E.T. The heartwarming story of how Elliot set human civilization back thousands of years

[Apocalypso]

Ok, we just finished watching E.T. on television. It is the first time I've seen it since I was twelve, and now I'm finding myself with a completely different perspective on the story.

Elliot and his siblings should have been thrown in jail for treason and crimes against humanity! If he'd have gone to the authorities as soon as he found E.T., the government would have been able to communicate with him and discover all kinds of amazing information that could have advanced our civilization by hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Instead, what does he do?

HE HIDES THE ALIEN IN HIS FREAKING CLOSET and doesn't tell anyone! Oh, except for some of his buddies at school. Amazing scientific discoveries, lost for all time! All because of one stupid little shit who decided the alien was "his", and took him home and fed him candy and beer (and the alien almost immediately dies).

THEN, at the end, when Elliot has a chance to redeem himself by telling the government "Hey, the alien is waking up, his people are coming to pick him up and this is where they're going to be" what does he do? He takes the alien and runs! They escape and our scientific horizons remain un-broadened! Not a shred of technology, not a single scientific discovery is left behind! No, the government is not the bad guys here. The bad guys are that little snot and his five criminal friends who impeded our advancement as a human race. I think Elliot and co should have been locked up for the rest of their lives. Heartwarming story my arse.

What say the dopers?

[Ethilrist]

Right, because when the government finally got in touch with E.T., they really handled the situation so much better.

Besides, five years, tops. They're minors.

[GuanoLad]

That's what kids do. I think that was the whole point of the film.

[Oakminster]

Nope. By showing E.T. kindness, Elliot saved the planet and should be lauded as a hero. Had he allowed the government to dissect the creature, Earth would have been destroyed to make room for an exit on the Intergalactic Expressway. By showing kindness, Elliot allowed E.T. to return home and arrange for Earth to be spared.

[Dewey Finn]

The government scientists did learn some stuff, just from the brief time they had access to E.T. I remember one of them calling out that he had DNA. Perhaps that was an artifact of the "link" between E.T. and Elliot, but if not, it's really big news.

[AndrewL]

Some blame also needs to be put on the astonishing incompetence of the aliens. On coming to Earth, they don't bother attempting to contact the incredibly obvious technological civilization covering much of the surface. Instead, they land in a random spot in the middle of nowhere, and then proceed to get out of the ship and wander around on the surface essentially naked. When the captain of the landing ship panics and leaves, he leaves a crew-member behind without even the alien equivalent of a cell phone to call for help. We're probably better off without communicating with them.

[BrainGlutton]

I recall a Gahan Wilson cartoon: Inside a spaceship, Earth showing through the porthole. An ET general is addressing an army of ETs in armored spacesuits: "Before the invasion begins, I'd like to congratulate Colonel Glanf here on an amazingly successful propaganda campaign."

[Snooooopy]

Our society wouldn't have been nearly sophisticated enough to handle such an exponential leap in technology. We would have just ended up building some kind of superweapon and blowing ourselves into teeny, tiny bits as fast as possible (unless the scientists dedicated to figuring out sexbot technology managed to outpace the superweapon scientists, in which case we would have all died of excessive orgasms). If anything, Elliott and his friends deserve a medal for saving us from ourselves.

[Bryan Ekers]

So, do you want the nice package, or the big gun?

[Alessan]

The aliens knew we were here. If they had wanted to contact Earth, they would have done so. There was absolutely nothing the government could have done either way.

[Alan Smithee]

Yeah, didn't the government folks prove themselves to be good guys in the end? They were only going to dissect ET after they thought he was dead, and they tried everything they could to revive him. I can understand Eliot's initial reluctance to tell anyone (being a dumb kid and all), but there was no reason for him to run off with ET once he came back to life.

Originally Posted by AndrewL

Some blame also needs to be put on the astonishing incompetence of the aliens. On coming to Earth, they don't bother attempting to contact the incredibly obvious technological civilization covering much of the surface. Instead, they land in a random spot in the middle of nowhere, and then proceed to get out of the ship and wander around on the surface essentially naked. When the captain of the landing ship panics and leaves, he leaves a crew-member behind without even the alien equivalent of a cell phone to call for help. We're probably better off without communicating with them.

You know, I never thought about it before, but the aliens were pretty incompetent, weren't they?And if ET had the technical know-how to send an intergalactic telephone signal with a Speak-N-Spell and a record player, why couldn't the aliens on the ship figure out a way to communicate with him or locate him?

