“Disclosure Day” alleges that the U.S. government is hiding evidence of aliens. Here’s what Steven Spielberg had to say about that mysterious ending:
Director Steven Spielberg says young Drew Barrymore believed ET was ‘real’
Disclosure Day director Steven Spielberg talks about the possibility of alien life and why a young Drew Barrymore believed ET was real.
Spoiler alert! We’re discussing important details about the ending of “Disclosure Day” (currently in theaters). If you haven’t seen the movie or don’t want to know, stop reading.
NEW YORK – When Steven Spielberg was a kid, he hated “Hansel and Gretel.”
The Brothers Grimm fairy tale tells the story of a pair of hungry brothers who get lost in the forest, stumble upon a hut made of sweets, and then become trapped by a child-eating witch.
“It was very scary,” Spielberg recalls. “It was the scariest fairy tale I ever heard from my father and mother. They were always happy to tell it to me in the most graphic way possible. Being lured into a space by false promises? It’s a story of betrayal, after all.”
“Hansel and Gretel” plays a surprisingly important role in Spielberg’s new film “Disclosure Day.” The film follows Daniel (Josh O’Connor), a whistleblower who threatens to release decades of government documents proving that aliens exist.
This sci-fi adventure stars Emily Blunt as TV meteorologist Margaret. Margaret one day unlocks extraterrestrial abilities that allow her to deeply communicate with strangers and tap into their most intimate thoughts and fears.
How will “Disclosure Day” end?
Margaret experiences a series of strange dreams, including one from “Hansel and Gretel.” Her mysterious visions eventually lead her to Daniel and Hugo (Colman Domingo), an advocate of alien disclosure.
Here’s where things get really trippy. Through storybook-like flashbacks, we learn that Daniel and Margaret met as children. One night, the two are invited into the forest by an alien disguised as an animal. After arriving at the snow-covered hut, the young children were endowed with cosmic skills. He gave Daniel a sophisticated language and Margaret a deep sense of empathy and connection.
The extraterrestrials erased Daniel and Margaret’s memories of that night, knowing that one day the aliens would return and they would be able to carry an otherworldly message to the citizens of Earth.
At Hugo’s urging, Margaret and Daniel play a prank on a local TV station. Decades of secret information supporting a top-level alien cover-up is released, and it is quickly picked up by national news channels.
Footage dating back to the 1940s reveals that UAPs have landed on Earth many times before, with the purpose of government officials torturing and killing extraterrestrials. The film references famous alien conspiracies such as Roswell and Nixon-Gleason, suggesting that perhaps there is some truth to them.
Spielberg and screenwriter David Koepp (Jurassic Park) immersed themselves in numerous transcripts of Congressional testimony, documentaries and books on the subject, including Daniel Kehoe’s Flying Saucers Are Real.
“He was the first whistleblower to say, ‘Hey, all these things I’ve been seeing are real. I know they’re trying to discredit everyone, but this is what’s happening,'” Cope said.
Cope has long believed there is life beyond this planet, and thinks we are “probably” being visited by aliens.
But after reading Kehoe’s book, Cope says, “it became undeniable that there was 80 years of government oppression. There’s no question about it.” “If you read their own documents, you can see that they have a plan on how to hide this. So in my head, it went from a ‘maybe’ to a certainty.”
Who are the aliens in “Disclosure Day”?
The film’s striking visuals inspired Spielberg to embrace “our cultural memory” of aliens, Cope said. For example, the film’s portrayal of extraterrestrials closely fits pop culture stereotypes of small, pale creatures with large eyes, bulbous heads, and rail-thin bodies.
The alien’s ability to take on the forms of a stag, fox, and cardinal is also consistent with what people have reported about their visits.
“We wanted to incorporate as much of the existing lore as possible, but we didn’t want to say, ‘Everything you thought was wrong,'” Cope says. Instead, “we wanted to say, ‘Here’s the evidence.'” We wanted to take everything that seemed mostly reliable and present it as a unified theory of everything we know about UAPs. A big part of that was having the aliens appear as animals. ”
What is the last line of “Disclosure Day”?
The movie ends with people all over the world glued to their televisions and smartphones as news confirms that aliens are real. At the last moment, extraterrestrials arrive at Margaret’s news station. The creature quietly says something to Daniel, who whispers it to Margaret.
“Listen,” Margaret says on air, and the screen goes black and the credits roll.
Director Spielberg has said that this was the first scene he came up with for Disclosure Day, and that there was no version of the script in which he heard what Margaret would say next. We’ll never know what Daniel whispered in her ear either.
“I’m never going to give that away,” Spielberg says. “No one (other than the actors) knows that and is not allowed to say it.”
Director Koop says he always wanted the film to end with the words, “Listen.”
“It said everything I wanted to say,” Cope says. “‘Listen, because this space boy has told me many interesting things. Listen, because empathy means listening to each other.’ These are also the first words of most Hebrew prayers.
“When I found one word that said it all, I realized I should stop talking.”
The ending of “Disclosure Day” leaves a lot of room for speculation as to how people will react. While Spielberg believes such an event would unite the world, Cope believes there could be a mass uprising against the scientists, government officials, and even religious leaders who were hiding this information.
“Personally, I think it would be in the interest of humanity, but it would be a painful process with a lot of suffering and death to get there,” Cope said. “But I know Stephen will disagree with me. So that’s for future discussion!”
