Original subtitles

**

Vader: I am your father.

Cameron: I've always loved science fiction in every form...

Reporter: ...out of the shadow

like a gray snake. And now it's another one,

and there's another one and another one.

Cameron: ...for the power of its ideas...

It works!

...and for the big questions it asks.

"What's out there in the universe?

How will the world end?

Will our technology destroy us?"

Dead or alive, you are coming with me.

...and above all...

It's alive!

..."What can we learn from these fantastic stories?"

So, who wants to say, "Action," you or me?

You, go on. Okay. Action!

I think I always have been a sci-fi fan.

What's possible? What's gonna happen?

That's kind of like seeing in the future.

It's just boom! Right at you. Wshoom.

Science fiction shows you all the possibilities.

At that point, it's beyond science fiction.

It's a statement about humanity.

We'll do things that we cannot even imagine today.

But it's great entertainment.

Exactly!

This is a whole genre that's just exploding

because it's so much more fun than a lot of the other genres.

So badass and cool and empowering.

You're constantly saying, "What if?"

And if you're not saying, "What if?" you're a fool.

Anything is possible.

Man: Ray Bradbury and Arthur Clarke

and Robert Heinlein.

That was it. I was hooked.

The concept of the universe is so mind-boggling.

And then there's also that line of science fiction fantasy.

I think monsters tell us everything about ourselves.

Science fiction is just that special to me.

And we love it, and we can't get enough of it.

And so we can't stop.

[Ominous music plays]

**

You've done, I think, over your entire oeuvre,

between directing and producing,

you've done many films about first contact

or invasion. Mm-hmm.

Was that what was inflaming your -- your young imagination?

My father was the one that introduced me

to the cosmos. Right.

He's the one that built, from a big cardboard roll,

that you roll rugs on... Mm-hmm.

...he built a two-inch reflecting telescope.

Oh, cool.

And then I saw the moons of Jupiter.

It was the first thing that he pointed out to me.

And I saw the rings of Saturn -- around Saturn.

And I'm six, seven years old when this all happened.

And so, for me, the cosmos --

You -- You spent a lot of time staring at the sky.

A lot of time looking at the sky.

Woke me up in the middle of the night.

It's scary when your dad walks into your bedroom,

and it's still dark, and he says, "Come with me."

Your dad took you out to watch a meteor shower?

It was the Leonid shower. Yeah, right, right.

And he took me to a knoll somewhere in New Jersey,

and there were hundreds of people lying on picnic benches.

Yeah, well, that scene is right in "Close Encounters."

Absolutely. It's the same scene.

I put the scene in "Close Encounters." Yeah.

And I got out there and we laid down on a knapsack --

his Army knapsack.

And we looked up at the sky...

Oh, how awesome.

...and every 30 seconds or so,

there was a brilliant flash of light

that streaked across the sky. Wow.

And I just remember, you know, looking at the sky,

because of the influence of my father, and saying,

"If I ever get a chance to make a science fiction movie,

I want those guys to come in peace."

[Five-tone phrase plays]

[Melody plays louder]

[Melody repeats]

I got a call from my agent, saying, "There's a job.

Steven Spielberg is directing a movie.

It's called 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind.'"

I said, "Excuse me?"

So, I have this audition coming up,

so I practice a little bit

of what I think will help me get the job.

And Steven says, "Well, we'd love you to do this movie.

You'd be François Truffaut's interpreter.

The only thing is,

we just need to hear what your French is like.

Is your French good"?

I said... [Speaking French]...

None of them spoke French and they said,

"Great, you've got the job. Your French is terrific."

[Chuckles]

[Speaking French]

Have you recently had a close encounter?

[Speaking French]

Close encounter with something very unusual?

Who are you people?

Perkowitz: "Close Encounters of the Third Kind"

had an original title called "Watch the Skies."

And if you're a real science fiction buff,

you know where that comes from.

Every one of you listening to my voice, tell the world.

Tell this to everybody, wherever they are.

"Watch the skies."

So, "Close Encounters of the Third Kind,"

its original title built a bridge back

to that 1950s classic science fiction film,

"The Thing from Another World."

Porky Pig: Happy B-b-b-birthday,

you, uh, thing from another world, you.

Oh! Thank you!

