'E.T The Extra Terrestrial’ Film Studies Essay

‘E.T The extra terrestrial’ commonly referred to as just ‘E.T’ was a 1982 film directed by Steven Spielberg about an alien that get’s left behind on earth and while trapped befriends a boy called Elliott.

The poster (left) correctly represents the movie; it accurately portrays the bond between Elliott and ET by showing the now famous ‘glowing finger scene’ (A link to said scene) from the film.  The poster also has elements of ET and Elliott, ET being presented by space and Elliott being the represented by the earth.

The film was made primarily for family viewings; despite the use of mild swear words and subtle hints at smoking and drunkenness the film was given a PG rating by the BBFC.

Spielberg’s original idea for a thriller movie called ‘Night Skies’ was to be the common ‘aliens come down and invade a house’ plot but he suddenly thought about changing it into a completely different movie called ‘E.T The extra terrestrial’ in which an alien gets left behind and instead of terrorising the locals, constantly attempts get back home and befriends the locals in the process.

When it comes to fan culture things get weird; fans of the movie even go so far as to write romantic fan fiction featuring Elliott and E.T.

Although in the 1980’s when the film was originally released, it was common from children to play pretend while reciting E.T’s famous line “ET Phone Home” although ET himself said this incorrectly in the movie, ET states “ET Home Phone” and it was Elliott’s correction that became well known.

The feedback itself was widely positive, E.T has been voted as the ‘greatest film ever’ of 2010 although it is unknown if it still holds this title. Critics have given the movie good reviews; it has been described as ‘the kind of film that young people are going to want to see again immediately after they've seen it.’ (A review on rottentomatoes.com) Producers (such as Spielberg) would often get an idea from how good their movie was from the reviews by critics and fans; many times critics and fans would disagree but in the case of E.T it was widely referred to as a good movie having been enjoyed by both fans and critics. Reviews such as the ones available on online would usually affect whether or not people decide to watch certain movies, if the reviews are good then the film is good so people are more likely to go see said movie out of sheer curiosity and to see if the movie is what the reviews make it out to be.

Although E.T was around in the days before the Internet, interactive marketing was used in the guise of fan clubs such as the ‘Official E.T fan club’ (below) where fans of the movie would sign up in order to get various movie-related things such as posters, photos and certificates. E.T also became well-known enough to be featured on adverts for awareness of such things as drink driving telling those who saw it to ‘phone home’ and not drive if drunk, the ad’s featured ET with his finger raised and glowing as a call-back to a scene in the movie where ET heals Elliott.

The Merchandise for E.T is mainly the usual that you would expect from a movie; shirts, figures, etc. However Atari manufactured and sold a game based off of the movie that did not sell so well and was commonly regarded as a bad move, many say the game was so terrible that Atari even went as far as to crush, encase in cement and bury all of the unsold copies of the game in the sand in a desert in New Mexico, although this is no more than an urban legend.

In terms of the film itself, E.T contains possibly the most memorable (and the first ever) product placement; Reese’s Pieces; the small sweets that Elliott used to lure ET to him. Originally M&M’s were supposed to be in the place of Reese’s Pieces in the film but they declined for unknown reasons. In return for Steven Spielberg featuring Reese’s Pieces in his movie, Reese’s Pieces featured ET on the front of their packets for a brief period, even giving away a free ET sticker with every packet. After being featured in the movie, sales for Reece’s Pieces went up dramatically, other companies realized that their products being featured in movies and TV shows was a way to boost sales, product placement was born and since then countless of brands have sponsored movies in an attempt to get more recognition for themselves.  

 In 1982 when E.T was released it featured a scene where gun-wielding federal agents threaten Elliott and his escaping friends, Spielberg disliked this scene as he deemed it inappropriate for children to be threatened by people with guns so for the 20^th anniversary of the movie in 2002 the guns were digitally replaced with walkie-talkies, ET was also now CGI. However for the 30th Anniversary an edition was released which included a fully restored version of the original film and the guns were put back in place of the walkie-talkies, the puppet ET was restored also.

Due to its popularity E.T has made its way into other forms of entertainment being referenced in many other programs/movies and has even become popular enough to be joked about and referenced multiple times in Family Guy. (a clip from ET's appearance in Family Guy) from this we can gather that the creators of Family Guy deemed E.T popular enough and recognisable enough to be referenced more than once; when  a certain movie/TV show gets referred to or hinted at in other forms of media it shows that it has become well-known.
In making an E.T related joke, Seth McFarlane (the creator of Family Guy) was acknowledging Spielberg’s creation and deemed it popular enough so that enough members of the Family Guy audience would have watched E.T or be familiar with it in some way in order to be able to understand and laugh at the joke.