was behaving positively nutso. Now he comes back, and tells them that he has been in a spaceship the size of Dallas the past however long, or visiting an alien planet? Yeah, they are going to take that very well. He better damn well have some proof. Can you imagine? You could almost argue the movie doesn’t work if you think about the post scenario. Even stranger, if he simply never comes back and dies of old age with the aliens, imagine his kids in that case, growing old and never knowing what on earth happened to their father. A total missing persons case with zero evidence. Although, now that I think about it... it would likely be in the news that Roy Neary is a missing person. I would think that Melinda Dilllon at some point would contact the Nearys and attempt to explain what happened. Then again, then they might suspect he had an affair with this woman and she must’ve killed him and buried his body out in the desert. So she may well keep quiet. But then there’s François Truffaut. He and Bob Balaban would have surely wanted to go back and learn more about this man, the man they sent up with the aliens. They would learn all about what happened with his family. Would they have tried to contact them? To at least give them some closure and peace of mind? Not likely. All too top-secret.

I kind of think Roy would at some point in outer space, realize what he did and abandoned his wife and kids completely. Who knows, maybe the utter amazement of what he’s going through with aliens would negate any such earthly feelings. But that would eventually wear off and he would surely think about them. He would want to go back and find them. He’s not going to be able to see them experience high school, college, marriage, any number of things and not want to be a part of it. Wouldn’t you think? There could’ve been a hell of a non-science fiction family drama sequel to this movie and it probably would’ve been really compelling.  I don’t know, thinking like this kind of makes the happy, when you wish upon a star joyous ending of the movie, not so happy after all.