[Explosion]

The character of Richard Dreyfuss in "Close Encounters"

is really interesting because he is not a hero.

He's not a good dad. He's not a good husband.

He gives up everything to seek out this idea

that there is life on other planets.

[Thunder crashes]

Trumbull: He's just an absolute, everyday guy

working for the power company.

And he has an inexplicable experience

that he cannot deal with.

And when that thing flies over his truck,

his life is changed.

Characters are kind of ripped apart.

It's definitely suggested that his obsession with aliens

is really harming his kid and his wife.

Well, I guess you've noticed

that something is a little strange with Dad.

[Chuckles] I can't describe it.

This means something.

But it raises the question

of how far would we be willing to go

to communicate with aliens.

Heisserer: I understand why we're always criticized for it,

but I'm also greatly relieved

that there are people in this world

that will listen to that voice inside them and pursue it.

You felt compelled to be here?

[Sighs] Yeah, you might say that.

[Speaking French]

But what did you expect to find?

An answer!

That's not crazy, is it?

Perkowitz: "Close Encounters of the Third Kind"

did something different with aliens.

Instead of having aliens just as mostly fearsome monsters

who only wanted to drink our blood or rule us,

it said there's a lot of amazing stuff out there in the universe,

and you're gonna walk away awestruck.

Balaban: And Steven knew just how to create

a reaction of wonderment, happiness, and awe

at the same time.

There is a scene in "Close Encounters"

when something has landed.

Cary has to open this door

and look and see these amazing things.

Steven had a number of people from the movie

dress up in giant costumes --

a rabbit costume, a mouse costume.

And he said, "Okay, Cary, now open the door."

And Cary opened the door.

And you could see the wonder in his eyes --

the excitement, the happiness.

Toys!

Toys!

Reeves: I think science fiction as a genre

has definitely always had a kind of social,

political, cultural message

that's generally contained in the stories that are written.

You know? It's not the normal world,

but it's dealing with the things that we deal with in our world.

And that's the playground that science fiction plays in.

I have seen it twice. Griffin: Have you?

And cried both times. Mm-hmm.

I think it's a very emotional experience,

a very beautiful one.

I think it's probably the most important film

of the last 20 years.

It is a movie written by a director and writer

who is searching for meaning in his life.

He's a very introspective person.

And I think he needed to make a movie

that provided some kind of answer

to, "What's the meaning of life?"

Nicholson: In a way, this isn't a movie

so much about the aliens themselves.

What it's really about is us.

You know, how are we going to feel

when we become aware of a life bigger than ours?

What would we do?

Are we willing to do what Richard Dreyfuss did?

**

Are we better people than Roy?

Or maybe Roy is a better version of us.

**

Cameron: You really created a kind of almost

alternate spirituality or alternate religion.

Yes, and an infinite superior civilization

is going to find the best of you

and is going to pull the best of you out of yourself.

Right.

And you will present the best part -- parts of yourself.

As Lincoln said, "the better angels of your nature."

Yeah, exactly.

And that's what goodness does.

You know, good doesn't inspire evil.

Good, you know, propagates a greater good.

Right. And that's what I thought

that the best science fiction does.

I think one of the most important things as a filmmaker --

at least of the kind of awe-and-wonder-type stories

that we're both attracted to -- is to stay that kid.

Part of that means fighting off the natural urge of cynicism

as we take everything in. It's a battle.

Yeah. It's a battle for me.

It continues to be a struggle for me... Yeah.

...to want to look on the -- the bright side.

Devlin: More than any other genre,

science fiction is the great "What if?"

What would happen if we woke up tomorrow

and there were spaceships larger than cities

hovering above us?

Evil alien disasters are exciting

because we get to vicariously live

through our fears of annihilation

while comfortably sort of eating popcorn.

**

The alien-invasion movie is absolutely a metaphor

for the human's darkest side.

The invasion of aliens destroying our planet

is us destroying our planet.

Newitz: One of my favorite alien-invasion narratives

is actually a classic episode of "The Twilight Zone"

called "To Serve Man."

Aliens arrive, and humans are, like,

"Oh, what are you here for?"

And they're like, "We want to serve you."

We are here to help you.

Later, humans sneak onboard the aliens ship

and find a book there.

"To Serve Man." I hope so.

