Steven Spielberg

Talking about, you know, one of their landers was denied landing rights at Klavius Moon Base.

Right.

And he wants to know why.

And there's a rumor the Russians hear that there's some kind of an epidemic.

But that, of course, is the cover story, which I immediately stole when I made Close Encounters and used phosgene gas as the cover story to clear the civilians away from Devil's Tower so they could have this first communion between an off-world civilization and the human race.

No, and remember the great movie that Walter Parks made called War Games?

Oh, yeah.

And before that, there was Colossus, the Forbin Project.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Where computers, you know, machines were threatening to take over the world.

Now, that's an old sci-fi trope, and it's fine because all science fiction eventually comes true.

Yeah.

It just does.

2001 made me feel as big as a grain of sand.

You know, I felt no more aware.

When I was done seeing the film for the first time, I was no...

more important than any of the stars in that sky that were, by the way, hand-painted by Doug Trumbull and his team.

It made me feel really small in a good way because, you know, you can look up at the night sky and feel pretty small and diminished if you don't have the contamination of a big city spoiling your view.

But if you get out into the desert, into the country where there's no city lights and you really see that awesome vista, you see our entire Milky Way,