Steven Spielberg and The Sci-Fi

In this article I would like to honor one of the best things that ever happened to the movies history: Steven Spielberg.

Born in Cincinnati in 1946, this man not only dedicated his life to the entertainment industry but also contributed to make it incredible and magic as it is these days. Filmmaker, screenwriter and producer, there is nothing Steven Spielberg has touched that hasn’t turned into wonder.

His career is constellated by masterpieces that changed forever the way we look at a movie and also two Academy Awards as Best Director for Schindler’s List (1993) and Saving Private Ryan (1998, movie that also won the statue for Best Movie).

Spielberg’s work has also focused in some periods of his life on the Sci-Fi genre, to whom he gifted incredible pieces of art and mastery; from the eighties to nowadays, his journey into Science Fiction brought to us a new prospective of this amazing world.

The Director’s first approach with the genre, in the late seventies, has been given by “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” (1977), one of the first movies about aliens but mostly about the theme of diversity and the shock resulting from the meeting of different cultures that have a lot to learn from each other; this film will also bring him his first Nomination as Best Director.

Spielberg’s second “close encounter with the third kind” happened in 1982 with the unforgettable “E.T.”, the little extraterrestrial that wanted to go home with the help of a group of kids. In this Disney-inspired dream, the boy, protagonist of the movie, is actually developed based on Steven himself and his past; in fact, after the divorce of his parents, Spielberg used the Sci-Fi genre as an escape from reality into a world of imagination, represented in this case by the cute and lovable alien. The movie is also a veiled critic to the grown up world and brought him his third Oscar’s nomination.

The nineties are the filmmaker’s golden age, since, after the realization of “Hook”, in 1993, Spielberg gave us one of the best movies of all times: “Jurassic Park”.  An adaptation from the Michel Crichton’s novel, the film beat every record at the box office and is forged in our heart as it is in the history of the filmmaking’s craft.

In 2000 Spielberg’s attention moves more from the fantastic more into the scientific, with a new passion for exploring the complex world of robotics.

With “AI- Artificial Intelligence “(2001), project on which he was originally working with Stanley Kubrick, Spielberg explores the world of a humanoid robot with all his complexity and disputes.

Then, right the next year, he works on “Minority Report”, from the namesake Philip K. Dick’s novel. The main themes here are the privacy and the safety of citizens, and especially the limits that the public administration is willing to cross to avoid the chaos; in this movie in fact three seers are used to prevent crimes that are going to happen in a certain future.

After Minority Report, Spielberg’s return in the Sci-Fi is in 2005 with “War Of the Worlds”, an apocalyptic movie in which gigantic alien’s tripods invade the planet to conquer it all. Even if, my opinion, this film represent the only sore into a brilliant career, it is understandable that even the bests can do mistakes sometimes; so ok, we forgive you, Steve.

And luckily for lovers of the Sci-Fi side of Steven Spielberg, he announced that in 2015 he is going to work on a new incredible project called “Robopocalypse”; and a title like that is a very good premise.

But, for now, what is left to say is just: thank you, Steve.

   

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