E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

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For the Atari 2600 video game based on the movie, see E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (Atari 2600).

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
Image:E t the extra terrestrial ver3.jpg
Directed by	Steven Spielberg
Produced by	Steven Spielberg Kathleen Kennedy
Written by	Melissa Mathison
Starring	Henry Thomas Dee Wallace Robert MacNaughton Drew Barrymore Peter Coyote
Music by	John Williams
Cinematography	Allen Daviau
Editing by	Carol Littleton
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date(s)	June 11, 1982 July 19, 1985 (re-release) March 22, 2002 (20th anniversary edition)
Running time	115 min. (1982) 120 min. (2002: 20th anniversary edition)
Country	USA
Language	English
Budget	$10,500,000 USD (estimated)
Gross revenue	$792,910,554
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (E.T. for short) is a 1982 Academy Award-winning science fiction and fantasy film directed by Steven Spielberg. The movie tells the story of a young boy named Elliott (Henry Thomas) who befriends a benign alien being dubbed E.T. that is stranded on Earth. Elliott forms a mental, physical and emotional connection with E.T. and helps him find his way home. The film was produced by Amblin Entertainment and distributed by Universal Pictures, and also stars Drew Barrymore and Dee Wallace.

Spielberg created E.T. during his youth after his parent's divorce. The film was produced on a low budget of $10 million, but when released in 1982, it became the highest grossing film yet released. Since then it has become a popular family film. It was re-released in 2002 with additional scenes and altered special effects to a lower gross. Spielberg calls it the film that epitomizes him the most.^[1]

Contents 1 Plot 2 Cast 3 Production 4 Themes 5 Tie-ins 6 Reception 7 20th anniversary edition 8 Alleged plagiarism 9 Home video release history 10 References 11 External links

Plot

A group of alien botanists explore Earth, glowing their hearts in union. Government cars suddenly arrive, forcing the spaceship to leave, leaving one wanderer stranded. Avoiding the watchful gaze of government agents, the alien makes its way into the city. At home, Elliott is servant to his older brother Michael and his friends, and whilst getting pizza he finds something moving in his shed. Dismissed by his family, Eliott nonetheless decides to keep exploring. He briefly frightens the alien at night, and leaves Reese's Pieces around the woods. At night the alien returns some pieces to Eliott, who further lures it into his bedroom with the candy. Before going to bed, he notices it imitating his movements.

The next day, Eliott feigns illness by putting his thermometer under a lightbulb, and takes the opportunity to introduce the alien to his Star Wars action figures. That afternoon, Michael and younger sister Gertie return home and are shocked to meet the alien, with Gertie screaming. They get into the closet with Eliott managing to hide any sense of trouble from his mother Mary. Eliott decides to keep the alien, and they begin to question it of its origin. E.T. answers by levitating balls to represent his local solar system, and further demonstrates remarkable telekinetic powers by healing a dead plant. Meanwhile, authorities investigate around the town and find some Reese’s Pieces.

At school Elliott begins to experience a psychic connection with the alien. As it becomes drunk, so does he. Eliott becomes irrational, freeing all the frogs from a dissection class and kissing a girl in the manner of The Quiet Man which the alien watches on TV, before being taken to the Principal's office. The alien learns to speak English from watching Sesame Street. Dubbing itself E.T., it instructs Elliott to help build a device to “phone home”. Elliott cuts his finger while constructing the device but E.T. heals it with a touch of his glowing finger. Michael notices that E.T. and Eliott are becoming ill and that he is having a mentality of referring to himself as “we”, whilst a government agent listens intently. At Halloween, Michael, Eliott and E.T. narrowly avoid Mary’s gaze, with E.T. pretending to be Gertie dressed up as a ghost. Elliott and E.T. leave on a bicycle, which flies thanks to E.T., and make a successful call. Having been gone all night, Mary leaves to find her children, and agents enter the house. Elliott wakes up to find E.T. is gone, and returns home to a distressed family. Michael runs to find E.T. dying and brings it home to a sick Eliott. Mary becomes frightened seeing both E.T. and Elliott ill, and government agents suddenly invade the house.

