Disclosure Day with Steven Spielberg & David Koepp
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What is the main theme of Disclosure Day?
People have a right to know the truth. It belongs to seven billion people. What is it? You wouldn't believe me if I told you. So I'm gonna show you.
What are you gonna do?
Full disclosure, to the whole world. All at once.
This is StarTalk. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. And today, we've got some special brewing. Oh, yeah. We're going to talk about Disclosure Day. Not just in the abstract, but I've got with me here the one, the only, Steven Spielberg. It's his story, and he directed it.
How did Steven Spielberg's early experiences shape his interest in aliens?
But we also have the writer, David Koepp, who not only wrote Disclosure Day, but wrote many other science fiction films, not only in collaboration with Steven, but also of his own. So we know this episode is going to serve your geek underbelly. And that's coming right up on StarTalk. Welcome to StarTalk. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. on to the podcast. We did a little bit of homework, and I did not know that your first student film was called Firelight, about aliens.
Yeah, it was called Firelight. I made it an eight millimeter, on eight millimeter film. I was 17 years old. I was in high school. So you, aliens have just been a thing. Well, it was more about UFOs. And it wasn't peace-loving aliens.
What role does empathy play in storytelling for alien encounters?
The first one I did was much more of the formulaic, you know, monogram movie exploitation. But it was in an area of interest ever since I was a kid.
And, I mean, why wouldn't it be? Because everybody's interested in aliens at some point. But you have the power to bring it to life on levels that no one could have imagined before.
It's not really so much my interest in aliens. It's been my interest in the unknown. And the feeling I've had for a very long time, having been a consumer of everything involving the unknown. Not the unknown a million light years from here, but the unknown right here. And it's always been something that's really interested me. And I've always wondered if the unknown is known by a very small group of people, the injustice of not everyone knowing what they know is kind of what drives me, especially to tell this story of Disclosure Day.
It never occurred to me to think of people left out as being the consequence of an injustice.
And inequity maybe is a better word for it.
No, but still, I'm applauding the term because when it's an injustice, you want to correct that as a viewer.
How does the film address the public's right to know about extraterrestrial life?
You want to right the wrong, and you clearly established that in Disclosure Day. I mean, that was the greatest feeling any of us had as we watched this. A question that I've always had as a director is, What is the value of the eyes of whatever it is you're looking into? Not only in Disclosure Day, was there a lot of eye contact from animal to non-human animals to human animals, but also human to human, where you're kind of seeing into their soul, imparting a bit of empathy, I guess, for lack of a better word there.
That is the word of the day.
That is the key word of the day. But aliens tend to, as we now think of them, they all have big eyes, and eyes seem to matter. Can you just speak a little bit as a director? And let me throw in the mix the eye contact with a velociraptor, right? I mean, at my museum, the velociraptor is not much bigger than a big dog, but they were sort of pumped up in Jurassic Park so that you're making eye contact with something that's going to eat you. So not only as a source of fear, but as a potential source of empathy.
How does that feel to you? Well, with human beings, eyes are the mirrors of the soul.
What are the implications of the New York Times article on UFOs for Disclosure Day?
And to animals, I guess, eyes are the mirrors of the appetite. But they both serve a similar purpose. They both give a kind of satiation. And I think everything is in the eyes. It's in the eyes. It's from anything, any movie experience anybody's ever had. It's all about the eyes. E.T. 's eyes in my film was critically important. The design of those eyes were critically important. It's a little bit harder with what people report when they report non-human entities, there's no iris or pupil. I never thought about that.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main theme of Disclosure Day?
0:02–0:55
2
How did Steven Spielberg's early experiences shape his interest in aliens?
0:55–1:58
3
What role does empathy play in storytelling for alien encounters?
1:58–3:15
4
How does the film address the public's right to know about extraterrestrial life?
3:15–4:39
5
What are the implications of the New York Times article on UFOs for Disclosure Day?
4:39–5:35
6
How does the film's portrayal of aliens differ from traditional depictions?
5:35–6:43
7
What ethical questions arise from the concept of alien disclosure?
6:43–7:28
8
What future possibilities does Spielberg envision after Disclosure Day?
7:28–54:44