Well, something sure happened in 1066.
Yeah, but only for 20 minutes.
And I bet Ice Ts character was none too happy when his son shacked up with ET and wasn’t keeping it on the down low like you’re supposed to do in the hood.
Here’s out it turns out in this book (just figuring out spoilers):
In short, this alien species was a bit jerky, very arrogant, and did not think much of our lowly species. Rough treatment by teenagers probably did not help, but based on my reading did not probably change the outcome much. After protagonist rescued the alien (by alerting authorities, who were properly respectful), the aliens were honor bound to reward us, a position they did not like. They did so nastily by abducting the high school in question and dumping on a far away planet (thereby “gifting” us with a colony). The book ends here (supposed to be a series, but I have yet to see a second book); we are left to wonder what is wrong with the place that they don’t want to colonize it themselves.
It kind of has.
[gallic shrug] Ze French, zey like ze multiples . . .
I’m guessing the particular event you’re referring to is the Norman conquest.
Yes. the NORMAN (North Man) conquest. You know, where the Vikings that had taken over northern France decided to expand into England.
Where they fought against Northern Germans that had taken over South Eastern England.
After a couple of generations, the distinction is pretty much pedantic or trollish, depending on intent.
Let me see if I have the plot right.
A bunch of dudes in California decide that they want to try a real New York bagel. So they hop in the car and make the 3000 mile journey. While getting the bagel, they get spooked by some New Yorkers and hop back in the car, prepared to make the 3000 mile journey back to California.
'Round about Ohio, one of them gets a call, then says to his friends “Shit! We forgot Steve! Let’s go back and get him! How could we forget good old Steve?”
Ok, some hilarious posts here. I’d like to address a few points that have been bought up here and by some people I work with:
Elliot was just a kid! This isn’t supposed to be a movie about lost opportunities, but a children’s movie about akid and his stranded alien zzzzzzzz…
Bull. Elliot knew what he was doing was wrong, hence his hiding E.T. in his closet in the first place. And even if that could be excused, it doesn’t change the fact that if he’d have told any adult about E.T., we’d probably all have flying cars by now and be colonizing other planets.
Co-Worker: Well, the government wanted to dissect E.T.! Elliot saved him, so he’s a hero!
Me: Fine, if you can overlook the not-so minor details that 1. Elliot probably killed him in the first place by feeding him candy and beer 2.If the government knew about the other aliens coming back to pick E.T. up, they wouldn’t have dared dissect him in the first place. Hell, E.T. was basically a baby alien, and he built a communicator out of old crap from Elliot’s house. Plus he could heal and had telekinesis. The adult aliens could have probably vaporized our galaxy just by thinking about it. So Elliot basically saved E.T. from a fate that would have been his (Elliot’s) fault in the first place.
CW: Well, at least Elliot and E.T. formed a lifelong friendship.
Me: Yeah right. I’d be shocked if Elliot even remembered the incident by time he was 20. If he remembered it at all, he’d probably have convinced himself that he’d accidentally taken a few tabs of his brother’s acid by mistake, and locked his grandma in his bedroom closet for a few days. “Yeah it was little, smelly, wrinkled, discolored, and had bits that glowed red. Sounds like Gram.”
CW: Okay, well what could the government have actually charged Elliot with? “Failure to advance the human race” doesn’t appear on any legal statutes that I know of.
Me: Plenty. How about harboring an illegal alien - E.T. clearly wasn’t a U.S. Citizen, and didn’t have a passport or a visa. Aiding and abetting a fugitive and resisting arrest - this would also apply to all the other kids on the bikes in the escape scene at the end of the movie. Plus Elliot killed him - the docs pronounced him dead - so he could be charged with murder by neglect, whatever the specific charge for that is. Littering, for leaving candy all over the woods. And I’m pretty sure the communication device he helped E.T. set up violated all kinds of FCC rules. Underage drinking and public drunkenness - Elliot got drunk during class at school. He didn’t actually drink the beer mind you, but he still got drunk. ASPCA violations for the frog scene during said drunken rampage. Theft and destruction of government property - this would be the van that Elliot and his brother stole. Risking a catastrope, what if E.T. had some weird space disease that wiped out humanity or shriveled us up and did weird things to our necks? Add 2 attempted murder charges for releasing the tube from the van - what if there was a vehicle behind the van and it ran those two guys over? Sure he was a minor, but that’s a pretty long list of serious charges. Pretty sure the murder and attempted murder charges would get him tried as an adult, and he’d be locked up for life.
I agree with other posters that the alien ship looked kind of small to be traveling vast distances through space. Basically a sporty planet hopper dolled up to look like something it wasn’t. Nice lines though. So there was probably a much larger alien ship hovering around somewhere, and as some of the other posters have pointed out, the aliens in the ship were probably smuggling/poaching/looking for weed/doing something else unofficial or unauthorized. Doesn’t change the fact that they could have advanced our scientific knowledge tremendously if the government would have said “Hey we have your little buddy here. How about you spend a few days telling us how to jump through hyperspace and maybe a few other things, and you’ll get him back safely? It’ll be our little secret, we promise”.
Someone pointed out that the scientists did discover some stuff (thread is too long to preview fully), like that E.T. had DNA. Yeah, the fact that E.T. had DNA is nifty but it doesn’t get me any closer to a flying car.
Who would be a part of a “first contact team”/was a SWAT team appropriate (elsewhere in the thread)? First, I’m not sure it was a swat team. The ones who entered the house first seemed to be scientists in hazmat suits. The ones with guns/walkies seemed to be local cops, who almost definitely wouldn’t have been given anything except the vaguest info. Which would explain why they were a little hesitant to shoot/run over a bunch of kids. I would imagine IRL a first contact team would consist of a bunch of experts in different fields, astronomers, biologists, doctors, even military people to assess and contain the threat if things went pear-shaped.
Ro-Man beats Nor-Man!
The OP overlooks the fact that it’s thanks to Eliot we had a shot at capturing an alien spacecraft for reverse engineering. Think of him as a deep cover agent for humanity, Total Recall style. E.T. clearly had some telepathic abilities, and he’d never have made that call if he’d been suspicious. Eliot can hardly be blamed that the suits failed to get an anti-aircraft missile to the scene in time.
So Elliot gave us a shot, and we lost it because of him? How does that make a difference?
The government was on the scene as soon as the ship landed at the beginning of the movie. Presumably the aliens haste to get away from them was why they took off so fast and stranded E.T. in the first place. The government guys almost definitely would have captured E.T. within a day or so if Elliot hadn’t lured him in with candy, they were in full scale search mode. I assumed the only reason they didn’t break into Elliot’s house sooner was because they needed to get clearance (they were shown watching the house almost from the start). Once they’d found E.T. (before Elliot killed him) it would have been fairly easy for them to communicate with him and discover the existence of his ship.
The concept of “reverse engineering” is highly over-rated and exaggerated.
Drop a 2012 iPad into Ancient Rome or 1800’s America and the result is the same. Fuck all NOTHING. Drop it into the 1950’s, they could get a few clues from it, but it took decades of continuous improvements in engineering to build the damned thing in the first place, so zero chance they’d be turning them out in the 60’s.
Hey, my first thread to make the SD front page!
<basks in the warm glow of the front page>
mmmmmm 