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At the Movies
with Mark Moorehead

Film:  E.T. 20th Anniversary Edition

Cast: Henry Thomas, Drew Barrymore, Robert Macnaughton

Rated: PG

Director: Steven Spielberg

Now Playing: Harkins Chandler Fashion 20, Harkins Arizona Mills, Centerpoint 11

Viewability Quotient: **** (Good)

 

After a 20-year absence, E.T., the Extra Terrestrial, is back and in fine form. Children eight to 12 may like it. Children three to seven will love it. Teens will pass on the movie altogether, and, if they’re not careful, parents or grandparents with young children probably will overanalyze it.

However, Steven Spielberg realized there’s a new generation of wee ones out there who have never seen E.T. and have no expectations.

His timing couldn’t be better. Scan any theater marquis and you’ll notice few children’s movies are now playing. E.T. has arrived just in time to fill a vacuum and light up the big screen with a wide-eyed, friendly alien wanting to phone home.

Most adults remember seeing the original E.T. and are burdened by this knowledge. It’s been 20 years since E.T. was first released and it shows. You can’t help but notice the dated slang, shaggy hairstyles and fashion trends from 1982. Men’s ties were wide enough to double as lobster bibs and headphones looked like ear protection at a gunnery range.

Let’s face it: few movies hold up well over time with the exception of children’s movies. Why? Because children’s movies are for children, not adults, and young children don’t give a hoot about special effects or yesterday’s fashions.

Instead, they prefer a good story, a funny looking character and a little slapstick. Proof: the two six-year-old boys I took to see this movie were laughing out loud at the scene of E.T. helping himself to the contents of the family refrigerator but were unimpressed with E.T.’s high tech spaceship.

Another added adult burden is our level of expectation after listening to the PR machine for the studio advertise the addition of previously deleted scenes and the use of special effects enhancements in this 20^th Anniversary Edition.

Yes, previously deleted scenes are there and so are the special effects enhancements. But, most of what has been added is subtle and, according to Speilberg, was deliberately subtle.

He didn’t want to change the movie; he simply wanted to make it fresh and alive. For example, early in the original movie when E.T. is running away from his pursuer in the woods he looked like a stiff doll being pulled on a stick.

In the new release the three-foot E.T. with a duck like waddle runs more naturally and there’s a wind wafting through the forest trees.

Other subtle changes in the movie include the replacement of the policeman’s guns with walkie-talkies and, during Elliot’s first bicycle flight with E.T., the cape of his Halloween costume moves with the wind, whereas in the original it was stationary.

Three additions that were not in the original film include the bathtub scene when E.T. decides to go for a dip, a scene where E.T. exposes and displays his very elongated neck to Elliot and the the one in which Mary, (Elliot’s mother, played by Dee Wallace Stone) searches for Elliot on Halloween night.

Unless you’re really paying attention you’ll probably not notice the changes and enhancements, and that’s fine.

But you may be surprised to learn that two of the child players in E.T. have gone on to respectable stars as adults.

Drew Barrymore recently starred in Riding in Cars with Boys and Charlie’s Angels; before that she starred in The Wedding Singer, Scream and Batman Forever.

Also, Henry Thomas will soon be seen in Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York. He previously starred in All the Pretty Horses and Legends of the Fall. 

One disappointment I had with this revised edition of E.T. is the PG rating. There is some off-color language in the movie that easily could have been edited out and the film rated G.

It seems that Spielberg was concerned more about policemen carrying guns in E.T. than he was about bad language. Kids are less likely to pick up a gun after seeing a policeman in a movie carrying a gun. But they are very likely to pick up colorful language faster than a speeding bullet. At least these slips of the tongue are infrequent during the movie.

Transcending the minor shortcomings of the 20^th anniversary edition of E.T. is the endearing story about a lonely young boy and his special friendship with his wise and caring visitor from another planet who wants desperately to go home.

And, as I watched the reactions of my own two little visitors to this film with their wide eyes glued to the screen, I knew E.T. still carries the magic to capture the attention and imagination of children in 2002.

Pecan Grove resident Mark Moorehead writes regularly for Wrangler News.

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