E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL (1982)
— RANKING: 6 —
THE REBIRTH OF DISNEY-STYLE MAGIC: The spellbinding charm that had dissipated from American commercial cinema was brought back by Steven Spielberg in what may just be the greatest family-oriented sci-fi film ever made. Courtesy: Universal.
CREDITS
Universal Pictures/Amblin Entertainment; Steven Spielberg, dir.; Melissa Mathison, scr.; Spielberg, Mathison, Kathleen Kennedy, pro.; John Williams, mus.; Allen Daviau, cin.; Carol Littleton, ed.; James D. Bissell, prod. design; Jim Gillespie, makeup F/X artist; Ed Verreaux, E.T. sketch artist; Carlo Rambaldi, E.T. designer; Craig Reardon, Robert Short, F/X; Sandra Scott, visual effects pro. (20th anniversary edition); 115 min. (theatrical print), 120 min. (20th anniversary edition); Color; 1.85:1.
CAST
Dee Wallace (Mary); Henry Thomas (Elliott); Peter Coyote (Keys); Robert MacNaughton (Michael); Drew Barrymore (Gertie); K. C. Martel (Greg); Sean Frye (Steve); C. Thomas Howell (Tyler); Erika Eleniak (Blonde Schoolgirl); David M. O’Dell (Classmate); Richard Swingler (Teacher); Debra Winger (Halloween Zombie-Nurse with Poodle).
MOST MEMORABLE LINE
E.T. phone home.
E.T. TO ELLIOT WHILE POINTING TOWARD THE WINDOW
BACKGROUND
Spielberg had achieved great success with such larger-than-life spectacles as Jaws (1975) and Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), but he wanted to direct intimate films about families. While shooting Raiders, he developed an idea for just such a film, dictating his concept to writer Mathison (on the set as Harrison Ford’s then-girlfriend). Spielberg’s love of fantasy, however, got the best of him: as the script progressed, the small family was suddenly surrounded by evil aliens. At the same time, he felt pressure to do a follow-up to Close Encounters (1977), but he did not want to make a conventional sequel. So Spielberg developed two projects simultaneously. In one, attacking aliens were replaced by ghosts; this became the horror/thriller Poltergeist. The other, E.T.—or, as Spielberg put it, an unofficial sequel to Close Encounters, containing the same Disney-like sense of wonderment—is about “the little guy who got left behind” when the aliens returned home.
THE PLOT
Late one night, government officials hurry to close in on several harmless aliens who are exploring California. When they rush back to their spacecraft, one doesn’t make it. A little boy, Elliott, finds the creature and takes him home where he and his kid sister Gertie hide and care for him. Elliot comes to realize that the homesick E.T. will die if he doesn’t return to his own planet.
THE FILM
While E.T. stays home and watches TV, Elliott is at school, dreaming of kissing the prettiest girl in his class. The movie that E.T. watches and, through telekinetic communication, inspires Elliott to live out his fantasy, is The Quiet Man (1952) by John Ford, one of the directors who most influenced Spielberg’s style. In it, John Wayne embraces and kisses Maureen O’Hara. If art once imitated life, then here life imitates art, as Elliot does precisely the same thing with his pint-sized inamorata.
Spielberg said that he hoped for an “up cry” ending like those he remembered from Disney films. Far from offering the typical happy ending, many of Disney’s most memorable movies, such as Old Yeller (1957), end with a simultaneous heartbreaking loss and sense of renewal. Another, more recent Disney film that also influenced the creation of E.T. was The Cat from Outer Space (1978).
Consciously or not, Spielberg and Mathison modeled the three siblings on those in J. D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye (1951). The older brother is a once-great-guy-turned-teenage-jerk; the little sister, an open-eyed innocent; and the younger boy somewhere between the two, feeling himself becoming more of a young adult every day, but desperately wishing to hang on to the honest and open vision of childhood.
THEME
Dr. Phil Lineberger, pastor at the Metropolitan Baptist Church in Wichita, Kansas, pointed out to his congregation that E.T.’s “journey” could, in many ways, be perceived as allegorically resembling that of Jesus and that the concept of atonement was also present in the film. According to this interpretation, E.T.’s telepathic sympathy parallels events in the Gospels. Likewise, E.T. develops a set of disciples, dies, and then rises again, finally ascending. Asked whether he agreed with this religious interpretation, Spielberg noted, “I’ve been too busy making movies to stop and analyze how or why I make them.” He then admitted that his friend George Lucas, when informed of the religious and mythic interpretations of Star Wars, came to realize “the meaning of what he had done as much from the critiques he had read . . . as from his own introspection.” As to himself and E.T.? “I’m the same way.”
TRIVIA
In the script, E.T.’s favorite candy was to have been M&Ms. Unwisely, Mars, Inc. turned down a request to use their brand name, clearing the way for Reese’s Pieces to reap the benefits.
The little girl in the schoolroom sequence, Erika Eleniak, would some years later pose for Playboy.
The image of Elliot and E.T. bicycling across the moon served as the logo not only for the movie, but also for Spielberg’s company, Amblin Entertainment. For that image, he drew, consciously or not, from memories of Disney’s The Absent-Minded Professor (1961) in which Fred MacMurray and his dog ride past the moon in their airborne Model T on a similarly starry night. The mood of E.T. was influenced by the post–Walt Disney film Pete’s Dragon (Don Chaffey, 1977) in which the little boy’s dragon is named Elliott, and the lonely child likewise depends on a strange but sweet-spirited visitor that arrives from the sky.