What's the AFI Project, you ask? For more information, or if you just enjoy my bemused ramblings, read here: http://www.spout.com/blogs/pippin06/archive/2008/3/1/25756.aspx
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial is on the following AFI lists:
The Original Top 100 (#25)
100 Most Heart-Pounding Movies (#44)
100 Movie Quotes (#15 - E.T. and others: "E.T. phone home.")
25 Film Scores (#14)
100 Most Inspiring Movies (#6)
The Revised Top 100 (#24)
10 Top 10's (#3 Science Fiction)
I own E.T. It passed the test. I consider it a personal classic. While I haven't seen it a bajillion times like Star Wars or millions of times like The Wizard of Oz, I've probably seen it hundreds of times since I was 5 years old, the year it came out, and the year I saw it at the drive-in, back when those still existed in any kind of meaningful way. It does not matter how many times I've seen this movie, I always cry, starting right about the time E.T. is succumbing to his homesickness and right on through to the end, with only a brief break during the flying bicycle escape scene.
It's curious that E.T. provokes such mixed feelings in viewers of all ages. The film's Spout page is a healthy sampling of those viewers. Some people think it doesn't hold up to repeat viewings. Some people aren't impressed with Steven Spielberg's cuddly alien friend. Some people just don't get it. E.T. is less about science fiction and aliens from outer space than it is about friendship and that point in childhood when you're young enough to still believe in the wonder of your own imagination but old enough to understand your reality, and you're hoping that the two will blend somehow. I think this film deserves to be on all of those AFI lists, and I'll tell you why, but not before the obligatory plot summary.
Elliott (Henry Thomas) is somewhat of a lost and lonely middle child. His mom (Dee Wallace) has separated from his father, and he's struggling through a single-parent household with his older brother Michael (Robert McNaughton) and his younger sister Gertie (Drew Barrymore - in her first ever role). One night, he hears noises in his backyard, and what he doesn't know, is that a spaceship has landed, and one of its inhabitants was accidentally left behind when the ship departed, careening away from curious humans. Elliott soon discovers this creature, whom he deems "E.T." (for Extra-Terrestrial), and forms a friendship, which is first comprised of teaching him about Earth but soon evolves into a telepathic symbiosis and a quest to return the homesick alien to his people.
Ok, let's talk about why this film is something of a modern movie masterpiece. This marks Spielberg's second entry on the original countdown. Yes, this film paints a rosier picture of a possible visitation from outer space than some other films, and, yes, this film followed Close Encounters of the Third Kind (produced five years earlier). What E.T. does is take the wonder and marvel of Close Encounters and kicks it up a notch by ascribing it to a child. Spielberg manages, quite effortlessly, to paint the purest picture of childhood innocence and imagination intersecting with grown-up truisms committed to film. The film is told almost entirely from Elliott (and, later, E.T.'s) perspective, and it's complete and believable. It's a bleak and cynical view to assume that anyone visiting our planet would be hostile; this film presents an alternative and introduces a child because a child is unassuming and without prejudice. As Peter Coyote's character says to Elliott, "I'm glad he met you first," after seeing all of the scientific probing and fuss made over E.T. by the government.
The film is also a perfect time capsule for the 80s. The references to Star Wars (including John Williams' musical nod when E.T. encountes someone in a Yoda Halloween costume); the very real fashion sense of teenagers of the time; the increasing prevalence of latchkey kids - it's all there. Is that Spielberg's doing? Arguably yes - the man as a director has a perfect sense of his here and now but is also painstaking with details about the period he's filming.
Technically, this film boasted wonderful but not overdone visual and sound effects that simply piqued the imagination more. It also boasts one of the most beautiful scores ever written for film. John Williams appears on that Score list three times, more than any other film composer and for deserving reasons. I actually own this soundtrack because the score is so vivid, so unique, and so beautiful, it immediately invokes images of the film, which is really all a film composer can aim to do.
The pacing is also pitch perfect. I still get tensed up when the government guys come marching down the street, ready to quarantine Elliott's suburban home. I still get excited during the final break and escape to get E.T. to his ship. Who wouldn't want to ride flying bicycles? Whoever came up with that element is a genius. This film belongs on the "100 Most Heart-Pounding" list because it still works on me; it still gets my heart pumping.
The performances are not perfect, but they're real. I believe every one of those kids and the mother and the wide-eyed scientist. I think that's as much to their credit as it is to the director's.
So, is E.T. flawed? Sure. It's the first true example of negotiated product placement in all of film (thanks, Stevie, for the Reeses' Pieces and Coke), which is not very artistic. Is it kind of miraculous that E.T. can make a communicator out of a See'n'Spell or whatever those things were called and a few household trinkets? Is it arguably not even science fiction (arguably - but it is fantasy, let's be sure). Is it a film that was probably made more for money than art? Sure. Does that make the film any less effective, any less wonderful, given its final product? I don't think so.
E.T. is something of a modern masterpiece because the emotions and response it is trying to invoke in the viewer thanks to Spielberg's truly masterful direction happen everytime, at least for me. This film still gives me that childlike wonder that I had when I was five years old, and which I remember to this day. I was scared of E.T. at first. I was scared of the government guys in astronaut suits. I felt for Elliott when he lost such a dear and valuable friend, whom he found a way to communicate with, despite their differences. I still feel all of those things when I watch it now - maybe a little less, because now adulthood has settled in. I bet that when I have children, and they're shown this film, they'll feel the same.
I will say that I am royally ticked that you can't buy the original version of the film anywhere (you know, the one with guns as opposed to walkie talkies and less digital E.T.). I'm sure if I was willing to go to the secondary markets, I could have found the original, but the newfangled, friendlier one was only $15 at Best Buy. I didn't miss anything without the guns, but I did notice the awkward parts that weren't the same, and I'm mad at Stevie for this because why mess with a good thing? Don't fix what isn't broken - and stop talking to George.
For me, E.T. gets a definite 9 for being perfectly entertaining and because the obvious product placement and other elements as described above keep it from being a true masterpiece in my eyes. As for the naysayers, I don't know what to say to them that will convince them that E.T. is a better film than they think. I do know that anyone who hasn't seen it should give it a chance - you might just be as taken with it as I am and will probably forever be. It's a rare film that can depict that innocent wonder, especially since innocence and wonder has all but evaporated in our current times. Now, I guess, I'm being cynical. Good thing there's E.T.