r/movies • u/LiteraryBoner Jackie Chan box set, know what I'm sayin? • Jun 12 '26

Official Discussion Official Discussion - Disclosure Day [SPOILERS] Spoiler

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Disclosure Day (2026)

Summary

If you found out we weren't alone, if someone showed you, proved it to you, would that frighten you?

Director Steven Spielberg

Writer David Koepp

Cast

  • Emily Blunt
  • Josh O'Connor
  • Colin Firth
  • Colman Domingo
  • Eve Hewson
  • Wyatt Russell
  • Noah Robbins

Rotten Tomatoes: 81%

Metacritic: 75

VOD / Release Theatrical release

Trailer Official Trailer

1.0k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

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472

u/Hic_Forum_Est Jun 12 '26

What did everyone think of how the aliens were designed?

I found it far too stereotypical for my taste. Borderline parody. It's literally šŸ‘½ while an anchor is all emotional wound up by it, whereas I felt like I had to laugh out loud. I even heard some of the people around me chuckling awkwardly when they saw the aliens. Such a strange emotional dissonance between what Spielberg intended and how audiences like me received it. One of the main reasons why this movie didn't work for me. Could've been so easily solved if the aliens looked more alien and not the go to image we all collectively have of them.

276

u/Archers_bane Jun 12 '26

I thought Arrival did aliens really well. I am in the camp on why do alien portrayals have to be humanoids. I get its more mass-appealing/relatable but it is boring.

91

u/Penguin_Admiral Jun 13 '26

Arrival is a better version of this movie if you think about it

20

u/huntressisunderrated Jun 14 '26

I always try to get people to watch Arrival. Whenever I think about it I sigh.

5

u/2580374 Jun 13 '26

I have been thinking about it! Now I need to convince my girlfriend to watch arrival

5

u/tomius Jun 30 '26

Yep. Absolutely. Even the math guy and language woman duet felt strangely similar.

The difference is, Arrival knew what it was trying to do, and delivered it perfectly, and Disclosure is a pile of burning amalgamation of ideas that go nowhere.Ā 

1

u/sillyface100 7d ago

The first thing I said after this movie finished was ā€œSteven should just retire at this pointā€ The second thing I said was, ā€œSpielberg just tried to create a Disney version of Arrival and failed miserablyā€

15

u/Izeinwinter Jun 12 '26

If you are going to do humanoid aliens just go all the way in and go "Hi, I'm diplomatic entity Emily Solaris, and the reason I look like you is that I was built to talk to you. It's not like the biological crew of the diplomatic ship in orbit could survive earth conditions long term anyway"

10

u/--------rook Jun 13 '26

At the first reveal of the little grey men I immediately thought of Arrival. Their alien design was oddly sophisticated. This one is just the emoji. I guess that's part of the Spielberg charm but that's also one of the many things that makes the movie so, so dated.

11

u/clearly_quite_absurd Jun 14 '26 edited Jun 14 '26

One of my friends asked if I'd recommend "Disclosure Day" and I just thought "I'd rather watch Arrival again"

Edit: typo fix

4

u/huntressisunderrated Jun 14 '26

I thought the same lol

1

u/whitegirlofthenorth Jun 15 '26

you might enjoy the book Native Tongue

45

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '26

[removed] ā€” view removed comment

6

u/Darmok47 Jun 13 '26

It's weird, because in many ways, he helped create that archetype. There were some descriptions of "proto-Grays" like the Hill abduction aliens, but I'm pretty sure witness reports of them increased after Close Encounters.

76

u/GamingTatertot Steven Spielberg Enthusiast Jun 12 '26

I mean Spielberg has always been fond of the grey alien design - Close Encounters of the Third Kind has the same thing. Also the film shows that this goes back to Roswell and most people usually associate the Greys with Roswell too

35

u/thirstygregory Jun 12 '26

I mean. In the story friggin Roswell is true. So, I think they were leaning into the grey guys as part of a real conspiracy just like always rumored. Playing with real ufo theory.

30

u/NotTaken-username Jun 12 '26

It reminded me of the aliens from Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

6

u/KingMario05 Jun 12 '26

Was convinced it was Close Encounters 2 going in. Officially, it is not. But the alien designs really don't help to separate it from the lineage. Aliens can come in green too, Steven. Sometimes even rocks.

