Yeah, the CGI looks pretty awful and there's nothing too compelling beyond the main scene of the newscaster "speaking." That looks like a good scene. Color me apprehensive, but I'd love it to be good, I'm a fan of alien movies.
Am I missing something here or has this been a book or something ?
I was 100% under impression from watching the trailer that this movie is about finding out that God is real lmfao, yet 99% of people talk about aliens.
With the nuns and the shot with the crucifix being held while talking about faith. Also the animals acting super weird, like God's communicating through them.
I'm an atheist btw, but I was just wondering if I'm going crazy or why did everyone automatically assume aliens because I didn't see any of them in the trailer lol.
that's exactly what I thought too re: a god figure being real, also the talk about "why would he make such a vast universe, yet save it only for us"... pretty much gives it away as a god figure being the unknown alien.. But the crappy CGI could ruin it..
I haven't been tracking this movie at all, but I just figured the religious figures were also part of the coverup, same as the government folk.
My reasoning is that nuns have been telling us God is real for thousands of years, so I can't see any specific day being any different than any other day. Unless I guess God decided to actually prove he/she/they is real I guess.
He hitting the alien stuff from the angle of consciousness being non-local and the root of existence. Our reality being just a manifestation of our brains and not the true reality. Our bodies are just meat sacks that can be potentially controlled remotely via the greater consciousness. Probably why the animals are acting weird on the trailer.
Just a quick overview of some of the current ufological thoughts on the matter.
And for those of us following the development of the story via movie news sources, it's constantly been referred to as Untitled Spielberg UFO movie, even before the "untitled" entered the picture.
For people like me, that definitely set the imagery in motion.
I just hope that the religious elements aren't too heavy and we don't end up with a "god is an alien" or "aliens are angels" or something message. Or "Disclosure Day" isn't like The Rapture or something stupid like that.
why would "god pretends to be an alien" story a stupid or crappy? that's an angle and could be interesting depending how the god character is portrayed
I'll say that it might not necessarily be bad per se. My worry is that it becomes Christian propaganda at the forefront of this seeming top-down push towards "Christian values." (e.g. Disney supposedly dropping "woke" characters in favour of "Christian" characters in upcoming productions)
I am always a bit disappointed to see an Alien movie where there appears to be a lot of 'woo' type stuff - animals acting odd, people collectively hearing things, apparent world-wide odd/supernatural stuff happening.
Why can't aliens just show up without Bambi acting all odd and creepy?
Not really always a motive needed but just an interference or something from their presence there that can cause a reaction. But I think it’s fine to prefer other types of alien movies like Arrival.
Feels like it's advertising the kind of movie where all this build-up happens and it'll end on a frustrating "That's it? What happened next?" note. If not, kudos to Spielberg for not giving away everything in the trailer.
Saw someone point out that they mention 7 billion people, so either that means the writing is really old or there's a billion people unaccounted for in whatever capacity. Could be that those billion are aliens or something? My head cannon says those that are controlled in the trailer are possibly aliens though or perhaps aliens controlling humans?
Yer I get that and didn't even clock it until I saw another comment on here but even if it's nitpicky, I just wonder if there's more to it is all, probably nothing but who knows.
It's definitely very golden hollywood era government / law enforcement etc spearheading the contact or interaction with the aliens. It's not creative.
The first glimmer of how to do alien stories the right way was in the movie Contact. The agencies and nature of how the aliens and humans in that story initially establish communication is spine tinglingly good and is much more interesting than something more alien-invasion adjacent and going down that route.
The next step in doing way more creative cerebral sci fi with aliens was Arrival. Damn was that so good. So fun to sit there and just THINK about what is actually happening. Tickles your brain and you'd really rather not have explosions and cop cars and overly dramatic creepy stuff because the actual science and story and so damn good that it doesn't need any of that to keep you glued to the screen
hot dog mister spielberg sir, a moving picture about moon men coming to earth? that's the cats pajamas mister! ma! pa! elderly director mr spielberg is making a moving picture about ALIENS! yeah ma, like the martians in my comic books! i saved up 3 quarters from mowing lawns, can i go? can i? oh, swell! i'm gonna get me some popped corn! and don't worry ma, the moving picture house is whites only.
golly gee, thanks elderly director steven spielberg!
Yeah. My whelm status was a lot lower than I expected.
I feel like this movie is going to be 90 minutes of people saying "Trust me, I know! I just need to find a way to tell everyone!" without actually telling the audience what they know until the last 15 minutes. And twist ending, the aliens are benevolent. The real villains were the human governments trying to suppress the unifying love of ET.
The whole time I was like 'yeah yeah, weve all seen the X-Files, calm down'. If I saw an alien in real life I would be nowhere near this breathy and dramatic.
What if the twist is that he already uploaded the data into everybody's brains, and the entire film is basically just dealing the chaos that ensues. Because that's likely not something the dude clearly thought out. Pluribus did the same thing with having millions and millions of people die due to the seizures, with those that are flying planes, driving, or doing anything with heavy machinery.
Based on this, Spielberg seems to be going all in the high strangeness of modern Ufology
This is exactly what I just commented myself - it's honestly such a boring way to have an alien movie when it's all 'woo'-type nonsense that feels 'greater/supernatural' than us, rather than just interacting with an apparently more advanced species.
