The opening scene depicts both the mysterious and curious nature of an extraterrestrial race visiting our world and ushers in the quiet and thoughtful behavioural impression the director has chosen to illustrate them within – they minimally interact with the environment in the initial Earth exploration scenes to maintain the ‘leave no trace’ peacefulness of their nature while still highlighting their intense curiosity about our planet. Our visitors’ appearance is also not fully revealed and we see under the darkness of night glowing hearts within their partially translucent bodies – immediately creating a human connection in the viewer through relativity to life and serene behaviour in the calm forest environment they’ve landed in.
The other character type introduction, the invading humans, are depicted as destructive unknowns both to the audience and the extraterrestrials. Their introduction to the story is depicted is as loud, destructive and dangerous in contrast to the extraterrestrial life – trucks crashing through the brush, wild flashlight movement and shouting figures hurrying towards their peaceful activities.
Before reading further – be advised there are spoilers below.
Following the intrusively illustrated human introduction, dogs are then dispatched to further create the sense of humans being dangerous through a comparison to hunting the new lifeforms – and we still haven’t seen any faces of the humans or identifying characteristics to relate to them with. This forces the audience to connect more with the humanistic qualities in the anthropomorphic design of the extraterrestrial bodies – especially in how they communicate and maintain visibility to each other through the audible and glowing heartthrob of their hearts – than to human characters. That connection to the extraterrestrial within the story of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) causes the immediate feelings of sympathy for the peril the one particular alien (E.T.) feels when he is separated from the others, having to hide from his human hunters while his companions begin to prepare for takeoff.
What was really interesting about this scene of the film was the use of parallel storytelling and editing to illustrate the contrasting character types that would be prevalent in the film and how they are brought into conflict – by reversing the typical narrative of traditional alien movies and having humans be illustrated as invaders and the extraterrestrials are in peril because of us.
The third connection to humanistic behaviour (the prior two being how the extraterrestrials are portrayed physically, and how they mimic emotional behaviour), and the most relatable to us as human beings, is the one that would solidify the humane nature of the extraterrestrials – through the maternal comparative of a parent calling for their child/children from the door of their spaceship (comically enough, in the door of a ‘mother’ ship – lol).
Unfortunately, the story of E.T. unfolds with the forced abandonment of a member of their race on Earth and this sets the story in motion.
The prevailing theme within the film’s introduction is hit home in these scenes as well – the introduction of heart and feeling illustrated in the extraterrestrial heart harmonics. Communications through the heart is a powerful way to show inner connectivity and compassion – and is believed that even though we know better medically, that our hearts are the source of compassion and feelings in humans. This theme later continues through the scenes where E.T. ‘connects’ to the film’s lead protagonist, Elliott (portrayed by Henry Thomas) when he lulls him to sleep after being led into the family’s home; in the school where Elliott manifests symptoms of E.T.’s emphatic nature and curious demeanour (in the refusal of dissecting the frog when you can ‘..clearly see the frog’s heart still beating..’; where E.T.’s reaction to television prompts a romantic reaction between Elliott and his female classmate through their new psychic bond; and finally in the discovery of E.T. starting to get sick and Elliott follows suit – clearly linking their health together – which is later rescinded by E.T. in his near death in order to save Elliott – nearly sacrificing himself to death in order to save the life of Elliott who is the sole factor in his still being alive – that theme being depicted is of course, love.
After the discovery of E.T. still being alive and a declaration by the extraterrestrial that he communicated with his spaceship through a ‘..phone home..’ and they were returning for E.T., there is a truck, bike, and car chase scene before the children (the prevailing characters and focus in the film) lose the adults in the woods and the extraterrestrials come back to the forest outside of town to collect their lost / forgotten extraterrestrial. At this point all of the extraterrestrial hearts are aglow continuously – likely for the purpose to establish proximity, communication, and connectivity – but E.T.’s is clearly brighter because of his beloved connection with Elliott.
With the toned-hearts aglow the message that was forecast through the film in the action of the extraterrestrials and the main storyline of trying to, and then being able to, return home is that ‘home is where the heart is..’
At the end of the day, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), is a heart warming film exploring 2 different vantage points of telling stories: from the perspective of the children in the film being the main story motivators and characters (on the human side), and from the perspective about aliens or extraterrestrials as other intelligent, curious and compassionate life under duress by humans – which I’m sure raised a lot of questions about human behaviour and views on life outside of Earth in wider audiences. Although the question remains on if humanity will be peaceful ambassadors to extraterrestrial if and when it’s discovered, or will be be invaders of life for our own purposes?
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) is a science-fiction fantasy film directed (and co-produced with Kathleen Kennedy) by Steven Spielberg from a screenplay written by Melissa Mathison.
★ ★ ★ ★ ½ ☆
Note:
This review was originally written as an academic paper in Q4 2016.