Elliot and his siblings aren’t taking their parents’ divorce very well. But something special changes all that when Elliot finds an alien in his backyard. Elliot introduces his new friend to his brother and sister. The alien’s name is E.T. and he was accidentally left behind by his own kind while they were visiting Earth to collect flora samples. E.T. needs help contacting his kind to return to Earth and pick him up.
Blaine: The idea for “E.T.” came to Steven Spielberg while he was making “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”. At the end before the mothership takes off, one of the aliens says goodbye in sign language and Steven had thought what if that alien stayed on Earth as a foreign exchange student. Steven was writing the script for another project about divorce and how kids don’t take it well and it was a personal project because Steven didn’t take his parents’ divorce very well when he was in his mid teens. Steven then thought about mixing the alien idea and the divorce project together. Steven had the plot of “E.T.” in his mind, but he felt that he needed a screenwriter to develop the whole story. Steven had met Melissa Mathison through Harrison Ford because she was dating him at the time and Steven thought someone with her writing skills would be perfect to develop the script for “E.T.”. It was Melissa who gave E.T. the abilities to heal injuries and use telekinesis to make bikes fly after asking children what kind of superpowers they would want.
Steven wanted “E.T.” to be a movie told from the kids point of view. You would see the mother a lot, but other adults would be silhouetted, shot at a long distance or shot from the waist down until it comes to the moment where E.T. is dying. Out of all the movies Steven Spielberg has made over the years, “E.T.” was his most personal one because he knew how terrible divorce is. Once the script was finished, Steven had Colombia Pictures take a look at it and they liked it, but they chose another project over it called “Starman” starring Jeff Bridges, so they gave the script back to Steven. Steven then went to Universal Pictures and they were interested in making something like “E.T.”. They loved the script and thought it was original.
Steven had Carlo Rombaldi work of the design of E.T. after working with him on “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”. At the time no one knew what E.T. was going to look like, but Steven knew he wanted E.T. to look special. Steven then remembered this look for one of his aliens for “Close Encounters” that never got put in the movie because the orangutan they dressed up to make it look like an alien wouldn’t cooperate. Steven had some photographs he saved of that alien and showed them to Carlo and said "E.T. should look something like this". Carlo and Steven played around with the design a lot. Steven wanted the eyes to look like Albert Einstein and Ernest Hemingway’s because he loved the look of their eyes. E.T.’s skin was made to look like mud. E.T.’s looks were based on a lot of old people.
The person who did E.T.’s hand movements was a mime artist named Caprice Rothe. She had these really long fingers and what she had to do was lay down and hide because the only thing the camera needed to see was her hands. She would lay down in front of the E.T. animatronic, have her arms up and put the hands close enough to it to make it look like they were E.T.’s hands. Other times she didn’t have to be around the animatronic because there are some shots in the movie showing close ups of the hands. And then other times from a distance. Whenever E.T. would be walking, they would dress up a midget in an E.T. suit and other times it would be a boy with no legs. Producer Kathleen Kennedy had found a woman who worked at the Jules Stein Eye Institute and she made these oversized glass eyes for the animatronic E.T.
Screenwriter Melissa Mathison would rehearse scenes with the kids who are in the movie and she had a lot of fun spending time with them. Melissa also would put the script on cards for the scenes they would be shooting each day. That helped Steven because then he wouldn’t have to turn through the script in order to figure out what scene they were going to be doing.
Steven wanted the kids to be themselves a lot of time in the movie. What the kids didn’t like was the school work they had to do. It is required by California State law that kids have to attend school even if they are in a movie. It was hard for them because they would work and then do school work when really they would just want to play after that. The toughest thing for Henry Thomas (Elliot) to do was kiss a girl. At the time he was at an age where he didn’t like girls that much. He really didn’t want to do it and he hated it when Steven Spielberg made him do it four times for every take they did. When it came to the scene where E.T. is dying, the kids didn’t have to act that much because even though their co-worker was an animatronic, he felt real to them and they fell in love with him. They got emotional and cried and Steven would be there to comfort them.
Everyone had a good time shooting the movie on Halloween day and Steven Spielberg was dressed up as an old lady while directing the film the whole day. Steven wasn’t a father yet, but he felt like one just from working with these kids. Actress Debra Winger (Terms of Endearment & An Officer and a Gentleman) did the voice of E.T. Steven loved how deep and husky Debra’s voice sounded whenever she would talk and so he recorded her voice and then sound designer Ben Burtt would mess around with her voice to make it sound like E.T.’s.
Steven didn’t tell his friend, George Lucas, that Yoda was going to be in “E.T.” because he wanted it to be a surprise for when he saw the movie. Steven had an idea that E.T. would pass through someone in a Yoda costume on Halloween. E.T. recognizes Yoda and believes he is someone he met once on another planet. Steven had told George that there was something special in “E.T.” for him. George loved seeing Yoda making a cameo and gave Steven a little nudge with his arm because he was sitting right next to him at the “E.T.” premiere.
The moon shot that shows Elliot and E.T. flying through the moon on the bike was a real shot of the moon and not some painted background. ILM, the special effects department, went out to look for real locations for the forest and it took a week to find the right spot. One night they went up a hill and the moon was in a right position so they quickly shot it with a movie camera and then later they added the bike into it. That shot became one of the iconic moments of “E.T.”.
Steven got worried that “E.T.” might be too personal and was afraid of what people might think of it. “E.T.” was finished before it was previewed. They had a big premiere for it and Steven was so nervous of what the audience would think of it. “E.T.” also had premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. Fifteen minutes before the movie was over people started to clap and stomp their feet because they loved it. Steven and the others who worked on “E.T.” miss understood the audience’s reaction because they thought they didn’t like it and were happy that it was almost over. When the movie was over, a light lit up and was looking for Steven and everyone who was involved and when it finally found them, everyone clapped and cheered.
Universal Pictures wanted a sequel to “E.T.” after it became a huge success. Steven Spielberg had thought hard and just couldn’t see how it could continue after E.T. says goodbye and leaves planet Earth. He finally decided that there shouldn’t be a sequel to “E.T.”. People asked Steven if he was ever going to make a sequel, but he made it clear to them that there was not ever going to be a sequel to “E.T.”. When it came to the 20th Anniversary of “E.T.”, Steven thought about releasing a new version of it with digital effects that are more enhanced compared to the effects they had in the 80s and a couple of scenes that were cut out of the original. One of the things the enhanced version shows is E.T. as a silhouette with his chest glowing running as fast as he can to make it back to the ship before it takes off. In the original version you just saw this red light going through. I like the enhanced version more than the original not only because there are a few more scenes added to it, but you see more expressions on E.T.’s face when he is digital. Another thing they enhanced was the bikes flying. In the original version the kids on the bikes were stop-motion figures. In the newer version you see more of a shocking reaction from the boys from a distance as their bikes are starting to float in the air. I love that scene because it’s fun to see the boys experiencing something unbelievable that they will never again get to experience. Steven also had the guns taken out of that scene and digitally replaced them with walkie talkies.
My rating on “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial” is five out if five stars.
Music by John Williams
The Simpsons
Treehouse of Horror XVIII
Plot: Bart finds an alien in the background and befriends it. The alien wants to return to it’s home planet before the Government finds it. The alien says it’s peaceful, but what it really wants to do is bring death and destruction to planet Earth.
Family Guy
American Dad
South Park
Blaine: This “South Park” parody talks about the special edition of “E.T.” where the effects have been upgraded and the guns have been replaced with walkie talkies.
Futurama
Plot: After being marooned on a distant planet planet, Fry is befriended by a young monster.
