The concept for E.T. was based on an imaginary friend Spielberg created after his parents' divorce in 1960. In 1980, Spielberg met Mathison and developed a new story from the stalled science fiction/horror film project Night Skies. The film was shot from September to December 1981 in California on a budget of US$10.5 million. Unlike most motion pictures, the film was shot in roughly chronological order, to facilitate convincing emotional performances from the young cast.
Released by Universal Pictures, E.T. was a blockbuster, surpassing Star Wars to become the highest-grossing film of all time —a record it held for ten years until Jurassic Park, another Spielberg-directed film, surpassed it in 1993. Critics acclaimed it as a timeless story of friendship, and it ranks as the greatest science fiction film ever made in a Rotten Tomatoes survey. The film was re-released in 1985, and then again in 2002 to celebrate the film's 20th anniversary, with altered shots and additional scenes.
| E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster by John Alvin
| |
| Directed by | Steven Spielberg |
| Produced by | Steven Spielberg Kathleen Kennedy |
| Written by | Melissa Mathison |
| Starring | Dee Wallace Peter Coyote Henry Thomas Drew Barrymore |
| Music by | John Williams |
| Cinematography | Allen Daviau |
| Editing by | Carol Littleton |
| Studio | Amblin Entertainment |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
| Release dates |
|
| Running time | 115 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $10.5 million |
| Box office | $792,910,554 |
Plot
In a California forest, a group of alien botanists collect flora samples. When government agents appear on the scene, the aliens flee in their spaceship, mistakenly leaving one of their own behind. The scene shifts to a suburban home, where a 10-year-old boy named Elliott is trying to hang out with his 16-year-old brother Michael and his friends. As he returns from picking up a pizza, Elliott discovers that something is hiding in their tool shed. The creature promptly flees upon being discovered. Despite his family's disbelief, Elliott lures the alien from the forest to his bedroom using a trail of Reese's Pieces. Before he goes to sleep, Elliott realizes the alien is imitating his movements. Elliott feigns illness the next morning to stay home from school and play with the alien. Later that day, Michael and their five-year-old sister Gertie meet the alien. They decide to keep him hidden from their mother. When they ask it about its origin, the alien levitates several balls to represent its solar system and then demonstrates its powers by reviving a dead plant.
At school the next day, Elliott begins to experience a psychic connection with the alien, including exhibiting signs of intoxication due to the alien drinking beer, and he begins freeing all the frogs in a biology class. As the alien watches John Wayne kiss Maureen O'Hara in The Quiet Man, Elliott kisses a girl he likes.
Makeshift communicator used by E.T. to phone home. Among its parts is a Speak & Spell, an umbrella lined with tinfoil, and a coffee can filled with other electronics.
The alien learns to speak English by repeating what Gertie says as she watches Sesame Street and, at Elliott's urging, dubs itself "E.T." E.T. reads a comic strip where Buck Rogers, stranded, calls for help by building a makeshift communication device, and is inspired to try it himself. He gets Elliott's help in building a device to "phone home" by using a Speak & Spell toy. Michael notices that E.T.'s health is declining and that Elliott is referring to himself as "we".
On Halloween, Michael and Elliott dress E.T. as a ghost so they can sneak him out of the house. Elliott and E.T. ride a bicycle to the forest, where E.T. makes a successful call home. The next morning, Elliott wakes up in the field, only to find E.T. gone, so he returns home to his distressed family. Michael searches for and finds E.T. dying in a ditch and takes him to Elliott, who is also dying. Mary becomes frightened when she discovers her son's illness and the dying alien, just as government agents invade the house. Scientists set up a medical facility there, quarantining Elliott and E.T. Their link disappears and E.T. then appears to die while Elliott recovers. A grief-stricken Elliott is left alone with the motionless alien when he notices a dead flower, the plant E.T. had previously revived, coming back to life. E.T. reanimates and reveals that his people are returning. Elliott and Michael steal a van that E.T. had been loaded into and a chase ensues, with Michael's friends joining them as they attempt to evade the authorities by bicycle. Suddenly facing a dead end, they escape as E.T. uses telekinesis to lift them into the air and toward the forest.
Standing near the spaceship, E.T.'s heart glows as he prepares to return home. Mary, Gertie, and "Keys", a government agent, show up. E.T. says goodbye to Michael and Gertie, as Gertie presents E.T. with the flower that he had revived. Before entering the spaceship, E.T. tells Elliott "I'll be right here", pointing his glowing finger to Elliott's forehead. He then picks up the flower Gertie gave him, walks into the spaceship, and takes off, leaving a rainbow in the sky as Elliott (and the rest of them) watches the ship leave.
Cast
Henry Thomas as Elliott, a lonely 10-year-old boy. Elliott longs for a good friend, whom he finds in E.T., who was left behind on Earth. Elliott adopts the stranded alien and they form a mental, physical, and emotional bond.
Robert MacNaughton as Michael, Elliott's football-playing 16-year-old brother who often makes fun of him.
Drew Barrymore as Gertie, Elliott's mischievous 5-year-old sister. She is sarcastic and initially terrified of E.T., but grows to love the alien.
Dee Wallace as Mary, the children's mother, recently separated from her husband. She is mostly oblivious to the alien's presence in her house.
Peter Coyote as "Keys", a government agent. His face is not shown until the film's second half, his name is never mentioned, and he is identified by the key rings that prominently hang from his belt. He tells Elliott that he has waited to see an alien since the age of 10.
K. C. Martel, Sean Frye and C. Thomas Howell as Greg, Steve and Tyler, Michael's friends. They help Elliott and E.T. evade the authorities during the film's climax.
Erika Eleniak as the young girl Elliott kisses in class.
Having worked with Cary Guffey on Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Spielberg felt confident in working with a cast composed mostly of child actors.For the role of Elliott, he auditioned hundreds of boys before Robert Fisk suggested Henry Thomas for the role. Thomas, who auditioned in an Indiana Jones costume, did not perform well in the formal testing, but got the filmmakers' attention in an improvised scene.Thoughts of his dead dog inspired his convincing tears. Robert MacNaughton auditioned eight times to play Michael, sometimes with boys auditioning for Elliott. Spielberg felt Drew Barrymore had the right imagination for mischievous young Gertie after she impressed him with a story that she led a punk rock band.Spielberg enjoyed working with the children, and he later said that the experience made him feel ready to be a father.
The major voice work for E.T. was performed by Pat Welsh, an elderly woman who lived in Marin County, California. Welsh smoked two packets of cigarettes a day, which gave her voice a quality that sound effects creator Ben Burtt liked. She spent nine-and-a-half hours recording her part, and was paid $380 by Burtt for her services.[8] Burtt also recorded 16 other people and various animals to create E.T.'s "voice". These included Spielberg; Debra Winger; Burtt's sleeping wife, who had a cold; a burp from his USC film professor; and raccoons, sea otters, and horses.
Doctors working at the USC Medical Center were recruited to play the doctors who try to save E.T. after government agents take over Elliott's home. Spielberg felt that actors in the roles, performing lines of technical medical dialogue, would come across as unnatural. During post-production, Spielberg decided to cut a scene featuring Harrison Ford as the headmaster at Elliott's school. The scene featured Ford's character reprimanding Elliott for his behavior in science class and warning of the dangers of underage drinking; he is then taken aback as Elliott's chair rises from the floor, while E.T. is levitating his "phone" equipment up the staircase with Gertie
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