E.T. El Extraterrestre *1982*
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (or simply E.T.) is a 1982 American science fiction film produced and directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Melissa Mathison. It tells the story of Elliott, a boy who befriends an extraterrestrial, dubbed E.T., who is left behind on Earth. Along with his friends and family, Elliott must find a way to help E.T. find his way home. The film stars Dee Wallace, Henry Thomas, Peter Coyote, Robert MacNaughton and Drew Barrymore.
E.T. el extraterrestre *1982*
E.T. premiered as the closing film of the Cannes Film Festival on May 26, 1982, and was released in the United States on June 11, 1982. The film was an immediate blockbuster, surpassing Star Wars to become the highest-grossing film of all time, a record it held for eleven years until Spielberg's own Jurassic Park surpassed it in 1993. E.T. was widely acclaimed by critics, and is regarded as one of the greatest films of all time. It received nine nominations at the 55th Academy Awards, winning Best Original Score, Best Visual Effects, Best Sound, and Best Sound Editing, and also won five Saturn Awards and two Golden Globe Awards. The film was re-released in 1985 and again in 2002 to celebrate its 20th anniversary, with altered shots, visual effects, and additional scenes. It was also re-released in IMAX on August 12, 2022, to celebrate its 40th anniversary. In 1994, the film was added to the United States National Film Registry of the Library of Congress, who deemed it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
In early summer 1981, while Raiders of the Lost Ark was being promoted, Columbia Pictures met with Spielberg to discuss the script, after having to develop Night Skies with the director as the intended sequel to Close Encounters of the Third Kind. However, Marvin Atonowsky, the head of Columbia Pictures' marketing and research development, concluded that it had a limited commercial potential, believing that it would appeal to mostly young children.[13] John Veitch, president of the studio's worldwide productions, also felt that the script was not good or scary enough to draw enough crowd. On the advice of Atonowsky and Veitch, Columbia CEO Frank Price passed on the project, thus putting it in a turnaround, and Spielberg approached the more receptive Sid Sheinberg, president of MCA, then the parent of Universal Studios.[14][13] Spielberg told Sheinberg to acquire the E.T. script from Columbia Pictures, which he did for $1 million and struck a deal with Price in which Columbia would retain 5% of the film's net profits. Veitch later recalled that "I think [in 1982] we made more on that picture than we did on any of our films."[13]
Spielberg's regular collaborator John Williams, who composed the film's musical score, described the challenge of creating one that would generate sympathy for such an odd-looking creature. As with their previous collaborations, Spielberg liked every theme Williams composed and had it included. Spielberg loved the music for the final chase so much that he edited the sequence to suit it.[40] Williams took a modernist approach, especially with his use of polytonality, which refers to the sound of two different keys played simultaneously. The Lydian mode can also be used in a polytonal way. Williams combined polytonality and the Lydian mode to express a mystic, dreamlike and heroic quality. His theme, emphasizing coloristic instruments such as the harp, piano, celesta, and other keyboards, as well as percussion, suggests E.T.'s childlike nature and his "machine".[41] The soundtrack album was first released on June 11, 1982, the same day as the film.[42] An audiobook companion album featuring Williams' score, produced by Quincy Jones and narrated by Michael Jackson, was released on November 15, 1982, the same month as Jackson's acclaimed sixth studio album Thriller.[43]
E.T. was previewed in Houston, Texas, where it received high marks from viewers.[10] The film premiered at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival's closing gala on May 26, 1982,[69][70] and was released in the United States on June 11, 1982. It opened at number one at the US box office with a gross of $11 million, and stayed at the top of the box office for six weeks; it then fluctuated between the first and second positions until October, before returning to the top spot for the final time in December during a brief holiday season re-release.[71] In its second weekend, it recorded the highest-grossing second weekend of all time, surpassing the record of $10,765,687 set by Superman II in 1981.[72] In its fourth weekend, it recorded the highest-grossing weekend of all time, surpassing the record of $16,706,592 set earlier that year by Rocky III.[73] It had a record eight weekends with a gross of over $10 million, a feat not matched until Home Alone (1990),[74] and set a modern era record for being at number one for 16 weeks in total.[75]
