As a longtime UFO enthusiast, I really love Close Encounters of the Third Kind for all the nods to classic UFO lore. The way Spielberg reproduced the five observables and the electromagnetic effects of UFOs on cars and power plants, the cameo by J. Allen Hynek, the French character clearly based on Jacques Vallée… it’s all great stuff.

But honestly, when I take a step back and look at the actual story, I can’t help but see the aliens as the bad guys. Think about it: they show up, abduct people, and take them away from their lives and families for years. They abducted both the military pilots who vanished back in 1945 and the crew of that ship they found in Mongolia, holding them for who knows how long. They even took a child from his mother for entire days, and drove the main character to obsession and ruin, completely destroying his family life.

Seriously, who the heck do you think you are? This is our damn planet, not yours. You don’t just get to show up and mess with people’s lives like that. Go back to Zeta Reticuli and don’t come here again.