E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (film)
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
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This film has been preserved in the National Film Registry in 1994.
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 "E.T. phone home" -E.T.
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E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is a 1982 American science fiction fantasy film co-produced and directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Melissa Mathison. It features special effects by Carlo Rambaldi and Dennis Muren and stars Henry Thomas, Dee Wallace, Robert MacNaughton, Drew Barrymore, Peter Coyote and Pat Welsh. It tells the story of Elliott (Thomas), a lonely boy who befriends an extraterrestrial, dubbed "E.T.", who is stranded on Earth. Elliott and his siblings help E.T. return to his home planet while attempting to keep him hidden from their mother and the government.
Plot
After a gentle alien becomes stranded on Earth, the being is discovered and befriended by a young boy named Elliott. Bringing the extraterrestrial into his suburban California house, Elliott introduces E.T., as the alien is dubbed, to his brother and his little sister, Gertie, and the children decide to keep its existence a secret. Soon, however, E.T. falls ill, resulting in government intervention and a dire situation for both Elliott and the alien.
Why It Phoned Home
- Aside from being an extremely high-grossing film, this film is one of Steven Spielberg's most autobiographical features. The suburbia the film's set in resembles his childhood homes in Phoenix, Arizona, and Los Gatos, California, and the film itself features incidents taken directly from the director's life. he claimed it was "a very personal story," and "a film that was inside [him] for many years and could only come out after a lot of suburban psychodrama." Specifically, it was an attempt to address his parents’ divorce and his estimation of himself as an outsider. He also stated that he felt ''E.T.'' was a minority story.
- Touching story where a benevolent space creature stranded from his crew befriends a ten-year-old boy.
- The film essentially updates elements of Peter Pan to contemporary suburbia, complete with flying sequences, and with the alien sort of like Tinker Bell. It also relies on a child's imagination, examining the fears and desires of a ten-year-old.
- The iconic scene of Elliott and E.T.'s flight across the moon was called the most magical moment in cinema history.
- E.T. is Spielberg's most lyrical film, the closest he has come to "pure" cinema. Long passages of the film are without dialogue, and many of the lines in the film are irrelevant, background conversations. Instead of following a strict plot, images, and sounds are offered that feel deeply personal: a quarter moon, sliced by clouds, in an autumnal sky; pine trees swaying in the wind; the monotonous symmetry of suburban streets; a Halloween that verges on anarchy. Home is a sanctuary, but also a retreat constantly under threat. Adults are either Elliot's mother or unfathomable, capricious, cruel, and anonymous figures.
- The key to the film's success was Spielberg’s ability to ground the story in a suburban reality that his audience could recognize. There was also the matter of finding a way to make the characters more appealing than typical suburban residents. The script wasn’t as important as finding the proper actors and giving them the right direction.
- Speaking of which, the actors did a really good job performing as Mary Taylor, Elliott Taylor, Michael Taylor, etc.
- Unlike his previous blockbusters, the film has a relatively small budget, $10.5 million, and a short shooting schedule of sixty-five days. For the first time in his career, Spielberg did without storyboards, a move that was risky but also liberating. He limited his use of special effects, going back to simple tricks that could be filmed easily. The Halloween sequence is a good example of how effective the newly relaxed shooting methods could be.
- The film has a lot of memorable and loveable characters, such as:
- E.T. is a lovable short brown extraterrestrial, and a very smart, but childlike and curious creature who learns how to adapt to human life very quickly, how to communicate, and even builds a device that will help send him home.
- Elliott Taylor is a 10-year-old boy who lived with his family in Los Angeles, California, and he must find a way to help E.T. return home while avoiding the government.
- It had some great special effects for its time.
- Although it has a lot of product placement (especially Reese's Pieces), it is used efficiently and subtly unlike the 1988 rip-off film Mac and Me.
- It had a beautiful musical score by none other than the legendary John Williams and was his fifth collaboration with Spielberg, after 1981's Raiders of the Lost Ark and the 1979 period comedy film 1941.
- Amazing cinematography.
- It also had some great and memorable quotes like "E.T. phone home".
- The poster, based on Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling piece, is well drawn and is one of the most iconic movie posters of all time, and has become the face of Amblin Entertainment.
- The ending scene where E.T. says goodbye to Michael and Gertie as he leaves planet Earth with his spaceship leaves a rainbow in the sky is one of the saddest endings in the entire film.
The Only Bad Quality
- For the 2002 re-release, All the guns were replaced with walkie talkies and the line "You are not going as a terrorist for Halloween!" had "terrorist" replaced with "hippie", which is outright censorship. This is justified as it was released months after 9/11 and almost three years after the Columbine massacre. Unlike George Lucas, who continued to edit his Star Wars movies, Spielberg later regretted these decisions and now only the original 1982 version is on the Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD in Streaming services.
Reception
E.T. was widely acclaimed by critics and is considered to be one of the greatest films of all time. The film holds a 99% "Certified Fresh" approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 135 reviews, and an average rating of 9.3/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Playing as both an exciting sci-fi adventure and a remarkable portrait of childhood, Steven Spielberg's touching tale of a homesick alien remains a piece of movie magic for young and old.". On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 91/100, based on 30 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars and wrote, "This is not simply a good movie. It is one of those movies that brush away our cautions and win our hearts." CinemaScore reported that audiences gave the film a rare "A+" grade, the first known film to earn that grade. The film currently has a Google users rating of "83% of users liked this film".
President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan were moved by it after a screening at the White House on June 27, 1982. Princess Diana was in tears after watching it. On September 17, 1982, it was screened at the United Nations, and Spielberg received a UN Peace Medal.
Trivia
- The movie was unscripted.
- Steven Spielberg and producer Kathleen Kennedy thought of the idea for E.T. before starting production on Raiders of the Lost Ark. Kennedy suggested screenwriter Melissa Mathison – who had worked on The Black Stallion.
- The movie surpassed Star Wars to become the highest-grossing film of all time—a record it held for eleven years until Jurassic Park, film directed by Steven Spielberg, surpassed it.
- Italian artist Carlo Rambaldi constructed E.T. with an aluminum and steel skeleton under layers of sculpted fiberglass, polyurethane, and foam rubber. Each “muscle” was connected to a control mechanism, operated by Rambaldi and his ten assistants, responsible for 150 individual, complex motions.
- John Williams has written the music for 29 of Spielberg’s films and won five Academy Awards for his work, including one for E.T.
- After hearing Pat Welsh’s deep, raspy smoker’s voice at a local camera store, the film’s sound designer Ben Burtt hired the non-actor to be the voice of E.T.
- Harrison Ford, who was dating E.T. screenwriter Melissa Mathison at the time, was initially intended to have a cameo role in the film as Elliot’s school headmaster and school nurse, but the scene was cut.
- E.T. makes an appearance in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace. The movie also reveals E.T's species
- However, the Asogians (E.T. is one of them) are canon to the Star Wars franchise.
- George Lucas liked the Halloween scene with E.T. and the kid in a Yoda costume.
- The film's original working title was going to be named "E.T and Me", though it was changed to a "A Boy's Life" as Spielberg didn't want anyone to discover or plagiarize the plot.
- E.T was the playable character in LEGO Dimensions.
Videos
External links
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial at the Internet Movie Database
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial on Rotten Tomatoes
Comments
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