‘E.T.’ at 35
What would the Spielberg classic look like if made today?
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” returns home to movie theaters Sept. 17 and 20 to mark the occasion of the film’s 35th Anniversary.
The remastered film arrives courtesy of the TCM Big Screen Classics series and Fathom Events in local theaters including Monroeville Mall and Cinemark Robinson Township and North Hills.
Directed by Steven Spielberg from a script by the late Melissa Mathison, the 1982 classic about a stranded alien and a lonely kid named Elliott (Henry Thomas) is whole-family entertainment. With the help of Elliott’s sister Gertie (Drew Barrymore) and brother Michael (Robert MacNaughton), the family comes together to help E.T. survive some government interference and find his way back to the stars.
The best picture nominee won four Academy Awards, including for John Williams’ score and visual effects.
The movie is a truly American treasure. Adjusting for inflation, Box Office Mojo puts its popularity. However, the 1982 movie at No. 4 in alltime there was a “Special Edition” domestic box office, behind 20th anniversary re-release “Gone With the Wind,” and DVD, in which director “Star Wars” and “The Sound Spielberg digitally replaced security of Music,” elevating guards' weapons with $142,000,000 to $435,000,000. On walkie-talkies. Post 9/11, he the international list of worldwide also changed dialogue that grosses, “E.T.” makes it had Michael and his mother to No. 69, amid a slew of sequels arguing about a Halloween for franchises such as costume, in which the original, “The Fast and Furious” and “No and that is final, you “Pirates of the Caribbean” and are not going as a terrorist!,” “Shrek.” was change to, “I mean it. You
There has never been a sequel are not going as a hippy!” or reboot of “E.T.,” despite The director has since said he regrets the changes. “Not because of fan outrage,” he told Sean O’Neal of The AV Club website, “but ... I was overly sensitive to some of the criticism ‘E.T.’ got from parent groups when it was first released in ’82, having to do with Eliott saying ‘penis breath’ or the guns.”
He also had some close-ups of E.T. digitally enhanced. “I realized that what I had done was I had robbed the people who loved E.T. of their memories of E.T. And I regretted that,” he said.
Here are some ways “E.T.” might have been different if Steven Spielberg had the past 35 years of news and technological breakthroughs at his disposal:
• E.T. was an animatronic puppet for some scenes. In others, the alien’s hand movements were produced by a mime named Caprice Rothe, credited as “E.T. Movement Coordinator.” And in wide, full-body shots, E.T. came alive courtesy of two little people, Tamara de Treaux and Pat Bilon, in costumes. Scenes