ADRIAN FLORIDO, HOST:
The aliens are here.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DISCLOSURE DAY")
JOSH O'CONNOR: (As Dr. Daniel Kellner) People have a right to know the truth.
FLORIDO: At least they are in Steven Spielberg's new movie, "Disclosure Day."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DISCLOSURE DAY")
EVE HEWSON: (As Jane Blankenship) What are you going to do?
O'CONNOR: (As Dr. Daniel Kellner) Full disclosure to the whole world.
FLORIDO: It is the latest film that Spielberg has directed about aliens visiting Earth. Of course, there are many other films on this subject, like last year's Oscar-nominated "Bugonia"...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BUGONIA")
EMMA STONE: (As Michelle) Why have you shaved off my hair?
JESSE PLEMONS: (As Teddy) To prevent you from contacting your ship.
STONE: (As Michelle) What ship?
PLEMONS: (As Teddy) Your mother ship.
FLORIDO: ...Or Disney Pixar's "Elio."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ELIO")
YOUNG DYLAN: (As Bryce) You OK?
YONAS KIBREAB: (As Elio) I'm trying to get abducted by aliens.
FLORIDO: For decades, movies have explored the possibility of alien life as a way to tell a bigger story about the nature of humanity and existence. On this week's Cineplexity, our weekly movie conversation segment, we're taking a look at some of the most memorable movies about aliens in our midst. And to discuss this, we're joined by ALL THINGS CONSIDERED producer Marc Rivers, who produces these segments, and Glen Weldon, host of Pop Culture Happy Hour. Welcome back, both of you.
MARC RIVERS, BYLINE: Hey, Adrian.
GLEN WELDON, BYLINE: Hey. Great to be here.
FLORIDO: So in this segment, we sometimes look at how movies about the same subject explore different themes.
RIVERS: Yeah.
FLORIDO: Can we do that here? What are some of the different thematic buckets for alien films, Marc?
RIVERS: I think you can keep it pretty simple. There are the alien movies where the aliens come in peace and the alien movies where the aliens do not come in peace.
FLORIDO: (Laughter).
RIVERS: So - all right, so thinking about the former bucket - "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial," Spielberg's film from 1982.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL")
PAT WELSH: (As E.T.) E.T. home phone.
RIVERS: You know, E.T. is just this adorable, ugly little thing that would never hurt a fly. In fact, he'd probably heal the fly with his, like, glowing finger of his.
FLORIDO: Yeah.
RIVERS: And all he wants to do is go home. In the latter category, you have something like "Independence Day" from 1996. You know, you have these, like, city-sized ships that just want to vaporize all humanity on Earth.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "INDEPENDENCE DAY")
BILL PULLMAN: (As President Thomas J. Whitmore) They're moving from planet to planet - their whole civilization. After they've consumed every natural resource, they move on. And we're next.
RIVERS: Sometimes you can have something that kind of, like, toes the line, like a - "The Day The Earth Stood Still" from 1950s. It's kind of a Cold War movie where the aliens do come in peace, but they also kind of come demanding peace from us, that we chill out, you know, in our nuclear arms race and that if stuff hits the fan, it'll be on us.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL")
MICHAEL RENNIE: (As Klaatu) It is no concern of ours how you run your own planet. But if you threaten to extend your violence, this Earth of yours will be reduced to a burned-out cinder.
RIVERS: But ultimately, I would say that a lot of these alien movies, they're really about us. The aliens are us. They kind of - they're kind of a mirror to humanity.
WELDON: Exactly. And so how we react to them, whether we react with fear and militarism or with the kind of openness and awe and empathy, that Spielberg stock-in-trade, that's kind of telling us a lot about us.
FLORIDO: You know, we've got so many movies about aliens, UFOs. You know, what is the fundamental appeal here? What itch is the alien movie scratching?
WELDON: Proof of extraterrestrial life would change us, you know, as a culture, as a planet, as a species because - think about it - for centuries, we thought the Earth was the center of the universe. And Galileo comes along. He proves that it isn't, and that changes everything. It loosens the stranglehold that religious dogma had on, I mean, everything, on all life, on all aspects of culture. And if we knew for a fact that, A, there's life out there and, B, they want to hang out with us, I mean, that would change...
FLORIDO: That'd be pretty cool (laughter).
WELDON: ...Everything. I mean, and again, we either react with fear or with openness, and that's kind of what his new film, "Disclosure Day," is grappling with, that tension.
RIVERS: Yeah, they're - I think they're epistemological works at the end of the day. You know, they're about what we know, how do we know what we know. There's this kind of - there's this really good monologue from Tommy Lee Jones in "Men In Black," a childhood favorite of mine, that kind of gets at that.
FLORIDO: That's a good one.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "MEN IN BLACK")
TOMMY LEE JONES: (As Kay) Fifteen hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and 15 minutes ago, you knew that people were alone on this planet.
RIVERS: We as a culture have been obsessed with aliens since at least the end of World War II. This journalist Garrett Graff, who wrote a book about the history of UFO sightings and - kind of traces our conspiratorial mindset today back to, like, Roswell and Area 51, all that stuff.
FLORIDO: Well, we're talking about aliens in movies because Steven Spielberg has a new one, "Disclosure Day." But he also made "War Of The Worlds," "E.T.," "Close Encounters Of The Third Kind." How does "Disclosure Day," this new movie - how does it compare to these earlier films that he made?
RIVERS: Well, it's back in the more optimistic strain of "Close Encounters," I would say.
WELDON: Compared to "War Of The Worlds."
FLORIDO: (Laughter).