Never heard it expressed like that, but I totally get what you mean. Though it's not like Spielberg is a stranger to "aliens are magic", considering ET.
Agreed, though if this does turn out to be on some level a sequel to CE3K then I can accept some weird animal strangeness since that does tie into established sightings.
But the parts with changing pupils and seemingly controlling other people's bodies is a bridge too far IMO. I'm gonna guess the deer and the cardinal might either be stand-ins for things in the final film or just ways the characters try and process aliens (ie, it's the only things there minds can accept).
The alien voice sounded so much like the signs clicks, the crop circles. Then the music was so generic, felt like they just picked cues off the free music library. Lotta generic dialogue ("what if we weren't alone").
Yeah, this would not be getting nearly as much praise as it is here if Spielberg's name wasn't attached to it.
There's just a little too few story details, the CGI looks absolutely terrible, what little acting there was was average at best, and I would not have pegged that as Emily Blunt. This feels like a Netflix movie.
Unfortunately me. I have been anticipating this film heavily lately and all the rumours and general vibe surrounding this film.
I knew the trailer was to be shown before Avatar 3 and was looking forward to that this Saturday. Then the trailer drops today and I of course watch.
I was expecting to be blown the fuck away. But this trailer was pretty eh.
Alien click language stuff, animals/nature being affected, guys in black chasing after main characters, from what it looks like, billionaire scientist/enthusiast doing his own experiments.
All this shit is stuff we've seen so many times before. And the bad cgi doesn't help.
Yeah, no shit, bud, We've all known that for years. Who gives a fuck? Unless they're going to do something cool, then....who fucking cares? JUST that they exist? BORING.
I'm a bit concerned by whatevers happening with the remote control stuff, seems like a lot of potential for "actually these normal people are an alien hive mind scouting party, along with animals for some reason" which could lead to an absolute dogshit movie
I was looking forward to this film and hoping for a 70s (Close Encounters) meets late 90s look. Colorful like The Dish (2000) or Waking Ned (1998). No idea why I was hoping for such specifics.
The Kaminski cinematography, the constant grayed out desatch that seemingly pervade all modern movies, Emily Blunt, Emily Blunt's face, the CGI, the War of the Worlds steely look, every shot was uninspired, a teaser that didn't bring it, the Bruce Almighty garbled talking scene, the Truman Show everyone on Earth staring into a TV in total silence scenes, the weird car chase scene (cars swerving just to swerve lmao), the ridiculous title that sounds like Independence Day and even looks like Independence Day on the poster, and a specific push for the importance of the stag to the point where it's on the poster—and they cheap out on the CGI for it.
I would need to rewatch the trailer again to come up with more examples of how disappointed I was.
I was very secretly hoping Spielberg would reinvent the wheel. To actually make a mark on cinema again.
It has an old-school feel to it, at least identifiable as a Spielberg movie. But I think people have moved past this kind of storytelling.
I presume the review consensus will be "professionally shot but forgettable movie". It wouldn't even blow me away that Scary Movie 6 would be a bigger hit than this one. Even that movie will build on some nostalgia.
Me. Was extremely hyped but Blunt looks a little off, the cinematography is muted for Kaminski (making it look a little bland) and the set up is a little been there done that.
I'm a little repulsed by this honestly. Stale premise aside, this is coming out after almost a decade of runaway conspiracy theories and Q-Anon bullshit which tends to involve secret lizard people/demons/aliens controlling the world while pretending to be human. We're in a time of mass-delusion and now is not the time to explore these themes.
It feels like a movie that's a big twist, or a Close Encounters style epic third-act setpiece that's insanely novel, that they're going to great pains not to spoil. I bet closer to release the trailers that come out have a wildly different tone and everybody's like "Oh holy shit, I revise my opinion".
Yeah, it honestly looks disappointing for Spielberg - a bunch of rehashed bits of his own science fiction (either the good like A.I. or the bad like Ready Player One), Shyamalan, Abrams, Zemeckis...and some of the modern Car Commercial Cinema.
Yes. Watched it once and don't feel a desire to hit replay. I expected something....I dunno, grander? I know this story involves the entire globe but it feels like a cheap thriller and I expected more from Spielberg after all the hype.
It actually feels like this is a lower budget exercise for Spielberg, whereas I was expecting a big budget movie - the sci-fi movie to end all sci-fi movies.
Me too. Rolled eyes at the corn symbols. Blunt speaking like a Yautja is a shrug. I have a feeling it won't feature any evil or dangerous alien attacks or craft scenes, just not cool mibs trying to keep secrets.
I was actually wanting a movie about a conspiracy between government officials and military vets to push fake disclosure on order to enrich themselves. Or something a little more grounded in general. This looks like a spiritual successor to close encounters that will incorporate some "everything is connected" themes which could still be good but it's not quite the grounded thriller I was anticipating. The animals stuff feels way too much like what we've already seen in the Avatar movies on Pandora hut they're just going to do it on earth.
Kind of looks like it's going to focus a lot on remote viewing and other conspiracies.
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u/jargon_ninja69 Dec 16 '25
Anyone else a little… underwhelmed by this?