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

i still remember Elliott calling his old brother "penis breath"

I remember Elliot holding the thermometer up to a desk lamp.

Which should've made his temperature, what, 185 degrees?

hahahahahaha yea i forgot about that part

I had the videogame. Actually a friend had it and brought it over to show me, and ended up leaving it and not really wanting it back. I don't think i played it more than once.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmrQkQsM9FU

The Raiders game was pretty much the same thing. SUCK SUCK SUCK

I had it too. Beat it a few times, but only on the easy level. the FBI/CIA agents used to scare me.

if you want a copy there's a landfill with a million copies somewhere

RIP
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_video_game_burial

KEEP THEM AWAY FROM WALTER WHITE

It's in Alamogordo, NM, but they're covered in concrete iirc

i didn't get why E.T. stretching his neck allowed him to float out of wells.

like it wasn't something that the movie exactly...ehm...focused on

Also I'd misremembered it as much more brightly lit and primary colours than it actually is -- more like Star Wars in tone and hue (most be the John Williams effect) (and the trick-or-treat scene). The lighting's actually really sparse a lot of the time, and the colour's all muted browns and greys. Williams is the weak link for me, I know too much of the sources he constantly raids (Janacek!) not to get irritable when he amps it up.

If you don't feel a bit emotional when the music kicks in during the bike flying scene i dunno what's wrong with you

Yeah, I would've definitely given the Oscar to Goldsmith that year.

"Can't he just b-beam up?"
"This is reality, Greg!"

one neat little dramatic reversal from earlier -- when the house is suddenly menaced from outside, a house that has comfily housed an actual-real alien for days, the intruding "monster" is... a human in a moon-landing-style spacesuit

Suggested E.T. to a friend for their Friday family film night, but it go nixed because it makes his wife cry. So instead I sneakily recommend The Iron Giant, which is not only also great but which is also basically E.T. Family loved it, wife left halfway because "she knew where this was heading."

but it has a happy ending!

There's a look on Elliot's mom face when she watches the spaceship take E.T. home that is one of the best depictions of ecstasy in a film.

And a great contrast to the shock and horror when she first sees Elliot and ET in the bathroom. That plus the sadness and disappointment on the siblings' faces -- like, how did you EXPECT your mom to react -- followed by ET'S despairing cry when she takes Elliot away and wont help him makes me tear up just thinking about it

haha when ET says "I'll always be here" I was totally expecting him to say "I'll be back" -- he even sounds a tiny bit like Arnie for a second.

so Spielberg recently announced the fact that he regretted Lucas-ing up ET. hoping we can get a blu-ray of the original film. i love it unreservedly.

I had the videogame. Actually a friend had it and brought it over to show me, and ended up leaving it and not really wanting it back. I don't think i played it more than once.

Arrg, that fucking game. Played that thing 50 fucking times. I want that part of my life back.

i suppose I woulda hated it more if i ever played on the intermediate or hard levels.

Oh God this movie. Just switched it on and of course it's when they find sick ET and now I'm all in tears and WHY IS IT SO TOUCHING?!

That scene where Michael is riding around looking for E.T. has one of my all-time favorite John Williams cues behind it:

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

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)