Spielberg: Loving the Alien

While thinking about Steven Spielberg's anti-intellectual themes, I've come accross some interesting cultural artifacts. I'm still searching for an old George Will essay I've heard about, in which he discusses the anti-science themes in E.T. Then there's the Amazon.com review for Spielberg's 1997 anti-slavery movie Amistad, Dave McCoy points out a link between that movie and Spielberg's earlier work:

Spielberg actually takes the underlying premise of his childhood fantasy, E.T. and repackages it for slavery. Cinque (Djimon Hounsou), the leader of the West African rebellion, is presented much like the adorable alien: lost, lacking a common language, and trying to find his way home. McConaughey is a grown-up Elliot who tries communicating complicated ideas such as geography by drawing pictures in the sand or language by having Cinque mimic his facial expressions. Such stuff was effective for a sci-fi fantasy about the communication barriers between a boy and a lost alien; here, it seems like a naive view of real, complex history.

And, as everyone knows, Jurassic Park = (Jaws + Landshark) x dinosaurs