E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL

US, 1982, 109 minutes, Colour.
Dee Wallace, Peter Coyote, Henry Thomas, Drew Barrymore, Robert Mc Naughton.
Directed by Steven Spielberg

ET was one of the surprise movies of the 1980s - and one of the most popular and financially successful movies of all time.

Steven Spielberg had made Close Encounters of the Third Kind in 1977, showing an interest in space and extraterrestrials - an optimistic perspective on other worlds beyond this one. Spielberg also professed his delight in children and wanted to make a movie for them.

He chose the Peter Pan story, again a story that delighted him. He commissioned Melissa Matheson (An Indian in the Cupboard, Kundun) to adapt the story to outer space. Matheson, interviewed later, said it was when she went to the studio to watch production that she realised the Gospel resemblances.

Spielberg was to move from this Peter Pan phase with his spectacle about mid-life crisis: Hook, where Robin Williams' Peter had forgotten his childhood and had to find it again. It was after this that Spielberg was able to make Schindler's List.

Henry Thomas is Eliot (ElioT) and a little Drew Barrymore is his sister, Gertie. The voice of ET was supplied by Debra Winger and technically modified for his now-familiar rasp.

1. The delight of the film, its universal popularity? A long-lasting fantasy?

2. The work of Stephen Spielberg? His vision, technological interest, fantasy, love for the childlike? His career and its success? E.T. within the themes of all his films, especially Close Encounters? The child in Spielberg making films for children everywhere? Achievement - technological, delight?

3. The California suburbs, the universal suburb? Location photography: the twinkling lights of Los Angeles from the forest, the spacecraft, the streets, home, the medical and anti-radioactive swathings and uniforms? The use of the small screen? The special effects for the spacecraft, the levitation, the poltergeist effects, the children riding in the sky? The creation of E.T. himself - appearance, movement, voice? The humorous effects? The special effects absorbed by the plot and its feeling?

4. The contribution of John Williams' score? Themes, atmosphere?

5. Audience response to aliens, outer space, close encounters? An encounter which is not frightening? Which is first recognised by children and then by adults? Gentleness and humanity? Personal communication? Shared values? Learning, communicating, love and the bonds of love? illness and dying shared? The presence of the alien changing Earth for the better?

6. The popular ingredients for the story of the American family: the style of the American family, mother and her work and worry, the kids and their friends,, playing. talk, crude touches etc.? Boys and girls? Home, affluence, school and education, the absent father and his being off in Mexico with a girlfriend and the effect on each member of the family? The fairy story transforming the family? The basic plausibility for the plot? The development of each of the characters? The development of fear, the bonds with E.T., love, fun, the growing menace, the climax, death and resurrection?

7. The age-old ingredients of the plot? Of extra-terrestrials visiting Earth? Their knowledge, values, parallels with human beings? Knowing more than humans but needing to learn? The appeal to children rather than adults? Adults (as Mary) not understanding or (as the police and scientists) hunting? The alien identifying with the child and his experience? Sharing it, transforming it? The alien's search for home? The homecoming and departure? The fear, agony, death, rising, the quest, ascension after transforming and bringing love? The suggested patterns of the New Testament? Allusions to Mary as mother, being like little children, coming from another world, in constant communication with it, the ability to heal, to know what was inside human beings. hunted, dying, rising etc.? The suitability of considering E.T. as 'a Christ-figure'?

8. The nature of the Earth mission at the beginning, its being nonthreatening, the stars and the galaxies? E.T. being left behind? Wanting to phone home and return? The benign mission to rescue E.T.?

9. E.T's curiosity about the lights of Los Angeles, his delight, his anxiety as the cars and the searchlights turned on him, his hiding? His being caught and his fear - from the hunters, in the shed, with Elliott? Trying to decide what to do. Hiding, taking the sweets and meeting Elliott? Hunger? The fearful encounter - the ball thrown back, the sweets and E.T. coming into the house? The bond immediately between Elliott and E.T. (noting the E and the T in their names)? The importance of Elliott being fatherless and his immediately relating to E.T. (and E.T's father-figure role as well as companion)? E.T. being the child in Elliott?

