[0:00] Alien films are a dime a dozen, but
[0:02] there's something uniquely interesting
[0:04] about Steven Spielberg returning to the
[0:06] world of UFOs with Disclosure Day, his
[0:09] 36th feature film. The Beard is a born
[0:12] entertainer, and he's left his mark on
[0:14] Hollywood in more ways than we can
[0:15] count. But several of his landmark
[0:17] movies and even some of his less beloved
[0:19] ones have circled back to the idea that
[0:22] when it comes to the universe, we may
[0:23] not be alone. The man has directed
[0:26] everything from monster movies to
[0:27] historical dramas. But why do
[0:30] Spielberg's alien films in particular
[0:32] make him such a fascinating filmmaker?
[0:35] Maybe it's that his UFO pictures all
[0:37] feel completely different. Or maybe it's
[0:39] that they share similar themes despite
[0:42] those big differences. Either way, we
[0:44] have to ask, what does it mean for an
[0:46] artist to return to the same well
[0:48] repeatedly for over 60 years, even as
[0:51] the world around him changes, and so
[0:53] does he?
[1:04] Spielberg's trrist with
[1:05] extraterrestrials dates back to his very
[1:07] first theatrical feature. No, Sugarland
[1:09] Express doesn't secretly have aliens
[1:12] watching the drama from offscreen. We're
[1:14] talking about a movie you might not have
[1:16] even heard of because very few people
[1:18] have actually seen it or will ever see
[1:20] it for that matter because it's
[1:22] practically lost. In fact, Spielberg
[1:24] himself calls it one of the worst films
[1:26] ever made, but he can sort of be
[1:28] forgiven. After all, he made it when he
[1:30] was only 17. Firelight screened at a
[1:33] single Phoenix movie theater and
[1:35] allegedly made $1 in profit off its $500
[1:38] budget, which not bad for a first try.
[1:41] We can't really dissect it as a whole
[1:43] because only three minutes of footage
[1:45] still exist. But what we do know can
[1:47] tell us a lot about Spielberg's
[1:49] cinematic foundations as a kid who was
[1:51] born around the time of the Roswell
[1:53] incident and grew up during the
[1:55] subsequent wellspring of conspiracies in
[1:57] popular media. As far as we can tell,
[1:59] Firelight feels inspired by both the
[2:02] Twilight Zone and UFO B pictures from
[2:04] the 1950s. It's steeped in their
[2:07] specific flavor of cold war paranoia and
[2:10] nuclear age skepticism against the US
[2:12] government with a character trying
[2:14] desperately to convince the CIA that
[2:16] aliens represented by fire lights in the
[2:18] sky are actually real. But what is
[2:21] probably more revealing is that even at
[2:23] 17, Spielberg was already making movies
[2:26] centering on couples with marital
[2:28] problems. In this case, in the form of a
[2:30] cheating husband. If you've seen his
[2:32] 2022 semi-autobiography, The Fableman's,
[2:35] or pretty much anything he's ever made,
[2:37] you'll know that unhappy marriages are a
[2:39] huge part of Spielberg's movies. Because
[2:42] by the time he made Firelight as a
[2:43] teenager, his parents had already been
[2:45] divorced for a couple of years. Even
[2:47] before he had the budget to make a
[2:49] splash, his stories tried to combine
[2:51] epic spectacle with the intimate
[2:52] domestic scenarios he knew best. Of
[2:55] course, just throwing what you know at
[2:57] what you imagine doesn't make a good
[2:59] movie. But by the time Spielberg
[3:01] returned to these ideas over a decade
[3:03] later, he had figured out a strange,
[3:05] melancholy, and surprising empathetic
[3:08] way to refashion a tale of divorce into
[3:10] one of fascination with the unknown.
[3:18] Inspired by his father showing him a
[3:20] meteor shower when he was a kid, Close
[3:22] Encounters of the Third Kind saw
[3:24] Spielberg returning to the story of
[3:26] Firelight and even recreating certain
[3:28] scenes shot for shot. According to the
[3:30] biography by Joseph McBride, there's
[3:32] also a bit of Stanley Kubri to be found
[3:34] in the visual department. Since at the
[3:36] time Spielberg was making Close
[3:37] Encounters, the influence of 2001, A
[3:39] Space Odyssey would have been hard to
[3:41] ignore. While it began as a short story
[3:43] called Experiences, about young couples
[3:45] at a lover's lane seeing mysterious
[3:47] lights in the sky, it would eventually
[3:49] be combined with Spielberg's idea to
[3:51] make a documentary or a low-budget
[3:53] feature about people who strongly
[3:55] believed in UFOs. Its original title was
[3:58] Watch the Skies. borrowed from a line in
[4:00] the 1951 sci-fi horror, The Thing from
[4:02] Another World.
