|
BY DANIEL BAIG | I'm
assuming you've seen E.T.
If you haven't, you may be left a little lost by this "review." I'm certainly
not about to recap the movie's plot. Instead, this will be more like a series
of observations that came to me upon seeing this "NEW and IMPROVED!" E.T.
First: This was at least the fourth time I'd seen this movie. And I still
cried. Profusely.
Second: While for the first time I watched it as a critic, and thus with
a deliberately critical eye, and thus for the first time found a number
of things to criticize, that still didn't manage to change my belief that
this is unquestionably a great movie, and certainly the best thing
despite the terrific Jaws, the profoundly moving Close Encounters
Of The Third Kind, the first and the third Indiana Jones films (probably
the greatest adventure movies ever made), and the flawed brilliance of
A.I. Stephen Spielberg has ever done.
And there's one big reason for that (along with probably lots of little
ones): Melissa Mathison's screenplay.
Sadly, the way modern movie culture has evolved, the director, and pretty
much the director exclusively, is identified with a movie. Everyone knows
directors' names; try coming up with names of non-directing screenwriters.
It's stupid, though. Try to direct a movie without a story, characters,
or dialogue. It's a little tough.
It seems obvious to me that the screenwriter is equally, if not more,
important than the director when it comes to a movie's success: no matter
how good a director is, s/he can't make a bad script into a good movie.
But even a bad director can manage to make a decent movie with a good
script.
And with E.T., clearly Spielberg had a perfect marriage of sensibilities
with Mathison. (Watch her previous movie, The Black Stallion, for
some real parallels to E.T.)
Spielberg made the movie beautiful.
But it was Mathison who totally subverted all those alien invader movies
which had come before. Instead of aliens taking over humans' bodies,
she had the brilliant idea to have E.T. and Elliott become psychically
linked.
All that great dialogue is hers. E.T. phone home. I'm keeping
him. Penis breath. Ou-ouch. Be good. I'll be right here.
The totally real way the kids react to E.T., and in effect turn him into
a pet, is so because she wrote it that way.
What makes you cry is a combination of her story and words, Spielberg's
empathetic direction, and Henry Thomas' incredible performance.
Which brings me to my next set of observations:
It's been said many times before, but the kids' acting is just terrific
in E.T. Seeing it again I was awed by Thomas, moved by Robert McNaughton
as his brother, and, of course, totally charmed by Drew Barrymore all
over again. And she's not only cute, of course. She's very, very good.
(Although there is the tiniest hint that she knows how cute she
is, and is playing it up.)
(A good way to see how good Thomas was is to compare his real crying
scenes with the scene where Elliott fakes crying to fool the scientists.)
But there's one more great performance, which is often overlooked, and
that's Dee Wallace Stone as the mom. In many ways, she's the anchor that
holds the whole thing together. If she wasn't as believable as she is,
it would be infinitely harder to accept and believe the kids and the way
they are. Plus, seeing the obvious great love and concern she has for
Elliott means that, though we feel terribly sorry for him when he has
to say goodbye to E.T., we're not depressed, because we know he'll still
remain in a place where he's surrounded by love.
And, she gives a warm face to the world of adults, otherwise only seen
as a cold, uncaring science teacher, creepy astronaut guys, and the weird,
ambiguous Keys.
Other thoughts and observations:
John Williams' music has quite a bit to do with how powerfully affected
we are by E.T. When Elliott and E.T. go flying up into the sky,
and then again when they pass the moon, that grand, swelling swoop
up of that theme is part of what gets you. Can you even try to think of
the image without hearing that music?
***
Light is so important in this movie. In the beginning sequences,
especially, Elliott is constantly haloed by light, as he looks out of
the house, etc.
Credit director of photography Allen Daviau.
***
One of the things that makes E.T. so different, especially looking
back at it now after two decades of bright, good-looking, oh-so-witty
and smarter-than-their-parents, and oh-so-very-very cool kid protagonists
of movies and TV shows, is the fact that these kids in this movie aren't
cool, by any stretch of the imagination.