The scientists set up a medical facility in the house as scientists hospitalize the two, learning from Michael that “Elliott feels [E.T.’s] feelings”. The link disappears as E.T. suddenly dies, leaving the children distressed. Elliott is left alone with the motionless alien and notices the flower coming back to life. His heart glowing, E.T. reveals that his people are returning. The authorities take away the case holding E.T., and Eliott gets Michael to steal the car it is loaded into, beginning a chase. The car stops in a park and they meet up with Michael's friends. Chased by the authorities, they almost hit a dead end but they escape as E.T.’s telekinesis lifts them into the air and over the suburbs into the woods. E.T. stands near the spaceship, his heart glowing as he readies to return home. Mary, Gertie and Keys, a government agent, show up. E.T. says goodbye to Michael and Gertie, telling her to “be good”. He takes his pot of flowers and before entering, he tells a tearful Eliott that "I'll be right here", pointing his glowing finger to Eliott's heart. Leaving Earth, the spaceship leaves a small rainbow.

Cast

• Henry Thomas as Elliott: A lonely 10 year old boy. Thomas won the role in his first audition after being suggested by Robert Fisk.^[2] Thomas' convincing tears were caused by thoughts of his dead dog.^[3]

• Robert MacNaughton as Michael: Elliott's older brother. He is also adapting to driving a car, even without a license. MacNaughton auditioned eight times sometimes with boys auditioning Elliott, becoming unofficially cast.^[2]
• Drew Barrymore as Gertie: Elliott's younger sister. Barrymore impressed Spielberg with the story that she led a punk rock band, and he felt she had the right imagination for the film.^[2]
• Dee Wallace as Mary: The children's mother, coming off a recent separation from her husband. She is mostly oblivious to the presence of the alien in her household.
• Peter Coyote as Keys: A government agent dubbed as such due to jangling his keys at times. He has waited his whole life to meet an alien. Coyote had previously auditioned as Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark^[2] and sees the role as being about an adult with a child still in him.^[4]
• K.C. Martel as Greg
• Sean Frye as Steve
• Tom Howell as Tyler
• E.T. was primarily played by animatronics, but two dwarves and a boy without legs occasionally filled costumes for scenes where the character walks.^[2]

The largest ensemble sequence in the film features doctors trying to save E.T. All of them were recruited by Coyote from USC university.^[4]

Production

See also: Night Skies

Spielberg had filled a void in his childhood following his parents' divorce with the story of an alien coming into his life. Spielberg said that E.T. was, "A friend who could be the brother I never had and a father that I didn't feel I had anymore."^[5] During filming of Raiders of the Lost Ark Spielberg felt bored and began to remember his imaginary friend.^[6] He related to Melissa Mathison a project he was developing with John Sayles called Night Skies, about malevolent aliens who terrorize a farm family. They decided to develop a sub-plot between Buddy, the only friendly alien, and an autistic child. Buddy's abandoning on Earth in the last scene of the script was the seed of the E.T. concept.^[6] Spielberg then commissioned Mathison to write a script, and she wrote a first draft in eight weeks which Spielberg considered perfect.^[2]

E.T. was designed by Carlo Rambaldi, who previously created aliens for Spielberg on Close Encounters of the Third Kind and both decided to make the character unique with an extendable neck. Rambaldi was inspired by his past painting Women of Delta in the facial characteristics of the alien,^[2] as well as the faces of Carl Sandburg, Albert Einstein and Ernest Hemingway.^[7] Four E.T. heads and three bodies were created for the character: one the main animatronic, the second for facial expressions and the third a costume.^[7] The finished character was created in three months and Spielberg called it "something only a mother could love".^[2]

E.T. was filmed on location at Northridge, Los Angeles, California,^[8] a redwood forest near Crescent City and at a high school and Laird International Studios in Culver City.^[6] E.T. was shot in 61 days, four ahead of schedule, and was a secretive production, lensing under the title A Boy's Life.^[6] Spielberg shot the film in roughly chronological order to get convincing emotional performances from his cast. For example, Robert MacNaughton first saw the character on set in the same scene Michael does. This caused MacNaughton to jump back and cause the shelves to fall over.^[4] Spielberg also made sure the puppeteers kept away from the set, to maintain the illusion of a "real" alien, and for the first time in his career Spielberg did not storyboard most of the film in order to allow spontaneity in the performances.^[6] Dee Wallace personally never thought of E.T. as a puppet, but simply a person.^[2] Stylistically, the film is shot so adults bar Wallace could rarely be seen from the waist up, a tribute to the cartoons of Tex Avery.^[2]

A notable deleted scene from the film had Harrison Ford as Eliott's principal, with his face unseen. The scene featured Eliott being told off for his behavior in the science class, and humorously saw Eliott's chair being levitated while E.T. was also levitating his "phone" equipment up the staircase with Gertie.^[2] At the time of the film's release, Ford was married to screenwriter Melissa Mathison.

