E.T. The Extra Terrestrial

So full disclosure, I have seen this movie once before. I was quite young and I'm not gonna lie, this movie scared the living crap out of me. Despite being a movie directed by Steven Spielberg, the king of whimsy and family films, this movie just terrified me that I wasn't able to watch it for close to 20 years after (I don't really remember if I was four but it makes this sound better). I remember having the worst nightmares from ET and I really don't think I was the only person who did.

But now that I'm in my twenties and I realize that ET was not supposed to be a scary film, I figured, this is considered one of Spielberg's greatest work, I might as well check it out. What was the result? Well ET still kind of freaks me out and yeah I may have had some weird dreams the night after I watched it, but what did I think of the movie?

E.T. The Extra Terrestrial follows the story of a young boy named Elliot (played by Henry Thomas)

who encounters a strange alien who was stranded on Earth and left by the rest of his kind when they were exploring our world. While Elliot is at first scared of the alien (And he should be), he soon befriends the alien and names him ET. Along the way you've got Elliot's brother Michael (played by Robert MacNaughton) and his little sister (played by a very young Drew Barrymore) helping him communicate with ET. Feeding him and eventually helping him create a machine that will help him communicated with his family out in space so he can "Phone Home".

The interesting part about this film, at least for the first two acts, the only adult whose face you see is Elliot's mom (played by Dee Wallace). At first I was kind of confused by this choice but just as I was beginning to like it, they really kind of throw that choice away. I mean I know its hard to hide the faces of a bunch of adults, especially near the end. But I was actually really enjoying that choice, I'm not totally sure why Spielberg decided to scrap it.

That's the interesting thing about ET. It seems very much like a cerebral art film than it does the stereotypical blockbuster that I have come to expect from Steven Spielberg. A big part in the movie is dependent on the music and the moments in the film. I can imagine why this movie wasn't really that relatable as a kid because I see this as one of Spielberg's more artsy film and as a kid who was just getting into blockbuster movies (again, I kind of doubt this was when I was four) I had a baseline that ET kind of messed with.

On top of it all, can you look at this thing?

You have to give Spielberg credit, you can definitely tell that this guy was not CGI and they were basically having a little robot or prop walking around. And that robot or prop, however unrealistic you may think it looks, actually did become a character. In fact he's one of the most recognizable characters of all time. But that doesn't really negate the fact that this guy was freaky to me as a kid.

I'm pretty sure it was the fingers and his voice. At the beginning of the movie, they really take their time hiding ET in the shadows and only showing a little bit of him before the big reveal. And what do they decide to do to tease him? Show his long freaky fingers curling around door frames like a straight up killer.

I get that ET was just as afraid of Elliot as Elliot was afraid of him, but even after they become friends, ET has some kind of freaky moments, especially when you realize that he's telepathically linked to Elliot.

If you watched this movie through the lens of this is an alien brainwashing or attaching himself onto Elliot like a parasite would attach itself onto a host, that's kind of terrifying. Sure give me all the emotional moments of "I'll be Right here you want", it still comes off as a little creepy when this weird animatronic robot gets Elliot drunk and controls him from miles away. No thank you!

I think the thing that I realized when watching this is that while this movie isn't exactly trying to be scary, it has a lot of imagery that could be pretty intense for kids. I sometimes think that I was just a kid who was scared of a lot of things growing up, but I can't help but think I'm not alone here.

But the thing that really helps this movie are the human characters, especially Henry Thomas as Elliot.

Essentially ET is the story of a boy and his alien. Even if he is being mind controlled by a freaky looking brown dude, Elliot is a great example of the few times child actors work really, really well. When you watch movies or TV, whenever there are kids, its too often that you just want them to go away and stop annoying the action that you really care about. But with Elliot, you feel like this is exactly what a kid his age would do if he found an alien. And on top of that, Elliot, Drew Barrymore and Michael are all pretty smart. But not unrealistically smart. They devise this plan to bring ET out to the woods to communicate with his family out in space. But they execute the plan the way kids would. Its creative and fun, but not over the top and they rely on ET the most for that plan to succeed.

On top of all of that, Elliot is just likable. Its kind of hard to explain but despite the freaky mind controlling brown guy, you want all of this to succeed because you like Elliot. There's only been a couple of kids in cinema that have fallen into this category where not only are they likeable, they're iconic. Haley Joel Osment from The Sixth Sense, and Mcauley Caulkin from Home Alone are the big ones I can think of, and Elliot from ET is another. His lines are delivered really well and they're the kind of lines that are iconic. When this kid is happy, you can tell he's really happy. When this kid gets

sick, you can tell its from the relationship he has with ET. When he's scared and concerned you can really tell he's scared and concerned. Its just a very good performance from Henry Thomas.

Michael and Gertie (Drew Barrymore) do a good job throughout the film to and really do a good job supporting Henry Thomas.

I guess I thought Dee Wallace was going to have a bigger part in the film but the fact of the matter is, for the majority of this movie, this is about the kids. While Wallace does a good job in the film, the focus of this movie is on Elliot, Michael, Gertie, and ET, and these guys are a perfect team.

At the end of the day, once you put aside the fact that ET is one of the freakiest things I have ever seen on cinema, this movie really is a classic for a reason. Yeah the animatronic ET doesn't exactly hold up as far as realism, but this movie is just full of whimsical moments and actually a lot of fun. Culminated with great performances from child actors, a certain style that I think is actually very different from the normal Spielberg we've come to expect, and phenomenal music by John Williams, ET is definitely a movie worth checking out. Its just good film making and just good story telling.

I think I kind of mentioned it in my Back to the Future review but these classic movies from the 80's

managed to take a subject matter like Time Travel or our first encounter with aliens and take it down to a level that nobody is willing to take it anymore. These movies weren't classics because they made a huge spectacle and made these subjects the biggest thing in the world, its because they were personal, heart felt, and even comedic situations. Yeah maybe Marty Mcfly getting his parents to fall in love or Elliot feeding ET Reese's Pieces isn't what we expected to see when we heard we were watching a movie about Time Travel or First Encounters, but they play because they're human interactions. They're relatable and genuine.

The last thing I'll talk about is how much of this movie was paid tribute to in Stranger Things. I knew that the Duffer Brothers were drawing influence from Spielberg movies like ET, but I never realized how much they were borrowing for that film. If you follow me on Twitter, I spent all of last night pointing out as many of the parts that the Duffer Brothers "borrowed" from ET. From the fact that the beginning starts with the kids playing Dungeons and Dragons, to the fact that Eleven is basically ET, the list goes on. But it goes into my previous point and why harkening back to ET made Stranger Things so good. It was genuine, it was human, it was relatable. And so is ET.

But what do you think of the movie ET? Did it scare you as a kid? Was I just a pansy? I can't be alone in the fact that I was scared shitless as a kid from this movie. Let me know in the comments. You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for movies I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. So this video might be delving into spoiler territory if you haven't seen all of Stranger Things. But you can tell how great the comparisons are when you take the bicycle scene from the end of the series and mix it with the soundtrack from ET. Its done really well. Enjoy!