The New Optimism: Spielberg Is Back To Badass SciFi

It has been five years since the last good Steven Spielberg movie. To be honest, he’s only made (well, released. Tin Tin awaits) one movie since then, but that movie was Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. So it feels like forever since we’ve had a Spielberg movie to get excited about. That’s also how long since we had a Spielberg scifi film (I am so not counting Crystal Skull) - 2005 was a pretty good year for Steve. (And yes, I’m all about War of the Worlds. You’re wrong if you don’t like it. WRONG, I TELL YOU!)

So it’s exciting to hear that Spielberg has committed to another science fiction film, one that he’ll shoot after he finishes War Horse, which is a WWI movie - think Empire of the Sun in WWI and with a horse. That scifi film is Robopocalypse, based on a yet to be published book by the dude who wrote How to Survive a Robot Uprising, one of those 150 page, double spaced impulse buy novelty books that make people rich while you still work in a cubicle.

Wait, this is the New Optimism! Let me get back on track. Robopocalypse is about humanity struggling to survive after a robot takeover of the world. The book is by Daniel H. Wilson, who has a PhD in robotics, so I guess it’ll be a pretty factual account of a robot holocaust. And the script is being written by general good guy, ex-Buffy alum and Cloverfield screenwriter Drew Goddard.

It’s pretty easy to be optimistic with all these good names attached to the film. Let’s hope that nagging feeling from the Old Pessimism isn’t true. The Old Pessimism, you see, is reminding me that Spielberg gets attached to a lot of movies. The Old Pessimism is holding alternate universe DVD copies of Lincoln and Interstellar, for example.

Fuck the Old Pessimism.