Overdue #3 E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982).

A review for a classic movie often writes itself and with a film as fondly remembered as E.T, it’s easy to cover old ground. Luckily in the case of this particular gem in Spielberg’s catalogue we have Super 8 to compare, J.J. Abrams has cited E.T. among other Spielberg classics from the late 70’s and 80’s, Super 8 itself is considered an ‘homage’ to Spielberg’s work from that period (incidentally executive produced by Spielberg, we won’t judge though). But Super 8 spends only spends so much time in demonstrating its devotion to those movies, Abrams falls prey to his own cinematic fixations (obnoxious lens flares, generic conspiracy sub-plots and worryingly dull creature design by Neville Page) and his obligation to the requirements of contemporary science fiction cinema e.g. aliens equal action.
Super 8 as a result could never match the wonder of Close Encounters, or more importantly the atmosphere of E.T. and it’s these shortcomings that only outline Abrams’s reverence as a box ticking exercise (divorced single parent? Check! Childhood angst? Check! Etc).

The key to E.T. success should be obvious by now, it didn’t need to be reverential (yes there are nods to Star Wars, but they are incidental) in order to delight the audiences that ensured its yearlong cinematic run. Tonally it doesn’t make any concessions to its potentially camp or goofy premise, instead Spielberg plays it straight; real kids in a real family. Throughout the film is a palpable sense of threat and danger, besides the faceless adults with flashlights and keys (the implication of cages) lurking through the neighbourhood, even domesticity itself is wrought with dread and melancholy. It would be a mistake to call E.T. a ‘feelgood’ experience regardless of its child oriented charms. The last third of the film shifts into nightmarish science fiction as Elliot’s home is transformed into a plastic sheathed lab by Peter Coyote’s sinister government agents, but the impact of these unsettling scenes is felt long before. John Williams score maintains a sense of eerie foreboding for the majority of the proceedings, so much so that it is only at the film’s climax that we feel genuinely uplifted, albeit in sombre circumstances.

The greatest success of E.T. is in its story of emotional transition and this is not simply due to Elliot’s family’s dysfunctional backstory (the father abandoned them to be with his mistress, in Mexico), but importantly it chronicles children ultimately finding joy from extraordinary circumstances. The most crucial point here though is that we know sadness before we feel happiness, thus the catharsis in E.T’s case has a greater impact. The real retrospective discussion in this case is Super 8’s emotional emptiness, Abrams simply shoehorns in a dysfunctional family into a flesh-eating monster movie and his attempts to link the two are hackneyed and often irrelevant. E.T. maintains emotional relevance (and resonance) between its human and alien subject matter. As a character, E.T’s motives are as simple as Elliot’s, both are lonely and sad and so the story see’s them helping each other. Super 8’s alien is just a rampaging monster until we’re told otherwise; therefore there is no emotional catharsis.

E.T. will stand the test of time because of not only its heart, but (and I’m in danger of sounding pretentious here) because of its genuine emotional journey.