Disclosure Day is out in theaters now, and it’s all about aliens. Oh, and it’s all about faith, too.
Director Steven Spielberg said as much: If humankind suddenly learned—without a doubt—that they weren’t the only game in town, how would that impact how we think about ourselves and our God?
“What does this do to the fundamental beliefs that many of us have?” Spielberg told CBS News. “Is God our God only on this planet? Or is God a god for every system where there’s civilization and intelligent life, and even developing life?”
Spielberg’s Disclosure Day take on faith won’t satisfy a lot of Christians. But the movie and its spiritual underpinnings are hardly unusual. When extraterrestrial beings land in Hollywood, they often come toting suitcases full of divine ruminations. And sometimes, those ruminations are remarkably on point.
Here’s a look at some of the more spiritual films about extraterrestrial visitors and travelers. And while each of these have problems, they do remind us that, indeed, the truth is out there.
2001: A Space Odyssey (G, 1968)
Many consider Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey the greatest sci-fi film ever made. It’s certainly one of the genre’s most discussed. While Arthur C. Clarke’s originating book and the film’s own sequels strip a lot of the mystery out of the original film, Kubrick almost begs for audiences to come up with their own interpretations of 2001—especially of its last dream-like scenes.
The “alien” in question takes the form of a gigantic monolith (actually a device built by aliens, according to Clarke’s novel) that shows up on earth at the dawn of time and, the movie suggests, triggers an ape-like race to start evolving. Scientists uncover another monolith on the moon (buried for a good 4 million years). About 18 months later, a pair of astronauts and their trusty computer, the HAL 9000, fly to Jupiter and ultimately find another massive monolith orbiting the planet.
And then things get weird.
The movie’s opening gambit of placing human development in the hands of an alien race, not God, is certainly off-putting. But the movie’s trippy coda has been interpreted a number of different ways, including humanity’s desire to reach for something transcendent, something spiritual and something greater than ourselves.
Almost of more interest to me—and a theme very timely in today’s AI-saturated world—is HAL. The computer embraces a certain sentience and an instinct for self-preservation, which leads him to do some very, very bad things here. And it forces us to examine that line between life and artifice more deeply.
Contact (PG, 1997)
No monoliths here. In Contact, the presence of extraterrestrial life takes on a much more ethereal, and prosaic, character. Dr. Ellie Arroway (played by Jodie Foster) studies radio waves from space, looking for alien life. An atheist who refuses to accept anything on blind faith, Arroway nevertheless forms a relationship with Christian theologian Palmer Joss (Matthew McConaughey). And the two have some incredibly probing conversations that revolve around science and faith.
Contact is based on a book by the agnostic scientist Carl Sagan, and the story takes some predictably dispiriting turns for the faithful. When Arroway and others discover evidence that could point to life beyond our planet and take steps to explore that possibility, Joss seems to turn on Arroway because of her atheism. And a Christian terrorist does his best to derail the whole project (and kill a lot of people, too).
But the film takes an interesting turn. When Arroway climbs into a machine designed to travel to this supposed alien intelligence, she has some profound experiences that point to alien life. Unfortunately, the recording devices she brings along don’t back her up. And suddenly, this atheistic, scientific empiricist must ask the world to accept her experiences … on faith.
Contact certainly does not contain an altar call. It comes with far more questions than answers, and it retains a hefty sense of skepticism. But it does remind us that science can’t answer everything. And sometimes, our greatest truths go beyond cold, hard facts.
The Day the Earth Stood Still (G, 1951)
We’re gonna skip the ho-hum 2008 remake and go straight to the 1951 classic. In The Day the Earth Stood Still, no one can doubt that aliens exist—not when a spaceship lands right on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. And what do we humans do to welcome our very first extraterrestrial visitor? One that announces that he comes “in peace and with good will”? We shoot him.