And eventually, they translate it

and find out it's a cookbook.

It's a cookbook!

Okorafor: I think we use aliens to portray our dreams,

our wishes, our desires, what we wish we could be.

Most often, I think we use aliens

to portray our fear of the unknown.

And in doing that, we see all these aliens invade.

[Explosion]

Smith: "Independence Day" really captured

all of the things I had dreamed as a child.

And part of what I wanted to do

was bring regular guy to science fiction

that's really not happy about his planet being invaded.

[Both grunt]

Welcome to Earth.

Devlin: The movie needed a moment

where we thought that we were dealing with an enemy

beyond our capabilities.

At the time, the idea of the White House

was an image of strength, of power.

Today, we are doing the explosion of the White House.

Roll camera.

The White House explosion was always in question.

We had it in the script,

and it was a very important visual for us in the movie.

But the studio was very skittish about it.

They said to me, "Roland, you're German.

you don't understand.

You cannot blow up the White House."

And I remember Roland saying, [as Emmerich] "So, you mean,

it would be very controversial and everybody would

talk about our movie. And that's bad, why?"

[Chuckles]

[Chuckles]

[Normal voice] So, yeah, it stayed in the picture.

Emmerich: And action!

[Explosion]

Devlin: We were trying to give a feeling of helplessness.

No one ever thought, in those days,

that giant landmarks would blow up the way they did.

This was pre-9/11.

Smith: The image of the White House blowing up

was the tipping point for "Independence Day."

I remember, I was sitting in the theater.

I was a couple rows behind a guy.

And the White House blew up.

And the dude said, "Oh, man! That's bad. That's bad.

That's -- Oh, man, that's bad."

He said, "Girl, that's bad, that's bad."

[Laughs]

"Independence Day" actually tries to allude

to a lot of classic science fiction,

both as a way to appeal to the fans

but also as a way to give audiences anchor points

for interpretation.

Devlin: From HAL, the computer...

HAL: Good morning, Dave.

Devlin: ...to the bubbling clouds

with the spaceship hidden inside of it from "Close Encounters,"

we added a line for Jeff Goldblum

as he's escaping the spaceship.

Must go faster, must go faster.

That's directly from "Jurassic Park."

Must go faster.

The computer virus is a nod to "War of the Worlds,"

where the actual virus kills the aliens.

You can't make a movie about an alien invasion

without tipping your hat to "War of the Worlds."

It is the godfather of all alien-invasion movies.

Welles: "But in the early years of the 20th century,

this world was being watched closely

by intelligences greater than man's

and surely drew their plans against us."

Hello, I'm Orson Welles.

And I've been quoting from another Wells --

no relation -- H.G. Wells,

the distinguished novelist, historian, prophet,

who was also the great master of science fiction.

H.G. Wells was a British writer

at the beginning of the 20th century

who was one of the most significant

early science fiction writers.

He was also a very accomplished science writer

and used science fiction to explore

what he considered to be important ideas.

Mr. Wells, have you any solution

for the very unhappy state of affairs

that is facing the world today?

It seems to me that many things besides the pound

are threatened with collapse.

Wolfe: "War of the Worlds" is a story, I think,

which Wells intended to be a confrontation with ourselves.

What would happen if a society or a civilization

with superior technology and superior weapons

decides it wants to take over a civilization

with less advanced technology?

He was writing in the 1890s,

when Britain had been doing this in India,

it had been doing it all over the world.

He's saying, "How does it feel when it happens to you?"

Kalan: "War of the Worlds" is such a perfectly pure

alien-invasion story.

You can just kind of pour out the old fears

that somebody else was using it to talk about

and then pour in the new fears that you're experiencing now.

Davis: By 1938, Orson Welles is applying it

to this threat of Nazism and the impending war.

Man: Might be a face.

Reporter: Good heavens, something wriggling

out of the shadow like a gray snake.

Now it's another one and another one and another one.

They look like tentacles to me.

By the 1950s, we've got the atomic threat.

The aliens now represent what will happen

with nuclear destruction.

This type of defense is useless against that kind of power!

And then you fast-forward

to Steven Spielberg's "War of the Worlds"

in which there's more of a sense of post-9/11 catastrophe.

Get down! Get down! Get down!

