A Blast From the Past: Revisiting E.T. The Extra Terrestrial
Written by Natale Ryan
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial may be one of the most personal blockbusters ever made. Inspired in part by director Steven Spielberg’s suburban upbringing and his parents’ divorce, the film tells the story of a suburban boy named Elliot, himself a child of divorced parents, who becomes the caretaker of a wise and gentle alien creature, stranded on Earth and desperate to find a way back to its home planet. It is the story of two lost souls, both longing for the comfort and security that only a true home and family can provide, who ultimately rescue each other through the power of love and friendship.
Spielberg’s creative choice to position the camera from the point of view of the children in the film only adds to the intimate atmosphere. Even the film’s most sweeping cinematic moments, particularly Elliot and E.T.’s flight through the air on Elliot’s bicycle, which would go on to become one of the most iconic film sequences of the last forty years, possess a sense of innocent wonder that helps to distinguish the film from many of its louder and brasher contemporaries. Though it is a timeless story, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial is also very much a product of its time, perfectly capturing the atmosphere of a suburban home and neighborhood in the early 1980s. This is evidenced by Elliot’s Star Wars figures as well as Gertie’s Speak & Spell educational handheld. Even the Reese’s Pieces that Elliot employs to lure E.T. into the house seem very much part of the era in which the film is set.
Another aspect that distinguishes E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial from other alien “invasion” films dating back to the 1950s is the simple fact that the story’s alien actually does “come in peace.” This is a trait the film shares with Spielberg’s earlier feature, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. E.T. is portrayed as an intergalactic botanist, a vegetarian whose very touch can heal the wounded and bring dying plants back to life. The United States government agents are the villains of the piece. Their cold detachment and treatment of E.T. as a specimen to be studied stands in stark contrast to Elliot’s own psychic link and emotional attachment to the creature. Spielberg has said that the story was partially inspired by federal cuts to the space program at the time during which the film was made, and it is a film very clearly designed to inspire awe for the universe that surrounds us. Decades later, Spielberg would go on to produce a more standard alien invasion scenario with his 2005 adaptation of War of the Worlds, a film greatly inspired by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Yet it is E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial that seems to best represent the director’s view of our place in the universe and the curiosity that has driven the human race to explore worlds beyond our own solar system.
The story of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial is not entirely unique, reminiscent as it is of countless Disney or Children’s Film Foundation films that precede it. It is Spielberg’s direction, the intimate lighting and photography, and the design of the creature itself that truly distinguish E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial from the standard Saturday morning fare. Critical response to E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial was incredibly favorable, and the film would go on to earn the highest box office ratings of the 1980s, spawning both countless imitations and a wide array of merchandise, including an ill-fated Atari video game, the failure of which nearly bankrupted the company. Looking back, however, it becomes clear that the story of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial is far too intimate to have inspired a thrilling video game adaptation. E.T. is simply a lost child, attempting to make it back home, a task that can only be accomplished through the love and friendship earned from Elliot and his family. E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial is a film that will long live in the hearts of those who see it, and a story that serves as a reminder that it is a small universe after all.
The Author
Natale is an English teacher in Mokpo. She is from Memphis, Tennessee, in the United States. She attended college in Jonesboro, Arkansas, and majored in criminology and sociology. In her free time, she enjoys watching scary movies and writing short stories. Her favorite movies are To Kill a Mockingbird, E.T., and Memento. Her heroes are Snoopy and Audrey Hepburn.