Transcription
Steven Spielberg is back on the alien train, but Disclosure Day hits closer to home in a lot of ways than his past movies. [music] Here's a deeper look into what the ending really means. Spoilers ahead.
Plot-wise, Disclosure Day sticks to the playbook of any given paranoia-driven thriller. Daniel Keltner and his new girlfriend Jane are on the run from Wordax, a powerful shadow organization that's kept the existence of aliens hidden from humanity for decades. Daniel has a backpack filled with video evidence confirming the existence of aliens, and he's working with a pal named Hugo to reveal the truth to the world.
The catalyst comes a meteorologist, Margaret Fairchild, begins speaking in an unusual language on live television that only Daniel can understand. Wordax, led by Noah Scanlon, sends agents to apprehend Margaret and kill Daniel. Their goal is to prevent disclosure at all costs. Noah even goes so far as to use alien technology to control Jane's psyche so that she'll answer all his questions and kill Noah if she has the chance.
The two escape from Wordax agents, and Margaret goes on the run when she realizes agents are also after her. She discovers she has a newfound power to speak any language and read people's minds, aiding in her escape. Noah finds Daniel and Jane in a motel, and Jane runs off into the forest while Daniel gets taken into custody. After a rescue attempt and some exciting train stuff, Margaret and Daniel end up at Hugo's hideout.
Hugo and his team have reconstructed Margaret's childhood bedroom to unlock memories of what happened to her and Daniel as kids. As children, they were abducted by aliens who took on the forms of animals and experimented on them in a spaceship. The aliens gave Margaret the gift of fluency in all languages, explaining why she can speak to and understand anyone. Daniel received the gift of fluency in mathematics, the universal language, which is why he could understand Margaret's clicks from earlier.
They end up back where it all began, KCXE Studio in Kansas City, prepared to unveil the truth to the world. Noah and War Dex show up in a last-ditch attempt to stop them, but in the end, they start broadcasting. Margaret tells everyone how War Dex has covered up the truth of alien life for 79 years. Daniel uploads all of the footage he's been carrying around to provide video evidence. Other stations pick up the broadcast and people from all over the globe watch. For the final reveal, Hugo brings in an alien who says something to Margaret. The film ends with Margaret returning to the desk and saying, "Listen."
Throughout the Disclosure Day, there's an underlying suggestion that the world is on the brink of World War III. Anytime a TV is turned on throughout the film, it seems to be a news report of some new disaster. It presents an extremely pessimistic view of the world that doomsday is imminent, but the revelation of alien life will obviously change everything.
>> [music] >> Noah and War Dex aren't one-dimensional mustache-twirling villains. Noah's doing what he does because he believes it's best for humanity, thinking the planet would never recover from the knowledge.
>> The human race cannot accept what we know. It would tip the [music] balance in an already destabilized world.
But when Margaret presents all the evidence that aliens are out there, we get a montage of people around the world watching. The message that Steven Spielberg is trying to convey seems clear. The revelation of alien life shouldn't fill governments with fear. If anything, it could help bridge the gaps that currently divide humanity. We don't get a ton of specifics about what's going on with this impending war, but that seems intentional, as though Spielberg is trying to tell us that these squabbles are pointless in the grand scheme of things. We could advance our knowledge so much further by working together and looking toward the stars. At the end of the day, it's a message of hope.
>> Woah. >> Woah. >> That hopefulness also ties into the way the film tackles religious perspectives on our place in the universe. Jane once studied to become a nun, but dropped out, and later in the film, she turns to a nun she knows for guidance. Jane covertly asked her about what would happen if humanity learned they weren't the center of a created universe. Jane quotes a Bible verse that calls human beings God's greatest creation and points out that the verse mentions our humans are the best creation on Earth. The implication is that if there's a god, maybe he made aliens, too.
Knowing that Steven Spielberg is an advocate for full disclosure, you can't help but think he's making the case that revealing alien life wouldn't catastrophically upend too many theological beliefs as some people think it would. It may even do the opposite. WODEX thinks it's protecting humanity, but in actuality, their efforts could be holding us all back from attaining a more peaceful world.
Discloser Day is guaranteed to draw comparisons to Steven Spielberg's other movie about first contact with extraterrestrials. No, not that one. His other other movie about it. 1977's Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The core of Close Encounters comes down to communication. Humans obviously don't speak the same language as aliens, so the final sequence sees the otherworldly ship speak with humans through musical tones.
>> I hope somebody's taking all this down. What are we saying to each other?
