E.T.: The Extraterrestrial (1982)
E.T.: The Extraterrestrial starts in a forest outside a California suburb. An alien spacecraft lands, and several extraterrestrials emerge, gathering flora samples. Suspicious humans arrive, the aliens escape, leaving one behind. He hides in a backyard shed, discovered by a 10-year-old boy named Elliott. Startled and scared, Elliott hides the alien, whom he dubs “E.T.,” in his room, and they become friends.
E.T. determines to find his way back to his world by gathering the materials necessary to build a transmitter and “phone home” for his kin to come back and get him, as he appears to be growing weaker the longer he remains on Earth. However, Earth’s scientists aren’t going to let such an extraordinary creature get away quickly.
The seeds of E.T.’s origin came several years before its release in 1982. In 1976, Spielberg cast director Francois Truffaut in a supporting role for Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Spielberg told Truffaut he wanted to make a semi-autobiographical movie about boyhood after Jaws but not sure where to begin. Truffaut encouraged Spielberg to make a small, personal movie about kids, perhaps an American version of his 1976 film, Small Change (aka Pocket Money). Small Change was a film about kids in Thiers, France mixing Truffaut’s experiences with a collection of anecdotes about children he’d collected since his semi-autobiographical 1959 film, The 400 Blows.
Spielberg developed a semi-autobiographical idea at Universal Pictures centering around kids, tentatively titled Growing Up, the story of a lonely boy and his siblings coping with the divorce of their parents. For the screenplay, Spielberg enlisted the writing services of his USC chums Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, who wrote and directed one of the first Spielberg productions, I Wanna Hold Your Hand, and they worked with John Milius on 1941. Receiving only instructions from Spielberg to write a script about kids, they retitled the project to After School. At this time, there was ‘wimps vs. jocks’ aspect to the story. Spielberg called it his ‘vendetta film’ as a wimp in those times.
Though Zemeckis and Gale drew from their experiences, Spielberg changed the setting to his childhood turf of Scottsdale, Arizona. As the start date approached, Spielberg had second thoughts when others thought the script was in bad taste. The gags were too mean-spirited, cynical, and unperceptive – far from the movie that Truffaut encouraged him to make. The potty-mouthed pre-teens did things he didn’t experience until he was much older. Spielberg would go on to say that he hadn’t grown up enough to make Growing Up. At this point, the only way forward was to start over.
Meanwhile, Columbia Pictures wanted a Close Encounters sequel. Spielberg owed Universal his next directorial effort, but he didn’t want Columbia to proceed without him after what happened with the Jaws franchise, so he’d serve as a producer to keep creative control. UFO expert J. Allen Hynek, who advised Spielberg on Close Encounters, mentioned the 1955 Kelly-Hopkinsville encounter in which small, glowing aliens terrorized a Kentucky farm. Spielberg wanted to go with a title originally meant for Close Encounters, Watch the Skies, but someone had ownership, so it became Night Skies.
After failing to get Lawrence Kasdan, who was reworking The Empire Strikes Back, Spielberg secured John Sayles, screenwriter for a Jaws knockoff he enjoyed, Piranha. For the director, Spielberg’s first choice, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre‘s Tobe Hooper, said he’d only do it if it were ghosts rather than aliens. As that wouldn’t fulfill Spielberg’s Close Encounters sequel obligation, he moved to Ron Cobb, the art director from Alien. During downtime working on Conan the Barbarian at Universal, Cobb would walk over to view Spielberg working on storyboards for Raiders, offering suggestions on how to shoot certain scenes, many that Spielberg utilized. Spielberg felt Cobb had a director’s eye and offered Night Skies as a low-tech breakthrough feature with a budget of $1.5 million.
While researching the Kelly-Hopkinsville encounter, they hit an impasse. The family involved refused to grant rights to their story, threatening to sue. Cobb met with Spielberg and Sayles in Paris, crafting a similar but fictional story about eleven small, psychically powerful aliens terrorizing a captive farm family. Spielberg envisioned Straw Dogs with aliens instead of drunken locals. Sayles wrote it as John Ford’s Drums Along the Mohawk with aliens replacing the Indians. The leader of the evil aliens was named Skar, an homage to the murderous Comanche chief in Ford’s The Searchers. Sayles wrote one E.T. more benevolent than the others, Buddee, who befriends an autistic boy. In the end, when the aliens leave, Buddee remains on Earth.
