Movies - E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

Home > Listing Index > Movies > E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

	Movies - E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is an Academy Award-winning 1982 science fiction film directed by Steven Spielberg that tells the story of a young boy, Elliott, who befriends an alien being called E.T. stranded on Earth and trying to find his way home. This film was produced by Amblin Entertainment, distributed by Universal Pictures. It was originally released to movie theatres in 1982, rereleased in 1985, and then "enhanced" and rereleased as a 20th anniversary edition in 2002 (see below).

The movie was written by Melissa Mathison and the movie poster was created by artist Drew Struzan, a favorite of director Steven Spielberg who decreed Struzan as the only artist allowed to depict the character.

Taglines:

His Adventure On Earth.
He is afraid. He is alone. He is three million light years from home.
The mystery. The suspense. The adventure. The call... that started it all.
The Story that Touched the World! (1985 re-release)

Plot summary

An alien botanist stranded on Earth is found by 10-year-old Elliot (Henry Thomas), who, along with his older brother Michael (Robert MacNaughton) and his younger sister Gertie (Drew Barrymore), teaches him to communicate and helps him build a device to contact his people to bring him home. When ET becomes sick, a medical facility is set up in Elliot's home as scientists try to study ET. The scientists find remarkable evidence indicating linked brain activity between Elliot and ET.

ET, who had previously been sick after trying to contact his species outside and catching pneumonia (or some pneumonia-esque disease), miraculously recovers. Elliot helps him escape the government facility where he is kept, and the two finally reach the aliens, who have returned upon realizing ET's absence. Elliot knows he must stay on Earth and not go with ET.

20th anniversary edition

An extended version of the movie, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial: The 20th Anniversary, was released theatrically by Universal Studios on 22 March 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.

Some of the changes were made by Spielberg to please the perfectionist in him; he had not been completely satisfied with some scenes and took the opportunity to do what he could not achieve in 1981 due to limited time, technical possibilities, or the demands of keeping the film with a certain runtime. 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 (which is flashier and sparkles more in the new version) 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 fluent. A previously deleted scene is included that features Gertie unwittingly telling Mary where Elliot was: "Anyways, why would Elliot go the forest?"

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. A second prominent 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 is reported to have been made to fit with a "post-9/11 environment". However, when the film was rereleased in movie theaters, it failed to generate box office success, showing around only $30 million, showing how much the world had changed in the past 20 years.

The changes in the 20th anniversary edition were spoofed in the South Park episode "Free Hat".

Reception

According to Box Office Mojo, E.T. was made at an estimated cost of $10.5 million dollars, and has a lifetime gross of $792,910,554 worldwide (domstic gross of $435,110,554 and a overseas gross of $357,800,000) for the 1982 and 2002 releases. It was the #1 movie for 1982, and top grossing box-office movie for all-time up to that point (displacing Star Wars - which has since actually grossed more then E.T. by its re-releases). It was displaced by the film Titanic
(note: this is a non-inflation gross - if adjusted for inflation, Gone with the Wind
is considered the top grossing film of all time.)

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay