Of all the movies I’ve seen in this retrospective, E.T. receives the most negative reaction from people I know. Just mentioning the title invokes an “I hate” statement. I think the respondent’s age has something to do with it.
E.T. is a very important movie for many reasons:
- It solidified Steven Spielberg’s standing in Hollywood as invincible. Amistad, Hook and A.I. prove my point. E.T.‘s cash/licensing bonanza gave him get-out-of-jail cards into the 22nd Century.
- Drew Barrymore’s undeserved career began here.
- The iconic scene in the picture above is the logo for Spielberg’s production company Amblin.
- Reese’s pieces’ sales surged. Before E.T., the candy was semi-obscure. We can all blame, not thank, Spielberg and Hershey for this early product-placement move since today’s movies are rife with them.
- Numerous catchphrases from the title character everybody under 70 knows
Alamo Ritz got the crowd prepped with the main screen showing retrospectives on Spielberg’s career circa 1982. I remember how he was treated like the second coming and Gene Siskel demonstrated his hypocrisy: Siskel gave 1941 three and a half stars in 1979, in 1982 he lamented over how awful it was, saying this was Spielberg’s first major failure. On a happier note, there were music videos: a break-dancing act I didn’t remember, Missing Persons’ “Destination Unknown” and footage of Anvil. Lastly, the audition Henry Thomas gave crying to land the role.
MC Zack was unavailable but his comic relief partner warmed us up in a clever costume made of stuffed animals stitched together like the alien’s hiding place. My age theory certainly holds here. The host stated how it intrigued him at age three and how he played the videotape until it broke; this would be a few years later.
Slashfilm (another gossip site) was the sponsor yet I liked their representative the best. He was close to my age when E.T. debuted! The reason why age matters is I prefer to hear from a person who experienced the movie in a theater during its first run, not on TV. Context matters! Plus his opener was great, I paraphrase it below.
Let me take you back to a time in the past when a group of people encountered an alien who changed their lives forever. Sadly this happened in 1979, the movie was rated R and my parents wouldn’t take me because I was too young.
He followed up the joke with how his parents took him to see E.T. and being around my age, he thought it was going to completely suck. All the ads/trailers made it seem like a Disney movie for babies. The insight the sponsor brought may have been old news to cinephiles but it was novel to me since I never gave E.T. much thought. Spielberg originally planned to make a sequel to Close Encounters of the Third Kind due to his dissatisfaction with Jaws 2 and 3-D being made. He had some additional regret over CETK‘s special edition showing the alien ship’s interior. With assistance from writer Melissa Mathison (Harrison Ford’s second ex-wife), he set out to make Night Skies. The result was two stories Poltergeist and this.
Onward to the screening. The mood-setting trailers were Explorers, gave Ethan Hawke his start, and Mac and Me. The latter continues to be a bellwether of awfulness. Seeing Ronald McDonald pimping for it at the beginning was even sadder. They wrapped up with The Thing to remind everyone about what’s next.
How is E.T. 30 years later? In short, more was less. The stories about Spielberg directing Poltergeist simultaneously gain credibility from what I noticed. E.T. needs some re-editing to tighten it up. Some scenes drag on too long even by 1982 standards of attention spans. Other parts were just plain stupid. For example, the row of people in hazmat suits walking up to the house as if they were a chorus line; the intruders in astronaut gear busting in…I guess the hazmat stuff was reserved for one singular sensation. I’m thinking Spielberg wanted to convey the same sense of paranoia or fright the government can instill as per CETK, only he telegraphed it horribly. Putting aside those film-school complaints, Spielberg did get great performances from the actors and captured the blandness of American suburbs. Hell, E.T. may have happened in the same subdivision as Poltergeist! He nailed contemporary life well through various touches: the older brother playing D&D with his buddies, the mother’s upcoming divorce (an uncommon event in family flicks then), Elliot’s collection of Star Wars figures, the cursing/slang, the sibling antagonism and the bicycles the kids rode. Spielberg showed children acting as they did in 1982 while other family/general fare either make kids smarter than adults (sitcoms usually) or clowns. He remains guilty of using the same, lazy LCD tactics I mentioned before. I give him another pass due to the positive outweighing the negative.
Ratings:
1982 (13-year-old me): B. I remember expecting to be amazed by Spielberg. He had impressed me with Jaws, CETK, 1941 and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Logically E.T. was going to be a continuation of CETK, even the spaceship bore some resemblance in the commercials. Instead he delivered an edgier Disney film every idiot I hated quoted ad nauseum. The details I liked, namely how the house would be quarantined by the Feds, Star Wars references (Halloween!) and kids being kids, not ideal pets.
2012: C+. The people who go batshit over E.T. must have first seen it when they were under 10 and their brains are clouded by the memory. It’s a mediocre movie, especially compared to Spielberg’s back catalog. I don’t like Lucas mucking with Star Wars since the original 1977 edition works despite advancements in special effects, same goes with Star Trek episodes from the Sixties. But Spielberg could be forgiven if he chose to edit out the scenes/shots which added nothing to the plot. I will never figure out why anybody ever found the alien to be cute neither. He’s rather creepy (modeled after pre-Thriller Michael Jackson!) and not very bright: he needs a Buck Rogers newspaper strip to solve his dilemma and Elliott lured him into the house with a trail of food; I fear the earth doesn’t have a monopoly on dumbasses as Bill Hicks joked about.
E.T.‘s life lessons as per other 1982 features:
- How to fake a fever with a heating pad and lamp in order to skip school. This probably doesn’t work with today’s digital thermometers and parents who saw the movie when they were children
- If aliens do visit (or have visited) our world, they might be curious, dimwitted tourists, not intergalactic Communists as Reagan preached
- Beer has the same comedic affect on extraterrestrials as children, they’ll imitate John Wayne movies