[4:03] >> Tell the world. Tell this to everybody
[4:06] wherever they are. Watch the skies.
[4:09] >> But by the early 70s, under taxi driver
[4:12] screenwriter Paul Schrader, it nearly
[4:13] became a story about blowing the
[4:15] supposed lid off Project Blue Book, a US
[4:18] Air Force study in the 50s and 60s about
[4:20] the protocol for observing UFOs, which
[4:23] seems more in line with Disclosure Day.
[4:26] And while Close Encounters eventually
[4:28] used some of these ideas, like the heavy
[4:30] government presence, the final movie
[4:32] ended up pretty different from where it
[4:33] began by focusing on the abduction of a
[4:36] young boy and more importantly a father
[4:38] who becomes so obsessed with the idea of
[4:40] UFOs that he leaves his wife and kids to
[4:43] hang out with legendary filmmaker Franu
[4:45] Trufo. Oh, and to kiss another woman. As
[4:48] a child, it was Spielberg's
[4:49] understanding that his own father simply
[4:51] walked out on his family. However, the
[4:53] real truth of his mother's affair
[4:54] wouldn't come out until he was a teen.
[4:56] But even [music] in his late 20s, he was
[4:58] using cinema as a way to channel
[5:00] complicated feelings about his family
[5:02] history. In Close Encounters, Roy Neri,
[5:04] played by Richard Drifus, begins
[5:06] experiencing psychic visions of a
[5:08] mysterious mountain after his encounter
[5:10] with the lights, which makes him
[5:12] essentially leave his family behind to
[5:14] help the abducted toddler's mother.
[5:15] Coming from a director who resented his
[5:17] father for leaving, it feels like a
[5:19] fairy tale that projects a complicated
[5:21] sympathy onto Neri, giving him a good
[5:23] enough reason to leave, exploring the
[5:25] mysteries of the universe. There's also
[5:27] a bit of Spielberg himself in some of
[5:29] Ner's obsessions, like the introduction
[5:31] of a train set, which Neri later uses to
[5:33] depict the images he couldn't get out of
[5:35] his head. Much like Spielberg's
[5:37] childhood experience of recreating the
[5:38] train crash from Cesy Deill's The
[5:40] Greatest Show on Earth, it feels in some
[5:42] ways like Spielberg trying to understand
[5:44] his own father based on his teenage
[5:46] understanding of his parents' marriage
[5:48] and in some ways even why his own mother
[5:50] may have been compelled to leave in
[5:52] search of happiness elsewhere. For
[5:54] Spielberg, joy seems to lie in creating
[5:56] fantastical images of the universe. So
[5:59] having his characters chase those dreams
[6:01] somewhere out there in space makes
[6:03] perfect sense even though it also ends
[6:05] up being the story of a man leaving his
[6:07] family. It's bittersweet. Now how much
[6:10] of [music] his parental projection is
[6:12] intentional is anybody's guess. In fact,
[6:15] when interviewed on Inside the Actor's
[6:16] Studio, it was the first time that some
[6:18] of these ideas even occurred to
[6:20] Spielberg. like how communicating with
[6:22] the aliens through computerized music is
[6:24] a rich combination of his mother's work
[6:26] as a pianist and his father's as a
[6:28] computer engineer which eventually end
[6:30] up played on a massive cinemaized
[6:31] screen.
[6:32] >> Your father was a computer scientist.
[6:34] Your mother was a musician. When the
[6:37] spaceship lands, how do they
[6:39] communicate?
[6:41] >> That's a very good question. I like
[6:43] that. [laughter]
[6:44] >> You've answered the question.
[6:46] They make music on their computers and
[6:48] they are able to speak to each other.
[6:51] >> You see, I'd love to say, you know, I
[6:53] intended that and I realized that was my
[6:55] mother and father, but not until this
[6:56] moment.
