Spielberg delivers a close encounter with extraterrestrials this year with Disclosure Day, but this ain’t his first rodeo…
Steven Spielberg might be 80 this year, but he’s showing no signs of slowing down. This June, his latest blockbuster Disclosure Day arrives, and the trailer promises plenty of Spielbergian magic. We can expect UFOs, aliens, and potentially world-ending threats from the extra-terrestrials as a group of humans tries to deal with their close encounters.
Of course, this genre isn’t alien to Spielberg. His long and storied history as one of the pre-eminent blockbuster specialists has covered just about everything possible, but the master filmmaker has regularly cast his cinematic eye out to space and the mysterious beings that might exist out there. So, in advance of Disclosure Day, it’s time to look back at Spielberg’s alien films…
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Coming in the wake of Star Wars, Spielberg’s first sci-fi movie, which dealt with alien life forms, was built more on wonder and intrigue than on the intergalactic wars of George Lucas’ cinema-redefining epic.
Spielberg had effectively laid the foundations for the blockbuster formula with Jaws, which Lucas cemented with Star Wars. Close Encounters then continued in ensuring Hollywood had a huge shift in the types of movies mass audiences wanted to see.
Close Encounters is decidedly patient in comparison to the modern formula (and Star Wars), teasing us with mysterious UFO encounters in small-town America. The film was a box office smash. Not Star Wars ground-shifting level, but still, the third-highest-grossing film of the year. It had Spielberg quickly perfecting his ability to create magical and timeless family blockbuster entertainment. John Williams also produced an iconic score to add to his even more iconic score in Star Wars that same year.
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
Whilst Close Encounters largely focused on the unidentified flying objects, with only a brief glimpse of aliens at the end, this encounter from Spielberg switched things up and focused on the relationship between a young boy (Henry Thomas) and the lost extra-terrestrial who wants to get home.
If his first dalliance with outer space was more about intrigue and build-up, E.T is more direct. You have childhood wonder and impetuousness, with the inherent comedy of a stumpy alien that the kids are doing a bad job of trying to hide. There’s also more of a sense of adventure with the infamous bicycle sequences throughout the film.
Much like Close Encounters, E.T was a mega hit (the highest-grossing film of the year and of all time until that point). It’s a perfect crowd pleaser that’s funny, charming, heartfelt, and thrilling. Williams once again knocks it out of the park. The young Thomas and the even younger Drew Barrymore are also great.
War of the Worlds
By this point, Spielberg had done something largely different from most alien encounter films by having the visiting creatures interested in peace or exploration rather than domination. War of the Worlds was a change-up, though, based on H.G. Wells’ legendary, genre-defining book. Not the first adaptation, but the largest-scale, biggest budget version.
Spielberg went into this at the top of his game, with Tom Cruise as his leading man. The film isn’t often regarded as one of Spielberg’s top-tier films, but despite that, it’s still considered one of the best adaptations of the innumerable TV and film versions out there (including one of mine, War of the Worlds: The Attack).
Spielberg’s assured filmmaking ensures that the set pieces and world-ending threat the aliens pose result in loads of eye-catching spectacle. Few do set pieces as well as Spielberg, of course. If there’s an inherent flaw from following reasonably close to the source novel, it’s that the ending feels a little too easy and abrupt.
Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull
After a long time with his whip in the closet, Harrison Ford returned as Indiana Jones in a long (long) awaited fourth film. It would ultimately prove to be the least popular in the franchise (to that point), and one of Spielberg’s more lukewarmly received and divisive blockbusters. Did the world want and need another Indy adventure? It probably did. Was the 50s setting and nod to Roswell era conspiracies, really the best choice for a story backdrop? Maybe not.
Indy isn’t evading Nazi’s, chasing grails or Arks here. This time, he’s after an alien crystal skull, whilst dealing with the discovery that he has a son. Whether it’s CGI gophers, nuking the fridge, or swinging on vines with Monkey’s, so much felt like Spielberg was pandering a little too much to a potential new/younger audience.
Still, everything up until the shift from evading Russians and searching for a lost professor, to the alien part of the story, is actually pretty good. The opening set piece feels like classic Jones, and Harrison Ford gamely throws himself around. Once they get to the jungle, the film does seriously derail before crawling to a limp finish. In the end, though, it’s much better than Dial of Destiny.
A.I Artificial Intelligence
Now, you might be thinking A.I. should be on the list of Spielberg/alien films. Many film fans (and for years, myself included) believed the final act of A.I. had aliens in it. When it comes to film, the initial response was mixed, with some finding it a philosophical, deep, and extremely well-made film that was perhaps more mawkish than it needed to be. Others felt it was a big misfire that didn’t live up to the potential that this film could have been had Stanley Kubrick made it (as originally intended).
However, Haley Joel Osment is great as the A.I., Pinocchio-like robot, made to fill the void of a family who lost their son, but cast asunder when they ultimately reject him. He then finds himself in a world of lost and rejected A.I’s just trying to survive and dealing with existential angst.
By the last act of the film, he’s with strange ‘alien’ creatures who aren’t aliens but actually descendants of those first sentient A.I.s. In time, more people are growing to appreciate the visual scope and comparative complexity of Spielberg’s blockbuster. It’s too long perhaps, but certainly visually spectacular (there are some incredible visual effects in the film), and the topic itself has made it rather timely.
What’s your favourite Spielberg alien film? Are you looking forward to Disclosure Day? Let us know on our social channels @FlickeringMyth…
Tom Jolliffe
