Audience Faith in Spielberg’s ‘Close Encounters’ Diminished by Alien Apathy

With “Disclosure Day,” Steven Spielberg promised a thought-provoking film about aliens that leaves theatergoers questioning their faith. But theologians, philosophers, and fiction writers are light years ahead on pondering the impact that knowledge of life on other planets would have, and they portray it with far more gravity than Mr. Spielberg musters.On last week’s “CBS News Sunday Morning,” Mr. Spielberg inspired a backlash by saying that it “would mess up a lot of people” to learn that aliens had crashed at Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947. He asked, “Is God, our God, only on this planet” or “for every system where there’s … life?” The question is compelling, which is why it’s been pondered for centuries. In a 2014 homily, Pope Francis posed a hypothetical question about “Martians” arriving and asking to be baptized. “Who are we,” he asked, “to close doors?” An alien arrival might cause upheaval, but people turn to and not away from God in times of trouble and uncertainty. Efforts to see visitors from space as part of creation would build on those of the past.“Disclosure Day” features a meteorologist, Margaret Fairchild, and cryptographer, Daniel Kellner — Emily Blunt and Josh O’Connor respectively — who lead the effort to tell humanity that it’s not alone. They’re blocked by a sinister government agency, Wardex, determined to keep the story under wraps.Fairchild exhibits the gifts of speaking in tongues and prophecy courtesy of the aliens. Kellner has video evidence of cruel experiments on the little green men and can understand their language. Biblical allegories abound. Colin Firth’s Noah Scanlon, given the name of an Old Testament prophet, is the main antagonist at Wardex.“Disclosure Day” is set in Kansas City, which may be an allusion to its large evangelical community. But like the hail, fire, and pillars of clouds in “Disclosure Day,” these details flash past without substance. A nuclear standoff between America and Russia is likewise set up never to be resolved.Mr. Spielberg’s says that “Disclosure Day” serves as a “bookend” for his 1977 film, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” but his current film lacks the previous one’s sense of wonder and high stakes. President Trump’s release of classified files on UFOs, rather than light the world’s imagination, is being met with a collective yawn.This apathy undermines the premise of “Disclosure Day.” One faction fears that alien “supreme beings” will cause people to “stop believing in God,” resulting in civilization’s collapse. The other favors the public’s right to know. But thanks to generations of sci-fi entertainment and government skepticism, the question is moot.A CBS News poll conducted this month found that 63 percent of Americans believe life exists on other planets and 21 percent that they’ve contacted earth. Only 31 percent said they’d be “scared” to meet such beings. Our lived experience also refutes the idea, depicted in “Disclosure Day,” that the world would accept videos presented as proof that aliens exist.It was a less cynical world when Mr. Spielberg made “Close Encounters.” But dozens of TV shows, books, and movies have confronted the idea of what contact with aliens would mean before and since. “Star Trek,” “The Twilight Zone,” “Babylon 5,” “Stargate,” and many others explored aliens in the context of religion.“Strangers,” Dean Koontz’s 1986 novel, speculated on the clash of cultures that “Disclosure Day” imagines. “Contact between mankind and very advanced extraterrestrials,” that book’s shadowy government agency warns, “could have the same effects” that more advanced European arrival did on the New World.Being confronted with alien ideas and superior technology would result in “the destruction of religious faith, a loss of faith in all governments and other secular belief systems, rising feeling of inferiority” and “suicide.” There are arguments for protecting the public from such outcomes, but “Disclosure Day” never makes them.The success of Mr. Spielberg’s heroes never seems in doubt, sapping “Disclosure Day” of the conflict that’s essential to drama. Rather than ponder the film after the credits roll, audiences may feel like they’ve seen this all before. People of faith will be no more shaken than they are by UFO document dumps in real life.

Audience Faith in Spielberg’s ‘Close Encounters’ Diminished by Alien Apathy

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