Is that the terrorist?!

Spielberg: I wouldn't have done "War of the Worlds"

had it not been for 9/11,

because "War of the Worlds" is analogous to 9/11,

an event in our American culture and in the global,

you know, history of -- of -- of you know, terrorism.

Absolutely. And -- And -- And --

And America is not a country that's used to being attacked.

The last time we were attacked like that was Pearl Harbor.

Pearl Harbor, yeah. And you --

You managed to turn it into a family drama

that pulled everybody together.

Yeah, it was one that said, "We have to make this

a story about a single dad who doesn't really even

care about his kids. Right.

And somehow this event has to make him care

about his kids more than he ever cared about himself.

Right. And so that became the nucleus.

Davis: This idea of the perils of encounter

that H.G. Wells started in his "War of the Worlds" novel

is an idea that has really fascinated us ever since --

the idea that everything we know

could be destroyed in an instant.

And then, all of a sudden, Hollywood played into that

through the sci-fi genre with a lot of movies

in which these aliens are coming to destroy us

in very sort of overt, bombastic ways.

And like "Invasion of the Body Snatchers,"

in a much more subtle, subversive type of way.

They're here already! You're next!

Kalan: "Invasion of the Body Snatchers"

is a lot scarier, in some ways,

than your aliens swooping in from the sky,

"War of the Worlds"-type of battle,

because you don't really know who's an alien, who's not.

Is that me?

Davis: "Invasion of the Body Snatchers"

is about a conspiracy

in which people are being replaced

by aliens from outer space

and generating new versions of themselves

in pods that take them over.

Goldblum: But something is missing.

They don't have your individuality

or maybe some other kind of human spark

that make us most spectacularly, magically human.

Sobchack: It's 1956,

and certainly the film has been talked about

and considered in relation to the threat of communism,

the lockstep kind of ideology

where everybody had to be the same.

The term at the time was "creeping conformity."

Goldberg: Who hasn't felt that,

where you're just talking to somebody,

and they're not them?

And you know, you're looking at them saying,

"You're not the person I know.

You've been taken over."

Is that him? Yeah.

Cartwright: Really it's sort of like a metaphor.

Do you really want to feel or do you not want to feel?

Would you rather just go through life

living in that gray area,

with no real expression for himself?

[Gasps]

Jack! Jack!

Jack!

Wolfe: Science fiction enables us

to deal with that fear and that terror,

and that is subconscious motivations,

without getting too close to home.

It's a powerful metaphor, and it's an awful warning.

They're coming! Listen to me!

You're next! We're in danger!

Please, listen to me! Something terrible!

They're already here!

[Tires screech] You're next!

Do you take it as read that aliens exist?

Or -- Or is it a wait-and-see kind of thing?

I think, for me, I think any statistical analysis --

if you're going to go by statistics

and you look at Carl Sagan looking at the idea

of what are the mathematics behind

"Is there life on other planets?" --

those same statistics are going to tell you

that, yes, there have been civilizations that possi--

if there have been -- if there is intelligent life out there.

But I also think

that one of the hardest things to wrap your head around,

in terms of our place in the universe,

is if we are intended to connect with other planets

or other civilizations, they're so far away.

There is some chance that in the next few decades,

we will get the signal from some spectacularly distant,

spectacularly exotic civilization.

And everything on Earth will, as a consequence, change.

**

Holy...

Porco: Carl Sagan was so consumed with the idea

that there was life elsewhere, it drove him to write

a fabulous story about it in "Contact."

Hart: What Carl really was about was communicating.

He thrived on how people and how species and how tribes

and how cultures communicate.

That was his thing.

'Cause was going to communicate with the stars.

Communication becomes one of the most important themes

in science fiction. At the same time,

it becomes one of the most important puzzles

in science fiction.

In "Stanislaw Lem Solaris,"

we're faced with a sentient ocean.

What does Solaris want from us?

Why do you think it has to want something?

In "Star Trek," an amorphous cloud.

Cloud: I do not understand.

Wolfe: And in Arthur C. Clarke's "Childhood's End,"

communication can be tough, and the aliens look like this.

There is no need to be afraid.

One of the best stories about alien communication

in modern science fiction is Ted Chiang's

"Story Of Your Life,"

which became one of the best science-fiction films

of the last few years, "Arrival."