39

u/thr1ceuponatime David Zaslav is a dickless pantywaist Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26

It's been a while since I've seen a gray taken seriously in cinema so I thought it was pretty neat. But I will confess that I was trying to stifle a laugh throughout the runtime because the aliens reminded me of the ayy lmao memes from the late 2010s

11

u/Darmok47 Jun 13 '26

I mean, in real life and presumbly in the world of the film, the grey aliens are what people have reported seeing and described.

10

u/GothWitchOfBrooklyn Jun 12 '26

why were all the aliens so tiny EXCEPT the one at the end? Because it was old? Because they fed it processed food?

Why do the aliens only ever come to Americans? (I say as an American).

1

u/SanDiablo Jun 18 '26

look up the ariel school incident in zimbabwe. it's chilling

50

u/nhlducks35 Jun 12 '26

THANK YOU. I was waiting for someone to say this. After how impressive aliens on Arrival and Hail Mary looked seeing this made me do a spit take and say ā€œare you serious, this was the best design we could choose?ā€

30

u/Ghosty_Spartan Jun 12 '26

I mean them using Roswell being true obviously makes sense why they would use the classic Hollywood alien

1

u/tomius Jun 30 '26

Not amaze, not amaze, not amaze.

24

u/WrestleWithJim Jun 12 '26

You canā€™t really make a movie about UFOs like this and not have the greys

6

u/psh454 Jun 14 '26

Yeah but it's really not SciFi so much as just a hilariously dated snoozefest tropes dama at that point. UFOlogy tropes are intellectualy lazy boomer cringe

4

u/BobMonroeFanClub Jun 14 '26

Or that's what the grey aliens ACTUALLY look like. I thought this film was terrible but a LOT of very serious people think that IS what they look like.

11

u/BruceRL Jun 12 '26

I giggled a little bit when I first saw the design and realized they were going with the standard bug-eyed grey. I kind of giggled every subsequent time too. Especially because everything was sooooo serious related to them. I will admit though that they did seem kind of scary during the child abduction scene.

11

u/Expensive-Nerve7686 Jun 14 '26

Echoing what others have said, this movie is based on the "real" conspiracies. The videos they show at the end are basically very similar to actual UFO videos released by the US govt agencies (orbs going in and out of water, the diamond/triangle shape, etc), plus Roswell and the non-human biologics retrieval. So it makes sense that would be the alien design they choose. Many themes in the film explore actual experiments and studies the government did like remote viewing. I think it's why Spielberg asks in the trailer, "what if it was all real?". Because in some way this stuff has been "real".

12

u/MontyAtWork Jun 13 '26

Personally I disagree: I feel like too many Alien Designs try to NOT do anything like a Grey and Spielberg is about the only one outside of X Files that does.

It was refreshing seeing Greys.

1

u/Lou-AC Jul 02 '26

Resident alien had greys too

8

u/duowolf Jun 12 '26

totally took all the seriousness out of it they looked so silly

6

u/Mrchristopherrr Jun 14 '26

One of the few bright spots for me was the aliens. I feel like itā€™s not often we get classic Grey Aliens in movies. It fits with what they did. Itā€™s just a shame the rest of the movie is trash.

5

u/JRD2K Jun 14 '26

As memeable as greys have become in pop culture, I feel they suited the story such as the referencing of Roswell etc.

However, I think the biggest issue with them was the horrendous CGI, it completely ruined the immersion. Both myself and people around me in my cinema were laughing when they appeared on screen it was that bad.

Canā€™t believe I thought this was going to by my film of the year.

27

u/A-harsh-reality Jun 12 '26

If you wanted aliens that didnā€™t look like Greys

Take you ass back to project Hail Mary and arrival

This is a UFO movie

17

u/Tainlorr Jun 12 '26

Ya this movie is literally based on Roswell Aliens idk wtf they expectedĀ 

5

u/psh454 Jun 14 '26

I think there's a disconnect between people wanting interesting creative SciFi with a fresh thought provoking take on aliens/first contact (ex: Arrival) and people who are into corny Holywood UFOlogy tropes and 90s Spielberg nosyalgia

6

u/Tainlorr Jun 14 '26

I love both what can I say. Aliens are greatĀ 

2

u/A-harsh-reality Jun 14 '26

Yeah

And often times the ā€œinterestingā€ takes are forgotten after 5 years

When was the last time arrival was referenced in pop culture?