At John Landis’s suggestion, Spielberg secured makeup artist Rick Baker to create five distinct extraterrestrials, reduced from eleven to reduce costs. As Spielberg was away on Raiders of the Lost Ark, Baker and his crew worked unsupervised while doing double-duty with An American Werewolf in London for Landis. When Spielberg finally visited, he was disappointed. They were behind schedule, and the suits were expensive. Spielberg asked Columbia for additional money, but they wouldn’t pay $3.5 million for makeup on a movie directed by someone without experience. Spielberg needed time to rethink his plans on moving forward.
Spielberg reasoned that aliens wouldn’t travel 100 light-years just to terrorize a farm family and mutilate livestock. While in Tunisia shooting Raiders, Spielberg longed for another film that made people feel good inside. His heart was no longer with the violent horror of Night Skies. But he liked the notion of a misfit boy befriending an alien, perhaps one left behind from Close Encounters. As he daydreamed, he merged this concept with elements of the slice-of-life film about growing up in suburbia and a new idea formed—the new title for his reimagined hybrid: E.T. and Me.
Spielberg hoped Sayles could overhaul of the script, but he was directing Lianna. Sayles didn’t arbitrate for credit because the tone and plot substantially differed, E.T. beginning where Night Skies ended, though he did his version of E.T. for 1984’s The Brother from Another Planet. Kathleen Kennedy suggested talking to Melissa Mathison, Harrison Ford’s girlfriend (and later wife), who was on the Raiders set. Mathison wrote The Black Stallion, with its similar friendship between an orphaned boy and a horse. She was the perfect writer to handle an emotionally sensitive children’s tale with a fairy-tale atmosphere.
Mathison compared Spielberg’s story to “Winnie the Pooh” if Christopher Robin’s friend was an alien instead of imaginary, helping a lonely boy get through a painful time. Mathison, whose parents similarly divorced when she was a teenager, wept at the conclusion. When Spielberg first asked if she’d write it, Mathison turned it down. Mathison was suffering writer’s block so severe that she retired from the profession. Spielberg wouldn’t take no for an answer, and, with help from Harrison Ford’s cajoling, within a few days, she agreed to write the screenplay.
Mathison met with Spielberg weekly to touch base on her ideas. It was Spielberg’s turn to cry after reading her completed draft. The first draft was as Spielberg had pitched it, including Elliott having a comical friend named Lance who turns enemy later, and an adult Mr. Wizard type, who helps the kids. He was ready to shoot it the next day, claiming it the best first draft he’d ever read. Subsequent revisions were similar, but they removed the comical friend (intended for Corey Feldman) and the helpful adult (they exist in the novelization), while Mathison added ideas, such as the psychic link between the boy and alien, and bikes flying across the sky. Also removed was a scene where E.T. heals J.R. Ewing when he takes a bullet on T.V.’s “Dallas.”
Spielberg connected personally and emotionally to E.T. as the story developed. He told Ron Cobb he’d find something else for him to direct. Cobb was relieved; he regarded E.T. as a sappy Christ allegory (coming from the heavens, his healing touch, his resurrection, and invocations to “be good.”). Spielberg says Jesus wasn’t his reference, being of the Jewish faith. E.T.’s miracles came from a combination of powers from the aliens in Night Skies and Mathison polling Harrison Ford’s kids and their friends what powers they thought an alien should have. Despite doing nothing, Cobb, contractually entitled to $7,500 and 1% of the film’s profits, became a millionaire.
Baker protested this perfectly good scare flick becoming a Disney movie. Spielberg despised Baker’s unenthusiastic response. After Baker told him to talk to his attorney to if he expected him to work on a different film, Spielberg replaced him with Carlo Rambaldi, who delivered well-made alien suits for Close Encounters on time at a reasonable cost. As for the good scare flick, it never died. Much of the intent of Night Skies, the terrorized family under siege, morphed into Spielberg productions like 1982’s Poltergeist (Tobe Hooper’s desired haunted house flick), and 1984’s Gremlins (which features a movie marquee displaying E.T.’s alternate titles, Watch the Skies and A Boy’s Life). The premise inspired 1986’s Critters (starring Dee Wallace) and M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs.
