In praise of "E.T. -- The Extra-Terrestrial," released 25 years ago on June 11, 1982

http://www.seanbaby.com/nes/egm01.htm

First movie I saw in cinemas! A+++

i also saw this on dodgy pirate video very early on; my dad sold the movie to me as a space film, like star wars; by the end, as the film had left me bawling and sobbing and generally inconsolable, i felt a little betrayed.

when it came out at the cinema in the UK, my friend and his family took me to see it at the now defunct ABC in wimbledon, which had only one, massive screen (as opposed the three screen odeon over the road). at the end, i pretended to have fallen asleep, so i didn't have to admit the floods of tears it left me in.

Me too! First live action anyway - I think I had seen a couple of Disney cartoons. (xpost)

Spielberg's movies, despite the way they're often characterized, are not Hollywood idealizations of families and the suburbs. The homes here bear what the cultural critic Karal Ann Marling called "the marks of hard use." The furniture is functional and beat-up, and might have a few unmade payments left to go. The garages carry the detritus of a hundred forgotten projects. Toys and laundry never seem to get picked up. The TV jabbers in the background. The phone keeps ringing. Kids and their friends are always underfoot. Controlled chaos carries the day.

This is true, and part of what's so affecting about it is the fact that it deals with a not-so-happy child and home situation.

WOTW was another example of an extremely UNidealized hero and setting.

i saw it on pirate video when i was 5 or 6. the aliens arrival, ET throwing the ball back and the the guy in the radiation suit scared me.

saw it on opening night, having seen poltergeist on opening night the friday prior. I liked it, but then saw it again during the '85 re-release and distinctly remember being offended by the treacle. that may have been the difference between 11yo me and 14yo me, but in general his films haven't aged well. maybe I should see it again.

and "NOT sentimental" strikes me as an absurd thing to say about a spielberg film. just because he had some talent with suburban mise-en-scene doesn't make him cassavetes.

oh, thank Jeezus, one Cassavetes was enough.

There ARE Spielberg films with treacle, ie his botch of The Color Purple. E.T. is not one of them.

(xpost: as Nick Cassavetes is making clear?)

what about his segment in twilight zone? I thought I saw syrup dripping off scatman crothers' sun-dappled dome.

haha cassavetes zings

I last saw that in '83, but yeah I remember it being crap.

Anyway ... arguably greatest set of juvenile performances ever in E.T. Henry Thomas certainly 'deserved' a special Oscar as much as other kids who got one.

Saw it on opening night too and thought it was an intense pile of saccarin shit. There was nothing more I wanted than to see the Alien alien eat everyone involved.

I was 10 years old in 1982. E.T. was the first movie I remember seeing at the drive-in; my parents took me and my younger sister and brother. I remember being really tired and also crying at the end. I haven't seen it again since.

ah, Alien. In space, no one can hear you snore.

i saw this for the first time in english in 2002 or thereabouts, and i didnt love it. i think you have to have seen it as a kid to love it? before that my viewings had always been in german and i wasnt in love with it then, either.

i am heartless and without a soul

that's what great about alien! it's so slow. I think there are 10 words of dialog in the first 20 minutes.

once read an interesting interp of alien as extended family incest metaphor (oddly asexual and childlike ship's crew is attacked by penetrating monster whose exploits are enabled by a computer called "mother"). can't remember who wrote it, though.

xpost

first movie i saw in the theater. i had just turned two.

i want little drew barrymore to be my sister.

I rescreened it last year and posted comments on the Spielberg thread. They still apply:

Just rescreened E.T. a couple of hours ago; hadn't seen it since 1991. It appalls me that anyone can accuse this film of sentimentality. The post-'70s malaise has rarely been explored this cogently: kids using Star Wars toys to cope with Dad running off to Mexico with a young tootsie, and their attractive mother, still dumbfounded and barely surviving.

It's got a marvelous rapt quality. There are scenes that defy description (E.T.'s ravaged corpse being chewed on by raccoons; Elliott in the backyard waiting for the alien to appear); others approach comic bliss, like the biology class sequence, with a drunk Elliott kissing his crush in the manner of John Wayne in The Quiet Man.

Henry Thomas gives one of the most intelligent child performances in film history; it's unlikely that Drew Barrymore will ever top her slattern-in-the-making Gertie.

Great one-liners too ("How do you explain school to a higher intelligence?").

I was 14, and I disliked it intensely; I haven't seen it since.

Also, the best trick-or-treat sequence since Meet Me in St. Louis.

John Carpenter's Halloween to thread.

Also, the best trick-or-treat sequence since Meet Me in St. Louis.

http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/959/cbgang8sp.jpg

I hated it as a kid too; the crying kids in the audience repulsed me. It was a particularly awful example of my trying to be better than the hoi polloi.

maybe I should check this out again. Is there going to be any 25th Anniversary DVD or anything?

