Disclosure Day 2026 is quintessentially Spielberg
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by Blender Dumbass
Aka: J.Y. Amihud. A Jewish by blood, multifaceted artist with experience in film-making, visual effects, programming, game development, music and more. A philosopher at heart. An activist for freedom and privacy. Anti-Paternalist. A user of Libre Software. Speaking at least 3 human languages. The writer and director of the 2023 film "Moria's Race" and the lead developer of it's game sequel "Dani's Race".
"Listen" is the message of Steven Spielberg's 2026's alien picture Disclosure Day. Why would Spielberg do this specific movie, about this specific subject matter? What should we listen to? What is the Disclosure of the Disclosure Day? ↩ Reply
Obviously Disclosure Day is a hell of a cool movie. I mean, it is Steven Spielberg we are talking about. He is pretty much incapable of making a bad movie. The direction of this film, is, I shall say, Spielbergian. The actors are acting their asses off. And the visual effects are breathtaking. c:0 ↩ Reply
In a way this movie is an installment to my favorite franchise. The Grey Alien franchise. I talked about this being one of my favorite franchises when describing No One Will Save You by Brian Duffield, which I coincidentally watched not too long after re-watching Spielberg's own Close Encounters of The Third Kind. Here is the fun thing about Close Encounters, in a way, Disclosure Day is a soft remake of Close Encounters. ↩ Reply
Disclosure Day is kind of like, taking the essence of Close Encounters: a Spielberg movie, where aliens are friendly, and the government is shady, and the main characters know something. Matching it against Minority Report: where you have people on the run, in an action thriller, that references Michael Bay, with people that have very interesting superpowers. And then sprinkling some Schindler's List type, holocaust inspired footage of how humans torture aliens, on top. c:1 ↩ Reply
Let me explain. I believe you get the reference to Close Encounters. It is a yet another Spielberg film with aliens. Obviously it would be somewhat Close Encounters like. We have 2 leads, one male, one female, both have visions they cannot explain. Things they know that others might not want to believe in. Richard Dreyfuss here is replaced by Josh O'Connor. Melinda Dillon is replaced with Emily Blunt. They meet. They go through adventures. It ends with a communication with aliens. Or in this case, first a Disclosure and then a talk with aliens. ↩ Reply
The Schindler's List stuff is there as I believe some sort of meta-textual layer. It is Disclosed not just that aliens are there, but that the government was basically torturing those aliens for decades. During various moments when the camera lingers over the secret disclose-worthy footage, we see various things that look like they've been taken from historic holocaust footage. Just that the victims are the aliens. Some of it is quite nasty. Like you see alien guts and stuff. I think this stuff alone need some further digging into. c:2 ↩ Reply
Now, Minority Report... So, the previous movie by Spielberg was the 2022 The Fabelmans, where Spielberg tells the story of his own childhood. In The Fabelmans he shows the very moment when he became obsessed with cinema. It was the action scene from the 1952 Cecil B. DeMille film The Greatest Show on Earth, where a train runs over a car. A shot from this sequence could be seen popping on a TV, while one of the characters is flipping though channels in 2005 Spielberg aliens picture War Of The Worlds. In Spielberg-produced film Super 8 J.J.Abrams recreates this scene, making a car collision with a train, be the inciting incident of that movie. Spielberg does a car colliding with a train scene in Disclosure Day as well. ↩ Reply
In Minority Report ( as I speculated upon in my review of Bay's The Island ) Spielberg made a deliberate reference to Bay's Bad Boys, by putting a song from that movie on full display for a few seconds. In return Bay started working with Spielberg, but also had used the futuristic car made for Minority Report ( Lexus Minority ) in the background of The Island. In Minority Report Lexus Minority is a RED car. Michael Bay changed the color of Lexus Minority for his movie. ↩ Reply
In 2019 Michael Bay released a cool AF action film 6 Underground where for the first 20 or so minutes of the film, the star of the show is a bright green Alfa Romeo Giulia. Guess which car Steven Spielberg crashed into the train... Yes. A fucking RED Alfa Romeo Giulia. ↩ Reply
Steven Spielberg signaling Michael Bay over again aside, this, and the whole pre-cog character of Emily Blunt, makes the identity of Disclosure Day very Minority Report-esque. Obviously those 3 movies are not the end of the extend of the self-references Spielberg put into it. Take for example the motel, the main characters stayed in for a bit, called "Inn-diana". Lol... ah... anyway... ↩ Reply
To dig into what the movie's message is, we need to dig a bit more into what the messages of the 3 movies referenced in are. ↩ Reply
Close Encounters is about communication. The whole premise of the film hinges on the idea that to communicate with aliens humans might need to use some sort of universal language. In Close Encounters it's music. ↩ Reply
Going back to Steven's childhood and his parents ( portrayed in The Fabelmans ) we can assume that Close Encounters represents Spielberg's mother's side. She was a musician. While in Disclosure Day the ultimate language of the universe is math, or algorithms. Which is more of a forte of Spielberg's father, who was a computer engineer. ↩ Reply