[Incubus]

I always liked the gag they did on Robot Chicken, where ET turns out to have some alien version of Down's Syndrome and the rest of his species can speak our language fluently (and make all ten of their fingers glow). Basically he just wandered off on a field trip or something.

[terentii]

Originally Posted by AndrewL

Some blame also needs to be put on the astonishing incompetence of the aliens. On coming to Earth, they don't bother attempting to contact the incredibly obvious technological civilization covering much of the surface. Instead, they land in a random spot in the middle of nowhere, and then proceed to get out of the ship and wander around on the surface essentially naked.

They were botanists gathering plant specimens. I doubt if their orders included making contact with innately violent primates who still use fossil fuels as a source of energy.

[Kobal2]

Originally Posted by terentii

They were botanists gathering plant specimens. I doubt if their orders included making contact with innately violent primates who still use fossil fuels as a source of energy.

This looks like as good an opportunity as any to share this.

[Bryan Ekers]

Originally Posted by terentii

They were botanists gathering plant specimens. I doubt if their orders included making contact with innately violent primates who still use fossil fuels as a source of energy.

What's their take on digital watches?

[kanicbird]

The government needs to earn that level of trust, as to date they have not - so it would be immoral to hand ET over to the government, doing so would be like handing over a 'Jew' to the Nazis to be experimented on for medical research, sure there is a benefit, but the cost is way too high, would be wrong to do, and lead to the destruction of there nation in a karmic way.

[AndrewL]

Originally Posted by terentii

They were botanists gathering plant specimens. I doubt if their orders included making contact with innately violent primates who still use fossil fuels as a source of energy.

Perhaps not, but their orders should have at the very least included contingency plans for what to do if you happen to run into innately violent primates unexpectedly or become separated from the rest of the botany team.

[Ethilrist]

Originally Posted by AndrewL

Perhaps not, but their orders should have at the very least included contingency plans for what to do if you happen to run into innately violent primates unexpectedly or become separated from the rest of the botany team.

plans like... phone home?

[terentii]

Originally Posted by Ethilrist

plans like... phone home?

Oh, I agree. They should at least have been carrying communicators while on an away mission. I would think that'd be standard landing party procedure.

[Ashley Pomeroy]

I'm conflicted about this. When I saw the film as a kid I had the impression that the government agents wanted to do something bad to ET, and on a purely selfish level he seemed like a nice guy to hang around with, and it was sad when he had to go. He should stayed with us for ever and ever...

But on reflection this was unfair. The government chaps do try to help ET; perhaps they're distantly related to the government chaps from Close Encounters. But I get the impression that ET really didn't want to be found and captured, and probably wasn't interested in spending time explaining himself to the government men, not least because he seemed unable to cope with Earth's environment. The whole "scary government men" angle is a bit of a throwback to the 1970s, The Parallax View and Six Days of the Condor and so on. The Man Who Fell to Earth. In fact that's what I was thinking of; the government men in The Man Who Fell to Earth aren't so much malicious as callous and incompetent. Which is adults all over, basically. Adults are callous and incompetent because they don't have a sense of wonder, unlike children. Children would never torture small animals to death or say bad things. No, hang on, they would. But they would do it with a childlike sense of wonder, which makes things better.

Perhaps there were porn mags in that closet, dunno, and he enjoyed it in there. Maybe dad left behind his Playboy magazines when he left. And these would have been late-70s Playboy magazines, before Photoshop, back when the models had tonnes of pubic hair and you could sometimes see rude bits.

[Ethilrist]

Originally Posted by Ashley Pomeroy

Children would never torture small animals to death or say bad things. No, hang on, they would. But they would do it with a childlike sense of wonder, which makes things better.

I'm reminded of Sid, from Toy Story... "No-one has ever attempted a double bypass brain transplant before..."

[Equipoise]

Originally Posted by Bryan Ekers

What's their take on digital watches?

That they're a pretty good idea.

[AtomicDog]

Why is there the assumption that a hypothetical government first contact team would not be aware of the genre in science fiction, and know how to treat an alien visitor with respect?

[levdrakon]

Hijack sorry, but who would head up a first contact scenario in real life? What field, or fields of expertise would best qualify someone to handle the discovery of an intelligent alien being taking refuge in someone's home, not able to communicate that well, and possibly injured?

I hope our first response wouldn't be to send in SWAT to establish positive control of the situation, or whatever they call macing and shooting everything in sight.