Although Close Encounters saved Columbia Pictures from bankruptcy, 1941 failed financially, reducing Spielberg’s leverage. Columbia opposed the new direction, demanding a proper sequel to Close Encounters, not kids flick similar to another film they were developing, Starman. Feeling passionate about making the movie, Spielberg went to Universal Pictures to ask his mentor, MCA president Sid Sheinberg, to buy it out from Columbia, and he would direct. Universal gave Columbia $1 million for the turnaround fees plus 5% of the profit, under the condition that they do not release Starman until at least six months after E.T. To complete his obligation to Columbia, Spielberg created a 1980 Special Edition of Close Encounters.
Spielberg independently financed $10 million for the budget. He stressed absolute secrecy, changing the working title to the less descriptive A Boy’s Life. Everyone working on the film signed nondisclosure agreements. He set up shop off the Universal lot in Laird Studios in Culver City for interiors, with forest sequences in Crescent City, exterior home shots in Tujunga, and suburban neighborhood footage in Northridge.
Spielberg and Mathison imagined E.T. as ugly but not scary. Children should love him for his kindness, not his cuteness. Spielberg wanted a short, stocky alien with a telescoping neck, so audiences would know there wasn’t a person inside. E.T.’s an ancient botanist vegetarian from a dense, humid planet – he’s an ancient plant, according to early drafts. For eyes and face, Spielberg liked the sad eyes of older people, especially Albert Einstein, Carl Sandburg, and Ernest Hemingway. Pat Welsh, a smoky-voiced sexagenarian housewife, discovered by soundman Ben Burtt, provided E.T.’s voice. Rambaldi constructed E.T. using four replaceable heads with specific mechanics and electronics, for $1.5 million. E.T. required twelve technicians to operate fully, plus little people in bodysuits fitted with a radio-controlled head. A mime wearing gloves with extended fingers played E.T. picking up objects.
E.T. blends two heartfelt themes. One incorporates Spielberg’s feelings of isolation and emotional anxiety after the divorce of his parents, wishing for a friend to assure him. The other is an ugly duckling story representing someone who doesn’t fit in with society. Elements of immigrants and being a minority are found within E.T. and his bond with those who haven’t been overcome by societal prejudices – kids.
Spielberg took a loose approach with E.T., forgoing storyboards except for visual effects sequences. Carol Littleton filled in as editor, Spielberg’s only film after Jaws not edited by Michael Kahn. For cinematography, Spielberg wanted Bernardo Bertolucci’s wingman, Vittorio Storaro, but he was unavailable. William Fraker, who Spielberg used in 1941, also was busy. Spielberg hired to friend Allen Daviau, who photographed Spielberg’s 1968 short film, Amblin, and a scene for the Special Edition of Close Encounters. Spielberg had Daviau, working for the first time on a feature film, watch all of Vittorio Storaro’s movies so he’d begin each sequence asking, “How would Vittorio shoot this?”
Spielberg wanted a film from a child’s perspective, so Daviau shot from a camera on a dolly four feet from the ground. No adult other than the mother is shown above the waist until the end, a la “Tom & Jerry.”
Universal test-marketed five titles to see which sparked the most audience interest: E.T. and Me, E.T., The Extra-Terrestrial, The Landing, and Upon a Star. Upon a Star and The Extraterrestial fared best, while their intended title of E.T. and Me fared worst. Audiences didn’t know “E.T.” was short for extraterrestrial, so Universal went with the title that defined it: E.T.: The Extraterrestrial.
E.T. was an instant commercial and critical success, breaking the all-time box office record and garnering nine Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay for Mathison. It won three technical Oscars and one for John Williams’ score.
E.T. plays like fantasy more than science fiction, with a mythical forest, thick fog, and human adversaries whose shadows cast ominous darkness around the sunny California neighborhood. “Peter Pan” is paid homage throughout the film, involving young children believing the fantastic. The film was shot in continuity so the kids would remember the progression of the story. The ending was sincerely emotional for them, who viewed E.T. as a real being, that they really wouldn’t see again.
E.T. hit #1 at the box office in mid-June and remained there for most of the next few months. It was still in the top 10 nearly a year later. It took in a total of $359 million in the U.S. box office and another $304 million internationally, not counting re-releases. But the most treasured accolade for Spielberg was a telegram sent by Francois Truffaut after the film’s premiere at Cannes, reading, “You belong here more than me,” a callback to a line he delivered in Close Encounters.
