| E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL The 20th Anniversary Edition |
 1982 – USA
Director: Steven Spielberg - Reviewed by Linda
A sweet film about friendship, love, family, and most of all, home, E.T. for me is a nostalgic love-fest ode to the early 1980s, where at the time the kids on screen reflected the ages of me and my neighborhood friends. E.T. in a way was my generation's Bambi, teaching us values and terrorizing us with a traumatic death scene at the same time (but with Speilberg's touch: he makes us sob, then brings E.T. back to life—whew!). The film affectionately takes place in generic suburbia, when kids were still allowed to go trick-or-treating alone, and there were woodsy areas to play in only a bike ride away. A little alien is left behind when his ship takes off without him. He wanders into a suburban backyard shed, where he is discovered by a a 10-year-old boy named Elliott (Henry Thomas). Elliott dubs the little guy "E.T.", takes him in, and makes his siblings Michael and Gertie (Robert MacNaughton and Drew Barrymore) make a "most excellent promise" not to tell anyone about the alien. But in the meantime (of course) the government is on the alien's tracks, with their threatening high-beam flashlights, dark silhouettes, and jangling keys. All the while, poor E.T. just wants to phone home.... The 20th Anniversary Edition
A couple of deleted sequences have been re-inserted for the 20th Anniversary. One has E.T. and Elliott playing in the bathroom—a scene that I felt didn't add anything to the story, and was a bit distracting. The other new segment makes more sense: a transition scene of the kids' mother (Dee Wallace) driving around in her station wagon on Halloween to find her tardy brood. She comes upon a hilarious riot of suburban-kid-chaos, with flaming pumpkins rolling down the street, toilet paper flying through the air, and an egg smashing on her windshield. Michael and Gertie look guilty when found, and Gertie gets yet another scene-stealing hilarious one-liner (I won't spoil it here). One gripe about the new version of the film: A line of dialogue has been changed, for the sake of political correctness. In the original, Mom exclaims off-camera to Michael that he can't go out on Halloween dressed as he is because he looks like a "terrorist". Now it has been re-dubbed (apparently without approval by screenwriter Melissa Mathison) so he's told he can't go out looking like a "hippie". Whatever. I'd think the terrorist comment would be even MORE timely now than it was before. But that is my only complaint. E.T., as a sweet, modern, and actually "nice" fairy-tale, holds up surprisingly well. The vaguely corny parts (like the bike-buddies' expressions while flying, and Henry Thomas' sometimes exaggerated yelps) you have to admit were corny the first time around, too. But the film still holds an emotional resonance that is so lacking in blockbusters today. You'd be a fool to miss it while it is back on the big screen. |
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In case you've been living under a rock for a couple of decades, you've most likely seen the classic sci-fi/fantasy film E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, one of the biggest money-making films of all time. I've probably seen the movie a dozen times, and yes, it makes me cry every time (when E.T. is lying in the river, all gray and sick, getting picked at by raccoons... well, I get misty-eyed just thinking about it).
The souped-up edition looks great: E.T. himself looks especially, um, moist, has pulsing veins on the back of his hands, and a more animated face. The spaceship is especially shiny, the cops hold walkie-talkies instead of pistols, and in one case, a glowing wand (a probe?) is carried by a government agent instead of a shotgun. John Williams' score has been re-recorded and is as over-the-top and deafening as usual. The changes are all minor, and for the most part, are not distracting.