[6:57] >> Regardless of intent, Close Encounters
[6:59] is a deeply personal, deeply spiritual
[7:02] film to the point of drawing on
[7:04] religious imagery. but replacing heaven
[7:06] and the afterlife with dazzling
[7:08] spaceships as people walk toward the
[7:10] light. Spielberg also seems to replace
[7:13] God and angels with aliens as a way to
[7:15] understand humanity's place in the grand
[7:18] scheme of things. Some scenes directly
[7:20] reference Spielberg's [music] influences
[7:21] like Deill's the Ten Commandments which
[7:24] seem to inspire the way he uses matte
[7:26] paintings [music] of landscapes and
[7:27] clouds converging overhead. Close
[7:30] Encounters might even be the closest
[7:31] thing Spielberg has made to a religious
[7:33] epic. The first time we actually see the
[7:35] aliens, the idea that they represent
[7:37] some divine forgiveness or salvation is
[7:40] extremely overt, as though Spielberg was
[7:43] using the genre to find answers to the
[7:45] mysteries in his own life by answering
[7:47] the question of why someone would be so
[7:49] spiritually compelled to abandon their
[7:52] family. Surely, they must have a good
[7:54] enough reason. But if using UFOs to
[7:57] channel childhood anxieties wasn't clear
[7:59] enough, Spielberg's next Alien story
[8:01] made things pretty direct.
[8:06] With his 1982 hit ET, the
[8:08] extraterrestrial [music]
[8:10] Spielberg practically created a new way
[8:12] of depicting kids in American cinema as
[8:15] little adventurers exploring the
[8:17] vastness of suburbia. But of course, the
[8:19] all ages tearjerker was about much more
[8:21] than just kids on bicycles against
[8:23] faceless government suits shot like the
[8:25] adults in Tom and Jerry. [music] While
[8:27] some believe ET was inspired by the
[8:29] alien, an unproduced script by Indian
[8:31] filmmaking legend Suchajit Ry, Spielberg
[8:34] maintains he had never read the draft
[8:35] that had circulated in Hollywood for
[8:37] several years. Even though Ryy's
[8:39] description of the alien as a cross
[8:40] between a gnome and a malnourished
[8:42] refugee matches what Spielberg would
[8:45] eventually do with ET. Still, what ends
[8:47] up on the screen is distinctly
[8:49] Spielbergian no matter what. So, for
[8:51] now, we'll take him at his word.
[8:53] According to McBride's biography, a
[8:55] young Spielberg dealt with his parents'
[8:57] separation by turning to an imaginary
[8:59] alien friend, which essentially makes
[9:01] ET, a childhood dream, come to life.
[9:04] >> I've been wishing for this since I was
[9:06] 10 years old.
[9:07] >> Like Close Encounters, ET is a story of
[9:10] suburban mundanity interrupted by the
[9:12] arrival of UFOs. Only this time,
[9:14] Spielberg tells it from the perspective
[9:15] of a child whose father has already left
[9:18] the family for another woman. It is, in
[9:20] some ways, a thematic successor. This
[9:22] tale of divorce from a kid's perspective
[9:24] unfolds quietly in the background, but
[9:26] it underscores the emotions that young
[9:28] Elliot feels when he first meets the
[9:30] titular alien, making ET a story about
[9:33] yearning for a friend or protective
[9:35] figure. In fact, Elliot even first meets
[9:38] ET by throwing a baseball his way into
[9:40] the empty space where his dad should be.
