by Billy Russell, Staff Writer

For two directors who couldn’t be more different, John Carpenter and Steven Spielberg share a lot of similarities and their film output has had a lot of thematic crossovers.

Near the beginning of their careers, Spielberg’s Jaws and Carpenter’s Halloween are both iconic horror films, making brilliant use of the idea of what you don’t see being terrifying.  Their perspective shots put you into the eyes of a heartless killer whose only goal is to kill, and then kill again.  Both films are defined by their seasons–Halloween is required viewing every October, and no July is complete without Jaws.

Snake Plissken and Indiana Jones, the anti-heroes of 1981’s Escape From New York and Raiders of the Lost Ark, respectively, are two of the coolest heroes of the decade, and both films helped redefine a new decade in how its anti-heroes were treated.  They both embodied a, “Better you than me,” attitude when dispatching bad guys and emulated the heroes of the past, with a more ironic edge, that looked at their selfishness with a self-awareness that hadn’t existed before.  Snake is a thief and a criminal, and damn proud of it.  Indy is a thief, too, who saves the world as almost a secondary mission, an afterthought, to seeking fortune and glory.

Dean Cundy, the ever underappreciated cinematographer, has lent his unique eye and expertise to both directors.  I can’t imagine the darkness, or Michal Meyers’ white blob of a mask, without his work on Halloween. Or imagine Jurassic Park without those night shots, with the beams of the flashlights cutting through through the black evening fabric.  

In 1982, Universal Pictures greenlit two sci-fi movies about an alien stranded on earth.  E.T., Spielberg’s movie, was a sweet story about acceptance, heartache and growing up. The Thing, Carpenter’s movie, was a cynical movie about paranoia and fear. They both came out the same month, June, and whereas E.T. went on to be the then-highest-grossing film of all-time, The Thing was looked upon with disgust and ho-hum box office that actually lost money for Universal’s investment. Over the years, it has found an audience who has embraced its brilliance and was a big hit on TV and in video store rentals.

But I don’t want to talk about E.T. versus The Thing, because they’re different films in every way–in idea, in execution, in theme.  Both films are expertly made, masterpieces of the genre.  Universal hit it out of the park twice.  

No, what I want to talk about is yet another Carpenter-Spielberg thematic crossover, taking a look at another June sci-fi release for Spielberg:  Minority Report.

Minority Report is classic anti-authoriatarian sci-fi, showing a world where crime is on the way out, and murder is already a thing of the past. At least in Washington, D.C., where a new form of law enforcement makes use of genetically-bred psychics who can detect murder before it occurs.  We are told that these murders are bound to happen, and that they are all but inevitable.  The “murderers” are arrested before the crime can occur and everyone lives happily everafter.

Until, that is, our hero, Detective John Anderton (Tom Cruise), witnesses a murder through a precognizant–of himself, murdering someone he’s never even met.  Clearly, he believes, the system is flawed and must put a stop to the thing he’s invested so much into.

John Anderton is an anti-hero who would feel at home in a John Carpenter movie.  He believes he’s acting altruistically, until it affects him directly.  And then all bets are off.  He portrays himself to the public as someone who follows the law to the exact letter, but behind the scenes is secretly a drug addict, wracked with guilt after the murder of his son.  The murder of his son powers both sides of his personality: The one that wants to end murder once and for all, and the one that gives in to his darkest, most destructive impulses.

Paranoia is the name of the game in both Minority Report and The Thing.

With Minority Report, Anderton can’t trust anybody.  He can’t even trust the department he helped found.  He put his entire career into selling the idea that if pre-crime detects a murder, it is correct.  When he’s suspected, no one can believe his cries of innocence.

With The Thing, MacReady (Kurt Russell) can’t even trust himself.  The alien creature found frozen in the ice can mimic any living being perfectly.  So perfectly, in fact, that its copies don’t even seem to realize that they’re not what they appear to be.  When cornered, and attacked, they act on sheer impulse to defend themselves.

Both movies are a cold, clinical look at how fear motivates us, and how it dictates our actions. With Minority Report, we see how a government, at its highest levels, can manipulate these systems for their own benefit.  It’s a condemnation of totalitarianism, being released in the shadow of 9/11 and the Patriot Act.  With The Thing, it echoes the Cold War fears of the original story, and original film, a modern Red Scare, whose fervor was rapidly reapproaching during the 1980s as Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan.  

Tom Cruise and Kurt Russell have never been better in either film, and I wish there could be a bizarro world where we could see the performances flipped.  I think either actor would have done a damn fine job, and a fine job in general under either director.  I think Kurt Russell would have been fantastic in a Spielberg picture (the closest we have is Kurt Russell in a Spielberg production, Used Cars, directed by Robert Zemeckis, which is brilliant and dark).  Likewise, I think Tom Cruise would have been perfect in any number of John Carpenter films.  Both actors have been underrated as performers–much credit is given to their ability to allow a big budget spectacle to rest on them as the fulcrum of action sequences.  But both of them have the ability to act the shit out of a scene.  Kurt Russell is brilliant in Tombstone, Breakdown and others; Tom Cruise is brilliant in Magnolia.  And they both have underappreciated comedic chops.  Take a look at Overboard or Tropic Thunder.

The big difference between Minority Report and The Thing is how far their cynicism goes.  Spielberg is no stranger to cynicism, and many of his darker endings are misread as hopeful.  In A.I., for example, what many people believe is a sweet fairytale ending, is a twisted bit where the robot we’ve spent the entire movie rooting for, becoming human by doing the most human thing possible: By dying.  But Minority Report, pulls its punches a bit, by imagining an ending where these systems are dismantled.  It has hope and believes that real change is possible if we just fight hard enough for it.

The Thing ends with two men, unsure if one, or both, of them has been infected with an alien evil.  They sit amongst the flames, breathing heavily, dying, and we fade to black.