The beginning of the movie finds them playing D&D, for god's
sake; how much geekier can you get?
Older brother Michael isn't portrayed at 14 as being a junior
stud, or even thinking yet about dating girls.
And none of these kids dress cool, either. I mean, just look at how ridiculous-looking
Michael's friends who come to the rescue are. That hat!
***
E.T., like so many visitors before and since looking down on it from
a mountainside, has his breath taken away by the vast plain of light that
is Los Angeles.
***
I had totally forgotten how scary Spielberg makes the movie seem at the
very beginning, during the credits; the music is horror movie music.
I had also totally forgotten (unless it was changed for this new
edition, and that's why it didn't seem familiar) that the opening title
credit E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial is in PINKISH-PURPLE!
***
One thing that's sad to reflect on now, 20 years later, is how our society
has changed in a certain respect: in E.T., the kids (all
the kids in the neighborhood) are allowed to go trick-or-treating on their
own, unaccompanied, after dark. There's no fear for their safety in doing
so. It's not really a sight you'll see nowadays.
***
If you really think about it, there's a huge, gaping flaw at the heart
of E.T.'s storyline. And that's: the movie is about E.T. phoning
home, to tell his friends to come back and retrieve him. In other words,
somehow they weren't aware he was still on Earth.
What, they didn't notice him missing onboard once they took off? It wasn't
that big a ship. You'd think an absent crew member would be the kind of
thing they'd manage to figure out before they got very far:
"Okay, roll call! XoaGq[o?"
"Here!"
"HuahaAhp!'h?"
"Here!"
"Mary?"
"Here!"
"E.T.? E.T.? Oh my god, we forgot E.T.!"
In other words, this was the intergalactic version of Home Alone.
"New And Improved":
For the most part, the stuff done to the movie for this rerelease is
invisible, which it's supposed to be. Mostly it was little touch-ups,
done digitally. So E.T. walks better in some scenes, especially when he's
in the distance. The spaceship looks great, a little shinier perhaps than
before.
And all that is fine.
As far as extra stuff well, two scenes were added back in. One
is very, very short, and it's just Elliott's mom out looking for him on
Halloween. It's one more demonstration that she's really a good, concerned
mother, and it also provides Drew with one more opportunity to be winningly
cute.
The longer scene is of Elliott and E.T. hanging out in his bathroom,
shortly after E.T.'s moved in. Elliott weighs his new friend, and there's
a very funny gag about their heights. And E.T. takes a bath. But, when
we look down from overhead at E.T. lying under the water on his back,
for the first time ever (at least to me), he looked like an inanimate
prop. It was off-putting.
Then E.T. plays around with a tube of toothpaste. And here there's some
very obvious new CGI work, for E.T.'s fingers, and the toothpaste
squirting out of the tube. The fact that it's so obvious is a good indication
at how poor it is. I was honestly surprised Spielberg was satisfied enough
with how it looks to release it like this.
A thought that the bathroom brought to mind: E.T. appears to function
physically much as we do: he gets hungry, he eats, he burps, he gets sleepy,
he even gets drunk. So, considering how much he eats, you'd think he'd
also have occasionally to . . . . Well maybe his species is more efficient
than ours, and their bodies can utilize everything from food, and
don't produce waste . . .
The two big actual changes to the movie you've probably already
heard about. One is that in the climactic chase sequence, when the feds
are chasing Elliott and Michael and E.T., they had guns in their hands.
Those guns have now, thanks to the miracle of CGI, become walkie-talkies.
Well, it wouldn't be such a big deal, except for two big problems:
One, it looks weird. Every single government agent is tightly
gripping a walkie-talkie, and holding it out in front of him, as they
race up to the stolen van and pull open its doors, etc. It looks silly,
and unnatural. Why would they all be clinging to walkie-talkies like that?
What do they need them for, anyway? They're all within a foot of each
other.
Secondly, and far more importantly:
Dee Wallace Stone is shown in this scene as being absolutely terrified.
