Disclosure Day Should Not Have Told Everybody on the Same Day

Disclosure Day is about the danger of telling everybody something on the same day.

I know people will say it is about aliens. Fine. There are probably aliens. But aliens are only the part that glows at you. The real problem is distribution.

The movie asks what would happen if someone showed humanity we were not alone and proved it. Then it says the truth belongs to eight billion people. This is where Chud got tense, because eight billion is too many owners for one truth.

You ever split fries with four people. Bad. Now make the fries be alien knowledge and give them to every person with a mouth. Somebody is going to grab extra truth. Somebody is going to drop truth in the car.

Disclosure itself is not evil. Sometimes you disclose a basement leak or that you ate the last pudding. That is adult business. But you do not hold one big Disclosure Day for the entire species unless the species has chairs, water, and maybe a person up front saying next.

The movie is very serious, which helps. People look frightened in the right direction. Rooms get dark like the walls learned something. Steven Spielberg knows how to make a light feel like it has permission. Chud respects a light with permission.

Still, nobody solves the calendar.

If we are not alone, fine, but we should find out by neighborhood. Monday is west side. Tuesday is people with last names A through G. Wednesday is for anyone who already suspected it because of a noise behind the shed. Thursday the aliens rest because they probably also hate meetings.

The cast has Emily Blunt, Josh O'Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson, and Colman Domingo, and they all seem like people who could handle a difficult sentence. But nobody in the movie, from what Chud can tell, says the important sentence: can we disclose this after lunch.

That is the sentence civilization needs.

There is a lot of fear in the movie about whether knowing the truth would frighten us. Yes, obviously. Chud is frightened by the tax envelope and that one has no spaceship in it. But fear gets worse when you make it stand in a line with all humanity breathing on its neck.

The aliens, if they are watching, should also be concerned. They traveled all this way and the first thing Earth does is put their whole existence into a crowd event. Embarrassing. You invite space over, then immediately make it meet everybody at once. No wonder the sky acts weird.

My proposal is smaller Disclosure Days. Disclosure Morning for important officials. Disclosure Afternoon for regular people who brought snacks. Disclosure Later for people who need to sit down before being told anything shiny.

The movie has suspense and big questions. It also has one bad scheduling policy. If the truth belongs to eight billion people, make eight billion copies or let the truth keep a weekday off.

Chud's rating: too much truth in one day, but the light work is strong.