E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
| E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial | |
 |
|
| Directed by | Steven Spielberg |
| Written by | Melissa Mathison |
| Starring | Henry Thomas Dee Wallace Robert MacNaughton Drew Barrymore Peter Coyote |
| Produced by | Steven Spielberg Kathleen Kennedy |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
| Release date | June 11, 1982 |
| Runtime | 115 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $10,500,000 USD (estimated) |
| IMDb page | |
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 and rereleased in 1985.
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 the only artist allowed to depict the character.
Contents |
Plot
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 pick him up.
20th anniversary edition
An extended version of the movie, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial: The 20th Anniversary, was released theatrical by Universal Studios on 22 March 2002 in the United States and later that year also on DVD. 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.
The two most prominent changes Spielberg made in the 2002 re-release are digital alterations of scenes that were already in the original release: In the scene near the movie's end where the kids are fleeing on their bicycles, all the police officers' guns were digitally removed and replaced with walkie-talkies, because, after the birth of his first son, Spielberg found it too threatening to have guns around the children in the movie. The 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.
Also, a couple of full body shots of E.T. were added: He can now be seen running after his leaving space ship (which is flashier and sparkles more in the new version) and later in the movie taking a bath (this scene was shot for the original movie, but did not work out because the E.T. puppet turned out to not be waterproof). Apart from these new scenes with fully animated E.T.s, his facial expressions have also been digitally enhanced in almost all his scenes, making them more fluent and rash. There was also a new scene that featured Gertie unwittingly telling Mary where Elliot was: "Even if he could go to the forest, why would he?"
Spielberg stated that he made the changes to E.T. to please the perfectionist in him and that he had not been completely satisfied with some scenes and could now go back and change what he could not achieve in 1981 due to limited time or limited technical possibilities, as well as reincorporate scenes he had to cut to meet a certain runtime.[1] However, the omission of the word "terrorist" and the digitally removed guns are clearly not things Spielberg was unable to do in 1981, but changes made to confine to political correctness following the September 11, 2001 attacks and the debate about the gun politics in the United States in the aftermath of the Columbine High School massacre.
The changes of the 20th aniversary edition of E.T. were spoofed in the South Park episode "Free Hat".
Awards and rankings
The film won Academy Awards for Best Sound Effects Editing, Best Effects, Visual Effects, Best Music, Original Score and Best Sound. It was also nominated for Best Cinematography (Allen Daviau), Best Director (Steven Spielberg), Best Film Editing, Best Picture and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen.
It is consistently on the Internet Movie Database's list of top 250 films, was #25 on American Film Institute's 100 Years, 100 Movies and #44 on its 100 Years, 100 Thrills, and has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. The quote, "E.T. phone home," was listed as #15 on the American Film Institute's AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes, a list of top movie quotes.
Cast
- Dee Wallace as Mary
- Henry Thomas as Elliott
- Peter Coyote as Keys
- Robert MacNaughton as Michael
- Drew Barrymore as Gertie
- K.C. Martel as Greg
- Sean Frye as Steve
- Tom Howell as Tyler
- Erika Eleniak as Pretty Girl
- David O'Dell as Schoolboy
- Richard Swingler as Science Teacher
- Frank Toth as Policeman
- Robert Barton as Ultra Sound Man
- Michael Durrell as Van Man
Sequels
While Spielberg repeatedly stated that he had no intentions of doing a sequel to E.T., he wrote a treatment titled E.T. II: Nocturnal Fears with Melissa Mathison, although it is disputed whether this treatment is genuine or not. More recently it has also been reported that Drew Barrymore is trying to persuade Spielberg to do a sequel as she " thinks the world needs another feel-good movie like 'ET' right now".[2]
A sequel in the form of a novel, E.T.: The Book of the Green Planet, was released in 1985.
E.T.: The Book of the Green Planet
The E.T. sequel E.T.: The Book of the Green Planet (ISBN 0743216407) is based on a story by Spielberg and written by William Kotzwinkle, who also wrote the official novelisation of the film, and was published in 1985.
