E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (often referred to as just E.T.) is a 1982 American science fiction film co-produced and directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Melissa Mathison and starring Henry Thomas, Dee Wallace, Robert MacNaughton, Drew Barrymore, and Peter Coyote. It tells the story of Elliott (played by Thomas), a lonely boy who befriends a friendly extraterrestrial, dubbed "E.T.", who is stranded on Earth. Elliott and his siblings help the extraterrestrial return home while attempting to keep it hidden from their mother and the government. 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 most financially successful film released to that point. 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 rereleased in 1985, and then again in 2002 with altered special effects and additional scenes.
PLOT
The film opens in a Northern California forest as a group of alien botanists collect flora samples. U.S. government agents appear and the aliens flee in their spaceship, leaving one of their own behind in their haste. The scene shifts to a suburban California home, where a boy named Elliott is trying to fit in with his older brother, Michael, and his friends. As he fetches pizza, Elliott discovers the stranded alien, who promptly flees. Despite his family's disbelief, Elliott leaves Reese's Pieces candy in the forest to lure it into his bedroom. Before he goes to bed, Elliott notices the alien imitating his movements.
Elliott feigns illness the next morning to avoid school so he can play with the alien. That afternoon, Michael and their younger sister, Gertie, meet the alien. They decide to keep him and hide him from their mother. When the children ask it about its origin, it answers by levitating balls to represent its solar system and further demonstrates its powers by reviving a dead plant.
At school the next day, Elliott begins to experience a psychic connection with the alien. Exhibiting signs of intoxication due to the alien's own intoxication from drinking beer, Elliott begins freeing all the frogs from a dissection class. As the alien watches John Wayne kiss Maureen O'Hara in The Quiet Man, Elliott's psychic link causes him to kiss a girl he likes (Erika Eleniak) in the same manner.
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 duplicate the effort. It enlists Elliott's help in building a device to "phone home" by using a
Speak & Spell toy. Michael starts to notice 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 to find E.T. gone, and returns home to his distressed family. Michael finds E.T. dying in the forest, and takes him to Elliott, who is also dying. Mary becomes frightened when she discovers her son's illness and the dying alien, before government agents invade the house.
Scientists set up a medical facility in the house, 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, and before entering the spaceship, tells Elliott "I'll be right here", pointing his glowing finger to Elliott's heart. E.T. then picks up the flower pot Gertie gave him, walks into the spaceship, and takes off, leaving a rainbow in the sky as Elliott watches the ship leave.
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CAST
- Henry Thomas as Elliott, a lonely ten-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 sixteen-year-old brother who often makes fun of him.
- Drew Barrymore as Gertie, Elliott's mischievous five-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 household.
- Peter Coyote as "Keys", a government agent so dubbed because of the key rings that prominently hang from his belt. He tells Elliott that he has waited to see an alien since the age of ten.
- 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.
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