Forty years after its initial release, fans are still talking about E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Star Henry Thomas, who has gone on to work on high profile horror projects with Mike Flanagan in recent years, has been doing the media rounds for months, Entertainment Weekly published a magazine-length anniversary guide to the film, and it even got a few nights on the big screen again thanks to Fathom Events. The new round of exposure has opened up the film to a new generation of fans who might not have seen it if their parents weren’t currently wallowing in ’80s nostalgia.
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E.T. was a marvel in its time. The practical effects blew people away, and a big part of that was E.T. himself. Just like Rocket Raccoon, though, you have to have a different voice on set than the one added later in post-production.
“So this is pretty funny, because there’s about 13 guys that operated E.T., and they would be on the other side of the stage,” Thomas explained. “So I would deliver my line and then I would hear this chorus from far away of like 12 or 13 grown men going ‘ow-ouch!’ because they were running the remote control for the lip movements and stuff, and they were matching it with their own voice.”
Something about the idea of E.T. being a booming chorus of deep voices, disembodied from 100 feet away, instantly makes the film stranger, spookier, and funnier. Part of the character’s enduring charm is his childlike innocence, which is something that would definitely read totally different in those circumstances.
The movie itself became not only an instant hit with families and critics, but a box office juggernaut, cementing director Steven Spielberg as more than just the guy who did Jaws: he was the filmmaker defining genre entertainment for a generation. Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment is still cited, decades later, as the gold standard for movies aimed at kids, but able to appeal to everyone.
Here’s the film’s synopsis, per the recent IMAX re-release:
Once upon a time, back in 1982, an unprecedented cinematic event took place that stirred souls and captured the imagination of countless generations. When “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial” landed in theaters, the heartwarming story of a young boy who befriends a stranded alien quickly broke all box office records to become an instant classic.
