E.T. — The Extra-terrestrial
DIRECTED BY Steven SpielbergSTARRING Henry Thomas, Drew Barrymore, Dee Wallace-Stone, Peter Coyote
When E.T. escaped the Feds in 1982, flying past the moon on a boy’s handlebars, the little spaceman with the big glowing heart never looked back. And neither did moviegoers. Steven Spielberg was already a Hollywood rainmaker by the time he called up E.T.’s $399 million storm of box-office receipts, making it the all-time champ.
It’s hard to believe now that E.T. was really the first state-of-the-art kids’ movie, as so many imitators have appeared since. But Spielberg took such care in telling this funny, thrilling, taut and tender fable that it remains a timeless film, embracing universal themes of love, loyalty and how grownups suck.
For kiddie fare, E.T. was surprisingly dark. The alien is living in the woods of a drab California subdivision, ditched by shipmates beating a hasty retreat from Earth, when 10-year-old Elliott (Henry Thomas) lures him to safety with Reese’s Pieces. Elliott and his older brother and younger sister (a scene-stealing 7-year-old Drew Barrymore) help E.T. “phone home” to his peeps. When the kids’ cute secret gets out, Elliott and his friends hide from government authorities bent on cutting E.T. open and studying his entrails. It’s no fun being an illegal alien.
For its 20-year anniversary, E.T.’s getting a few new bells and whistles. The new print adds two scenes, one depicting Elliott and E.T. (gasp!) bathing together. And the times, they are a-changing: Spielberg has digitally replaced the authorities’ guns with walkie-talkies and deleted the word terrorists from dialogue. Two things remain the same, though. One, M&Ms’ top brass are still kicking themselves for declining the product-placement opportunity that blasted sales of archrival Reese’s Pieces up 65 percent in 1982. And two, we’ll still be smiling and sniffling like we’re kids again by the time the alien embarks upon his return flight.