E.T. benefits from excellent casting, with a terrific breakthrough performance by Henry Thomas. Elliott is nuanced and layered, with a sense of wonderment and imagination many boys his age have. Drew Barrymore had auditioned for Carol Anne in Poltergeist but got the Gertie role when Juliette Lewis’s father forced her to turn it down, and Spielberg felt Barrymore worked better. The interplay among the siblings, often improvised, is spot-on. Although Shelley Long turned the role down to appear in Night Shift, Dee Wallace is superb as the mother still shellshocked from her husband’s departure, struggling with single motherhood with three rambunctious children to raise.
E.T. has become a staple for families, especially for younger children, with many touching moments, imaginative effects, and memorable scenes. It’s a simple tale of friendship between an emotionally struggling boy and a homesick alien, told with great care, with Spielberg developing the relationship without rushing into action sequences or suspense.
Emotional liberties abound. Bike rides through the sky evoke beauty and imagination. Still, it strains realism, witnessing boys accepting what would likely be terrifying rather than exhilarating to fly in the air or to keep peddling as if that were propelling them. The entire sequence that has E.T. getting drunk and Elliott in class about to dissect a frog. Elliott, having a psychic bond with E.T. (one presumes that when E.T. uses his healing powers on anything, they become one with him after that) appears to be sloshed. He frees the frogs (Spielberg set a few frogs free when he was in school) and makes out with a classmate in a scene recreating one from John Wayne’s classic, The Quiet Man.
There are moments of hyperbolic intensity, such as a scene involving government agents invading the home wearing NASA spacesuits, busting through windows and doors Night of the Living Dead style. Scenes are built with a child’s point of view in mind, playing up events for fun or fright. It’s a movie that runs more on emotions than logic, but if you don’t mind a little sweetness (or even a lot), we can easily forgive such indulgences for the sake of the overall entertainment.
I’ve long struggled with my feelings toward E.T. I love many aspects of the film — the bits of humor, the friendship parable, the semi-religious subtexts (as in Close Encounters, belief is power, science a threat), the masterful puppetry that took eleven technicians to perform (full body shots are less convincing), and the rousing John Williams score. The artistic liberties taken by Spielberg can seem out of place in a movie that builds as delicately. Your reaction depends on your willingness to give yourself up to the emotional pull of Spielberg’s vision. As a sci-fi piece, it is flawed, sometimes manipulative. As a children’s fairy tale, the more exceptional qualities make E.T. a fullhearted experience that is as wondrously enriching and tenderly rewarding as there has been in the history of family-oriented cinema.
– The 20th Anniversary Edition digitally remasters the film, adds new CGI, sanitizes harsher elements, and incorporates five minutes of footage not in the original release. Nevertheless, allusions to E.T. having a crush on the mom and a sequence Harrison Ford as the school principal, and Mathison as the school nurse, remained excised. Spielberg has come to regret his re-visit, re-issuing the theatrical cut on Blu-ray.
- After the success of E.T., Mathison wrote a nine-page treatment for a sequel scheduled to come out in the summer of 1985 called E.T. II: Nocturnal Fears. The story borrowed ideas from Night Skies, with E.T. (real name: Zrek) rescuing Elliott and friends from a band of evil albino aliens. Spielberg pulled the plug because he felt a sequel would tarnish the virginity of E.T.
- Spielberg has never made a sequel, save a story for the 1985 book, “E.T. The Book of the Green Planet,” written by the author of the E.T. novelization, William Kotzwinkle featuring E.T. on his home planet trying to reconnect with Elliott. The no-longer-existing “E.T. Adventure” ride at Universal Studios Florida and a 2019 Sky/Xfinity commercial featuring E.T. visiting an adult Elliott also serve as continuations receiving Spielberg’s blessing.
Qwipster’s rating: A+
MPAA Rated: P.G. for some language and violence
Running time: 115 min.
Cast: Henry Thomas, Dee Wallace, Robert MacNaughton, Drew Barrymore, Peter Coyote, C. Thomas Howell, Pat Welsh (voice)
Cameo: Erika Eleniak, Anne Lockhart
Director: Steven Spielberg
Screenplay: Melissa Mathison