RIVERS: Yeah. Compared to "War Of The Worlds," it's a lot more optimistic. "War Of The Worlds" was just a mean alien movie that at the time - and Spielberg has said - was kind of his response to 9/11 and the terror that that day provoked.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "WAR OF THE WORLDS")
TOM CRUISE: (As Ray Ferrier) This thing, this machine, it crawled out of the ground, started torching everything. It was killing everybody.
JUSTIN CHATWIN: (As Robbie) What is it? Is it terrorists?
CRUISE: (As Ray Ferrier) These came from someplace else.
RIVERS: This is a lot more optimistic, comparatively.
FLORIDO: What's it about?
RIVERS: "Disclosure Day" is about the fact that aliens are here and that they have been here, but that the government has been covering up - the government kind of in partnership with this kind of Big Tech private entity. And Josh O'Connor plays a man who worked for this private company that he - and he seeks to reveal the existence of aliens to the world. But it's really not about that. It's kind of more about - like, it's more so about a plea for monoculture, a plea for a collective catharsis.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DISCLOSURE DAY")
EMILY BLUNT: (As Margaret Fairchild) What's happening to me?
COLMAN DOMINGO: (As Hugo Wakefield) People are starved for the truth.
RIVERS: This is a movie that posits that we would all be watching network TV at the same moment when - you know, more than likely at least some of us will be watching the Knicks game, you know what I mean? So there's a little bit of a naivete to this film.
WELDON: Yeah. In theory, it's about what a lot of his films are about, which is, like, any organization, any entity that tries to keep the truth away from the people is evil because truth has to come out, and we just have fundamentally different understandings of how we'd react as a species. But, you know, you go to Spielberg for hope.
FLORIDO: When you personally want to ponder whether we are or are not alone, what movies do you go back to over and over and again? Glen, why don't you start?
WELDON: My tastes run to the bigger picture of the sociological. So "Alien Nation" - two words - is a 1988 film starring James Caan and Mandy Patinkin that's about alien refugees who come to Earth and try to assimilate.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ALIEN NATION")
JAMES CAAN: (As Matthew Sykes) How long did it take you to learn English?
MANDY PATINKIN: (As Sam Francisco) Three months.
CAAN: (As Matthew Sykes) Three months?
PATINKIN: (As Sam Francisco) Yes. We learn quickly. We adapt. It is our strength.
WELDON: But they get treated as an underclass, and they have to deal with racism in a lot of different forms. That is a surprisingly smart little movie. But I always come back to "They Live," my favorite alien-among-us movie.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THEY LIVE")
RODDY PIPER: (As Nada) Look. Look at them. They're everywhere.
WELDON: This is a very low-budget 1988 John Carpenter film that really goes all-in on its B movie status.
RIVERS: Oh, yeah.
WELDON: That actually turns out to be - I think you'd agree, Marc - a pretty solid satire about how aliens have lived among us for a long time, and they are keeping us docile and subservient by feeding us these subliminal messages to conform, consume...
RIVERS: Pulling the wool over our eyes, man.
WELDON: ...Submit, accept the patriarchy, embrace capitalism.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THEY LIVE")
KEITH DAVID: (As Frank) You'd do it to your own kind.
GEORGE BUCK FLOWER: (As Drifter) What's the threat? We all sell out every day, might as well be on the winning team.
WELDON: It's very smart. It's very funny. It stars the wrestler Rowdy Roddy Piper. It's a hoot, is what it is.
FLORIDO: Marc, what about you?
RIVERS: Yeah, that also reminds me of "The Brother From Another Planet." This is, like, kind of a cult hit from the 1980s that also kind of nods at matters of immigration and assimilation, racial persecution. And it's more of a quiet, observant film. The star is Joe Morton, who many people might know as Papa Pope in "Scandal," Olivia Pope's father. He's very good here in this role where he's - plays essentially a mute alien from another planet who kind of - who essentially crash lands in New York City.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE BROTHER FROM ANOTHER PLANET")
STEVE JAMES: (As Odell) I get you something to drink, brother?
BILL COBBS: (As Walter) Maybe he don't drink.
JAMES: (As Odell) Man don't drink, what he come into a bar for?
LEONARD JACKSON: (As Smokey) Man...
RIVERS: And the underlying message of the film to me is how New York has just long been this place that can house all manner of people from different origins. And it plays today as a very anti-ICE movie as well. It's very interesting to watch the film in this climate. And then my favorite alien movie - one of my favorites is probably "Under The Skin" from Jonathan Glazer.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "UNDER THE SKIN")
SCARLETT JOHANSSON: (As The Female) You think I'm pretty?
KEVIN MCALINDEN: (As First Victim) Aye, I think you're gorgeous.
JOHANSSON: (As The Female) Do you?
MCALINDEN: (As First Victim) Aye, definitely.
JOHANSSON: (As The Female) Good.
RIVERS: Scarlett Johansson plays an alien that takes the form of a woman that is kind of ensnaring men and - for who knows what? And - but the movie is more so about what happens when a body develops a consciousness or when that consciousness develops a body, and, like, what even is either thing? That sounds, like, very heady, but, like, why I keep coming back to it is that it just has these just unforgettable sights and sounds. The score from Mica Levi is something like you've never heard before...
(SOUNDBITE OF MICA LEVI'S "LIPSTICK TO VOID")
RIVERS: ...These inky impenetrable voids that Johansson's alien character entraps these men in. Like some of my favorite movies, it's unsolvable.
WELDON: Yep, great pick.
FLORIDO: Well, thanks to both of you for coming back to talk about movies. We've been talking about alien movies with NPR's Marc Rivers and Glen Weldon. Thanks for joining us.
RIVERS: You're welcome.
WELDON: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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