News > Wes Anderson and Steven Spielberg use sci-fi the same way, for the same reasons

Wes Anderson and Steven Spielberg use sci-fi the same way, for the same reasons

Wes Anderson isn’t known as a sci-fi or fantasy director — but then, those are no longer Spielberg’s principal genres, either. With Asteroid City, though, their connection becomes clearer: They both use science fiction to explore the loss and melancholy of fractured families. Asteroid City likely credits Spielberg because it takes some inspiration from 1977’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Spielberg’s first real sci-fi movie.