She's screaming, pleading, begging the agents not to hurt her sons. Her
fear and distress now make zero sense. She had no reason to fear them
before, nor would she now, unless they were aiming guns at her kids.
So the change doesn't work, at all.
The second change also, frankly, doesn't work at all.
In the original, Dee Wallace Stone is emphatic that Michael not
go out dressed for Halloween as "a terrorist." Her strong objection, of
course, is natural, and in 1982 Michael's choice of a terrorist costume
would not be all that uncommon.
The movie is still set in 1982. Spielberg doesn't seem to give his audience
today any credit whatsoever for intelligence.
It's not like by any stretch of imagination the movie is condoning
terrorism! Mom is really upset with Michael's choice.
But, the word has been changed to "hippie." Idiotic choice.
Why? Two reasons:
Why does Mom now object so vociferously to Michael going as a hippie?
There's nothing terribly objectionable about it. Nothing about her character
would indicate she'd have any problems with the concept. She herself wears
a hot leopard catsuit! Her problem was with the violent nature of a terrorist.
A hippie would be absolutely fine by her.
And, second, and more obvious:
Michael isn't dressed anything LIKE a hippie! Since when did hippies
have short hair, camouflage, and wear bowler hats with knives stuck through
them?? It's an absurd description of his costume!
Ironically, the word in Mathison's original script was actually
"commando." Well, why didn't they use that one this time around.
Stone's character's objections make a lot more sense vis a vis "commando"
than they do "hippie."
A few piddling complaints about minor things which in no way detract
from the overall power of the film:
There's way, way, WAY too much key-jangling from Peter Coyote's
character (known in the credits as, uh, Keys). It seems as if Spielberg
intends for the keys to be an ominous thing, a little Hitchcockian note,
until near the end when we discover Keys' benign nature. There are numerous
closeups of THE KEYS on Coyote's waist, etc., and with this new digital
sound mix frequently their jangling is practically thundering in our ears.
The thing is, though, keys aren't exactly scary. Oh my god . . . he's
the JANITOR!!!! AAAAAAHHHHH . . . .
(Please don't bother with the letters: "When you make your own $750
million grossing movie, you can leave out all the key-jangling you want."
Yes, I know.)
The doctors in the "E.T. and Elliott in the 'E.R.' scene" are saddled
with absolutely inane dialogue. It would have been better if somehow their
voices were muffled or distorted, along the lines of the adults in Charlie
Brown specials (though not as comical, of course). First, they have about
a minute straight of absolute pseudo-scientific-medical gobbledygook.
And then they can't make up their minds whether or not E.T. is like us
or not: one minute, they're discussing his pulse, and his vital signs,
and his E.K.G., and his blood pressure . . . in other words, they don't
seem to have found him all that different from us in terms of basic functions.
But then, moments later, one of them bursts into the room in a fever pitch
of excitement, shouting, "He's got DNA! He's got DNA! (repeat)." Uh .
. . why is that surprising?
Maybe I've just become too cynical, but this time around I found the
little rainbow smear E.T.'s ship makes when it blasts away a little much.
For one thing, SFX-wise, compared with everything else (in this new, super-duper
version), it looks kinda cheap and, well, a tad lame.
A picayune question or two:
Where in Los Angeles do homes border cornfields? And, for that matter,
Where in Los Angeles do homes back up to REDWOOD FORESTS?? (Answer: nowhere.)
(Real answer: Who cares?)
Last comment/question: WHY IS EVERYONE SO SURE E.T. IS A BOY? Maybe "he's"
a girl! (For that matter, quite possibly where he comes from, there is
no male and female.) Elliott says he's a boy, and everyone accepts
that. But it would be natural for Elliott to want "him" to be a boy. That
doesn't mean "he" is.
The actual reason I thought of this is because in the production notes
Spielberg refers to E.T. as "he," indicating he's sure, too. But why?
If you think about it, the only time we see E.T. in clothes, "he's" wearing
a dress . . .
Grades:
for the sfx enhancements: B+
for the two changes (walkie-talkies, hippie): D
for the movie, either version: A/A+
|