They did a 20th, so I sincerely hope not. No more digi-fiddling!

yeah good point

I've never seen this cuz ET scared me as a little kid. I have been on the Universal Studios ride and seen Mac and Me twice though. I would like to rent it but it may be too late.

I just remember as a kid figuring out that the spaceship came back for E.T. on my birthday.

One of the greatest discoveries I have found through the internet is that EVERYBODY hated that fucking video game. I thought it was just me.

I've not seen Mac and Me, nor the film I noticed playing in an Eighth Ave porn house circa '83: E.T. the Extra Testicle.

Oh man I forgot all about the biology class scene! Every movie needs a moment like that, even if it is completely out of place.

Ew, digi-fiddling. Distasteful.

I had a pencil case that said "how do you explain school to a higher intelligence" on it. And several toy ETs. I did love that film.

xpost

and a Quiet Man kiss.

How out of place?

It might be out of place in a movie like Hostel 2 haha.

fiddle about, fiddle about

I guess I was 12, saw it in the theater, loved it. Though that was a tough age to see it in a way because you're just starting to get a little cynical, so it was very easy to feel like you were above a movie like this. I went w/ my best friend at the time and he was crying at the end, and I'd never seen him cry before even though we'd been friends for a long time, so that was pretty uncomfortable. I felt really bad for him b/c I think he was embarrassed. For a 12 year old boy in those days, crying in a movie was not cool!

I hated it as a kid too; the crying kids in the audience repulsed me. It was a particularly awful example of my trying to be better than the hoi polloi.

yeah I liked a lot of stuff that was popular at the time - just not this horrid manipulative movie with its phoned-in jokes ("lol school is dumb!") and total lack of cool shit like aliens that eat your head. fuck a feel-good-movie-of-the-summer

I didn't really realize that but we don't have feel-good summer movies anymore, do we? Just stuff-gets-blowed up action spectaculars and sequels sequels sequels.

I don't think I understood the idea of a movie being manipulative when I was 12, but then I was a late bloomer.

appreciate the "the only way you can hate this movie is if you're a snob" bs tho Alf

oh, 'manipulative' nevah gets old. That goddamn Eisenstein.

I don't recognize the 'summer movie' as anything but a marketing concept.

somehow Dr. I get the impression that nothing could convince you otherwise in the case of this film

ah, Alien. In space, no one can hear you snore.

-- Dr Morbius, Monday, June 11, 2007 5:57 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Link

...

still don't know what that ellipses shit means. i'll live.

it means SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND ARRRRRRGGHHH

http://www.feoamante.com/Movies/Alien/images/Alien/Alien04.jpg

latebloomer I kiss you with aliens

I love E.T. and it still makes me cry like a baby. I was 5 when it came out and remember seeing it in the theatre. I still have an amazing plush E.T. doll with the tags on that say 1982. I often wonder if it'll be worth something one day.

if i've ever watched this, i don't remember it at all

(this isn't saying something about its quality, i seriously have no idea if i've ever watched ET)

i was incredibly indifferent to this one as a kid. that school line is sub-nickelodeon at best.

appreciate the "the only way you can hate this movie is if you're a snob" bs tho Alf

I hated it for the wrong reasons -- I wanted to feel superior to the crying kids. I hated Return of the Jedi even more though: what at letdown that was (laughable Emperor making third-rate cackles, cloddish acting, Han and Lando strangely absent).

i'll admit i like ET. but i haven't seen it in years, except for catching a few bits while working as an usher during the re-release 5 years ago.

god, that atari game was shit!!!!!

i think you have to have seen it as a kid to love it?

yeah, that might be true. i think if i had seen it as a teen or pre-teen i would have dismissed it. i saw it as a 6 year old when it first came to vhs (around '88 i think?). there was a pretty big marketing blitz for the video release i think, since the movie had been (officially) unavailable since it left theaters.

me and my family were living in Oklahoma then, and we watched it at a neighbor's house. it remains a very vivid childhood cinematic experience for me because it's the first film i remember balling my eyes out at and actually feeling worried and scared how it was going to turn out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGB3XSa5JtE

a while back a fb friend of mine went on a diatribe about how homophobic this movie was. his only evidence was 'penis breath.'

Tell him to watch the silly new cut where they change that and the terrorist joke, and replace all the guns with walkie talkies, That'll make him feel better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0TfR9mgOiU

ThoughtTraveler 11 hours ago
I wonder why this was not included in the film. I would have been a touching addition to the movie.
Reply ·

Richard Attenborough was a classy guy, by all evidence

“I went to see E.T. in Los Angeles shortly before all the awards and we used language, when we came out, to the extent of saying ‘we have no chance – E.T. should and will walk away with it’,” Attenborough said in a 2008 interview with the BBC. He called Spielberg’s movie “an infinitely more creative and fundamental piece of cinema.”

