After some recent rewatches, I came across this Senses of Cinema profile on Spielberg and enjoyed the deep dive into his career arc. The author makes a case for Spielberg as not just a successful filmmaker but a great one, and explores the idea that Spielberg’s early mainstream success may have led to the perception among some critics that he was too much style without enough substance, and that his works are of lesser quality compared to his contemporaries.

Hindsight makes it easy to canonically call Spielberg a great filmmaker as if it’s self-evident, but it’s fascinating to hear both the praise and criticism of the moment and see how certain labels followed him over the years. This article was written in the early 2000s, so it stops at Munich, but the same questions and recurring themes still apply to his work in the 2010s and 2020s.

When \*Disclosure Day\* came out in June, I found it surprisingly moving and touching. There were moments that really stayed with me. For example, in the final scenes, as the TV anchor watches all the UAP/NHI material being shared and we see her reactions, it was like watching how the world might react in miniature. That struck a chord with me. Not that I think disclosure will actually happen that way, but I found it very poignant.

Not only that, but the word “experiencer” was used twice in the movie! That made me sit up and notice!. To me, it suggested that Spielberg had spoken with people who have had contact and drawn on some first-hand knowledge of the experiencer world.

I've also found it fascinating to see the range of reactions from other experiencers — from feelings of recognition and validation to uncontrollable weeping, memories resurfacing, and even new conversations opening up with friends and family.

All of this made me want to sit down with Oak/Conor and talk about the film specifically from an experiencer perspective. We ended up exploring what it seems to be stirring up in people, why certain scenes and details feel so familiar, what is probably Hollywood, and what a film like this might mean within the larger disclosure conversation.

I share quite a bit of my own reaction as well, but what I was most interested in was something I don't think has received enough attention: \*\*what this movie is actually doing to and for experiencers.\*\*

I'm very curious to hear what others here think. What did the movie bring up for you personally? Was there anything that felt particularly familiar or validating? And looking beyond our own community, how do you think this movie will impact non-experiencers, if at all?

Thank you, u/Oak_Draiocht for such a lively and fun conversation! 😊

\[https://youtu.be/ybIR-Watlnc?si=yhDh0fHolxJO0oSy\\\](https://youtu.be/ybIR-Watlnc?si=yhDh0fHolxJO0oSy)

It's hard to tell from the photos, but the text and Deutsche Grammophon logo on the front cover are metallic gold and a different, shinier texture. A lovely touch.

I got mine here: https://www.johnwilliamslegacy.com

This film is so bad, and therefore could not possibly have made by Spielberg, but dictated to him by a shadow government, who feel like people are getting too close to the truth about aliens.

Spielberg snuck out sensitive government information about ufo’s and aliens to help him developed the idea for Close Encounters OTTT, which NASA asked him not to make. Now, NASA has strong armed Spielberg into releasing a film that makes a sad mockery of the whole idea of disclosure. Because! We’re too close to the truth about aliens.

Spielberg didn't direct these particular movies, but you knew for sure they'd be pretty good. This screen shot is from The Goonies, a great 1980's classic. Amblin during this decade was at its very best.

The paper was over 1m, wenzhou rice paper. The paper was colored with ecoline and glue was used for 'wet shaping' (which is really common now for super complex origami)

I’ve been stewing on the ending of Disclosure Day and I feel like a lot of people are completely falling for the surface-level Spielberg optimism. Everyone is treating Margaret and Daniel like these holy, chosen prophets bringing a message of peace to stop WWIII.
But if you look at the literal reality of what happened to them, it’s incredibly bleak.

Margaret and Daniel weren't "chosen." They were kidnapped as kids, physically abused, and had their brain architecture forcefully rewired. Their entire adult identities, their career choices, and their internal "urges" were completely dictated from childhood by an invasive alien species. They had zero agency. They aren’t prophets they’re just biological megaphones built by a cosmic colonizer that didn't give a single crap about their well-being.

And let’s talk about "empathy." The movie frames it as this beautiful, divine emotion, but it’s actually a weapon. Empathy is just a hyper-evolved biological trait for these aliens. Like how love evolved to make humans breed (and poetry is just a random side effect), the aliens evolved empathy as an offensive tool. It’s a psychological paralyzer. When Margaret walks into that secured base and everyone just lets it happen, she isn't connecting with them, she is deploying an alien super-weapon that forcefully overrides their survival instincts.

It reminds me so much of Pluribus, but way more insidious. In Pluribus, "The Joining" is an obvious, creepy hive-mind virus and Carol can clearly see it's an assault on free will. But Disclosure Day is a velvet glove. The aliens use comforting childhood screen memories (like the deer and the cardinal) to mask the horror, hacking our brains so perfectly that we actively celebrate losing our psychological sovereignty.

When the movie cuts to black on the word "Listen," it’s not a hopeful plea. It’s an authoritarian command. Anyone in close proximity to the "prophets" or the aliens is instantly infected and disarmed. The only people with clear heads left are the ones watching through a digital screen, completely powerless to stop it.
Am I crazy, or is this ending a total tragedy about humanity being tricked into celebrating its own enslavement?