[9:42] While ET himself may not be imposing or
[9:45] traditionally masculine or paternal,
[9:47] [music]
[9:48] the kids dress him up in their father's
[9:49] old clothes, and he becomes a conduit
[9:51] for Elliot and for Spielberg himself to
[9:54] channel the lingering sensations of
[9:56] yearning for someone only to lose them
[9:58] and feel abandoned by them. This film's
[10:01] wish fulfillment is so powerful that it
[10:03] not only takes the form of magical
[10:05] flight but religious euphoria with a
[10:08] resurrected ET designed in the vein of
[10:10] the resurrected Christ robes and all
[10:12] combining questions of science fiction
[10:14] with questions of faith once again. The
[10:16] aliens in Spielberg's films may be flesh
[10:18] and blood and in ET's case about 26%
[10:21] beer, but they exist to fill spiritual
[10:24] holes in their characters' lives. While
[10:26] Spielberg would eventually go on to wear
[10:28] his faith on his sleeve, he spent his
[10:30] early years turning away from religion
[10:32] in his personal life, which makes his
[10:34] overt use of religious imagery and
[10:36] biblical epics on screen all the more
[10:39] interesting. As if he were using
[10:40] cinematic depictions of things he
[10:42] doesn't fully believe to better
[10:44] understand their utility or their place
[10:46] in people's lives. The more he mapped
[10:48] them on to significant personal
[10:50] experiences similar to his own, the more
[10:52] real they became. like accepting that
[10:54] sometimes you have to say goodbye. As it
[10:57] happens, making ET turned out to be a
[10:59] significant personal experience, too,
[11:00] since Spielberg cites it as the film
[11:02] that finally made him want to have
[11:04] children, a story he recreates in
[11:06] Jurassic Park. Intentional or not,
[11:09] Spielberg's alien stories are closely
[11:11] tied to the journey of parenthood. After
[11:13] all, how can you not think about your
[11:16] future and what you leave behind when
[11:17] you're forced to confront [music] your
[11:19] place in the universe? It would be
[11:21] nearly two decades until Spielberg
[11:22] returned to anything resembling aliens
[11:24] on the big screen, by which point he'd
[11:26] had seven kids in the 80s and 90s. So,
[11:29] it's safe to say that by the time the
[11:31] new millennium arrived, The King of All
[11:33] Ages cinema might have had a slightly
[11:35] different or slightly more evolved view
[11:37] on family ties. Which brings us to his
[11:40] next big alien adventure steeped in
[11:42] religious ideas.
[11:43] >> But in the beginning, didn't God create
[11:45] Adam to love him?
[11:51] Despite the similarity of its title
[11:53] structure to ET, the extraterrestrial AI
[11:57] artificial intelligence doesn't actually
[11:59] have any aliens in it. [music] At least
[12:01] not the kind from outer space. Even
[12:03] though some of you might remember the
[12:04] final act featuring slender alien-like
[12:06] creatures. Those were actually advanced
[12:09] robots from 2,000 years in the future,
[12:11] which had evolved from the ones we
[12:13] created in the movie's present. However,
[12:16] their similarity to aliens might not
[12:18] have been an accident and may have been
[12:20] suggested by Spielberg's visual language
[12:22] much earlier when he first introduces
[12:24] David, the artificial boy created for
[12:26] parents whose son was in a coma. The
[12:28] first time we see David, he's out of
[12:30] focus and appears as a lanky silhouette,
[12:32] not unlike the way Spielberg depicted
[12:34] the aliens in Close Encounters. And
[12:36] while Spielberg mapped a tale of
[12:38] childhood yearning onto an alien in ET,
[12:41] this is arguably when he flipped the
[12:43] script through his tale of parents who
[12:45] fear they may not be able to love their
[12:47] child the way he deserves because of his
[12:49] unfamiliar alien nature. David is
[12:52] programmed with a single goal, to be
[12:54] loved by his mother, Monica. But this
[12:57] love is not something she's capable of
[12:58] returning the same way. A parental
[13:01] anxiety Spielberg channels through yet
[13:03] another sci-fi story. only this time,
[13:05] it's hard not to read the film as a
[13:06] product of both a young parent and an
[13:09] adult who, after his own parents'
[13:11] divorce, learned that he was abandoned
[13:13] by his mother. The story of AI long
[13:15] predates Spielberg's involvement. In
[13:17] fact, it's something that Stanley Kubri
[13:19] had been trying to adapt since the 1970s
[13:21] and probably would have if he hadn't
[13:23] died in 1999. But what makes AI so
[13:26] powerful as a specifically Spielbergian
[13:28] film is the sincerity at its heart,
[13:31] which comes from a personal and painful
[13:33] place. For instance, listen closely to
[13:35] the score when David returns to a
[13:37] version of his home after 2,000 years.
[13:40] It's the first time John Williams' music
[13:42] is stripped down to its fundamentals
[13:44] with the use of a single instrument.
