Disclosure Day’s Aliens Aren’t Surprising At All (And That Makes Them Perfect)

There’s a sense in which Disclosure Day isn’t really about aliens at all. Steven Spielberg’s latest box office blockbuster, the end of Disclosure Day reveals it’s really a meditation on humanity itself. This film’s aliens have a simple message: empathy is our evolutionary advantage of a race, and we need to learn to listen to one another. If we do not, we will find ourselves in danger of extinction.

For all that’s the case, though, Spielberg touches on real-world UFO conspiracy theories from history. He weaves a masterful sci-fi tale in which two ordinary human beings are chosen by aliens, becoming agents of social transformation. They do so on behalf of aliens who are surprisingly unoriginal in every sense… but that’s precisely the point.

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Disclosure Day’s Aliens Are Pretty Much Every Stereotype Brought To Life

We don’t really see much of the aliens in Disclosure Day‘s trailers, and that had led to speculation they’d be something original. In reality, though, they’re pretty much the traditional “Gray Aliens” of legend – the exact depiction of aliens we’ve been seeing in science-fiction for decades. It’s an unusual decision for one of cinema’s most creative filmmakers, but it’s thematically perfect. Disclosure Day exists in a world where every legend was true, after all; where Roswell was a real alien encounter, and the US government has been concealing extraterrestrials since 1947.

All this means Spielberg doesn’t really want to do too much fresh and unique with the aliens in visual terms. That would actually distract from the film’s themes, because it would suggest the conspiracy theories were flawed rather than completely true. The one original riff is that the aliens can also present themselves in the likeness of animals, meaning aliens could potentially be all around us at any given time. They do so to put us at our ease, because they know humans can empathize with animals more than we can even with others of our own kind. It’s hard not to see that as an implicit criticism of human nature itself – which is probably the point.

Why Disclosure Day’s Alien Aren’t Invaders

The aliens of Disclosure Day are compassionate and empathic, so much so they don’t react to human attacks and experimentation. Some of their powers are a little unusual – it’s unclear what jargon likes “Experiencers” really means – but their motives aren’t really much of a surprise. They are teachers and educators, and they have a simple goal: to stage a sort of cosmic intervention, given humanity is on the brink of World War III. In Disclosure Day, the real antagonist is humanity’s lack of empathy, and that’s as much a problem for the heroes as it is for the aliens.

Again, this is exactly what it needs to be. In thematic terms, it fits with the film’s core concept; the aliens are an advanced race, and in religious terms they’re basically a created race who never fell to sin and selfishness. In lore terms, it’s actually the only possible explanation for why aliens would visit Earth time and again since 1947, suffering attacks and experimentation, and yet not choose to retaliate. In any other scenario, there’d only be one possible outcome of Roswell and the like: a full-scale war between aliens and humans.

Perhaps the most interesting scene, though, is a flashback where the aliens interact with the young Margaret Fairchild and Daniel Kellner. This riffs on the traditional legends of alien abductions, but the film stresses these two are unique; they are the Adam and Eve of a new race. The implication is that others were taken by the aliens, but not empowered in the same way as Margaret and Daniel. There’s likely a simple explanation; they were children when they were taken, still innocent, not yet corrupted by the selfishness of human civilization. They were the perfect candidates.

Disclosure Day is the Film Spielberg Always Wanted to Make

“I always had a core belief that we are not alone in the universe,” Spielberg told CNN. “I came into this world really believing that it would be impossible to think – and rather conceited to think – that we are the only intelligent life in the universe.” That certainly explains why aliens have been such a core part of Spierlberg films, from Close Encounters of the Third Kind to E.T. But, while Spielberg has made movies like War of the Worlds, his most memorable aliens are always the ones who mean the best for us. Given that’s the case, Disclosure Day‘s aliens feel so very appropriate; they’re just the kind of aliens Spielberg wants to believe in, and he hopes we can receive their message.

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