[Ethilrist]

Originally Posted by levdrakon

Hijack sorry, but who would head up a first contact scenario in real life? What field, or fields of expertise would best qualify someone to handle the discovery of an intelligent alien being taking refuge in someone's home, not able to communicate that well, and possibly injured?

I hope our first response wouldn't be to send in SWAT to establish positive control of the situation, or whatever they call macing and shooting everything in sight.

Well, in Close Encounters, it was a linguist and an organist. The aliens, however, chose an out-of-work lineman and a single mom.

[Bryan Ekers]

Originally Posted by levdrakon

I hope our first response wouldn't be to send in SWAT to establish positive control of the situation, or whatever they call macing and shooting everything in sight.

The LAPD calls that "Wednesday."

[billfish678]

Originally Posted by Dewey Finn

The government scientists did learn some stuff, just from the brief time they had access to E.T. I remember one of them calling out that he had DNA. Perhaps that was an artifact of the "link" between E.T. and Elliot, but if not, it's really big news.

And thats when ET got sucked into a really bad SVU plot. Poor little bastard.

[terentii]

Originally Posted by levdrakon

I hope our first response wouldn't be to send in SWAT to establish positive control of the situation, or whatever they call macing and shooting everything in sight.

In The Day the Earth Stood Still, they called out the entire freakin' US Army! Not only that, they pretty much shot Klaatu on sight!

[Boyo Jim]

Originally Posted by Ethilrist

Well, in Close Encounters, it was a linguist and an organist. The aliens, however, chose an out-of-work lineman and a single mom.

He wasn't out of work until after the aliens chose him.

But the humans chose a French guy. They must have been preparing for an immediate surrender.

[Dewey Finn]

And the aliens didn't actually pick the single mom, but her toddler son. (The single mom was only called to come to Devil's Tower to pick up her son. And I think that's the reason the others who were in that helicopter were called there as well; they had relatives who were returning from the mothership.)

[Bozuit]

Originally Posted by Boyo Jim

He wasn't out of work until after the aliens chose him.

But the humans chose a French guy. They must have been preparing for an immediate surrender.

Seems better than the "napalm first, ask questions later" attitude the locals would have, right?

Moronic stereotypes FTW.

[Lochdale]

ET was probably crawling with bacteria. Maybe the humans on the Earth of ET are wiped out by some alien disease.

[Boyo Jim]

Originally Posted by Bozuit

Seems better than the "napalm first, ask questions later" attitude the locals would have, right?
...

I love the smell of napalm in the morning!

[Uosdwis R. Dewoh]

Originally Posted by Boyo Jim

I love the smell of napalm in the morning!

The French don't know what it smells like.

[AndrewL]

Originally Posted by Ethilrist

plans like... phone home?

Planning for that would have then implied having ET carry some sort of alien satellite-phone with him, rather than having to build one out of found materials. That botany expedition was terribly ill-prepared.

Thinking about it, the actions of the aliens in ET isn't really consistent with them being a scientific expedition either. They landed at night in the middle of nowhere, and ran at the first sign of anyone spotting them. These are the actions of people who are not professionals, don't have great resources, and don't want to be discovered. Criminals, and incompetent criminals at that.

I'm thinking that these were actually poachers or smugglers. Perhaps Earth has been set aside as some kind of alien wildlife preserve, and these aliens were sneaking in with a secondhand spaceship to try and steal some prime earth weed from the reserved land. They were so terrified of being caught by the authorities that they fled when spotted, and were fully willing to leave their friend behind to die until he managed to radio them and tell them he was still alive. It's likely that the only reason they came back was to prevent him from spilling the beans on the entire operation should the actual alien authorities come along and pick him up.

Had Elliot turned him over to the authorities, it might have led to formal contact with the actual aliens in charge, as human and alien law enforcement worked together to put a group of alien poachers away. Instead, Elliot is now complicit in their criminal activities. Nice going, kid.

[billfish678]

Damn, AndrewL, that story fits what happens much better the popular version of the plot

[Johnny Q]

Originally Posted by Lochdale

ET was probably crawling with bacteria. Maybe the humans on the Earth of ET are wiped out by some alien disease.

Contracted from his dirty "telephone"?

[levdrakon]

Originally Posted by AndrewL

Criminals, and incompetent criminals at that

I'd love to see this movie get made.

[Eonwe]

The story turns out all right for E.T. himself (itself?), and that's kind of the point, I think. And, not that the authorities are "bad," but that often authority and expertise are not always better at handling a situation than kindness, sincerity, and openness.

