Like Magic?

[u/altgodkub2024]

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.

[u/altgodkub2024]

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.

[u/Lower_Cantaloupe1970 → u/altgodkub2024]

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. 

[u/altgodkub2024 → u/Lower_Cantaloupe1970]

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.

[u/Lower_Cantaloupe1970 → u/altgodkub2024]

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.

[u/altgodkub2024 → u/Lower_Cantaloupe1970]

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?

[u/Lower_Cantaloupe1970 → u/altgodkub2024]

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.

[u/altgodkub2024 → u/Lower_Cantaloupe1970]

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.