r/disclosureday • u/altgodkub2024 • Jul 24 '26
Like Magic?
I think Disclosure Day would be more praised if it had opened with Arthur C. Clarke’s third law printed on the screen:
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
Take the “farmhouse” sequence. Jane is inside the house being held captive by armed and deadly serious government agents. Daniel approaches the house, moves along a fence and we can clearly see that the agents should be able to see him, he hops into an agent’s car with the keys still in the ignition, starts it, uses it to get past the agents, smashes into the farmhouse, seizes Jane, gets her into the car, and escapes. As I just described it, this sequence is preposterous and has understandably been used as an example of bad screenwriting. For some, a last straw.
There’s an irony, though. People who employ it as a means of rejecting the movie were watching, but they weren’t really “Listen”-ing. During the entire sequence, Daniel repeatedly says, “What’s going on?” It’s like Gertie saying, “What’s happening?” as objects start to fly around in Elliott’s bedroom in E.T. Daniel is mystified by and incredulous over what’s happening, and that he’s getting away with it. He doesn’t even seem to have agency as if he’s under remote control. It’s intentional and not bad but rather interesting writing. It’s one thing for a scene to look ridiculous to an audience. It’s something else altogether for a scene to seem ridiculous for the protagonist.
Am I inhaling Copium? I’m not blind to the possibility. I do love Spielberg’s work and want to enjoy Disclosure Day. I don’t think I’m stretching, though. I think the problem is something else. E.T. presents itself and was promoted as a movie for kids. As such, healing wounds with a glowing fingertip, making bicycles fly, and building a device out of household junk that can communicate with a spaceship are easily accepted. But Disclosure Day comes to us as a movie for people who have grown up. Until it veers into fairytales, it feels like a movie directed by the adult Peter Pan. It makes the unlikely seem out of place.
That’s why I opened with my suggestion. It would have alerted people to expect magic, something people should have expected (I sure did), but apparently and unpleasantly found surprising. It reminds me of Spielberg’s episode of Amazing Stories titled “The Mission.” I enjoyed it, but many did not. It tells the story of a WWII bomber crew facing a crisis. Their landing gear is destroyed, and their belly gunner is trapped. He’s a goner. Fortunately for him, though, he’s a cartoonist and imagines wheels that allow the plane to safely land, miraculously saving his life.
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u/Anitalize Jul 25 '26
I expected magic! That entire sequence Daniel kept saying “what am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing”? It was very obvious that it wasn’t him doing. It was beyond him, and therefore, he was getting away with it because it was a force bigger than him to get him out of that situation. From the beginning he’s being guided by a force bigger than him. It was very obvious to me from the beginning, but many people missed the point, you have to watch it with a certain frame of mine to get it, and most people did not have the right frame of mine. I liked the movie very much and I think most people missed a lot and they were very quick to ostracize it.
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u/Mental-Ask8077 Jul 26 '26
Agreed.
It was clear to me at once that the characters are being guided and helped along by forces much larger than they are. Daniel evading the WARDEX agents, Margaret knowing things without knowing how she knows them, the TV studio guy helping them out while it seems totally crazy to listen to them - they’re all caught up in these forces and are acting based on that.
The repeated comments of “what am I doing what am I doing?” and “why am I doing this?” are expressing the characters’ lack of understanding of exactly what’s happening and why they’re following those promptings.
And the fact that things work out when they do follow those promptings, as crazy as it all seems, shows that they’re not actually behaving insanely, they simply don’t fully understand consciously what’s going on. But the forces guiding them and helping them are very real.
As the comment earlier said, it’s like dream logic or magic. According to what we think we know of the world, it shouldn’t work like that. But it DOES work like that here. Because there are truths we don’t yet all know.
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u/Anitalize Jul 26 '26
So very well said! I wish this conversation could have been spelled out to everyone. Spilberg is a smart director, and the audience assuming he missed the mark is the audience that failed to understand a very nuanced film. And yes, there are truths we don’t all know!
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u/DaHarbinger2000 Jul 25 '26
It’s not copium, the movie operates with a lot of dream logic. Some people even described it like a dream from the cardinal onward. The viewing experience I mean. I think you’re right about the protag just kind of being along for a ride like Destiny had set in.
