Formal Film Study Spielberg films of the 80s

The three of these films are similar and different in many ways. A similarity between all three is the color and the way the camera makes the screen look. It makes you feel that the movies were made about 25-30 years ago. Each of the films were set during different periods in history. The three films were the Color Purple, E.T., and Indiana Jones Raiders of the Lost Ark. Each film goes at a pretty fast pace, as the storytelling for each film gives you a unique understanding of what Spielberg goes for when trying to bring a message to the people. He thinks outside the box especially with these films and the special effects used in E.T. and Indiana Jones were definitely movie ideas made in the 80s. Each of these films belong in Hollywood and the reason being that some of the scenes like in E.T. with the flying bikes, will give you a clue that obviously this stuff cannot happen in real life and that Spielberg thought outside the box. He has an imagination that not many directors are capable of, meaning that not many directors could come up with similar types of movies like he did.

Spielberg is all about the action and adventure through movies, while he also has movies with a lot of sad but true storytelling like in the Color Purple. All the technology he uses are really a lot of special effects especially in E.T. and Indiana Jones, and both movies have a lot of action/adventure, but different types of adventures. Elliot has an alien like creature he finds in his backyard and has an adventure experiencing what it is like to be with a non-human that can talk. Indiana goes to find the ark of the convenant before the Nazis get a hold of it and dominate everybody in their way of taking over the world. For the most part there isn't much in the way of culture being significant throughout these movies, like the Color Purple takes place in Georgia during the early 20th century, and this time you have a black man owning his own piece of land and takes the spot of the white man and beats up his black women, which in this time and place seems way out of line. It gives you a taste of the later part of 19th century to the start of the 20th. For the most part these films do not have much in the way of government being involved except in ET, when undercover FEDS came into the house and try to see what it is about these aliens that make them so unique, and so these people try to take Elliot away from ET when they do a procedure, but doing that caused ET to die for a few minutes during the movie, until Elliot comes back to see him in what it seems to be a freezer tank and wakes up saying phone home.

There were a lot of scenes in each of the 3 movies that really got my attention especially at the end of Indiana Jones when the Nazis are about to release the spirits of the convenant and gain power to rule the world. Indiana tells Marion Ravenwood who is played by Karen Allen, to close her eyes or the power of the ark will destroy them both. When they close their eyes you see ghosts start flying all over the place which shows a lot of visual effects that Spielberg uses in a very small amount of films. This was something you did not see much of in movies, because the ark's power was too much for the Nazis that it killed everyone who looked into the light and caused them to melt and explode and die. Also when E.T. leaves for his planet and says goodbye to Elliot by using his finger that glows and says I'll be right here and points at Elliot head, saying he will be in his thoughts. That shot was taken from a side angle and it  shows how powerful that scene was with the eye-to-eye contact and Elliot's emotions start getting to him.

Spielberg is known for making a lot of people like his movies, since he goes for topics that not many people think would be worth making for a movie, but when his films come out, they end up being box office hits and earning academy award honors. The music in his films are all memorable and everybody is somehow familiar with the music being played. You hear many of the songs used in his films, no matter where you go people know the theme songs like for Jaws, Jurassic Park, E.T., and Indiana Jones. His films are legendary and everywhere you go people know Stephen Spielberg, to me he changed the style of cinema and movies more than any other person involved in the industry. He brought a totally different style of film that made a lot of people talk about those films 20 years later today.
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1999-10-15/entertainment/9910200025_1_movie-reviews-star-film/5

This was a critics opinion about the movie E.T. and it shows that the same stuff I talked about and he knew what Spielberg was trying to get across. Movies like these make you feel like a kid again, and bringing childhood memories of something like an alien and turning him into a kind and friendly alien, makes these films so much better .  Not only E.T. but the other two films definitely got my attention and a double thumbs up just because these films were so different from other movies during that same decade in the 80s.  Spielberg made more of an impact in the 80s for films more than anybody else.