The highest grossing film domestically for fifteen years, Spielberg's second foray into science fiction/fantasy was a runaway success with both audiences and critics alike. And despite losing its bid for Best Picture to Gandhi in 1982, it has remained one of the best loved films of all time, as is evidenced by its inclusion to the AFI's recent Top 100 list.
The touching story revolves around a young boy who befriends a lost alien trying to find his way home. Besides spawning a galaxy of merchandise with everything from dolls to lunchboxes (I had the Halloween costume myself), it also generated perhaps the most recognizable catchphrase of all time in 'E.T. Phone Home.' Such was the film's immense popularity, rivaled in its time only by Star Wars five years earlier.
The movie itself is surprisingly good, but not nearly as cool as it seemed as a kid. Sure, this might not be the most universal opinion I've ever written here, but I have to mention the fact that this movie was absolutely incredible when I watched it as a child. Now it's easier to appreciate different aspects of the film. The overall wonder and beauty of the film is still there, but it doesn't radiate the same kind of sleek, blockbuster, cool-to-be-a-part-of-it feel that it used to. Maybe if the rumored re-release the year after next comes to pass the feeling will return, because this is a film that should gain an awful lot by returning to the big screen.
Still, it's hard to fault this picture simply because it doesn't feel the same anymore. The direction is pitch-perfect in managing to reveal the world of this lonely boy and his alien friend. Handled differently, this could have easily been a forgettable buddy kid-flick that pandered incessantly and had nothing to say (Mac and Me, anyone?). But Spielberg took what he learned making Close Encounters of the Third Kind and enhanced the sheer awe and wonder of the scope so that it became a universal theme instead of a character's trait. Also, the performances, particularly that of Henry Thomas as the boy, Elliot, are so thoroughly believable that you tend not to feel that you're watching science fiction at all, but riveting drama, if a little skewered toward younger viewers.
E.T. the Extra Terrestrial capped a remarkable run for Spielberg that in seven years produced four legitimate masterpieces (Jaws, Close Encounters, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and E.T.) and only one qualified bomb (1941). From here he would go into a mild slump through the 80s that saw the second and third Indiana Jones films (worthy efforts, but no real challenge), a segment in the Twilight Zone movie, The Color Purple (almost great), and Always (mediocre at best). It wouldn't be until he decided to 'grow up' and make adult films in the 90s that he would see the awards catch up with the acclaim he had long been showered in. E.T. is notable for being the first major turning point in his career, after which things started to slide downward, but the film itself is pure joy.
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