By Todd Garbarini
E.T.
The Extra-Terrestrial
(1982) opened on Friday, June 11, 1982 and was considered to be a small and
personal film by director Steven Spielberg. It was also the first movie that I recall being released on multiple
screens at the same theater simultaneously and this widespread exhibition of
the film, in addition to word-of-mouth, was no doubt partially responsible for
making E.T. the top-grossing film of
the year.
Filmed under the original title of A Boy’s Life in late 1981, E.T. was written by screenwriter Melissa
Matheson of The Black Stallion (1979)
fame, and the fact that the title was changed illustrates the switching of
focus from Elliott (Henry Thomas) to the little alien creature whose plight
captured the world. A beautifully
crafted story about childhood,
loneliness and growing up was brought to life by perhaps the only filmmaker who
could have done it justice. Mr.
Spielberg had been fascinated by outer space since the night he and his father
looked up at the stars in his backyard. As a teenager, he made an ambitious, 140-minute film called Firelight (1964) about UFOs. Years later, his own Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) acted as a sort of
follow-up to it, and E.T. was
inspired by the idea of one of the aliens at the end of this film being left
behind. The product of divorced parents,
Mr. Spielberg has claimed that E.T.
is the only script he has read and wanted to make immediately without major
changes.
The performances by everyone involved
are wonderful. Mr. Spielberg always
manages to get authentic reactions from his child actors. Who can forget Barry Guiler’s (Cary Guffey) look
of wonder (accomplished by Mr. Spielberg dressing up as a rabbit off-screen) in
Close Encounters when aliens raid his
mom’s kitchen? Here, the director really shines, especially
with Elliott’s little sister Gertie, played by six year old Drew Barrymore.
E.T. has not lost any of its original charm
or wonder, nor does the film feel dated in any way. In 2002, the director made significant
changes to the original version by adding an additional scene with E.T. in the
bathtub by way of computer-generated imagery. He also removed the guns from the hands of the men seen near the film’s
end who take over Elliott's house. He replaced the guns with walkie-talkies,
thus outraging purists. Fortunately, the Blu-ray is the original 1982 version
without these changes.
The film would not have made the impact
that it had were it not for John Williams’ wonderful score. He has created a main theme for E.T. that simply makes the onscreen
action soar. The special effects team is
to be commended as well for their ability to take a rubber and mechanical
puppet and turn it into a living, breathing creature with emotions.
If
there is a drawback to the Blu-ray set, it is the exclusion of Harrison Ford's
role as Elliott's school principal. The
director had shot a scene where Elliott is sent to the principal’s office
following the frog dissection fiasco sequence, and Elliott’s principal (Ford) asks
him why he behaved the way he did. Since
E.T. is a film about children and how
they see the world, adults (with the exception of Dee Wallace as Elliott’s
mother) are seen in synecdoche, their faces obscured. The principal was filmed this way, but the
director cut the scene feeling it was extraneous. The only time this footage ever surfaced to
my knowledge was in the deluxe CAV laser disc edition that was produced in
limited quantities in 1996. As far as I
know, no VHS, DVD, or any other video format has ever offered up this footage,
but you can see a low resolution transfer of it here on Youtube.
The
Blu-ray comes with a standard DVD and a digital copy of the film in addition to
these extras:
Steven Spielberg & E.T. (HD, 13 minutes)
The E.T. Journals (HD, 54 minutes)
Deleted Scenes (HD, 4 minutes)
A Look Back (SD, 38 minutes)
The Evolution and Creation of E.T. (SD, 50 minutes)
The E.T. Reunion (SD, 18 minutes)
The 20th Anniversary Premiere (SD, 18
minutes)
The Music of E.T. (SD, 10 minutes)
Designs, Photographs and Marketing (SD,
45 minutes)
Special Olympics TV Spot (SD, 1 minute)
Theatrical Trailer (SD, 2 minutes)
This is clearly one of the best Blu-ray
releases this year, as the carefully orchestrated color palette of Allen
Daviau, the film’s Director of Photography, has never looked better on home
video.
Click here to order from Amazon.com.