[13:46] Many people attribute AI's saccharine
[13:48] final act to the melodrama maestro, but
[13:51] David getting to experience one last day
[13:53] with his mother was always a part of
[13:55] Kubrick's script. This climax even bears
[13:57] similarities to the invisible aliens in
[13:59] Kubri's 2001, creating a room to observe
[14:01] an astronaut named Dave. As it turns
[14:04] out, it was some of the seedier elements
[14:05] of AI, like the red light district city,
[14:07] home to Jigalo Joe, that were
[14:09] Spielberg's additions, as a world too
[14:11] big and too complicated for the eyes of
[14:13] a child. But the way Spielberg captures
[14:15] David's innocent yearning to be a real
[14:17] boy so he can be loved by his mother
[14:19] fills the frame with beautiful
[14:21] curiosity. As for the not aliens near
[14:23] the end of the film, they're
[14:25] foreshadowed early on as things we've
[14:27] left behind. This explanation can't help
[14:30] but read like the anxieties of a baby
[14:32] boomer. Once the radical hippie
[14:34] generation whose rapid expansion felt
[14:36] like it would usher in a utopia, but who
[14:38] ended up responsible for climate change
[14:40] and other catastrophes. What are the
[14:42] ethics of bringing a child, real or
[14:44] otherwise, into a world you've already
[14:46] killed? This is a key part of what makes
[14:49] AI tick as a story steeped in fears
[14:52] associated with having children,
[14:54] especially losing them. The idea of
[14:56] creations meant to outlive us is a
[14:58] devastating expression of parenthood
[15:00] itself. The notion that what we create
[15:02] ends up saddled with our fears, our
[15:04] flaws, and our projections of
[15:06] encroaching morality in a dying world,
[15:08] whether they like it or not. But once
[15:11] you pull on that thread a little
[15:12] further, it also becomes an expression
[15:14] of artistry itself. The idea that what
[15:17] we create will last long beyond us. And
[15:20] in Spielberg's case, it's these sci-fi
[15:22] toys and cinematic aliens that will
[15:24] [music] carry on his legacy. Despite
[15:26] setting the film in a world destroyed by
[15:28] human hubris, there's a kind of utopian
[15:30] beauty to the evolved robots in the
[15:32] final act who communicate and share
[15:34] images as a hive mind, practically
[15:36] showing each other movies of David's
[15:38] memories. backing up the idea that for
[15:40] Spielberg, these robots and alien beings
[15:43] are manifestations of his own creativity
[15:46] and perhaps even his need to create
[15:48] something that alienates him from other
[15:50] people. There's a kind of purity to AI
[15:53] that makes it one of Spielberg's most
[15:54] touching modern works. But it also came
[15:57] out at the last possible time when he
[15:59] could have or would have made a movie of
[16:02] its kind. By the time he directed his
[16:04] next Alien feature just four years
[16:06] later, the world would have irreversibly
[16:08] changed.
[16:10] [music]
[16:14] War of the Worlds represents a full
[16:16] circle moment for Spielberg. The story
[16:18] written by HG Wells dates back to the
[16:20] 19th century, while the famous radio
[16:22] play by Orson Wells was broadcast in
[16:24] 1938. But Spielberg's version pays
[16:27] frequent homage to the 1953 film
[16:29] adaptation by Byron Haskin, another 50s
[16:32] sci-fi landmark steeped in Cold War
[16:34] paranoia and the kind of movie that
[16:36] inspired Spielberg's earlier works. It's
[16:38] worth noting that when Spielberg and
[16:39] George Lucas were writing the fourth
[16:41] Indiana Jones in the mid90s, the success
[16:43] of Roland Emmerick's Independence Day
[16:45] made Spielberg turn away from the idea
[16:47] of using aliens on screen. But this
[16:50] didn't necessarily apply to his
[16:51] adaptation of War of the Worlds. See,
[16:54] Independence Day was probably the last
[16:56] moment in time that widespread
[16:57] destruction of an American metropolis
[17:00] could be digested as turn your brain off
[17:02] entertainment because after the events
[17:04] of September 11th, 2001, this was
[17:06] something that became all too real. Some
[17:08] movies alluded to 9/11 in its aftermath.
[17:10] But Spielberg's War of the Worlds was
[17:12] the first Hollywood production to
[17:14] approach imagery reminiscent of the
[17:15] attacks in head-on fashion. It's a film
[17:18] whose story opens with the New York
[17:20] skyline about working people gathered on
[17:22] the streets covered in dust and ash. And
[17:24] it's about a country gone mad with fear
[17:26] and desperation after being attacked.