It was an accident, of course, but the visitor decides to spend more time with us earthlings to figure out why we are the way we are. The very human-looking Klaatu (played by Michael Rennie) takes on the guise of a “Major Carpenter” and continues his mission. Namely, he encourages humans to put the brakes on our shared aggression (augmented by our shiny new atomic weapons), or else some other nervous Nellies in the cosmos might put the brakes on for us.
The Day the Earth Stood Still, made during the deep chill of the Cold War, comes with an obvious anti-war message. But it’s also an explicit and intentional echo of Christ’s salvific work on our behalf. Like Jesus, Klaatu comes to Earth to save us from ourselves—taking on a human form to do so. Like Jesus, he’s attacked and ultimately killed because of that message. And Klaatu, like Jesus, comes back to life (though only temporarily, because “that power is reserved to the Almighty Spirit” alone, he says) and ascends into the sky.
Project Hail Mary (PG-13, 2026)
Tired of the classics? Let’s move into a more contemporary, um, space and climb aboard the Hail Mary with reluctant scientist Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling). Alone on the spacecraft and bereft of his memories, Grace must figure out who he is, what he’s doing and somehow, somehow, keep some nasty alien parasites from eating the sun. Thankfully, he runs into a helpful fellow traveler on the same sort of mission.
If Contact stresses the sometime divisions between science and faith, Project Hail Mary suggests that those divisions don’t have to be there at all. (You can take a deep dive on the movie’s spiritual messages with this thing I wrote, and come July, check out our YouTube channel for a Rewind conversation featuring Bret Eckelberry and me.) But in short, the film comes with plenty of talking points for the faith-driven viewer.
Perhaps the one that strikes me most is the mere audacity of the whole project—an audacity that echoes the cosmic improbability that we’re alive at all. Eva Stratt, Grace’s boss, describes the effort as a real Hail Mary, a project where so many things could go wrong that the odds of success are infinitesimally small. The project is named after a low-chance football play, but that football term stems, of course, from a prayer. And when we pray, we’re speaking to a God who can work miracles.
A miracle does come about here. While the movie doesn’t name it as such, a person of faith aboard that same spacecraft could come to no other conclusion. It’s telling that, when Grace asks Stratt whether the project has a chance, she says, “God willing.” God indeed willed it—even if He used some unusual tools to work this miracle.
Signs (PG-13, 2002)
As if Graham Hess (Mel Gibson) didn’t have enough to worry about. He lost his wife in a devastating auto accident. He’s trying to raise two kids. And the pastor has lost his faith, too; it died in the crash that claimed his wife. But now, aliens have invaded the earth. And they mean to take it for themselves.
Not everyone loves Signs. But in my opinion, this is one of director M. Night Shyamalan’s best movies, and it deals almost as much with faith as it does aliens. As the movie hurtles headlong into its climax (a setting surely inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s classic The Birds), Graham discovers something startling: a series of coincidences, accidents and even familial frustrations lead to the key to the aliens’ defeat. Even the dying words of Graham’s wife take on extra heft, suggesting that even in the pain of Graham’s world, God was working behind it all.
Signs triggers perhaps as many questions as answers. Even though the film tries to deal with what C.S. Lewis called “The Problem of Pain,” that problem is beyond answering in a single sci-fi movie. And as our own reviewer Bob Smithouser said, the movie’s happy ending “will leave thoughtful Christians with an uneasy feeling.” Still, the idea of a well-crafted sci-fi thriller having the courage to address faith at all is a positive thing. And it might well lead to some deeper conversations as the credits roll.
Indeed, the same could be said for all the movies on this list—and many others I left off. None of these films reflect Christian thought and faith perfectly. Each has problems. And many of them don’t really undergird Christianity at all: Rather, they challenge it. But for those thoughtful Christians, these films can all be springboards for deeper reflection and strong conversation. And perhaps some may remind us that Christians too are aliens, in a sense. We’re asked to live in this world but not be of it. And we know that our true home lies elsewhere.
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