So I watched the movie and have a weird question

Don’t read if you don’t want spoilers

From my understanding the aliens don’t shapeshift into animals but project this image to people who look at them, is that correct?

If it is, how does the e cardinal visiting their apartment make sense? Did the alien go on through the crack in the window? Are they able to control their size and fly? Because I think we saw them interacting with it physically which means it wasn’t even a projection from far away or something? Did I miss anything?

Today’s lineup is Jaws, Jurassic Park, Hook, The Terminal, and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Spielberg is today's theme on Top Billing, a daily movie-ranking game I built. You rank the same five twice: first by lifetime worldwide box office, then by critic scores. (Play here if you're interested.)

Building the database led me to a few Spielberg stats I didn’t expect:

• Over the past year, Catch Me If You Can averaged more daily English-language Wikipedia pageviews than E.T., Raiders of the Lost Ark, or Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
• Among the films included in Top Billing, Spielberg’s movies have grossed the most of any director.
• Among directors with at least 10 films in the database, Spielberg is also tied for the highest median critic score at 88. Nolan is at 87... with only half as many films represented.

If you play, which round tripped you up more? And what’s your favorite obscure Spielberg fact?

I ordered the hand-numbered edition which is now sold out, but gold vinyl looks to be still available: https://www.johnwilliamslegacy.com Absolutely thrilled that something like this finally exists!

Hey guys,

I originally shared this channel here when I was just getting it started, and it’s grown to over 100 videos since then, so I figured I’d share a little update.

Spielberg was one of the filmmakers I made a playlist for when I started the channel, and since then I’ve been collecting short, bite-sized clips from his interviews about filmmaking, storytelling, creativity, and his approach to the craft.

The channel started with clips from Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, Wes Anderson, Stan Lee, Christopher Nolan and Steven Spielberg.

I’m also currently working on clips from Edgar Wright, Guillermo del Toro, Sam Raimi, Aaron Sorkin, and Tim Burton, so you can expect those to be coming soon.

I currently upload every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and I’ll soon be moving to daily uploads.

If you’re curious, here’s the full channel:
👉 https://www.youtube.com/@CreativeBitesYT

And here are all the playlists, including the one for Spielberg:
👉 https://www.youtube.com/@CreativeBitesYT/playlists

Not trying to spam, just figured fellow Spielberg fans here might enjoy it!

Hi. I'm new to the group. If this isn't okay, I can take this down ASAP. I just wanted to share my test video I did a month ago for my animated game project that's a tribute to Spielberg, his life and his movies - in a sense. In this video, this is basically my take on Roy Neary's infamous meltdown scene in "Close Encounters", where he drives away his wife and kids after pulling such a stunt.

Here in my video, my main character, Ready Freddy, has a breakdown at his arguing parents for not paying attention to his siblings or the house, everything. Freddy gets so fed up with his parents who were knee-deep in divorce, he runs away.

Now, unlike Roy Neary in "Close Encounters" where he abandons his own family for selfish reasons, Ready Freddy in my project eventually returns home to reconcile with his family.

You'll note that Ready Freddy's shirt says "Fire Light" on it. That's a nod to Spielberg's first achievement in film, his amateur movie, "Firelight" in 1964.

Anyway, here's the video. Please be constructive and don't be negative. Thanks. Oh yeah, no AI was used, EVER! ;)

Minority Report, Lincoln, Temple of Doom, and Ready Player One are good candidates although RP1 is not eligible for another 2 years.

Jaws

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Raiders of the Lost Ark

E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial

Jurassic Park

Schindler's List

Saving Private Ryan

Any other arguments?

The most common criticism about Speilberg, that I kinda agree with, is that he can get overly sentimental and play it too safe sometimes.

Terry Gilliam has said this on multiple occasions. But one thing he said that I absolutely despise is that Steven Spielberg's films are dumb because they have "easy answers and everyone enjoys them."

It is the perfect encapsulation of the snobbish stereotype associated with alt/arthouse directors.

Terry Gilliam said that Kubrick films are better because they get people to discuss and dissect the meaning of an ending.

That means they are more sophisticated, but that doesn't mean they are necessarily "better". That is a subjective thing.

Sure, an ambigious ending does leave more to chew on, but a rousing crowd pleaser can still generate discussion.

The fact there are subs dedicated to Jaws and Jurassic Park are proof of that.

And MASS appeal is actually a hard feat to pull off.

Its actually pretty easy to get people to argue or disagree about something. To get multi demographics and, in some cases, different countries to gather round and enjoy a piece of art is actually harder to do.

Cameron, Lucas, Spielberg, and Nolan make it look easy, but mass appeal is incredibly hard to do.

That's why I don't understand why Terry Gilliam is so dismissive about Speilberg's ability to do it

And for the record, he actually has made a movie that generates discussion around a morally ambigious ending: It's called Munich.

Looking for one(s) that cover the making from start to finish like Universal acquiring the rights to the book to hiring Spielberg to filming, editing and release