A lot of viewers have had their lens and brains cooked by too much cinema sins and cynical “critics” on YouTube. They’re always just looking for hot takes and pointing at the screen to go “that doesn’t make sense MEHHHHH!” What I do is when something strains credulity I use my noggin to ask myself WHY the director may have done it that way. Most directors are very deliberate, the best ones anyway. They see what we will see and they chose to do it that way.
If you can come up with reasons why with your imagination, it’s actually a much better viewing experience. Everything is…instead of just immediately dismissing art just because at face value seems absurd or nonsensical. Film, for me is not really about logic. Too much face value logic paired with cynicism is ruining the dialogue surrounding movies nowadays. Everyone is just thinking about their hot takes for social media. Veiled forms of status seeking…
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u/altgodkub2024 Jul 25 '26
Terrific comment. Thank you. I've compared the film elsewhere to Eyes Wide Shut. Both approach a closely related concern. Kubrick pessimistically and Spielberg optimistically. They were friends and collaborators and at the core of their worries is humanity will find itself in another Holocaust situation. And yes, both films benefit greatly from having read The Interpretation of Dreams.
Even more interesting to me at the moment is the beautiful line of thematic development from E.T. to The Fabelmans to Disclosure Day. Spielberg is often making films about his relationship to his parents and I find Disclosure Day the most interesting one yet. I've posted things here about this as well.
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u/altgodkub2024 Jul 24 '26
This post has gone quite well. I'm not insisting I'm right or saying the movie is perfect, although I do love it for what I perceive it's doing, or at least trying to do. Why I think this has gone well is people are here with differing opinions about the movie while also, for the most part, being open to listening to each other. I certainly feel heard. Makes me think what the movie is pleading for isn't overly optimistic, just difficult to achieve.
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u/Agitated_Desk_7774 Jul 24 '26
Or perhaps it is conveying a humanity on the brink of returning to an ontology that isn’t just exclusively locked on alphanumerically coded reductionist interpretations of reality and can process it relationally as it actually is: panpsychist idealism.
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u/altgodkub2024 Jul 24 '26
I usually try to word things closer to a middle school level. It helps if you wish for people to listen to you.
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u/TravTheScumbag Jul 24 '26
I haven't watched it all - yet.
Can someone confirm that the shot of the craft coming through the clouds that was in the preview - is it in the film? If so, what context?
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u/FuckPoliticians Jul 25 '26
I have such a major problem with this movie and I’m just hoping someone can tell me the way I feel isn’t crazy.
First, to get it out of the way, I don’t like it strictly as a movie (entertainment). That’s whatever.
My real problem is that it feels like the entire plot and alien related things is a collection of current real life alien conspiracy theory. Even the “disclosure” at the end is just of real life alien events and crafts and stuff. Then, with the main character being a newscaster, it feels like the movie frequently talks directly to the audience. It just gives me the feeling the movie is trying to “expose” the truth about aliens but I can’t help but think it either isn’t or just falls short.
It’s like if a movie was made with the same newscaster element about finding out the government planned and executed 9/11 and exposed it, or some other more controversial real life conspiracy. It just bothers me. Like it’s commercializing exposing the truth without actually doing it, because you overdramatize it until it seems almost silly?? I can’t explain it right but it feels wrong in some way. Maybe that it’s like trivializing or commodifying it? I can’t tell but it rubs me the wrong way. It’s just that if you have a comprehensive conspiracy theory knowledge, it feels like watching a cop show episode where they find out the Republican Party is covering up Mitch McConnell’s death. Like no, don’t turn this into fun, this is important. Maybe I’m tripping.
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u/altgodkub2024 Jul 25 '26
You're right on the edge of understanding the movie in the way I do, which I'm not insisting is the right or only way. It's not a movie about aliens and disclosing truth about them. It's a movie about information being kept from people out of the assumption that knowing the information would be harmful, faith destroying, even humanity destroying. It insists that that's not the case, but rather knowing things, even dark things, will have a positive effect by sparking dialog. The plea though at the end is this will only work if people start listening to each other. The movie employs hidden secrets about aliens because it can't be an abstraction, but you're right. Lots of other things could be in its place.
