Movie Review: E.T.

Watched E.T. last night. I got to re-experience it and really pay attention to all of the reasons why it was such an important movie. There's a scene where the government agents finally catch up to the family who is hiding the alien. And you think that they're essentially out to get the alien, to perform experiments and autopsies. But the alien is alive, though it's becoming increasingly ill the longer it stays on Earth. And the kid who found him is experiencing the same symptoms, as in complete empathic / telepathic connection. The government agent finally talks to the kid, after days of hiding out in vans outside with surveillance equipment, and says "i've waited for this moment (to meet an alien) all my life. I'm glad you found him first. This is a miracle, do you understand?"

Government Agent, Talking To Eliot (towards the end)

And it had never dawned on me how powerful that message was. That government agent, who had taken that job (to be the first to respond in the event of a mysterious alien spacecraft landing) had finally experienced the very reason why he became interested in the line of work in the first place. To that small team, it was the most exciting thing that had ever happened. And it never made the national press. It never made international news. The people who were there were just the kids on bikes from the neighborhood, assembled as a small crowd, the size of only several trick-or-treat groups standing behind nothing more than a simple sawhorse barricade. It wasn't that the fate of the entire world was at stake, it was just this one goofy looking alien who could only waddle and was learning to speak like an old lady. 

The Oct 31 Bike Ride with E.T. 

So that's what made it a good movie. That and for so many other reasons. Like the movie poster, where you see the moon, and there's a kid with what looks like it might be an alien, or could easily be mistaken or substituted for a medium-sized pet, riding in the front basket. That's why I found this movie to be so important. That poster, without the context, is beautiful but it hardly makes any sense. To put it in context, and realize that was in the middle of a trick-or-treat ride, and not from the final chase scene, is the kind of holding back that I want to be able to achieve in filmmaking. The drama is in the details, and the proof are the things our minds connect with in our own lives that are so personal that only these types of allegories can unlock what they mean.

E.T. is probably my favorite single movie of all time; meaning single, no trilogy. 

Fun Fact

The kid who played Elliot went on later to play Johnny Sirocco in Gangs of New York.