u/kev971

Wow what to say. Like a pirate lovers dream game. The combat system was such a smart choice and I'm excited to see how strategic it will get.

Let me start by saying I don't care what Spielberg and Williams make. I'm seeing it. Full stop. Both of these men have been part of my life since I was a kid growing up in the 80s and 90s, and getting anything new from either of them feels like a gift at this point. I'm grateful they are still making new films for me to see!

That said, I just saw Disclosure Day, and I have some thoughts.

First on his collaborators. Some of Spielberg's biggest creative choices on this, David Koepp and Janusz Kamiński, are both longtime collaborators of his, and both feel like they've hit a ceiling. Koepp reportedly worked through thirty or forty treatments for this script (according to IMDB trivia), and it feels like he is trying to find the story that Spielberg did the outline treatment for rather than having a story to tell. And as much as I love Kamiński he's still shooting like it's Minority Report. Desaturated. Blue-tinted. Lens flares everywhere. I love Minority Report. But that was twenty-plus years ago, and it doesn't feel fresh when you're telling a new alien story in 2026.

One of the biggest weaknesses is that Spielberg plays it safe with these two, and I think that's holding him back. A new screenwriter and a new DP, could unlock something he's clearly still trying to say and give him some new creative voices to collaborate with.

Williams, though? Don't touch it. These two compliment each other so well. The score is beautiful and in many of the movie's weaker emotional moments Williams' music did a lot of the heavy lifting.

Onto the film itself. By about the third quarter, I realized I had spent most of the film inside a car. Daniel and Jane start the movie in a car. Then Margaret's in a car. Then Daniel and Jane are back in a car. Then Margaret and her boyfriend are in a car (we spend a good amount of time just trying to crush a phone with the car). Then just Margret is in a car. Then Margret and Daniel are in cars. People are in different cars, then the same car, then fire trucks. The bad guys are in black cars. The lack of varied sets I felt dragged the film down.

The World War III sub-sub-sub plot was a bigger problem for me. The movie sets it up very early and then basically forgets to remind you it exists. By the time I got to the gas station looting scene, I had completely lost that thread and couldn't figure out what was happening. If the entire point of the disclosure is to pull humanity back from the brink (was it? could be it wasn't could be it was), I needed to feel the brink. Spielberg knows how to do this because War of the Worlds had those haunting images that hit like 9/11 flashbacks. Give me more moments of how everyday people are preparing for a frightening possible new reality.

The mystery of what Margaret and Daniel actually are kept me engaged for a while, but the payoff didn't land (just two humans who got alien powers). I kept waiting for something to happen when they got together, like the Key Master and the Gatekeeper coming together in Ghostbusters and it just... didn't. They share a memory. He can speak math she can read minds .That's it. I still don't fully understand why they needed to find each other other than to discover they weren't the only ones.

Noah's (the 2d villain) ability to take over people's minds through the device was similarly murky. I don't need a full explanation and I'm fine with mystery, but I need enough to stay in the story, and I kept getting pulled out. Why is he able to just take over random people's minds with this alien device?

Overall I give the film a C- which is not what I want to say about a Spielberg film. Emily Blunt is excellent and she elevated every scene she was in. But the script felt like ideas that never got fully refined, and the cinematography just felt recycled from Spielberg's own past work.

I think he has more to say. I think he genuinely believes aliens are already here, and when the day comes, we should listen rather than attack. This movie just didn't find the right story to say it.

I'm a cheer dad. I watch, and drive, and pay, and watch some more.

My daughter is 16. She has given everything to this sport. The early mornings, late practices, weekends, holidays. She works harder than most adults I know.

This season her team has been the best she's been on. Of the comps the went to 60% they won 40% they were first in day one and then last on day two due to issues. Such is the way it goes.

They were riding into Summit yesterday with the absolute possibility of winning. However yesterday at Summit, her team had a fall in their pyramid.

I've watched them hit that sequence a thousand times. But this is cheerleading, and cheerleading doesn't care about your thousand perfect reps. It only remembers the one that counts.

Watching my daughter walk off that floor with that look on her face. You cheer parents know the look. The one where they're trying to hold it together before they get off the mat.

I don't have a point to make here. I just needed to say it somewhere that people would actually get it.

This sport is brutal. The highs are the highest highs I've ever seen my kid experience. And the lows are absolutely devastating.

I don't know how she keeps coming back. But she does.

Hug your cheer kid tonight. And best of luck to the teams who made it to day 2 today.

Just wanted to share that MJ's story, music and dancing are still resonating today. He's looking to grab the Bad vinyl next.