THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
In life, your best friend can come from unfamiliar and unexpected places. This is a statement that couldn’t be any more true in ET The Extra Terrestrial.
PLOT
The film shows botanists from another world visiting Earth to collect specimens in a California forest. However, one of their own gets separated after avoiding government agents. When it’s kin departs without him, he decides to hide in the nearest neighborhood of the San Fernando Valley. The closest house he encounters is the home of the Taylors. The divorced Mary lives with her three children: The teenage Michael, the ten year old Elliott and the youngest Gertie. The same night the alien is abandoned and hides, Elliott takes notice that it is hiding in his shed. When he tells his family, they do not believe him. He does encounter it in person when pursuing it in the cornstalks outside his home, which quickly terrifies him. Still determined to prove what he saw to his family, he lures it into the house the next night. Once he brings him in, they quickly bond when imitating each other’s movements. By morning, he fakes being sick in order to stay home and play with him. During this day, it is discovered that they have created an unlikely bond whereas as Elliott is capable of feeling the same feelings of the alien. When his siblings discover the alien after school, they are startled but agree to keep it secret from their mother. As they all wonder where it came from, it shows to have extraordinary powers by levitating objects, reviving dead flowers and healing minor injuries from a thought. When Elliott goes back to school, his empathic connection with the alien becomes stronger when he replicates the same intoxication he is having at home, as a result of his new friend drinking beer. He even acts out by freeing frogs, as a symbol of returning his friend home and kissing a girl he likes, also symbolizing the alien watching The Quiet Man. The alien would then bond with Gertie by playing dress up, while Mary remains unaware of it living in her home. When Elliott comes home, he officially names him ‘ET’. The titular character shares his inspiration to contact his kin so he can go home. With Michael’s help, Elliott makes a makeshift communicator out of a Speak & Spell toy, an umbrella lined with tinfoil and a coffee can filled with other electronics. However, Michael notices that ET’s health is declining, but he and the rest of the family is unaware that the government is spying on them. On Halloween night, Elliott sneaks his friend to the woods to successfully make contact. He stays overnight but when he wakes up the following morning, he discovers ET to be missing. When he goes home, he begs Michael to find him. He does so near a culvert, but notices his health to worsen. This means that Elliott’s health is in the same state. Michael then decides to reveal the truth to Mary, which scares her deeply that her son is dying. Scared of the alien as well, she tries to leave her home with her family, but are cornered by the government who invade the house and set it up as a lab. As Elliot and ET get examined, the boy meets one of the government’s leaders credited as ‘Keys’ due to having a set of them on his waist. He tells him that he found his machine in the woods and makes clear that he wants to help due to his original childhood interest of extraterrestrials. His help doesn’t seem to be useful as ET is presumed dead once his heart stops, which detaches his connection to Elliott. However, he quickly revives unbeknownst to the government, exciting his friend with great news that his kin are coming back to bring him home. With Michael’s help once again, they flee from the government by stealing a van ET was loaded into. With extra help from Michael’s teenage friends, they evade authorities and avoid a police roadblock as ET uses telekinesis to lift them all in the air. As they reach the forest, the spaceship returns. The film ends with ET saying goodbye to everyone including Elliott, taking a set of chrysanthemum and leaving a rainbow in the sky after takeoff.