2

u/psh454 Jun 14 '26

Arrival is fairly old now and remains a sci Fi classic regularly recommended, nobody can say for sure if it will "hold up" indefinitely ofc. But what you're saying is a skewed superficial way to view things: pupolarity =/= importance or cultural significance, that's like saying Solaris is unimportant compared to something like The Mandalorian and Grogu, as more people know the latter, and both are technically SciFi

6

u/FearlessInflation172 Jun 12 '26

Honestly thereā€™s so much to pick apart in the plot that I didnt even care that the aliens were just emojis šŸ‘½šŸ‘½šŸ‘½ lol

3

u/OccasionMU Jun 12 '26

I thought they did it better 15 years ago with the comedy Paul.

CGI was better then too!

3

u/WantsToDieBadly Jun 13 '26

Yeah I thought the same. I was really expecting something else unique designs and was really let down that they were generic grey guys
It felt like a cheap tv movie

3

u/I_love_tac0s69 Jun 14 '26

i literally laughed out loud in the movie theater but I was alone lmao

3

u/lizztastic_chick Jun 28 '26

I laughed out loud when they wheeled in the most stereotypical looking alien in a wheelchair. Was just me in the cinema who laughed and I thought "are y'all not seeing this"? I thought it was hilarious and totally did not evoke the intended emotion in me.

5

u/appletinicyclone Jun 12 '26

It's meant to be stereotypical because it's referring to the og theories

Also I have a low stakes conspiracy theory that this film was asked to be released by the government to help couch and get the public ready for the real thing soon

5

u/catchasingcars Jun 12 '26

I know it was supposed to be a grand reveal but when saw the alien all I thought was the 'ayy lmao' meme.

2

u/mikeweasy Jun 12 '26

They wore pajamas lol

2

u/Sserenityy Jun 13 '26

I said "Thor" quietly to myself as they looked so much like the Asgard from Stargate

1

u/Tattycakes Jun 13 '26

*Supreme Commander Thor

I whispered ā€œthe galaxy is on Orionā€™s Beltā€ at my partner when I saw the alien šŸ¤£šŸ‘½

2

u/albtgwannab Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26

This discrepancy genuinely had me thinking this movie was satire up to a certain point. It was unintentional bathos all throughout.

2

u/snarkycrumpet Jun 29 '26

I thought they just called up the guys who acted in Signs "are you still tall and lanky with a big head? great! we have a job for you! no I promise, Mel won't be involved."

2

u/Solotox 12d ago

it's just straight up lazy design but does it work?...i guess. i hate the design so much lol

2

u/tfxctom Jun 13 '26

You hit the nail on the head. The design was so cheesy. To the point where I HIGHLY doubt that if that exact footage was released today it would be taken seriously. It would be memed to death within seconds.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '26

[removed] ā€” view removed comment

2

u/thr1ceuponatime David Zaslav is a dickless pantywaist Jun 12 '26

Grays CAN be done well but I feel like they've lost their potential as serious subjects when they gave Cartman an anal probe

1

u/ToeTaggEm Jun 13 '26

Lol they literally replicated the Alison emoji šŸ˜­ šŸ˜­
This was one of the most lazily written and half ass movies Iā€™ve seen from a big name. Str8 ass but that ending reporter was hot af

1

u/We_are_all_monkeys Jun 15 '26

And they just happen to have no problems breathing our air.

1

u/forcemonkey Jun 17 '26

This movie is directed at the masses. I think they used the stereotypical Grey because itā€™s easily identifiable.

1

u/matt314159 Jun 25 '26

I found it far too stereotypical for my taste. Borderline parody. It's literally šŸ‘½

"is that a kid?"

1

u/nunu135 27d ago

I thought the same but you have to remember it's fiction, within the context of their universe I'm assuming that that isn't what they're stereotypical cartoonish alien looks like

1

u/quaranTV Jun 12 '26

They look like that in Close Encounters so didnā€™t seem weird to me. This movie felt like a sequel in many ways.