[Gasps]

[Breathing heavily]

**

Now, that's a proper introduction.

I really loved "Arrival,"

because it was all about communication

and how many times communication was just thrown out

before you see it work.

Reeves: It's so impressionistic, right?

I mean, it's hard work to bring to the screen.

I thought that brought its unique challenges.

And I thought they succeeded in a really cool way.

Heisserer: Ted Chiang's original story,

"Story Of Your Life,"

is that we are contacted by an alien race, the heptapods.

And they seem to want to exchange information with us.

One of the things I wanted to do with my story,

that I hadn't seen in a lot of other science fiction

was to actually depict the process

of learning an alien language,

when you actually have to painstakingly

work out vocabulary and grammar.

Okay, this is where you want to get to, right?

That is the question. Okay.

Heisserer: "What is your purpose on Earth?"

This is the question we're all trying to get to,

and crossing that language barrier

may mean the difference between the end of the Earth

and the dawning of a new idea.

**

What does it say?

"Offer weapon."

Frommer: The distinction between tool and weapon

becomes crucial.

It turns out, of course, that what they intend

is not at all a weapon but a tool -- in fact, a gift.

And the gift is their language.

Nicholson: And so it becomes a story

not so much about an alien invasion

but about communication, about two species

trying to connect with each other.

Frommer: The key part of it is that this is nonlinear --

there's no beginning and no end.

All the elements are there,

and you see it immediately as a whole.

In fact, you see your whole life laid out in front of you.

Newitz: And the more she understands their language,

the more she understands their consciousness.

And because their consciousness transcends time,

she starts to remember the future.

Chiang: The aliens in "Arrival," they are a way of talking

about a radically different mode of cognition,

different ways of thinking,

different ways of looking at the universe.

There's an age-old question of how language relates to thought,

and how language might influence thought.

You know, I was doing some reading about this idea

that if you immerse yourself into a foreign language,

that you can actually rewire your brain.

Yeah, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.

The movie explicitly references

something called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.

What it says is, your language creates habits of speech,

and those habits of speech

translate into habits of thought.

And so your language makes you habitually think

in certain ways,

which have a significant impact on the way you see the world.

The question is, how much?

I believe that our language

absolutely does inform our reality and shape it.

I would think that the way that the heptapods' language

really reshapes Louise's experience of time

is an extreme of that.

But I do believe that the language

that we constantly recycle in our own world

absolutely shapes our reality and can be our own prison.

Nicholson: What I find beautiful about the end of "Arrival"

is that Louise knows

that her future is going to bring a lot of pain and joy

if she falls in love, if she has a baby,

and when that baby dies.

She knows she's going to make mistakes

that are going to drive her husband away,

and yet she chooses that pain.

It's this idea of knowing that what you're about to do

is going to bring you pain,

but knowing that the happy moments

are going to be worth it.

And that's a really beautiful thought.

I talk to kids, and they say, "Well,

where'd you get the idea for all those aliens?

Where'd you think that up?"

I said, "Well, go to the aquarium.

You're going to see them all there."

That's what I did on "Avatar." Yeah.

I took the ocean, I took all my diving,

and I just brought it into --

To me, that's one of the most brilliant things in "Avatar."

One of the biggest problems you have in science fiction,

with movies -- they don't have it in books or anything --

but in movies, you have to create a real world,

and it's a real world that doesn't exist.

It's really, really hard, and it takes a long, long time.

Right. Because you've got to create

something that's truly unusual and different,

but familiar so you believe it.

Yeah.

And so, after a while, it can fry your brain.

But now that we've got digital technology,

you can think of anything.

**

I always find the morphology

of the anatomy of aliens interesting.

You know, science fiction writers,

they're like these imagination engines.

That's what they are.

Maybe they have four limbs as we do.

Maybe they look like a spider,

which seems to be a very popular choice.

Maybe they look like an octopus or a squid.

I always like to look at nature,

but when coming up with any creature,

it's always, you want to create some kind of,

like, aspect of reference.

Where are you coming from?

What is this creature going to evoke?

It's not just about biology,

but it's about our own psychology, as well.

And that's our job, is to --

is to give tactility to the creatures

so that you evoke the desired response,

whether it's one of awe, joy, or love or what it might be.