The film began its international rollout in Australia on November 26, 1982, and grossed $839,992 in its first 10 days from nine theatres, setting five weekly house records and 43 daily records. In South Africa, it opened in late November and grossed $724,340 in eight days from 14 screens, setting 13 weekly highs. In France, it opened on December 1, and had 930,000 admission in its first five days on 250 screens, setting an all-time record in Paris for most daily admissions (Saturday, December 4). In Japan, it opened on December 4, and grossed $1,757,527 in two days from 35 theatres in 11 cities, setting 10 house records on Saturday and 14 on Sunday. In the United Kingdom, it opened on December 9 after a charity performance in London and grossed a record 1 million in its opening weekend.[76] The film added another 138 screens in Japan on December 11, with advance sales of 1.3 million tickets.[77]
The film was also a merchandising success, with dolls selling 15 million units by September 1982 and becoming the best-selling toy that Christmas season.[84] E.T. went on to generate over $1 billion in merchandise sales by 1998.[85] Following the success of the film, Kuwahara, the company that created the BMX bikes featured in the film, began producing red and white "E.T." models in three price and quality levels.[86] Kuwahara reissued the E.T. model in 2002, as part of the film's 20th anniversary, and again in 2022 as part of the film's 40th anniversary.[87]
The film holds a 99% "Certified Fresh" approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 136 reviews, and an average rating of 9.3/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Playing as both an exciting sci-fi adventure and a remarkable portrait of childhood, Steven Spielberg's touching tale of a homesick alien remains a piece of movie magic for young and old."[110] On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 91/100 based on 30 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".[111] In addition to the film's wide acclaim, President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan were moved by it after a screening at the White House on June 27, 1982.[82] Princess Diana was in tears after watching it.[11] On September 17, 1982, it was screened at the United Nations, and Spielberg received a UN Peace Medal.[112] CinemaScore reported that audiences polled during the opening weekend gave the film a rare "A+" grade, the first known film to earn that grade.[113]
An extended version of the film, dubbed the "Special Edition" (currently out of circulation), including altered dialogue and visual effects, premiered at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles on March 16, 2002; it was released on home media six days later. Certain shots of E.T. had bothered Spielberg since 1982, as he did not have enough time to perfect the animatronics. Computer-generated imagery (CGI), provided by Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), was used to modify several shots, including ones of E.T. running in the opening sequence and being spotted in the cornfield. The spaceship's design was also altered to include more lights. The first flying sequence where Elliott and E.T. fly on their bicycle through the forest now had the cape of Elliott's Halloween costume flap in the wind as it appeared to have originally been intended to be, a change done to have the sequence, particularly the iconic shot of them flying past the moon, match the film's poster and the logo of Spielberg's production company Amblin Entertainment. Scenes shot for but not included in the original version were introduced. These included E.T. taking a bath and Gertie telling Mary that Elliott went to the forest on Halloween. Mary's dialogue, during the offscreen argument with Michael about his Halloween costume, was altered to replace the word "terrorist" with "hippie". Spielberg did not add the scene featuring Harrison Ford, feeling that would reshape the film too drastically. He became more sensitive about the scene where gun-wielding federal agents confront Elliott and his escaping friends and had them digitally replaced with walkie-talkies.[11]
[In the future,] ... There's going to be no more digital enhancements or digital additions to anything based on any film I direct. ... When people ask me which E.T. they should look at, I always tell them to look at the original 1982 E.T. If you notice, when we did put out E.T. we put out two E.T.s. We put out the digitally enhanced version with the additional scenes and for no extra money, in the same package, we put out the original '82 version. I always tell people to go back to the '82 version.[160]
Atari, Inc. produced a video game based on the film for the Atari 2600 and hired Howard Scott Warshaw to program the game. The game was rushed in five weeks to release within the 1982 holiday season.[161] Released in Christmas 1982, the game was critically panned, with nearly every aspect of the game facing heavy criticism. It has since been considered to be one of the worst video games ever made.[162] It was also a commercial failure. It has been cited as a major contributing factor to the video game industry crash of 1983, and has been frequently referenced and mocked in popular culture as a cautionary tale about the dangers of rushed game development and studio interference. In what was initially deemed an urban legend, reports from 1983 stated that as a result of overproduction and returns, millions of unsold cartridges were secretly buried in an Alamogordo, New Mexico landfill and covered with a layer of concrete. In April 2014, diggers hired to investigate the claim confirmed that the Alamogordo landfill contained many E.T. cartridges, among other games.[163][164][165] 041b061a72