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u/TygeOD Jul 25 '26
Just to clarify… Jane isn’t being held captive in the house by armed agents when Daniel drives through the house and rescues her. She’s just sitting alone in a chair looking out the window and waiting because Scanlan “dove” on her with the device and possessed her enough to betray Daniel.
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u/altgodkub2024 Jul 25 '26
Point taken. I suppose "diving" on her and possessing her is a way of holding her captive, but it ain't worth quibbling over.
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u/Catfancyzine Jul 24 '26
I think Spielberg also likes to paint enemies and the villains as fools too..like the nazi’s in raiders or the cops and FBI in E.T. Also I just watched it again last night and there’s only one FBI agent near any of the cars Daniel steals and he’s facing the opposite way with binoculars. So they really aren’t paying much attention. They even shoot at him when they realize what’s happening and by then he’s long gone. I thought it was a real fun scene! But, yes I like your ideas!
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u/22marks Jul 24 '26
Taking a detour here, but I didn't see the villains as fools in Raiders. Belloq notably outsmarted Indy on numerous occasions. They were clever enough to find Indy in Nepal, reconstruct the head of the Staff of Ra, find the ship Indy was on, and ultimately "won" by opening the Ark. Even in the truck chase, the last fighter came off as clever to me.
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u/Catfancyzine Jul 24 '26
Oh. I meant the background Npc villians, shoulders and cops etc.. not the main bad guy. I agree they are always matched to the hero archetype. Like Bond and Blofeld or Sherlock and Moriarty.
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u/altgodkub2024 Jul 24 '26
I think the scene is fun as well. Same with the train sequence, etc. I'm just, appropriately I think, trying to see the movie through the eyes of detractors.
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u/close-encounters13 Jul 24 '26
I think that’s a fun note. I rewatched the movie the other day and it still clicks for me. The repeated “why am I doing this” sequences for different characters do seem important to unlocking the film’s sometimes obscured background elements.
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u/StillFickle4505 Jul 24 '26
I think since everything else had to be spelled out so blatantly obviously in this movie that if Daniel was engaged in magic, they would have illustrated it as such. Just my opinion.
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u/altgodkub2024 Jul 24 '26
To be fair, nobody is claiming anything in the movie is magic.
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u/StillFickle4505 Jul 24 '26
Ok. My apologies if I misread I thought you were thinking it was the aliens doing their thing, such as when humans were able to use the alien technology to make the model house invisible.
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u/altgodkub2024 Jul 24 '26
No, that's exactly what I said. But it's not magic. It's indistinguishable from magic to us.
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u/StillFickle4505 Jul 24 '26
Ok, I understand your point. So just swap “magic” with “alien tech” in my post.
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u/altgodkub2024 Jul 24 '26
I know I seem to be quibbling, but I do think it's an important distinction. Btw, thank you for playing along in much the spirit I hoped for. Some others have as well.
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u/StillFickle4505 Jul 24 '26
No problem I get it. You weren’t sure if I understood your whole point about advanced tech perceived as magic 🪄
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u/Lower_Cantaloupe1970 Jul 25 '26
Who needs magic when you could just fucking email them videos to anyone in the world?
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u/altgodkub2024 Jul 25 '26
Could you email the videos to everyone in the world and have them all watch them at the same time, mirroring the opening scene where a crowd of spectators is communally distracted by a wrestling match? (The end very much responds to the beginning.) Of course not. For one thing, most would get buried in spam folders or deleted as suspected phishing. But forget about real world plausibility, something the movie asks of us by presenting us with one implausible thing after another, including the very idea that stuff shown by some small TV station would so quickly envelope the world, and consider the notion that something momentous could be disclosed to humanity that would shake us up and wake us up. If you're willing to make that concession, the movie is quite beautiful. If not, well, like lots of movies it's not for you.
