PEL Presents PMP#228: Spielberg's Alien Fetish
episodePreviously titled “PMP#228: Spielberg's Alien Fetish” — renamed by the publisher on Aug 23, 2026
Transcript
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What is the premise of the episode and which Spielberg alien films are being examined?
This episode is sponsored by Claude, the AI for mines that don't stop at good enough.
This is pretty much Pop a Culture Podcast, and the truth is out here to be revealed to you all today. In light of the new film Disclosure Day, we're looking at Steven Spielberg's films reflecting his interest in aliens, including 1977's Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 1982's E.T., and maybe 2005's War of the Worlds. This is Mark Lindsenmeyer whose early draft of this podcast was in fact a mash-in-to-potato sculpture. This
is Albaiker, just delighted to finally see an ET sequel.
I'm Sarah Lynn Bruck and would like to thank Steven Spielberg for all his work saving Reese's pieces.
And this is Lawrence Ware, and if aliens ever do actually land, they'll probably ask to meet Steven
Spielberg first. That's that's a reasonable assumption, and he'll be dead.
Yeah.
Okay, were there aliens at the end of AI?
It was unclear, I think. There were either super advanced, evolved, humans.
It was something powerful, but I'm not sure if it was aliens. So War of the Worlds was the outlier. That was not even in our initial outline of this episode. The others you could maybe see or
Crystal Skull.
That's a good point.
Yeah, Crystal Stall has aliens as well. Honestly, War of That World is my youngest son favorite film. Like he loves that movie. He watches it maybe. Maybe twice, three times a year. Oh my goodness.
That's a dark film. It has action. It's fun. It's a fun film. To alert the listeners. If you haven't seen Disclosure Day yet, uh you know, we don't blame you. Uh we're not gonna spoil it completely right away. Whoa, we don't blame you. We're not gonna spoil it completely right away. So we'll we'll warn you when we get into what actually happens at the end. But I can say like I was looking for this to be, at least between this and Close Encounters, a coherent story. At some point they're showing sort of the past interactions with aliens and I w I was so looking for actual footage from Close Encounters to show up in there and I was so disappointed.
It did feel like it was gonna show up. I really wanted the melody to be dropped somewhere in the movie as an Easter egg, but he resisted.
They're definitely in conversation with each other.
It's not a sequel, but it could have been a sequel to Close Encounters.
Mm-hmm.
It was great that you mentioned uh Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, because I th if if the conversation is about like what is Steven Spielberg's fascination with with aliens and what does he think about them, that's one that I just never thought of, but it's the clearest kind of case of where he's shoehorned a Spielberg alien thing into a movie that didn't necessarily need it. For no reason, yeah.
Mm-hmm. I
guess
I
I had heard that that was George Lucas's idea and his fault and that Spielberg and the rest of the people involved did not actually want that element, but I guess the compromise was, Oh, they're not aliens, they're from another dimension or something like that. I this is half remembered third hand knowledge.
That movie was so weird.
I
dislike that movie so much I've kind of forgotten about it.
Yeah. Lucky for you.
Let's at least give our sort of initial take on the new movie as as reviewers, as uh tomatometer. Tomato meter one fourth uh accredited cr critics. Lawrence I try
to get you guys accredited. I try to get you guys accredited. Lawrence
is start start us off, Lawrence, with your professional opinion.
Disclosure Day is a good two very good movie. The direction is top-notch as you would expect. I thought that the set pieces were really good. It takes some time to get going. I was surprised how much patience I had to give the film before it started kind of coming together. But all the performances were good. And I think that, oh, what's her name? Emily Blunt? Is that her name? Yeah. Emily Blunt was a standout performance. And I think that she If is not nominated, should be considered for nomination for her performance. But I thought it was a good to very good film. Didn't love it. Is not among the top tier of Spielberg, but it is fine.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the premise of the episode and which Spielberg alien films are being examined?
0:00–9:12
2
How do the hosts evaluate the new film *Disclosure Day* and its place in Spielberg’s catalog?
9:12–18:08
3
Why do the hosts consider *Disclosure Day* a “mature Spielberg” film and how does it compare to *Jaws* and *E.T.*?
18:08–26:55
4
What are the main criticisms of the film’s pacing, family drama, and emotional weight?
26:55–35:44
5
How does the discussion shift to Spielberg’s earlier alien movies (*Close Encounters* and *E.T.*) and their lasting impact?
35:44–43:05
6
What insights do the hosts share about *War of the Worlds* and its adaptation choices?
43:05–50:44
7
Why do the hosts feel the ending of *Disclosure Day* falls short, and what would they have changed?
50:44–54:10
8
What final thoughts and after‑talk topics wrap up the episode?
54:10–57:46
Speakers
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