10. The atmosphere of the family: the boys playing cards, ordering pizza, going to school, mother getting the kids ready, taking them in the car, the school scenes of Elliott (and his being drunk in sympathy with E.T.), the frog-dissection and the humour with the girls scared of the frogs, the liberating of the frogs? Elliott's friends and their slinging off? Michael as the older brother and the relationship with Elliott? His being introduced to E.T. and his shock, coping? Gertie and her directness? Her screaming at E.T. but befriending him and actually helping him to speak? The tensions in the family - Mary's upset about her separated husband, tact and tactlessness at the table etc.? The absence of the father and its repercussions for the children? The response to E.T.?

11. The film's focus on Elliott? Henry Thomas's sympathetic performance? Befriending E.T. after searching for him, hiding him? The devices of his sickness and temperature to deceive his mother? The facial imitations and gestures? The empathy between the two? His leaving E.T. at home - with his discovery of television, eating, drinking and being drunk? The initial animosity of the dog and then the friendliness with E.T.? The programmes on television - cartoons, the sequence from John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara and The Quiet Man (and the parallel with Elliott's treatment of the girl at school as E.T. watched the television)? Spielberg's love for television - its influence in the home, effect on people and their behaviour? The attachment between E.T. and Elliott? The quality of the bond? The discussion about where E.T. came from, the imps and the globe? Searching for the material to Hake the phone? E.T's looking at the Buck Rogers comic and deciding to make the phone call home? Keeping E.T. hidden from Mary?

12. The Halloween episode and the kids getting dressed up, Mary dressed up and photos? E.T. walking down the street - and the jokes of the disguises e.g. from The Empire Strikes Back and Yoda? The going out into the forest. the setting up of the phone and E.T. calling home? The background of the friends and their disbelief about E.T.?

13. Mary and her running the house, her sadness. her being deceived. getting Elliott from school when he was drunk and freeing the frogs, Halloween, getting the police in, Elliott's return home, her not believing about E.T.? The humour of E.T's being in the room learning from Gertie as Mary put goods in the refrigerator? Her change of attitude on discovering E.T.? The fears of losing Elliott in illness? At the end and his possibly going with E.T. to the planet?

14. The friends changing attitude, being outside the house. their bikes and the effectiveness of the bike chase, their skill in eluding the police. the police and their guns, boys and the simplicity of the bikes, their being taken into the sky as previously Elliott had? The symbol of the bikes silhouetted against the sun and the moon?

15. The film's emphasis on the detection and surveillance? The impersonal nature of the hunters? Their suits, masks, fear of radioactivity? Car searchlights? The torches? Their continued pursuit and the way this was edited in? The surveillance of the home? Listening to Michael and Elliott search for the parts for the phone? Their entering into the home? Their setting up the house and cocooning it - for a new birth? Their change in sympathy when audience saw their faces? The contrast with the focus of the midriff of the pursuers and the rattling of the keys? The humanity of the medical team? Their attempts to heal E.T.? The noise and the scientific fuss? The sympathetic pursuer - and his having the same dream as Elliott? The irony of his dream not being fulfilled whereas Elliott's was? His understanding at the end?

16. E.T's illness and audience sympathy? His being found in the drain? The change in the technological atmosphere? Elliott ill and pleading? The bond between the two and E.T. giving his life for Elliott to live? His death? Elliott's mourning him after he was buried in the coffin? Elliott's declaration of love and E.T's glow? The communication from home (the touch of his father from the heavens?)

17. The plan for E.T's escape, Michael (previously driving the car and now the ambulance van)? The elaborate chase? The men trying to get out of the tunnel? The bike-ride? The spacecraft? The presence of the boys, the family, the scientist? E.T's bequest to Gertie to be good, his promise to be always in the mind and heart of Elliott? Resurrection and ascension images? The sadness of Elliott? Yet his being able to let E.T. go home?

18. The sadness and happiness of the ending? The delight? The transforming of the family? Fairy-tale and fantasy? The age-old themes of fairy-tales in modern dress?