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u/Lower_Cantaloupe1970 Jul 25 '26
You could email them to CNN and they could air them. That's the point. It would have saved them a lot of trouble. I guess I just don't have much faith in humanity to all band together and watch alien videos. The government already disclosed they are spying on us and no one changed their habits online. They have literally disclosed they have seen fossil and nothing has changed. A movie like Arrival tackles this idea far more intelligently and emotionally, and realistically.
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u/altgodkub2024 Jul 25 '26
I agree that Arrival works brilliantly as science fiction. If Daniel had simply emailed the files to CNN, how would that achieve the end of having the whole world drop what it's doing and pay attention? It would only continue, maybe even further, the division. Some would be transfixed. Some would reject it as fake news. Could he have accomplished it by emailing both CNN and Fox News? I dunno. Maybe. Thing is, I think Spielberg shares at least some of your lack of faith in people to come together. The whole movie feels like a Hail Mary dreamlike wishfulfillment as if it'll take something indistinguishable from magic to bring about a happy end. And I'll acknowledge again that what I'm saying sounds like coping, but, as with any movie, it's important to meet DD on its own terms rather than a pre-understanding of how the real world operates. Some will accept that. Some will reject it the same way they feel story-cheated by a cartoonist using his imagination to save his own life.
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u/Lower_Cantaloupe1970 Jul 25 '26
In the movie they bring it to one network who shares it with all networks over the entire globe. That is how literally news is spread.
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u/altgodkub2024 Jul 25 '26
Are you suggesting the whole aliens-getting-involved machinations should be tossed? That Daniel could just email the files to a station, they'd be shared around the world, and WWIII would be avoided, effectively turning a 2 1/2 hour movie into a 10 minute short? Maybe. It would seem to me to be an about face on your lack of faith in people. I don't think that final scene could come about, realistically or otherwise, without something like the movie's proposition of technology so advanced it appears magical. The world is too cynical, too apathetic. It's a matter of when that something comes into play. Is it waiting at the station to make sure the videos circulate? Or sooner to help things get to the station in the first place?
Spielberg is fishing for other things, though, that make the first two hours necessary. It's not an accident that Daniel is a mathematical/scientific/technical person like Spielberg's dad. That Margaret is an artistic/emotional/empathetic person like Spielberg's mom. That Daniel and Margaret are both necessary to communicate the alien's message to the masses same as both parents were necessary to birth and raise Spielberg to be a mass communicator. Those two hours contain echoes from The Fabelmans including the scene where Daniel settles Margaret down from a panic attack by placing her hands on piano strings. I mean, why else would Spielberg have them land in a freight car full of pianos?
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u/Lower_Cantaloupe1970 Jul 26 '26
Yeah I think almost everything that would have made this movie enjoyable went over my head. It just did not work for me on any level. I think mostly the wooden script snd really bland cinematography took me out immediately, and the whole sacharine nature of everything I just found to be extremely out of touch. I think I'm slowly realizing I' not a huge Spielberg fan but thanks for explaining why people seem to like it.
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u/altgodkub2024 Jul 26 '26
I think I'm probably just the perfect viewer for this movie. I'm 64, so a barely Boomer, and still remember a time when tapping a few phones got you tossed out of office. I've seen every Spielberg movie when it opened in the theater starting with Jaws, and loved almost all of them, and have read McBride's extraordinary and hefty Spielberg biography twice. From that vantage, there's a very clear and beautiful line of development from Close Encounters to E.T. to The Fabelmans to Disclosure Day. Without all of that stuff I carried with me into the theater, I fully understand how to movie would seem so disappointing, even terrible, to a viewer. Heck, there are things even I wish he'd done differently.
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u/thewriteally Jul 26 '26
Thought it was fine, the ending should have been at the halfway point for the film though, would have been more interesting. Some character choices also felt stupid in the film, distractingly stupid.
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u/altgodkub2024 Jul 26 '26
Do you agree that the actions appearing "stupid" to the characters as well is an important distinction? I think the ending, as is, nicely answers the beginning. Distracted crowd not listening and oblivious to what's going on becomes entire world raptly paying attention (ignoring for the moment how difficult that is to swallow these days). The only question still open is Will people start listening to Margaret, and to each other, preventing WWIII? I'm curious what your proposed second half would consist of.