Obviously, you can make them very friendly

by giving them big eyes and big foreheads --

the cute features that we see in modern humans.

Liu: But aliens that are scary to human beings

seem to always be slimy and reptilian

for that revulsion response.

Gillis: In literature,

you can sort of describe something in vague terms.

You know, maybe H.P. Lovecraft would say

that, "I gazed upon its visage, and it sickened my soul,"

or whatever he would say,

but that's not really a real description.

For an artist, you have to bring that to life.

And I think the single artist

who has most successfully defined

this importance of the look of a creature,

in my opinion, has got to be H.R. Giger,

who designed the original Xenomorph.

**

Giger: I was industrial designer.

It helped me very much to design a creature.

Gillis: The Xenomorphs have a fantastic basic design

that employ all sorts of psychosexual imagery,

as well as death imagery,

and you know, the phallic head and its life cycle

that basically starts with rape.

[Creature screeches]

[Tissue tears]

What the hell is that?

Weaver: When I first met Ridley Scott,

he pulled out all these drawings.

It was a very sinister world,

and not a world I'd ever seen in a film.

In fact, I remember thinking,

"I don't see how you can make a film look like this."

Anderson: If you look at Ridley's movie,

you know, it hasn't dated.

And I think that plays to a lot of strengths

of Giger's design for the alien.

You know, it's really a man's life's work

that Ridley got to take and put onscreen.

I feel pretty strongly that you created

the best alien movie in history.

Most beasts are not very good. Yeah.

Or repetitions of other creatures that we have seen.

Films have been ruined by showing the beast finally.

As Steven did in "Jaws," the shock was exclusive

to two or three frames, like that.

Yeah, yeah.

"Our biggest problem will be to make this work," I said,

"because I haven't got digital.

It's all going to be a guy in a suit."

We didn't have any of that stuff back then.

No. But in this, he's present.

I can't cut around him. Yeah.

I have to see him. But you did it.

With your eye and your taste, and you recognized the value

of Hans Ruedi Giger's psychosexual bio-mechanoid.

Yes, the trick there is one picture from necronomicon.

Oh, from Giger's book. It's the profile.

This is the painting of the alien

that Ridley Scott wanted to have for his film.

It was like showing me a dirty postcard.

He said, "Look at that."

I went, "Holy good God!" Yeah.

And from that, the person that drew it

said they were uncomfortable by it.

It was obscene. I said, "Obscene's good."

Yeah.

Disturbing and obscene is very good.

Sexually disturbing is very good.

Yeah. Play the fear. Play the fear.

The film was all about evolution of fear.

Yaszek: Most of the Xenomorphs combined both masculine

and feminine sexual characteristics,

and that's terrifying to us

because one of the ways we make sense

of the monstrous and of others

is by trying to map them in some way

that matches our own understanding of existence.

And one of the key ways that we think about humanity

is in terms of gender.

It's the first question we ask when we hear a new baby is born.

The problem with the aliens is that they blend together,

the two, and so are no longer understandable and controllable.

Man: Now put your hands on the dome

like you're stroking it.

Remember, like, that Giger thing?

Weaver: Ridley met Badejo Bolaji at a pub.

He was an art student. He was about 7'4".

His limbs were so beautiful and exotic

that he already looked like he was from another world.

The days when Bolaji came in, we didn't hang out with him.

He is the unknown.

And it's a really a combination of strange beauty and elegance

and sex and violence

that I think make the Xenomorph a great monster.

Smith: For me, what was, and still is,

beautiful about science fiction

is, could you have the big, giant summer blockbuster package

but be diving into serious religious or political

or social concepts

that sparks people to get together

and to communicate and evolve?

And anytime you can actually do that,

I think that, you know, we've done our job.

Hopkinson: Aliens get to be the carrier

for some of our guilts and fears

around the treatment of other people.

For some folks, it's easier to identify with the aliens

than with the main characters.

Come on! Get out! Get out!

Come on! Get outside! Move!

Okorafor: In "District 9," you have aliens

who are stranded on Earth and become refugees.

They become stranded above the city of Johannesburg,

which has this whole history of apartheid.

And it's done like it's a documentary.

I thought that was brilliant.