THOUGHTS
I have made clear that I have seen many movies in my lifetime. Many have not held up, but this one is definitely timeless. I feel this way because with every viewing, I am always left satisfied. I regularly ask for excitement in movies and John Williams ensures that through his superb score. The main reason that it feels immortal to me is because Director Steven Spielberg and Writer Melissa Mathison share something that is generally about acceptance, but also about closure. This movie was pitched as an allegory of Spielberg’s parents divorcing during his childhood. When I first saw this film as a kid, my parents were broken up as well which sparked a personal connection I never thought I would have. And this movie shows a family come together after briefly falling apart which uplifts me every time, reminding me that no matter how low life can get, things will find a way to get better. When ET enters the room, being brought to life with incredible animatronics and the pleasant voice of Pat Welsh, you feel nothing but peace. He is the most adorable character I’ve ever seen because you relate to how his curiosity makes him smarter. And every time you see him, he makes you want to be better. Enter Henry Thomas who was honestly outstanding as Elliott. Again, this is about closure and acceptance which is exactly what you feel in his perspective. He was a boy who felt lost when his father was out of the picture and that exact feeling is what sparked his connection with the alien, as the latter is in the same position. And from there, that is all that motivates him to help him. It became more important for the boy to do it because he had to accept that this family wasn’t gonna be the same anymore. When ET says “I’ll be right here”, it defines how they’ll never forget each other, which sparks the most joyful tears I’ll ever have. Although we love Elliot for being the most compassionate, he’s not the one who’s life changed when meeting ET. I easily dug Robert MacNaughton as Michael because he is one who has accepted his life as is. He went along with helping Elliott because he wanted him to be whole again and not blame himself for their dad exiting their lives. Seeing ET became important to him as well because even he was reminded how it is okay to be different. It is pretty easy to love Gertie since the young Drew Barrymore made her as mischievous as any young kid would be. She quickly grew a liking to ET as well because she loved how he shared with kindness around her and everyone else. Him teaching her to ‘be good’ was enough to appreciate him. While the kids were the stars, the adults still get their chance to shine. Dee Wallace still leaves a big mark in the role of Mary. I saw my mother in her because she has her own personal baggage of heartbreak and must be strong for the sake of her kids. Knowing this, it makes sense for her to be clueless/disengaged of what her children were up to. Of course she wasn’t as effective as leader to her household, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t care about her family. Like her kids, she first saw ET as a threat and the last thing she wanted was to lose them. She may have not understood the whole situation, but the little that she knew helped her understand how much it meant to Elliott. Once she noticed how much ET meant to him, there was no reason to identify him as a threat. Seeing ET leave made her happy because even she knew her son was being whole again and that things were gonna get better for her family from then on. There is not a lot of Peter Coyote, but he made sure that Keys is the adult equivalent to Elliott. He had his own compassion because due to his fascination of aliens, he never wanted ET to die, only to help however he can. Seeing his bond with Elliott reminded him how amazing it was the first time around for him. He could’ve kept ET around to experiment, but he doesn’t intervene because he knows he doesn’t need to. The last thing he ever wanted is to ruin what the boy had and seeing ET leave was his own set of closure as well, that life is beautiful wherever it comes from. The love I have for this movie will never change, but even I can admit that there multiple moments throughout that honestly make me itch my head every time. Like for instance, why are the boys telling Elliott what to order on the pizza when it appears to already be ordered by the time the kid’s out the door. That’s trippier than the fact that they only ordered one, especially due to how they were doing all nighter session of Dungeons & Dragons. It’s pretty wild that they actually tried to order without Mary’s permission, but I’m even more of why would she disapprove anyway. Again, if these guys were staying over for D&D, they should be stacked with food in between. Also, how the hell does Michael mistake ET’s footprints with coyotes? Coyotes do not have three stretched out toes man. They got four meshed together. Michael is shown to be smart throughout, yet this made him as dim witted as his friends choose to be. That was honestly dumber than when he says where to meet up with his friends aloud in front of Keys and other government agents. Speaking of which, why didn’t we see any whenever Elliott went to the woods? If they were such a big deal, it would’ve been interesting to see such an obstacle for the protagonists to actually appear. It is cute to see ET be clumsy, but how did no one hear the ruckus he makes in Elliott’s room on the first night? If toys are going off as loud as that, I’m shook that neither Mary nor Michael woke up. I did laugh that Mary mistakes ET to be Gertie in the ghost costume, but at the same time, I’m distraught that she didn’t even notice the height difference as ET is shorter when not stretching his neck out. There is sweet relief when seeing Elliott return home from the woods after Halloween, but how did he walk in without making a sound? I really don’t want to think about if the doors were already open or he closed them very quietly. That confuses me more than how he pulled off coming home despite feeling ill. I love the movie’s climax as much as everyone else does, but how was Elliott allowed to be in the van from the tube when he already gave his goodbye in front of Keys? I want to see him get ET home, but in all honesty, he should’ve not made it through a foot of that tube. And lastly, why the hell were the first set of hazmat suits designed like astronaut suits? It’s so out of context to see those suits when Keys ends up wearing a much realistic hazmat suit. Ignore this and would still be having a satisfying experience. In conclusion, ET The Extra Terrestrial is a masterpiece of a movie for bringing warmth to my heart when I needed it the most. And if you need that said warmth, see this movie now.
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