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We remembered the story, of course. We first saw it at a cinema when it came out in the early 1980s. Our DVD is a 20th anniversary issue; the film had some changes made in the animating and processing which fixed some problems that the director, Steven Spielberg, found irritating back in the 1980s. But I wouldn’t have noticed.
I had recalled the moment when young Elliot (masterfully played by nine-year-old Henry Thomas) met the little alien. But I had no memory of the first part of the film, where there’s a bit of backstory. We see a spaceship landing in a deserted area, and several shadowy beings including one who is apparently searching for plants. And then the spaceship takes off, leaving someone behind…
We also see a family scene: several children playing a board game in a kitchen - I gather it was Dungeons and Dragons, which was popular at the time. Their conversation relates to the game and it’s not clear what they’re saying, but it doesn’t seem to matter. Elliot’s mother Mary (Dee Wallace) is in the background, half aware of them. We learn later that one of the children is Elliot’s teenage brother Michael (Robert MacNaughten) and the others are local friends.
Someone orders a pizza and Elliot goes out to collect it, only to be terrified by what he finds…
I do recall that the early part of the film was spooky and quite frightening when I first saw it at the cinema, and had no idea what was coming. This time, of course I knew that ET wanted to be friendly, but it was still quite a tense opening. It felt a bit long - if the film was made today, it would have been much more tightly edited, and probably only an hour and a half rather than close to two hours long.
There’s plenty of humour as Elliot gradually gets to know the little alien, and as ET learns to communicate. Elliot’s siblings Michael and Gertie (Drew Barrymore aged six) are introduced to him, but he is kept a secret from their mother. They’re pretty sure she wouldn’t approve. And there are some rather tense cameo scenes showing the legs and feet of men prowling around, trying to find signs of ET, converging on the family home.
It’s a beautifully made film, poignant as well as having some quite funny scenes. We didn’t laugh aloud but I smiled several times, and found myself totally caught up in the story. Even though I knew roughly what was coming, I found myself tensing as ET is discovered. The scientists, in full hazmat suits with anti-contamination tents around, try to discover why Elliot and ET seem to have developed a psychic bond. It’s making Elliot weaker as ET himself struggles to survive in what is to him an alien environment.
I hadn’t really thought about how ET was created, in the days long before CGI, and had forgotten entirely that I had previously seen the 'making of' extra. So it was very interesting to watch the documentary on the second DVD, where Spielberg and others recount the immense detail that went into making the physical ET. Indeed, there were several ETs, controlled in different ways, including ET ‘costumes’ which were donned at times by actors. It was the apparent realness of the little alien that made the young actors react so very believably, with shock, or terror, or tears as appropriate.
It’s an excellent film, one which the cast and crew felt great satisfaction in making, according to the ‘making of’ documentary. Nobody knew whether it would be a success or a flop, as nothing quite like it had been made before. But it was an immense success, and I’m very pleased we’ve seen it again. Perhaps we’ll watch it another time in a decade or so.
Highly recommended to adults and children. It’s rated PG rather than U because there are some instances of minor bad language, and also because of some intense, potentially scary or disturbing scenes. I don’t think I would show it to anyone under the age of about nine or ten, but a lot depends on the child’s maturity levels.
Review copyright 2024 Sue's DVD Reviews
