flamepillar's Full Review: E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
It's the line that shook the world. Well, it shook mine, anyway. I saw "E.T." many times when I was young (really young), but I'm afraid I was too young to truly appreciate the value of a good heart-touching movie.
Several years later, in fact I remember the exact date, the 4th of July in 1998, I was alone in my room. The weather was scorching, and I was bored, so I popped in this movie and at the same time, got my paper ready so that I could get some more work done on a certain piece of fiction that I'm still in the process of polishing today. Five minutes into "E.T.", my papers sat beside me on the bed, where they would remain untouched until the ending credits.
How could I have missed this? How could I have seen this movie so many times that I knew what the next line in the script was going to be, and yet I had no clue what I was about to feel? Well, let's just talk about the movie, shall we?
It's a dark and still night somewhere in eastern California, when a spaceship descends into a remote forest. Out of the spaceship, several three-foot critters scurry about, gathering a sample of specimens from the planet. Of course, it's not long before the inhabitants of the planet are there to investigate the unexpected visitors. Quickly, the critters board their spaceship and take off, but one of them can't quite make it back to the spaceship in time. He is pursued by the planet's inhabitants, and narrowly escapes while they are distracted from the sight of the gigantic spaceship taking off.
Meanwhile, there is a small family living at the top of a hill. They have no clue what Fate is about to befall them. There's the single mother Mary (Dee Wallace), who struggles daily to keep her family together since the father of her three children disappeared. The oldest son, Mike (Robert McNaughton) is as close to a "man of the house" as there can be for them. Elliott (Henry Thomas) is the younger son who has very few friends of his own, and not much luck fitting in among his older brother's peers. Then, there is the daughter Gertie, played by a two and a half foot tall Drew Barrymore. (Isn't she adorable?)
Elliott steps outside to pay the pizza man this one particular night, and on the way back inside, he hears a noise from the shed. Guess who! So, in one of the movie's more famous scenes, Elliott tosses a baseball into the shed. Seconds later, the ball is rolled right back out to him! When he brings his family to investigate, they look at the tracks, and assume it's just coyote season again. But Elliott knows better.
Henry Thomas is a surprisingly gifted asset to the cast of this movie. His eyes are expressive and they alone can show you exactly what his character feels at any moment, from the astonishment of the initial discovery to the intoxication that overtakes him at school, to the love he begins to feel for this newly adopted pet of his.
The relationship between Elliott and E.T. is more than just a boy and his pet, however. It happens that E.T. possesses a power to manipulate his environment, (For you Star Wars fans, he has the power of the Force.) and along with this power, he and Elliott form a bond through which one always feels the feelings of the other. If you were wondering how Elliott winds up intoxicated at school, well, there you go.
With each passing moment that E.T. spends away from his home planet, his health deteriorates. The three children, alone with E.T., have to find a way to get E.T. back to his home planet. Easier said than done, right? But don't worry, E.T. is a smart one, and he will surprise you with some of the things he learns to do.
If you're wondering about profanity, there are two occurrences that come to mind in "E.T." where it is used, once by Elliott in anger towards his older brother (to which his mother quickly responds, but not without laughing at it herself!), and once by his older brother (it just kind of slips out).
The special effects in this movie are spectacular. Steven Speilberg is a wizard at these kind of things, but back his work up with a musical score by John Williams (who wrote the scores for the "Star Wars Trilogy" and the underappreciated "Willow" ...oops, that was James Horner wasn't it?) and the result is simply undescribable. The music always seems to burst out at just the right time to help those tears out when you feel them welling up inside.
The relationship between E.T. and Elliott is, in a sense, an example of an increasingly rare relationship in which two living breathing beings can love each other so much that one always feels what the other feels. I believe in the principle that when two human beings are close enough, they can feel each other's feelings as well. While "E.T." may be a fantasy story, it is also a representation of something very real: true empathy. No one should ever have to suffer alone, and that is why we are gifted with the ability to share our feelings. We should use that more often.
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