Lyrics:

About "Steven Spielberg":

Steven Spielberg is unquestionably one of the most financially successful of directors, primarily due to the massive appeal among audiences to the entertainments he has created over the years. One of the most successful of these was the Indiana Jones trilogy (produced and conceived with George Lucas). Another is Jurassic Park and its sequel. Additionally, he can draw audiences to even difficult material such as his last film Munich, though the difficulty in the film is its even handed moral ambivalence. It is certainly not in the portrayal of characters or situations; these are all more than clearly understood.
 
However, this song is not about his amazing success, per se. It is more about the method Spielberg has used in his films of shameless emotional manipulation. This is not an undesirable trait for a film director to have or any storyteller for that matter. When this is done well one does not care that they are being manipulated. In fact most people enjoy this experience and it is what drives them to the movies, and Spielberg has done this better than anyone due to the lack of subtly in the majority of his films. The danger is that this approach done poorly is nigh unbearable. Nothing much in Spielberg films is left to the emotional grey areas where one must “interpret”, though Munich is one exception. It is very clear what you are supposed to feel and when.

Long before I worked in a movie theatre I saw Saving Private Ryan, which was highly praised and thought of as robbed at the Oscars that year by not winning Best Picture in favor of the frothy Shakespeare in Love. At least some people thought so. Not I! While the opening battle sequence was pretty amazing, the journey to find Ryan and its resolution felt like one long sermon. By the end, when the elderly Ryan breaks down at the cemetery asking “Was I a good man?” I had ceased to be involved in the story and instead was watching the way in which Spielberg was reducing many in the audience to emotional rubble around me.

Almost everyone emotionally manipulates others to get what they desire. Of course some are better than others. Spielberg, whether I hate some of his pictures or not, has few rivals as far as storytelling goes.

Rather than use his greater films for my silly similies, I instead kept my references in the verses largely to movies of his that I disliked. Why? I did it because it amused me more this way! The centerpiece is of course the reference to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, but we’ll get to that in a second.

Fair warning, I spoil details from most of these to explain references in the lyrics!

Saving Private Ryan

As I said, the beginning was a technical marvel. Then the story starts. They go to find Ryan and find him after a few good men die in meaningful ways. Then Ryan doesn’t want to leave. So they all stay and fight and Tom Hanks gets killed, saying “You had better have been worth it.” Flash forward to Ryan as an old man which pays off the beginning as he breaks down crying, asking “Was I a good man?!” to his wife and blonde granddaughters who are of course both practically models.  Buddy, with granddaughters like that you must have been worth it. We are glad your sperm was saved! *rimshot* If you are mad because I spoiled the movie then good, you shouldn’t watch it.

Jurassic Park

This wasn’t a bad movie but the sequel was quite terrible, so this one gets crapped on as a result since he directed them both. Spielberg is almost as bad as Lucas for that one.

Amistad

This one wasn’t bad until I learned something afterwards which ruined the whole thing for me. The famous scene from this movie is when the head of a group of slaves stands up in a courtroom and says “Give us our free!” over and over again while the music swells. Did you know that when this same character in Amistad was freed from slavery and returned to Africa he became a slaveowner himself? This fact being incorporated into the movie would have made it a lot more interesting. Instead it is just boring.

Artificial Intelligence

Originally a Stanley Kubrick project developed over a period of years it was taken over from Spielberg after Kubrick’s death. Robots have feelings too. We all want our mommy. Yes, I get it, but do you have to use the bullhorn to announce these things? The end of the 2nd act is the android finding his proverbial Blue Fairy and sitting down in front of her underwater for years and years (millennia even) until aliens find him. Aliens. WTF Spielberg.

E.T. – The Extra Terrestrial

Okay, I like ET. I cried every time. But why erase the guns in the “director’s cut”? You’ve been hanging out with your revisionist buddy George too much (see the ample alterations Lucas made to the original Star Wars trilogy). I did buy the DVD with the original cut. My nieces and nephews will know the police would shoot them to get an alien!

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

1. “Kali Ma, Shakti De”is what the Thuggee priest incants before pulling the heart out of the (unfortunate?) human sacrifice, who is then lowered in a pit of lava while his still beating heart erupts into flames as the priest laughs maniacally.

2. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was banned from shooting in India for furthering negative stereotypes in the script. Nice one Spielberg (though it was George Lucas who wrote the story)! Ironically enough the actor who played the main villain became a huge Bollywood sensation as a villain after his appearance in this movie and kept his head shaved bald to fit the part. The film was also banned in India upon release.

3. It was the primary film responsible for the creation of the PG-13 rating, upon suggestion from Spielberg to the MPAA after parents were subjected to the not so PG rated shenanigans of that film and Gremlins, which Spielberg also produced. Yes, Temple of Doom was rated PG. Yes, you really see that guy scream, catch on fire and die a horrible death… and it is PG. Those were the good old days when children my age could be good and scarred.

4. Lastly, in Raiders of the Lost Ark Alfred Molina plays the man who helps Indiana Jones get the idol from the temple in the opening sequence, but who subsequently double crosses him, saying the immortal line “Throw me the idol and I’ll throw you the whip”. Molina’s character then is found impaled abruptly on a row of spikes, looking surprised. Now the last verse will make sense, or at least more sense.

ERF