[17:28] Not to mention a film in which jet
[17:30] engines and similar technology are the
[17:32] source of unimaginable destruction. The
[17:35] Spielberg face has come to refer to
[17:37] people looking up in awe, but in War of
[17:40] the Worlds, they look up in horror
[17:41] instead. They capture horrifying images
[17:44] on cell phones and video cameras, not
[17:46] unlike the way the world experienced
[17:47] 9/11. And they search for their loved
[17:50] ones amidst rubble. And just in case you
[17:52] miss why the movie looks the way it
[17:54] does, Spielberg pretty much comes right
[17:56] out and tells you,
[17:57] >> "GET OUT. GET OUT. GET OUT. GET DOWN.
[18:00] >> IS THAT A TERRORIST?"
[18:01] >> HEY, you can't accuse the guy of being
[18:03] too subtle. Gone were the days of
[18:05] Spielberg's aliens being friendly,
[18:07] ethereal beings. Gone was the
[18:09] fascination and wonder. And gone were
[18:11] the religious and spiritual overtones
[18:13] brought on by questions of who else
[18:15] might be out there and what they might
[18:17] have to say about us in return. War of
[18:19] the Worlds is Spielberg at his most
[18:21] cynical about humanity. At a time when
[18:23] it seemed like the only things possible
[18:25] were war and anger.
[18:26] >> We get back at them.
[18:28] >> But in true Steven Spielberg fashion,
[18:30] War of the Worlds is also about children
[18:32] of divorce. Only this time, this is a
[18:35] default backdrop instead of the central
[18:37] tension. And maybe the film is a little
[18:38] worse for it. At times, it can be too
[18:40] simple and straightforward with events
[18:42] happening around Tom Cruz's Ray Frier in
[18:45] ways he can't influence or affect. But
[18:47] this also adds to the sense of
[18:49] helplessness running throughout the
[18:50] film, making it a story about a father
[18:52] who, no matter how hard he tries, can't
[18:55] protect his kids from the horrors of the
[18:56] world.
[19:00] So close your eyes,
[19:08] wave goodbye.
[19:12] >> In an intriguing change from previous
[19:14] versions, these horrors have already
[19:16] existed deep beneath the earth's
[19:18] surface. As if this attack were an
[19:20] inevitability, intentionally or not, it
[19:23] hints at a geopolitical complexity that
[19:25] many people weren't willing to accept in
[19:26] the mid200s. the idea that the attacks
[19:29] of September 11th were deeply rooted in
[19:31] America's own foreign policy and its
[19:33] actions abroad. This in turn gives parts
[19:35] of the opening prologue a whole new
[19:37] meaning. Even though the words are taken
[19:39] directly from the book,
[19:40] >> with infinite complacency, men went to
[19:43] and fro about the globe.
[19:47] confident of our empire over this world.
[19:51] >> The aliens this time are far less human,
[19:53] which doesn't bode well for the movie as
[19:55] a political metaphor, but it does allow
[19:58] Spielberg to make the country's fears a
[19:59] little more abstract and therefore a
[20:02] little more approachable at a time when
[20:03] patriotism was used to fuel invasions
[20:05] abroad. It allowed him to translate the
[20:07] sense of cold war paranoia seen
[20:09] throughout his beloved 50s sci-fi into a
[20:12] more modern Gulf War paranoia in which
[20:14] anger and grief are channeled in
[20:16] important ways. It may not be one of
[20:17] Spielberg's most polished works, but
[20:19] it's one of the most honest about the
[20:21] state of the world. And given its
[20:23] similarities to some of his biggest
[20:25] childhood influences, it may also have
[20:27] opened the door to the next time he
[20:28] depicted aliens on screen.
[20:35] The fourth Indiana Jones is one of the
[20:38] less admired ones in the series, but
[20:41] it's also a film that, like many of
[20:42] Spielberg's classics, hearkens back to
[20:44] his childhood influences while drawing
[20:46] from a specific place of adult
[20:48] experience. Like War of the Worlds and
[20:50] AI, it's about a parent looking back at
[20:53] his legacy and the world he leaves
[20:54] behind, which also makes it kind of a
[20:56] legacy sequel before these things were
[20:59] in vogue. Crystal Skull is set in the
[21:01] 1950s at a time when alien be movies
[21:04] were on the rise and were steeped in
[21:05] cold war themes like nuclear fears,
[21:08] government mistrust, and red scare
[21:10] anti-communist sentiment. All of which
[21:12] Spielberg gets to incorporate here and
[21:14] in some cases deconstruct.