Discloser Day also has communication as its core message. Quite literally, you have the team of Noah, Daniel, and Margaret trying to get the message out to the world that aliens are real. But, it's also interesting to note that Daniel and Margaret's gifts come down to communication as well. Margaret can speak any verbal language, and Daniel can effectively speak in the universal language of mathematics. And communication fosters empathy. Margaret's other power comes down to reading minds. And she uses this power specifically to connect with others on an emotional level. We first see her use this power on a cop who pulled her over and she uses the ability to show him how to make amends with his wife. Her power gets used again at the news station when she helps translate a Korean ambassador. With the world on the brink of war, Disclosure Day seems to be saying that many of humanity's problems come down to a loss of an ability to effectively communicate. Maybe things would be better if we just try to understand each other better. As the very end of the movie says, listen.
On the same topic, ever since the marketing for Disclosure Day ramped up, a lot of people have speculated whether it would end up being a secret sequel to Close Encounters. The ending to that film sees humanity make contact with extraterrestrial life and Roy Neary gets to go with them on their interstellar journey. There's no Richard Dreyfuss cameo in Disclosure Day and the only physical connection between the two films is how similar the aliens look in each one.
>> [music] >> But, that makes sense. Both are based on the classic depiction of gray aliens with huge heads and big eyes and creepy slender fingers. But, that's about as far as it goes. Spielberg himself has said that they're sort of companion pieces, though not directly related. He referred to the two movies as bookends to the same type of story.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind is about the initial shock and awe of realizing we may not be alone in the universe. Much of the early film is about factions of humanity seeing something odd in the sky until scientists and military personnel can communicate with the ship. Disclosure Day, then, is about humanity's responsibility with what to do with that sort of irrefutable proof that we're not alone in the universe.
>> People have a right to know the truth.
Disclosure Day is a work of fiction, of course, but that doesn't mean it's not based on some strange happenings. It's no [music] secret that the release of Disclosure Day coincides with some pretty interesting real-life developments. The idea that the government has been covering up the fact that aliens have already visited Earth used to be totally fringe, X-Files conspiracy level stuff. But lately, the concept of disclosure has been getting more and more mainstream.
>> Uh let's just bring out the alien and get it over with.
Blurry videos and eyewitness accounts aren't quite the same smoking gun that Daniel shares with the world in the film, but the entire idea surrounding disclosure day has roots in real life events. In an interview with Empire magazine, >> [music] >> Spielberg mentioned how one event in particular encouraged him to push forward with making disclosure day. It was an incident that happened in 2004 when Navy pilots, including David Fravor, flying from USS aircraft carrier Nimitz, observed a 40-ft long oblong maneuvering without any visible propulsion off the coast of San Diego. It rekindled my interest in telling a story about total disclosure. At the time, the government released a statement confirming these were unidentified flying objects, or UFOs. That doesn't mean they're alien per se, just that they don't know what they are, or won't tell us.
Disclosure day also ties into the reported UFO crash in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. So, Spielberg is clearly drawing deep from the well of alien lore. One of the interesting elements of the final disclosure in the movie is that when the feed goes global, 30 Rockefeller Plaza has to verify that the alien footage isn't AI. It makes you wonder how any sort of real-world disclosure would play out. AI-rendered images and videos are everywhere, so even the most believable video proof isn't guaranteed to sway 100% of the population, >> [music] >> maybe not even the majority of the population. Even when Hugo brings out an honest-to-goodness alien for the world to see, someone watching this on their phone might have doubts. The movie doesn't spend too much time on that aspect [music] of the reveal, which is probably for the best. It's a movie about alien disclosure, not a can of worms that gets opened when you start questioning how easy it would be to fool a population that exclusively receives updates about the world through digital media.
One fascinating aspect of the marketing around Disclosure Day is how it's really leaning into the idea that everything in the movie is true [music] in so far as aliens are actually among us and someone just needs to reveal their existence.
>> All of this is true.
But does Spielberg actually believe in the idea that full disclosure is imminent or is it all just a marketing tactic? Like we mentioned, UFOs and aliens have started to become part of the mainstream news cycle and a lot of people think some sort of real life disclosure isn't that far off. Thanks to its timing and the way it's been marketed, the movie ties deeply into that push for disclosure. [music] Some people even think the film is a way to prime the general public for the truth coming out. It's not like Spielberg is trying very hard to discourage that opinion.
>> Isn't it going to be wonderful when people realize after seeing this movie that everything is true and has been true?
Or on the other hand, maybe it's just a sci-fi flick that's using the climate of the moment to market itself. But look, if after a century of alien movies, this happens to be the one that precedes a shift in our fundamental understanding of the universe, we'll take a friendly Spielberg alien over a xenomorph or a Quiet Place alien any Disclosure Day of the week.