Steven Spielberg: Blockbuster Genius?

Steven Spielberg is an American director, producer and screenwriter. Spielberg is considered one of the founding pioneers of the New Hollywood era, as well as being viewed as one of the most popular directors and producers in film history. He is one of the co-founders of DreamWorks Studios.

In a career spanning more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as archetypes of modern Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking. In later years, his films began addressing humanistic issues such as the Holocaust (in Schindler's List), the transatlantic slave trade (in Amistad), war (in Empire of the Sun, Saving Private Ryan, War Horse and Bridge of Spies) and terrorism (in Munich). His other films include Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the Indiana Jones film series, and A.I. Artificial Intelligence.

Spielberg won the Academy Award for Best Director for Schindler's List (1993) and Saving Private Ryan (1998). Three of Spielberg's films Jaws (1975), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), and Jurassic Park (1993) achieved box office records, originated and came to epitomize the blockbuster film. The

unadjusted gross of all Spielberg-directed films exceeds $9 billion worldwide, making him the highest-grossing director in history. His personal net worth is estimated to be more than $3 billion. He has been associated with composer John Williams since 1974, who composed music for all save two of Spielberg's feature films.



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For this assignment I have decided to compare a few of Steven Spielberg's movies to see why he is considered such an amazing director and film writer. Some of the films I have decided to analyze are:

• Jaws 
• Indiana Jones Series                             
  
  
• Jurassic Park Series
• E.T. The Extra Terrestrial

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All of these films are films that I have seen from him and I would have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed all of these movies. All of them are extremely original and creative stories, even if they were adaptions from a novel, and all of them have just amazing stories and plotlines to them making them such great movies. Also all of them have a quality to them that makes you never get old of them. I know that I never get old of them and I am constantly rewatching these movies because the quality of the acting, directing, script, and special effects is just something that I never get sick of. It is no wonder so many of his movies are huge box office successes and are considered some of the biggest summer blockbusters.

All of these movies have such complex characters with layers and layers of personality and I think this is also one of the many reasons why his movies are so amazing. Even his villain/anagonists have a very complex story to them and it leaves you not as bored as you would be with very two dimensional villains.

My favourite characters are the ones from E.T. The Extra Terrestrial. I don't know if it's just because
it's was one of the first Spielberg movies I ever watched or what, but the characters are simply amazing and the idea of using an alien as one of the main characters is genius making it an easy blockbuster because of the alien. Not only is E.T. an amazing character, but all of the other characters are complex and simple at the same time making it hard not to fall in love with all of the characters.

Not only does E.T. have amazing characters, but all of the movies do and it is always easiest to pick out Indiana Jones because the movies are named after him and the character himself is a character that only Spielberg could bring to life in a good way.

Something that Steven Spielberg is pretty well known for is his use of in camera special effects and I don't know where he would be without the use of some sort of visual effect in all of his movies. All his feature films have included some kind of special effect, from barnstorming showstoppers the across the moon bike sequence in E.T., the rollercoaster ride in Temple Of Doom, the T-Rex attack of Jurassic Park to grace notes the flash of light as the Nagasaki bomb explodes in Empire Of The Sun, the speeded-up cloud effects above the mailbox in The Color Purple, the digital vistas of New Hampton in Amistad that subtly enhance a story or imperceptibly create an environment. If George Lucas has forged the current state of the art, no one has wielded it with more showmanship and finesse than Spielberg. A lot of the time Spielberg also tries to use in camera effects instead of digital effects and because when he first started directed, digital effects weren't as common yet, he decided to use a lot of animatronics to make the ideas in his mind come true. This can be seen with the shark in Jaws, the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park and E.T. in E.T. The Extra Terrestrial. But just because these movies all turned out amazing in the end doesn't mean that there wasn't a lot of issues that happened during the filming with these animatronics.

While all of the films I have decided to analyze have their own styles and stories to them, all of them have incredible special effects throughout them and it is hard to pick which one I think has the best, but although I do enjoy all of the effects in these movies I would have to say the effects in the Jurassic Park series is my all time favourite. I think this is because the dinosaurs look so realistic and all of the things that happen to the cast seems like that is what would actually happen if dinosaurs were to live in the present time with us.

To see the 5 ways to tell you are watching a Spielberg movie, check out this website.

Box Office Success

Name	Year	Domestic	Worldwide	Adjusted Gross
Jurassic Park	1993	$357.1	$983.8	$788,690,400
E.T. The Extra Terrestrial	1982	$3.59.2	$717.0	$1,217,110,200
Jaws	1975	$260.0	$470.7	$1,098,916,300
Raiders of the Lost Ark	1981	$212.2	$354.0	$759,559,800
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom	1984	$179.9	$333.1	$459,311,600
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull	2008	$317.1	$786.6	$378,931,400
The Lost World: Jurassic Park	1997	$229.1	$618.6	$428,227,400
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade	1989	$197.2	$474.2	$423,993,500

*All totals are in millions.

As you can see from the chart above, it is obvious that all of the movies I selected were great successes for Spielberg. The movie that made him the most over time ended up being E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, but Jaws isn't too far behind it. It is also obvious to point out that that first movies were the most successful over time. Even though the fourth Indiana Jones made the most money worldwide and domestically, you still have to put into account the price inflammation that happened between the first and fourth movie and when you do put that into perspective it is easy to see that the first one made the most money, while the fourth one made the least amount of money. 

Altogether I would have to say that all of these movies were huge box office successes though. Mainly because they all earn hundreds of millions of dollars just from being in the theater alone and have earned Spielberg a whole lot of recognition for what he is able to do in the film making business.

Steven Spielberg has an amazing legacy behind his back and it is no wonder that so many young film makers look up to him. On top of Spielberg having an amazing legacy behind his back, a lot of his movies do also. All of the movies that I have chosen are very big movies and are still popular today with a lot of them being rebooted or having sequels made to keep adding on to the stories of everyone's favourite characters. Not only are they having reboots and sequels, but they are also known very well around the world. Like if you were to bring up Jaws to someone, they would most likely know what you are talking about. And these movies are still seen on merchandise everywhere, even to this day you can walk into a clothing store and see clothes for all of these characters.

Altogether I would have to say that Spielberg has created this amazing legacy for himself and his

movies and that that legacy will live on well past the days of his death. I also hope that he gets to continue being this legacy for as long as possible and keep bringing us new movies that we will enjoy and love.