Not because of the fact that he has more money than God, or the fact that he is Hollywood royalty, or even the fact that he is an incredible philanthropist. It must be awesome to be Steven Spielberg because you can make the same movie twice and have both versions make it on the list of the 100 Greatest Films, seemingly because of the clout you have in Hollywood. “E.T. the Extraterrestrial” is essentially an extended version of the final 33% of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” The over-the-top special effects, the alien-related government cover-up, the loner finding acceptance with non-humans, the discovery that the aliens are much more docile and caring than we nasty humans… should I go on?
Unlike most movies involving a bizarre oddity (“The Elephant Man,” “The Creature From the Black Lagoon”) there is no real dramatic buildup to the revelation of the strange being; rather “E.T.” cuts right to the chase and shows us a whole colony of funny little brown aliens rummaging through a wooded area overlooking an ordinary looking suburb. When truckloads of non-descript “bad men” who could be government workers, hunters or park rangers come barging into the scene the contrast between not just man and alien but big person and little person becomes very evident. While the aliens are shown collecting plant life, which seems to represent some sort of life support system for them, given the strong physical glow they emit while gathering them, the humans are a complete contrast. Their presence indicates destruction; smoky exhaust pipes, boots trampling the plant life and generally disruptive noise that breaks up the ethereal silence enjoyed by the aliens. The point of view shots from the perspective of the visitors are shown at about knee-level, looking up at the looming human figures. This all but cements the anti-adult agenda of “E.T.”
“Maybe it’s a pervert. Or a deformed kid or something” (Mike, “E.T. The Extra Terrestrial”)
The little title-character is abandoned by his companions as they escape into the night sky- the visuals, while incredible, essentially look like the arrival of the mothership arrival scene in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” in rewind with the detail-heavy, well lit spacecraft (last "Close Encounters" comparison, I promise). A parallel story begins to take shape as another sort of “abandoned” character is introduced. Elliot (Henry Thomas) is the embodiment of the “middle kid,” complete with the abusive other brother, Mike and the adorable little sister Gertie (Drew Barrymore, long before her days of coke binging and flashing Letterman in front of the world). His mother Mary seems more interested in being her kids’ friend than an authority figure, as she lets Mike and his friends abuse Elliot and cuss in front of her. To put the cherry on the top of Elliot’s Fuck-My-Life sundae, his father has apparently deserted the family and remarried.
Needless to say, when Elliot discovers the wayward alien in the family toolshed he immediately finds a companion he can relate to. The sweet innocence of Elliot’s attempts to communicate with the little brown being is completely befouled by the whorish amount of conspicuous product placement (a trail of Reese’s Pieces, Elliot displaying his ‘Star Wars’ toys while clearly saying each character’s name so that the kids watching know exactly which ones to ask for). The amount of shilling that is done in such a short period of time during this sequence, while only a short segment of the film, was literally so unnecessary and blatant that it really turned me off of the entire movie.
More is done to advance the “adults are stupid” message as Elliot successfully hides his new friend who he now refers to as “E.T” short for extra-terrestrial, from his oblivious mother for several days. At one point, Elliot is in school and reacting to what E.T. does back home due to some sort of telekinetic/Vulcan mind-meld connection the two characters now share. During these situations the baffled teachers are essentially modern-day Keystone Cops. Meanwhile, left to his own devices E.T. begins to grasp the English language as well as learn how to build convoluted communication devices out of crude parts, all done in a heinously simplified fashion.
Eventually, the storyline becomes too absurd even for a movie about kids finding an alien being. Elliot takes E.T. out on Halloween night in what ends up being one of the film’s most memorable moments when E.T. makes Elliot’s bike fly through some unexplained mystical power that we are just supposed to assume he has because he is from another planet. From this point on, far too much of the plot becomes reliant on the unexplainable, a very convenient but lazy approach to filmmaking which eliminates any sort of depth or need to explain whatever is happening with E.T. at any given moment. E.T. becomes sick, probably due to his change in environment but they don’t say, Elliot gets sick too, probably because of the other-worldly connection the two share, but this is never really explored much further and E.T. is able to “phone home” by using his homemade device to apparently give his home-race coordinates where to pick him up, but again, nothing is really clear, because it doesn’t have to be simply because you have had to suspend disbelief so much anyway that Spielberg basically stops caring to elaborate on any concepts at all.
If the point had been missed before, the “evil adults” motif is cemented once and for all when Government agents and police quarantine Elliot’s family’s home, show no regard for the dying E.T. and poke and prod him and Elliot for seemingly no other reason than sadism and an anti-alien agenda. At one point E.T. even does “die” though he is resurrected, seemingly through Elliot’s love, but as we have established, there are no explanations needed in “E.T.” Elliot and Mike then steal a government van and initiate a high-speed pursuit in order to get E.T. to his pick-up point where, after an intentionally sappy goodbye finale, E.T. is finally reunited with his own kind and is able to go home. Elliot is still the product of a broken home, still faces the prospect of being a social outcast and has his only friend taken away from him on top of that, but there film attempts to put such a positive spin on everything we are expected to believe that Elliot will now have a normal life just in the knowledge that he is not alone in a figurative sense.
Since this is a Spielberg film, there are certain artistic pluses demonstrated, primarily the cross-cutting between simultaneous events and the tendency to shoot most of the action from lower points of view to give us both E.T.’s perspective as well as allowing us to see the world through a child’s eyes. Unfortunately though, this is just far too commercialized, generalized and fictionalized to be taken seriously for anything other than its visual effects (the lifelikeness of E.T. himself is hit-and-miss depending on the scene) and the always top-notch John Williams score. If there were any such thing as truth in advertising this film wouldn’t be called “E.T.” it would be called “Pure. Bullshit.”
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