Longtime Spielberg collaborator John Williams composed the score for E.T. Uniquely, Spielberg allowed Williams to score the music for the final chase as written, and he edited the sequence to suit it.^[9]

Themes

The film is a reflection of Spielberg's childhood. In one scene, Mary reads Peter Pan to Gertie. The book itself was one of Spielberg's favorite bedtime stories, being one of his happiest childhood memories, and he even directed it as a school production aged 11.^[10] In 1991 he would direct Hook.

Many have found religious parallels in the story. The poster bears similarity to Michelangelo's Creation of Adam. Years later, the animated series Animaniacs, on which Spielberg was executive producer, would pay homage to the similarity in an episode where characters repaint Creation of Adam, replacing the image of God with E.T. and Adam with Elliot.

Tie-ins

Although Spielberg has always refused a sequel, a novel called E.T.:The Book of the Green Planet was released in 1985. Based on a story by Spielberg, it was written by William Kotzwinkle, who also wrote the official novelization of the film. In the novel E.T. is punished by his people because he interacted with humans on Earth by being demoted from space exploration and confined to duties in the gardens of his home world. Finding himself missing Earth and Elliott (who is shown in a series of interludes, starting to experience the growing pains of adolescence), he develops a series of increasingly foolhardy plans to return to Earth.

In late 1982, MCA Records released a E.T. storybook box set on vinyl and cassette, which had Michael Jackson reading the story from the film, as well as two versions of Jackson's song "Someone In The Dark". However, Jackson's record label Epic Records sued MCA for including the original Jackson song on the album, and it was withdrawn. Despite the fact that the album was no longer available, Jackson still won the 1984 Grammy Award for Best Album for Children for it.

The song "Someone In The Dark" later appeared on the 2001 special edition of Jackson's album Thriller and on 2004's Michael Jackson: The Ultimate Collection.

Atari attempted a home video-game version of the film. However, due to the game's rushed development, sales proved to be poor and Atari disposed of a large number of cartridges in Alamogordo, New Mexico in late September, 1983. The game is said to be one of the contributing factors to the video game crash of 1983.

Universal Studios constructed an attraction called E.T. Adventure at its theme parks. Before entering, guests view a pre-show film with Steven Spielberg, who sets up the story: The ecosystem of E.T.'s home world, the Green Planet, is deteriorating and he must return so his magical healing touch can revive the planet. The guests must bring E.T. to the Green Planet via bikes. However, they will also need "interplanetary passports", which are coded cards administered containing the submitted names of each rider. Guests enter an elaborate recreation of the forest from the film, with props such as the communication device. E.T.'s teacher, Botanicus, occasionally appears to message the guests about the carnage occuring on the Green Planet and a need for the healing touch. The guests then board a ride vehicle designed to resemble the bicycles used during the escape in the film. Police and federal agents attempt to stop the riders, but they make an aerial escape into the stars. Upon arrival at the Green Planet, E.T. uses his healing touch to revive the planet and various alien creatures celebrate and thank the guests. The attraction ends with E.T. giving a fond farewell to all guests by name.

In 1998, the title character was licensed to appear in television public service announcements produced by Progressive Insurance in which E.T.'s voice reminded drivers to "Buckle up" their safety belt. Traffic signage depicting a stylized portrait of E.T. (wearing his safety belt) was also installed on selected roads in the USA. Some of the signs remain extant to this day.^[11]

Reception

At nearly $400 million, the film's domestic box office take remained the highest in history until the 1997 Special Edition release of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. Currently it is 16th Worldwide. At one point following the film's meteoric success (it had achieved the unusual feat of increasing returns as it remained in theaters), E.T. was due to appear on the cover of Time magazine, had it not been for the escalation of the Falklands War in the same week.

