Super Spielberg, Super Sci-Fi
This summer, science fiction is looking up again. With Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day (starring Emily Blunt) arriving in theaters, audiences are once again being invited to ask one of the genre’s oldest questions: what if we are not alone? It is a question Spielberg has returned to throughout his career, from the wide-eyed wonder of Close Encounters of the Third Kind to the suburban magic of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and the darker futuristic paranoia of Minority Report . His best sci-fi stories are about awe, fear, communication, and the human tendency to believe that there is something bigger happening in the cosmos. That is what makes “disclosure” such a perfect sci-fi subject. The idea of a hidden truth finally being revealed taps into our collective fascination with government secrets, extraterrestrial encounters, alternate timelines, and futures we may not be ready to face. Sci-fi gives us a safe, spectacular way to imagine: first contact, time travel, dystopian syst...