They're spending so much money to keep them here,

when they could be spending it on other things.

But at least -- at least

they're keeping them separate from us.

And I think they must fix that ship, and they must go.

Hello, hello. Hello, hello.

We follow a government bureaucrat, Wikus.

Okay.

This is Wikus Van De Merwe from MNU,

and we are here to serve you an eviction notice.

He is forced to become an alien

and see what it's like to be put into one of these camps

and to be cast out of human culture.

He is oppressed.

He is spit on.

He's turned into a government experiment.

[Wikus screams]

Tatchell: We shot in Johannesburg,

and the shacks that we shot in were real people's homes.

Blomkamp: All of these shacks around here, all of these residents were moved somewhere else in JoBurg,

which is exactly what happens to the aliens in the film.

Tatchell: Writing District 9

set in South Africa

it never could have been any other way.

It was terrible, terrible. Like I get goosebumps even talking about that.

Xenophobia was just at its peak at that time --

South Africans attacking people from Zimbabwe

that were fleeing their country

and coming down looking for work.

They were putting tires around their neck

and lighting them on fire

because they were taking their jobs,

and they were doing that where we were going to shoot.

That, to me, was the most sobering moment,

to know that this world and this fantasy

that you've been writing actually is happening.

Hang on.

Stop it, stop it!

Newitz: For some viewers, it's going to seep in

that a lot of the things

that are being done to these aliens

are exactly what humans do to each other.

[Indistinct shouting]

Hopkinson: Many of us come from communities

that have been marginalized or already eliminated.

So science fiction becomes a powerful

means of talking about that,

particularly when it's doing so deliberately.

Reporter: Somebody has been pulled out of the vehicle.

It looks like a human being.

Tatchell: It is the story

of an oppressor becoming the oppressed.

And ultimately, in my mind,

it's a story of him gaining his humanity

only after he ceases to be human.

Weaver: I think that's

what science fiction at its best does.

It -- It asks those questions.

It asks, "What is it to be human?"

and, "Are what we call aliens much more humane than we are?"

Jemisin: Probably the best example is, in "Avatar,"

humans are clearly the invading, colonizing, raping,

pillaging, destroying species.

And it's framed that way explicitly in the story.

One of the ideas that "Avatar" plays with

is how the story of an alien encounter would look

if told from the point of view of the aliens.

[Speaking native language]

Saldana: I think that if I would have approached Neytiri

as an extraterrestrial,

I don't think I would have ever tapped into her heart.

[Growls]

I needed to look at humans as the foreign creatures,

as -- as -- as the tainted species

that comes here to take.

This story is so simple, and it's been told before

and we've seen it before.

But I just needed to go back to the past.

And that was the most humble journey

I ever embarked on as an artist,

trying to build a character.

[Speaking native language]

As Grace, I got to play a human

who also exults in being in her avatar

and in living on the planet as a Na'vi would.

Jim Cameron has created Pandora with its indigenous people,

the Na'vi,

as well as this amazing collection of other species.

And they live in a primeval world

which is colonized by a corporation,

not even a country.

It's so powerful because it is a reflection

of, in fact, the way humans have conducted themselves,

over the centuries, all over the world.

[Explosions, screaming]

No!

Saldana: When we're shooting that scene,

Jim wanted us to dig deeper.

We were just crying out for a fallen tree,

but it wasn't deep enough.

It wasn't as if this tree was your uncle,

was your grandparent, was your mother.

It's an extension of your body,

and he wanted to see that anguish

because at that point,

what the humans are doing on the planet is wrong.

And they're not welcome.

Weaver: By that time in the story,

we're all part Na'vi.

Newitz: That scene is really the moment, I think,

that the audience is completely disengaged from the humans.

And we no longer feel like we have any sympathy for them.

**

I think authors try science fiction specifically

because there's something that's making them angry

in their current culture or in their political climate,

and this is a way for them to shine a light

on what it is that has them so frustrated.

**

"Close Encounters" led to -- led to "E.T."

Mm-hmm. Which I think of

as kind of "Close Encounters II,"

the more personal -- but you --

I think of it the same way.

It seems like you took many of those themes --

those first-contact themes --

and just made it very kind of family-centric.

"E.T." was never meant to be

a movie about extraterrestrials.