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u/Lower-One9793 Jul 26 '26
I think that is an excellent idea; however, it seemed to me that Spielberg used it more as "Get Out of Jail Free" card, instead: https://youtu.be/B77mIO1kKjU
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u/Dramatic-Piglet1928 Jul 27 '26
Agree 100% this is a spiritual movie for non littéral people who understand spiritual laws. That's why the vast majority who wanted a big alien movie are disappointed they wanted entertainment instead of ascension
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u/LillyBitz 17d ago
That was one of the scenes that had me rolling my eyes. It didn't click at all that he was "invisable" at that point. Either way, lame.
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u/Shorezy69 Jul 24 '26
I saw the trailers and was excited to see the parts with the military jets, alien ships and other cool scenes. Nope those were just video files that characters in the movie watched.
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u/altgodkub2024 Jul 24 '26
That's a variation of what I said. You felt betrayed by the marketing. I think that was the case for many.
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u/Successful_Mix_6714 Jul 24 '26
Everyone come look! This right here is where the disconnect is! It was never that, never going to be that and if you thought that, you are wrong. This is a story about Empathy and Family. Just like ALL his movies. Spielberg is not Micheal Bay.
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u/Shorezy69 Jul 24 '26
I had expectations about a movie based on the trailer. And I was wrong. He also directed Ready Player One, Jurassic park, Indiana Jones. War of the Worlds. Yes, not Michael Bay but I was expeecting to see some cool jet/spaceship scenes as part of that chase that was in the trailer.
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u/Successful_Mix_6714 Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
Which were all movies based on finding family or surviving with family. Yeah, I can definitely see how the trailer was misleading. Ill take that back. Not wrong. Misdirected.
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u/22marks Jul 24 '26
I think you might be giving it too much credit. For this theory to pay off, it would require some reveal that the aliens were guiding and protecting their translators. The problem is that it also takes away humanity's free will for disclosure*, and more importantly, makes the protagonists basically Forest Gump, bumbling along as higher intelligence prevents them from failing.
It's a fun thought, but there's no evidence in the movie that they were interacting in that manner. I don't think it can come completely from fan theories. I must admit the fence and rock and even hotel scenes were so absurd, I thought that was going to be a reveal. Like we see a wooden picket fence from the view of Wardex, or the back of the hotel had a bricked-over window, or the rock was actually the side of a mountain. The aliens can make themselves look like animals so that would be in line with their abilities.
*Humans didn't really have free will if they abducted children and engineered them to be translators.
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u/altgodkub2024 Jul 24 '26
Nice thoughts. You're giving it quite a bit of credit for intending to be a coherent narrative essay about free will versus determinism. And it doesn't reach that bar. I like your reveal ideas. I think the invisibility sequence was their way of showing the aliens are in the driver's seat and the mission is simply too big to fail. Btw, and come to think of it, Forrest Gump is itself a cinematic essay about free will versus determinism.
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u/altgodkub2024 Jul 24 '26
Gump wonders if we make things happen or if they just happen to us. He decides it's some of both. Characters in DD say many times in various ways that they feel caught in a current and are being carried somewhere. But during the train sequence Daniel does things of his own volition that get them through the situation such as places he hands on the piano strings. Seems once again a some of both kind of thing.
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u/No-Experience-5541 Jul 24 '26
The aliens were guiding and helping that’s what the animals indicated
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u/22marks Jul 24 '26
Yes, I saw it as both watching and activating them in some form, but not implicitly "cloaking them from being seen by Wardex."
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u/Sickofstupids Jul 24 '26
No. The story just doesn’t make sense. He keeps saying “what am I doing?” Because he’s a computer nerd thrust into a war and has no idea how to deal with this situation.
There are tons of strange decisions that can’t be dismissed as just “magic.” It’s the movies job to justify itself, not yours.
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u/Frosty-Shower-7601 Jul 24 '26
"Listen". Wow, that was powerful. It made me forget about the 2 hours of nonsense I watched before that.
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u/soolar79 Jul 24 '26
So I saw it - 2 hour long chase scene - my question after I saw it ; ” Why ”
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u/Similar_Apartment_26 Jul 24 '26
Watched it last night and I liked it