[21:16] >> I'm a capitalist
[21:18] and I pay.
[21:19] >> The central mcguffin is a psychic skull
[21:22] belonging to an extraterrestrial being.
[21:24] But deep down, the film is about the
[21:26] quest for knowledge and power, or
[21:29] knowledge as power, which proves to be
[21:31] the villain's undoing yet again. It's
[21:33] repetitive, sure, but there's a kind of
[21:35] beauty to Kate Blanchett's Ireina being
[21:37] defeated by what could be one or maybe
[21:40] even a dozen powerful aliens who, like
[21:42] the future androids in AI, are a kind of
[21:44] hive mind, represented by the extremely
[21:47] blunt symbolism of them combining to
[21:49] form a single dude. like collectivism
[21:52] triumphing over individual ambition and
[21:54] hitting you over the head.
[21:55] >> More powerful together than they can
[21:57] ever be apart.
[21:59] >> But of course, to project a coherent
[22:01] ideology onto the series is a fool's
[22:03] errand, no matter how far left its
[22:05] screenwriter tends to lean, because at
[22:06] the end of the day, its director is a
[22:08] man of personal emotional vision first
[22:10] and foremost. Crystal Skull is buoied by
[22:13] its hero wrestling with the idea of
[22:14] being a father when he finally reunites
[22:16] with Mary and Crane, his love interest
[22:18] from the first film. And when he learns
[22:20] that his sidekick, Mut, is actually his
[22:22] son. Whether or not the film succeeds at
[22:25] centering these ideas emotionally,
[22:26] they're a constant undercurrent, and
[22:28] they occasionally touch on some of
[22:30] Spielberg's more familiar themes. Even
[22:32] some of the movies most lampuned scenes
[22:34] are filled with meaning, like Indie
[22:36] escaping through a facimile of modern
[22:38] American life, filled with mannequins
[22:40] representing the kind of simple domestic
[22:43] life he's never had or allowed himself
[22:45] to have. Something a filmmaker might
[22:46] reckon with when he's away on lengthy
[22:48] shoots for months or years on end. And
[22:50] in a particular funny irony, these
[22:52] images of nuclear families are all
[22:54] destroyed by
[23:03] Well, you get the idea. While War of the
[23:06] Worlds allowed Spielberg to transpose
[23:08] his childhood favorites onto the modern
[23:10] world, Crystal Skull allowed him to play
[23:12] in their specific sandbox, mirroring the
[23:15] circumstances that led to their
[23:16] creation. It was also the perfect venue
[23:18] for Spielberg to go back to basics, for
[23:20] better or worse, with extremely simple,
[23:23] streamlined alien and flying saucer
[23:25] designs, which may as well have been
[23:27] plucked from the early days of UFO
[23:28] paranoia when he was still a kid. It may
[23:31] not be the best Indiana Jones movie, but
[23:33] it's the only one set during Spielberg's
[23:36] lifetime, and it was made at a time when
[23:38] his own kids were entering their adult
[23:40] years, forcing him to question his own
[23:42] choices and his role in their
[23:43] upbringing, much like the aging Indiana
[23:46] Jones. But with Spielberg having handed
[23:48] his back to basics adventure series to a
[23:50] new director, this leaves the door open
[23:52] for more original genre experiments and
[23:54] explorations as he turns his attention
[23:56] to Disclosure Day, a movie which
[23:58] according to actor Josh Oconor follows
[24:00] up the lingering questions introduced in
[24:02] Close Encounters and returns to the
[24:04] sci-fi inspirations that first allowed
[24:06] Spielberg to put stories of aliens and
[24:08] UFOs on the silver screen. The paranoia,
[24:11] the awe and wonder, the religious
[24:13] overtones, and the tales of childhood
[24:15] filtered through grand sci-fi spectacle
[24:17] are all threads he's woven throughout
[24:19] his work. Which makes it incredibly
[24:22] exciting that at nearly 80 years of age,
[24:24] he's chosen to revisit the kind of story
[24:26] he's been telling in new and evolving
[24:28] ways ever since he was 17.