Emily Blunt's character in Disclosure Day could be somewhat of a representation of his mother. She is acting kind of like slightly watered down version of what-ever the fuck Michelle Williams did as Spielberg's mother in The Fabelmans. Although Emily's character is not a musician. But coincidentally her boyfriend in the film is a musician. And in a big emotional moment, she sings. While Josh O'Connor's character is a literal computer genius that reads binary code as if it was just plain English. Maybe Disclosure Day tries to assert that to communicate with aliens you need both Spielberg's mother and father together? c:3 c:4 ↩ Reply
Okay... say the movie is about establishing contact. About "listening". About empathy. Or something. The theme of empathy was given screen-time in parts of the film. And the whole humans being evil bastards that mess up aliens like it's a holocaust, could also be a reflection on that theme. But if the positive theme is empathy, where is the negative one? Where is the corruption of the audience? ↩ Reply
I think I know where. To find the corruption of the audience we need to look wider. We need to escape the confounds of Spielberg's own filmography. We need to see what other film-makers did. And how Disclosure Day is in conversation with those other films. ↩ Reply
And specifically I mean, films like Signs by M. Night Shyamalan, Split by the same Shyamalan, and Gregg Araki's 2004 alien picture Mysterious Skin. ↩ Reply
In Signs the central tension of the films is religion. This tension in Disclosure Day is represented by Eve Hewson's character. She is a religious person. And she is afraid of letting people know about the existence of Extra Terrestrials for the sole reason that it might make them lose their faith in God. The film even directly pulls iconography from the Shyamalan's picture, showing a forming crop-circle sign, while inter-cutting with Hewson's character's struggle with her own faith. ↩ Reply
But what the other two films have to do with all of this? Well, here is the thing. If in Shyamalan's picture aliens are the signs from God, that restored the faith of the main character. In Disclosure Day faith itself is a weapon against alien weapons. Which means that Spielberg subverts the message. ↩ Reply
And I believe Spielberg with Disclosure Day pulls a Split onto Mysterious Skin. Spoiler alert, in Mysterious Skin the alien subplot is not real. The character who suffers visions of being abducted by aliens is revealed to be actually a victim of sexual abuse. And the whole aliens thing is his mind's defense mechanism against the whole reality of the situation. ↩ Reply
Split also deals with sexual abuse and child-hood trauma in general. But M. Night Shyamalan being M. Night Shyamalan, pulls the greatest corruption in his carrier, arguing with his movie, that trauma itself is a super-power of sorts. ↩ Reply
Spielberg with Disclosure Day builds this tension to reveal some frighting thing that must have happened to both of our main characters as kids. You are almost afraid a Mysterious Skin kind of thing. But Spielberg shows an actual abduction by aliens. Inverting Mysterious Skin, while arguing that their powers in the film, come, somewhat, from this alien encounter. Pulling the M. Night Shyamalan's Split over the audience. Creating some rather potent corruption. ↩ Reply
The movie ends on Emily Blunt's character saying "Listen". I wonder... what is the message of the movie? ↩ Reply
Happy Hacking!!! ↩ Reply
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Troler
c:0 June 12, 2026 Obviously Disclosure Day is a hell of a cool movie. I mean, it is Steven Spielberg we are talking about. He is pretty much incapable of making a bad movie. The direction of this film, is, I shall say, Spielbergian. The actors are acting their asses off. And the visual effects are breathtaking.
⤴ ViewSpielberg did make a bad movie, scratch that, he made a few bad movies. They're in The Fabelmans
Troler
c:1 June 12, 2026 Disclosure Day is kind of like, taking the essence of Close Encounters: a Spielberg movie, where aliens are friendly, and the government is shady, and the main characters know something. Matching it against Minority Report: where you have people on the run, in an action thriller, that references Michael Bay, with people that have very interesting superpowers. And then sprinkling some Schindler's List type, holocaust inspired footage of how humans torture aliens, on top.
⤴ ViewI still don't get it, why is it critics despise Michael Bay movies so much while being oblivious to Spielberg's praise of him. Do they believe that he does it because they're good friends? I mean, they are. Michael Bay seems like a genuinely cool guy to be with, especially when he had a third cup of espresso.
Troler
c:2 June 12, 2026 Like you see alien guts and stuff. I think this stuff alone need some further digging into
⤴ ViewLike in their guts, right?
Troler
c:3 June 12, 2026 She is acting kind of like slightly watered down version of what-ever the fuck Michelle Williams did as Spielberg's mother in The Fabelmans
⤴ ViewI swear, 80% of Spielbeg's films seem to be creative retelling of his childhood and youth. Dude has trauma.
Troler
c:4 June 12, 2026 Maybe Disclosure Day tries to assert that to communicate with aliens you need both Spielberg's mother and father together
⤴ ViewYou put them together and what do you get? Nancy Spielberg
... replies ( 1 )
Blender Dumbass
c:5 June 13, 2026@Troler You could have said Anne Spielberg, on which the character of Julia Butters was based in The Fabelmans. And that would have explained why Julia is such a good actor. She is an alien. What a wasted opportunity.
Blender Dumbass
c:5 June 13, 2026... c:4
@Troler You could have said Anne Spielberg, on which the character of Julia Butters was based in The Fabelmans. And that would have explained why Julia is such a good actor. She is an alien. What a wasted opportunity.
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