It was meant to be a story

about my mom and dad getting a divorce.

Ah, right.

And so I started writing a story.

Not a script per se, but I started writing a story

about what it was like

when your parents divide the family up

and they move to different states.

When I was shooting "Close Encounters,"

and when I did the scene of the little alien

coming out of the mothership

and doing the Kodaly hand-sign signals

to François Truffaut, it all came together.

I thought, "Wait a second.

What if that alien doesn't go back up into the ship?

What if he stayed behind, or maybe what if he even got lost

and he was marooned here?" Yeah.

"What would happen if a child of a divorce

or family of a divorce... Right.

...with a huge hole to fill, filled the hole

with his new best extraterrestrial friend?"

Exactly.

Lennon: One of my clearest memories,

in terms of an early alien film, is watching "E.T.," of course,

which was written by Melissa Mathison.

She told me, actually, that the original script

did not have him dying,

and that when my dad passed away,

she was so impacted by that,

that she sort of felt

that she should write that in for me, in a way,

or for kids who had suffered loss,

and make it more than a light affair.

Mom?

Spielberg made a point of designing E.T.

to be as empathetic-looking as possible,

to the point that he had his designer, Carlo Rambaldi,

look at pictures of elderly people from the Depression

and try to figure out what made these people

look empathetic and wise and sad.

And then he said, "Can you mix in

a little bit of Albert Einstein?"

It was very important that E.T. be a face

that would earn your respect and earn your fondness.

Right.

I didn't want a cute little character

that would come out of the gate

making the whole audience in unison go,

"Aww." "Aww." [Laughs]

That's the last thing I wanted.

Liu: So that why I think filmmakers

sometimes have to play tricks when they portray aliens,

to give them humanlike features,

in order to evoke that kind of feeling of empathy from us.

And the reason I was hired for this job

is because I have real long, thin fingers,

which is my father's fault.

Initially, I was hired just to do close-ups --

making the communicator, turning pages in a book,

touching the plant.

Spielberg: Go down to the dirt underneath

and dig a little bit. Let me see you dig a little bit.

And then, the first night,

he kind of fell in love with my hands,

I guess, is the only way to put it.

Caprice, there's the scissors.

Reaching the scissors.

He felt that the combination of the animatronic creature

and live hands was the perfect formula.

The hand movement, you know,

was something that created a sense of engagement,

gave you something to focus on

when you're looking at this strange body,

and above all, it gave you a sense

of how human beings could project onto the other

without any negative consequences.

Spielberg: I want to see you really hug.

That's perfect, Henry. I love that,

with your chin resting on E. T. Okay.

The last hug in the movie

is one that's very special to me.

Come.

This was the opportunity that I actually got to hug Henry.

When Henry is saying goodbye to E.T.,

I am absolutely sobbing.

Then he's crying, and I'm crying.

This is what broke my sister up.

I had not warned her that it was gonna have a sad ending.

She recalled the fact

that when our mother used to comfort us,

it was done in the same way

that E. T. comforts Elliot at the very end.

So, it's not really a pat,

but it's a kind of a stroke-pat at the same time.

She said she was hysterical.

They almost had to take her out of the movie theater,

she was crying so loud.

So, let me ask you point-blank.

Do you think now, with your experience

and your view of the world,

that aliens exist?

I -- I wanted to believe.

I felt I earned the right to see a UFO.

I made "E.T." I made "Close Encounters."

My goodness, I kept waiting for a sighting.

I have never had a sighting.

I've met hundreds of people who have.

You know they want to stay away from you as far as they can...

They stay away from me.

because they don't want to empower this myth

that you're actually a precursor of an alien invasion.

Well -- You know about this myth, right?

I've heard about this myth. That you've been --

I know. It's insane. That you've been intentionally

softening us up for decades now.

Well, look, you know, I stay away from sharks.

But I don't want to stay away from UFOs.

And yet I've never, ever had the experience.

Well, as a science fiction writer, that's easy to solve.

This used to be, like, a really hot tourist place...

And then they left! ...for the UFOs.

[Laughs] And then they realized

that they were getting photographed too much,

so they just embargoed it, right?

I can almost buy that.

It would almost help me believe

that aliens did come here at one time.

That's a great place to go out.

Thank you, my friend. Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Jim.