[DSeid]

Alright. Let's ignore the story as being about relationships and childhood innocence and adults who while still full of wonder still don't quite get that kid's eye view, using ET as the prop, and play it as a first contact sci-fi ...

Agreed that the ET ship was no official vessel. This was a group out where they should not have been. Maybe political fugitives or refugees or, my personal take, extraterrestrial hippies harvesting some exotic botanicals that have some particularly potent psychoactive properties for their species ... that earth stuff is good shit man. Doubt serious bad ass criminals.

Ship gone. All the kid could turn in was the ET itself. ET will get sick on earth left here no matter what. (Elliot did not cause him to get sick I do not think.)

Scenario 1) As played out. Small knowledge gained from samples taken debriefings. The ET group returns to under their planet or whatever's radar. No harm done. Perhaps spreading the word of a nice sentient group on this earth amongst the ET alternative subculture which percolates into the mainstream averting some clearing out of earth for the supergalactic superhighway to come. Sort of a save the cute and harmless endangered humans campaign. Extraterrestrial hippies are still into that karma thing too. If nothing else a benign first contact and we all have seen movies with first contact far from benign, so most must actually go down like that.

Sceanrio 2) ET turned in. Dies. No call ever made. Little additional information gained. Nice to be able to study the anatomy and DNA, but we are not talking technology. If his group runs and hides and is never caught then no harm either. But ...

Scenario 3) If that group gets caught then the extraterrestrial authorities may want to investigate the circumstances under which one of theirs died. Presumptively a species with far superior technology than ours. Who may come to a faulty conclusion that some vivisection was involved and want to make an example of a planet that would do that to one of theirs, even a hippy or a political refugee. Ooops.


I'll take the benign outcome rather than bet on what's behind door number 3.

[DSeid]

I can also imagine the ET ship as an extraterrestrial Firefly. Oh okay we'll go back for you, the whore on board insists.

[Chronos]

Quoth Johnny Q:

Contracted from his dirty "telephone"?

Nah, can't be. We Earthlings are really good at sanitizing telephones.

Personally, I've thought for a while that ET is a Christ metaphor. He comes from the heavens, with peaceful intent and amazing powers, but the evil government is after him right from his birth. He bonds with humanity (represented by Eliot), performs some miracles, dies to save us, then comes back to life and goes back up into Heaven.

[terentii]

Originally Posted by Chronos

Nah, can't be. We Earthlings are really good at sanitizing telephones.

Personally, I've thought for a while that ET is a Christ metaphor. He comes from the heavens, with peaceful intent and amazing powers, but the evil government is after him right from his birth. He bonds with humanity (represented by Eliot), performs some miracles, dies to save us, then comes back to life and goes back up into Heaven.

Not only that, he dies at 3:30 in the afternoon....

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by AtomicDog

Why is there the assumption that a hypothetical government first contact team would not be aware of the genre in science fiction, and know how to treat an alien visitor with respect?

IRL, the Air Force probably has a team in charge of handling a First Contact if and when, and they probably do read SF, but they also probably have very clear orders and indoctrination to treat any ET presence as hostile until proven friendly. Isn't that the only sensible way to prepare, after all?

[Satchmo]

Originally Posted by Bryan Ekers

So, do you want the nice package, or the big gun?

What can we get for TWO glasses of water?

[Chimera]

I'm pretty certain there is no 'set back' thousands of years. No one is going back to building Pyramids or living in mud huts because ET got away.

Although as DSeid suggested, the survivors might have ended up doing as much if his people got wind that we dissected one of theirs.

[Max Torque]

Any knowledge we gained from E.T. would have just enabled us to build bigger and bigger walkie-talkies, until someday we build a walkie-talkie so big it will destroy us all!

(Yeah, I know he finally realized he made a mistake and is putting the guns back in.....)

[billfish678]

Originally Posted by BrainGlutton

IRL, the Air Force probably has a team in charge of handling a First Contact if and when, and they probably do read SF, but they also probably have very clear orders and indoctrination to treat any ET presence as hostile until proven friendly. Isn't that the only sensible way to prepare, after all?

[Quercus]

Originally Posted by Boyo Jim

But the humans chose a French guy. They must have been preparing for an immediate surrender.

Or, you know, maybe conquering nearly all of Europe multiple times (and England once), and being the dominant cultural force on the continent for at least three times as long as the United States has existed...

[Death of Rats]

Originally Posted by billfish678

And thats when ET got sucked into a really bad SVU plot. Poor little bastard.

Well, it did end up closing an number of anal probing cases.