ULTIMATE VISUAL HISTORIES

★★★★★ CASEEN GAINES/JAMES MOTTRAM TITAN

Friendly or fierce? Either way, two of Spielberg’s most-loved offspring receive thorough dissections in these rigorously researched books, which show how fertile the director’s world-building leadership and collaborative instincts can be in auteur-ish or mantle-passing mode.

In Caseen Gaines’ well-plotted history, E.T. testifies to Spielberg’s decisive control and facility for teamwork. Melissa Mathison’s genius certainly leaps out: when Spielberg vacillated over one line, Gaines notes, Mathison convinced him “Phone home” would stick. Good call. Elsewhere, Gaines unpicks everything from casting to creature designs, “backyard” aesthetics to bikes, Jules Verne-esque spaceships to John Williams, the latter described by Spielberg as his “musical rewrite artist”.

Scarier monsters occupied Jurassic Park. In TF contributing editor James Mottram’s assiduous account of Colin Trevorrow’s sequel trilogy’s development, Spielberg’s initial involvement is clearly delineated. He took time to adjust to Trevorrow’s franchise name change but the

‘World’ won out, and Mottram rigorously anatomises the saga’s subsequent spins.

Between the park’s opening proper, pandemic problems and more, a fruitful haul of interviews and background material illuminates how durable Spielberg’s founding vision was, aided by visuals of dinos so impressive they almost convince you Fallen Kingdom and Dominion merit revisiting. Even if they don’t, added explorations of spin-offs show just how life found a way to evolve from Spielberg’s wellnurtured seedbeds.