In the novel E.T. is punished by his people because he interacted with humans on Earth by being demoted from space exploration and confined to duties in the gardens of his home world. Finding himself missing Earth and Elliott (who is shown in a series of interludes, starting to experience the growing pains of adolescence), he develops a series of increasingly foolhardy plans to return to Earth.
Video games
- Main article: E.T. (video game)
There are several video games based on the film, most notably the first, 1982's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial for the Atari 2600, which was a huge commercial failure and is considered one of the worst games of all time. Still, it was followed a year later by E.T. Phone Home! for the Atari 800.
To tie in with the 20th anniversary edition of the film, a series of games was released in 2001 and 2002 for Game Boy Color (E.T. Digital Companion, E.T. Escape from Planet Earth and E.T. Cosmic Garden) and Game Boy Advance (E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial), as well as E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial Interplanetary Mission for the PlayStation. Three computer games for PC (E.T. Away From Home, E.T. Intergalactic Mission and E.T. Phone Home Adventure) also followed in 2002.
Michael Jackson's E.T. Storybook
In late 1982 MCA Records released a E.T. storybook box set on vinyl and cassette, which had Michael Jackson reading the story from the film, as well as two versions of Jackson's song "Someone In The Dark". However, Jackson's record label Epic Records sued MCA for including the original Jackson song on the album, and it was withdrawn. Despite the fact that the album was no longer available, Jackson still won the 1984 Grammy Award for Best Album for Children for it.
The song "Someone In The Dark" later appeared on the 2001 special edition of Jackson's album Thriller and on 2004's Michael Jackson: The Ultimate Collection.
Alleged plagiarism
Indian director Satyajit Ray wrote a script entitled "The Alien" in 1967 with many similarities to E.T., and attempted to raise funds for its production in the late 1960s. After a falling out with a prospective producer, he lost interest in the project, and rejected later interest from Hollywood in the script. After E.T.'s release, Ray stated that "ET would not have been possible without my script of "The Alien" being available throughout America in mimeographed copies." Spielberg claimed to be unaware of Ray's work, stating "I was a kid in high school when his script was circulating in Hollywood" when questioned about it in the press in 1982.
Trivia
- E.T. was designed by Carlo Rambaldi, while his voice was performed by several people, including Debra Winger and Pat Welsh.
- Originally the script called for the use of M&Ms (which survived into the novelization). However M&M Mars did not agree to the contract (because they thought E.T. was ugly and would scare children) and instead Reese's Pieces by Hershey's were used. A week after the movie premiered, sales of the candy tripled.
- When E.T. is covered with a sheet and goes "trick-or-treating" with the children, he sees a child in a Star Wars character's mask (Yoda) and begins to follow that child saying "Home....home....". Also, composer John Williams includes a snippet of his "Yoda Theme" from The Empire Strikes Back to accompany this scene.
- In 1998, the title character was licensed to appear in television public service announcements produced by Progressive Insurance in which E.T.'s voice reminded drivers to "Buckle up" their safety belts. Traffic signage depicting a stylized portrait of E.T. (wearing his safety belt) was also installed on selected roads in the USA. [3]
- When the movie was released, Steven Spielberg, a Porsche 928 aficionado, had his moon-roof button re-designed with the movie's logo as both a gag for passengers and a tribute to the movie's success.
- Shilulettes of E.T. and Elliot are featured in the Amblin Entertainment logo.
- E.T. can be seen in "Da Boom" episode of the popular animated series Family Guy.
- E.T. can be heard (off-screen) in an episode of Muppet Babies.
- Aliens of E.T.'s race can also be seen in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace in the Senate Chamber. It is believed this is a friendly response to Spielberg prominently using Star Wars references in E.T.
- The movie inspired the hit (but often-ridiculed) song "Heartlight," written and performed by Neil Diamond.
References
- ^ Bouzereau, Laurent (writer, director). E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial: The 20th Anniversary Celebration (2002, documentary on the E.T. DVD edition)
- ^ "Barrymore and Spielberg discussing E.T 2?". Moviehole. URL accessed on October 3, 2005.
See also
External links
- E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial at the Internet Movie Database
- E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial at Rotten Tomatoes
- www.ET20.com (official homepage for the 20th anniversary edition)