The film was nominated for nine Oscars at the Academy Awards, and won for 4 of them: Best Original Music Score, Sound, Sound Effects Editing and Visual Effects. It was also nominated for Best Picture, Director, Writing - Screenplay written directly for the screen, Cinematography and Film Editing. Composer John Williams received three Grammy Awards for the soundtrack: Best Album of Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or Television Special; Best Arrangement on an Instrumental Recording; and Best Instrumental Composition. In addition, the Quincy Jones -produced spoken word recording with Michael Jackson also won a Grammy, for Best Recording for Children.

The film has appeared on most American Film Institute polls. It was voted the 25th greatest film of all time,^[12] the 44th most thrilling^[13] and the 6th most uplifting.^[14] The quote, "E.T. phone home," was listed as #15 on the American Film Institute's AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes,^[15] and was also voted as having the 14th greatest music score.^[16] E.T. has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.^[17] E.T. topped a Channel 4 poll of the 100 greatest family films in 2005.^[18] In 2005, Time magazine named E.T. one of the 100 best films of all time.

20th anniversary edition

An extended version of the movie, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial: The 20th Anniversary, was released theatrically by Universal Studios on March 22, 2002 in the United States and later that year also on DVD (along with the original version). The new edition adds five minutes to the film's run time, and includes special effects scenes that were not included in the original because of technical limitations or budgetary constraints.

Examples of these changes include a couple of full body shots of E.T.: one in which he is seen running after his departing spaceship and later taking a bath (this scene was shot for the original movie, but did not work out because the E.T. puppet turned out not to be waterproof). In addition, E.T's facial expressions have been digitally enhanced in almost all his scenes, making them more fluid. A previously deleted scene is included that features Gertie unwittingly telling Mary where Elliot was: "Anyway, why would Elliot go the forest? Why would he do such a thing?" (This scene actually creates something of a plot hole, as afterwards Mary continues to act like she has no idea where Elliot is.)

Other changes had a different genesis. In the scene near the movie's end where the kids are fleeing on their bicycles, all the police officers' guns have been digitally removed and replaced with walkie-talkies, because Spielberg now finds himself uncomfortable with scenes of policemen preparing to use guns around children.^[19]

A second oft-discussed change is the replacing of the word "terrorist" with the word "hippie" in one scene, where Mary forbids Michael to dress up as a terrorist for Halloween; the wording change was reported in some places to be made to fit with a "post-9/11 environment"^[20], for which Spielberg was criticized as "PC" or "soft". However, this is not accurate; Spielberg had already previously replaced the line "dressed like a terrorist" with the line "dressed like that" for the 1985 theatrical re-release, and this version was the one released to VHS. The second re-dub was due to Spielberg's dissatisfaction with the previous dub, on a technical level.

At the Premiere of the re-release, composer John Williams was able to orchestrate all the music for the movie live. In the DVD extra materials he admits to being nervous since if the orchestra was off by the slightest bit that by the end of the movie the music wouldn't sync at all with the movie. The performance went off without a hitch. It was perfectly synched.

Alleged plagiarism

Academy Award-winning Bengali Indian director Satyajit Ray wrote a script entitled The Alien in 1967 with many similarities to E.T., and attempted to raise funds for its production in the late 1960s. After a falling out with a prospective producer, he lost interest in the project, and rejected later interest from Hollywood in the script. After E.T. was produced in 1982 by the same company that had contracted with Ray in 1967, many saw similarities to The Alien script - Ray discussed the collapse of the project in a 1980 Sight & Sound feature, with further details revealed by Ray's biographer W. Andrew Robinson (in The Inner Eye, 1989). Ray stated that "E.T. would not have been possible without my script of The Alien being available throughout America in mimeographed copies." In that same year, when questioned about this, Spielberg denied this claim and said that he "was a kid in high school when his script was circulating in Hollywood."^[21]

Home video release history

• October 27, 1988 (VHS and laserdisc)
• 1996 (VHS and laserdisc)
• 2002 (VHS and DVD)
• 2005 (DVD)

References

Wikipedia information about E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial". It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer). Help contribute to Americola and edit this article.