Of Gandhi, he said: “It’s a piece of narration rather than a piece of cinema, as such. E.T. depended absolutely on the concept of cinema and I think that Steven Spielberg, who I’m very fond of, is a genius. I think E.T. is a quite extraordinary piece of cinema.”

http://insidemovies.ew.com/2014/08/24/steven-spielberg-richard-attenborough/

A sequel! It's a Thanksgiving miracle!

https://youtu.be/Pdgk3ERKdug

fucking hell

Henry Thomas rn

https://frinkiac.com/meme/S04E01/1244526.jpg?b64lines=CiBUSEVZIERST1ZFIEEgRFVNUCBUUlVDSwogRlVMTCBPRiBNT05FWSBUTyBNWQogSE9VU0Uu

https://imgc.allpostersimages.com/img/print/u-g-F85ZFC0.jpg

I was 14, and I disliked it intensely; I haven't seen it since.

This is the perfect age for an adolescent boy to have this reaction to this movie!

I saw it in a theater as an adult. I could see how the magic was being done, because in order for it to do its work, it can't be effectively hidden, but I went along with it and experienced all the appropriate emotions at the appropriate scenes. Basically, it's a well-disguised Passion of Christ play, and that story has been tugging at hearts for millennia. In E.T. all the tiny parts fit together beautifully and snugly and operate at very high efficiency.

i guess last year's google home alone ad was a success

Henry Thomas rn

whatever they paid him it wasn't worth it

I feel like people are not outraged enough by this. This is surely way worse than the Cats trailer, right? I guess the young people don't care.

Dave Marsh gave the Michael Jackson-narrated E.T. Storybook five stars in The New Rolling Stone Record Guide. I suspect he was high on Thriller fumes, but I've always been curious to check it out.

this is cuntish

I don't care about e.t. so i'm not outraged.

It's a bad... commercial? showing off... the internet? It doesn't say anything about xfinity or Comcast, except that Comcast owns a bunch of companies.

"damn, ellliotttttt... you... got... oooooooooold."

According to the biography Michael Jackson: The Magic and the Madness, written by journalist J. Randy Taraborrelli, the pop singer had shown an early attachment to the story of E.T. After a publicity photo shoot for the soundtrack album in which an animatronic robot of the extraterrestrial character hugged Jackson, the singer stated with wonderment, "He was so real that I was talking to him. I kissed him before I left. The next day, I missed him."[15] Jackson later revealed in the December 1982 issue of Ebony magazine—in which both he and E.T. appear on the cover—that he felt he actually was the creature during the album recording and shared his thoughts on why he had such a strong connection to the character:

"He's in a strange place and wants to be accepted—which is a situation that I have found myself in many times when travelling from city to city all over the world. He's most comfortable with children, and I have a great love for kids. He gives love and wants love in return, which is me. And he has that super power which lets him lift off and fly whenever he wants to get away from things on Earth, and I can identify with that. He and I are alike in many ways"[4]

cf herzog and baby yoda

Dave Marsh gave the Michael Jackson-narrated E.T. Storybook five stars in The New Rolling Stone Record Guide. I suspect he was high on Thriller fumes, but I've always been curious to check it out.

my dad owned a copy, which I inherited. It is creepy AF. I used to cut bits of it into mixtapes back in my youth.

it's a fucking commercial; I won't see it, so

But a Spielberg-approved commercial!

he's approved a lotta things I don't care for (Hillary Clinton)

saw this at the theater today, pretty amazingly bad. mac and me level! but then again, i guess there was this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zv-Fcy6Aw10

really liked this new ET thing that people have been talking about.

I imagine (hope) that when I finally show them the actual movie they won't remember this commercial, but I was damn pissed to take my kids to see Frozen 2 today and have their introduction to ET (and iconic images like the flying bikes) be an xfinity commercial.

I'm not sure the original iteration of E.T. would really resonate with the kids of today, I mean the '80s version of the character didn't even seem to understand the intricacies of DVR-ing one show while watching another via one of the many streaming apps available to subscribers on the Xfinity platform. Our focus testing shows that young people only relate to fictional aliens that know how to navigate through On Demand menus with alacrity and a little swagger.

does E.T. get HEnry Thomas out of a DUI in this commercial

Who cares if it's an xfinity commercial or not? lol

this commercial is boomer-iagra

Gen X-stacy more like it

boomer-iagra

Why would that be? Boomers sure as hell weren't kids when ET was released in 1982 and a lot of them didn't even have children, yet.

All the people going crazy about it/forwarding it seem to be boomers.

I never considered ET a kids movie? Wasn't it popular all around?

hmmm. maybe they're just old, bored, housebound, overly sentimental, and unimaginative, and therefore a perfect demographic for Comcast.

It was nominated for Best Picture.

It’s a family movie