Did anyone actually consider E.T. to be a good movie?
I recently watched E.T. for the first time in 20 years or so.
This movie is terrible. How does this movie appeal to anyone over 10?
That’s the whole point of the film, I believe. It is aimed at the Gertie* in us all. I watched it once (age 18, when it was released), have no desire to see it again.
Sir Rhosis
*That was Drew Barrymore’s character’s name, wasn’t it? I could have just said “the six-year-old in us all,” but…
I’ve never liked it and it dosen’t seem particularly popular at the Dope, but it’s the fourth-highest grossing movie in U.S. history after Titanic, Star Wars and Shrek 2. So at the time, if not now, I’d say it was considered an exceptional movie.
I certainly didn’t consider it to be a good movie. I saw it when it was released. I would’ve been in my early teens. I hated it.
I hated that damnable Neil Diamond song about it too. Just thinking about it makes me throw up in my mouth a little.
I do however recall enjoying Maybe the Moon, Armistead Maupin’s novel based in part on the life of the actress inside the E.T. suit.
I hated it, too! I thought I was the only one, and that I was a heartless cynic, etc. for despising it. I’m not against heartwarming stuff, but I found E.T. to be overly saccharine and manipulative. And that damned alien was disgusting looking.
I haven’t seen it since 1982, but at the time I considered it to be Spielberg’s best movie yet, better than Jaws or Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
I saw it first in my late twenties and I enjoyed it. I don’t really recall it well and don’t view it in my top ten, but it my memories of it are that it was a fun movie. Plot holes abound, I suppose, but I don’t care.
I was 10 when it came out, and every kid I knew thought it was the greatest movie ever next to Star Wars. Adults mostly loved it too.
I suspect the reason it hasn’t aged well is that elements of the film have been so widely imitated.
A first-time viewer who’s already seen a generation’s worth of films derivative of E.T. would probably walk away unimpressed.
The theatrical release version is a great movie, the special edition with bonus scenes and erased guns for walkie talkies is not good.
I had just graduated from high school when it came out. I loved *Close Encounters * and Raiders of the Lost Ark, so I had high expectations.
The first time I saw it I enjoyed it, but recognized that it was a kids’ movie. The second viewing, I felt manipulated by Mr. Speilberg. in fact, I felt like I’d gone out partying, blacked out & woke up the next morning with a sore and greasy anus. In the following years I would feel the same way about The Color Purple and Schindler’s List.
Yes, I understand that Speilberg goes for emotion, but he has no concept of subtlety.
Ebert gave it a million stars. This tells you everything you need to know, not the least of which is that it’s terrible. Ebert LOVES being shamefully manipulated by cynical mall-movie director whores.
I saw it when it came out and I was in the minority of those who did not like it. It was considered a very good movie at the time. Me, I thought it paled horribly to Close Encounters for Aliens on Earth movies and his next try at a kids movies, the Goonies.
Jim
I don’t remember E.T. very well at all, but to answer your question, E.T. regularly shows up on “best of all time” lists.
For example, The American Film Institue ranks it as #24 of all time.
Time has it in their top 100.
Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 98% rating overall, with the cream-of-the-crop reviewers giving it 94%.
As far as I’ve ever known the reputation of the movie, it’s been both a popular and critical darling.
It opened to great reviews, and is a great film. Sure it’s a bit on the sentimental side, but that’s not a crime, and in this case, it works. Some people might like like it because they might think being made to feel emotion in a movie is something they’ve grown out of, but that’s their problem, not the movie’s.
. . . Or they might actual, legitimate reasons for feeling differently about a movie than you do; reasons just as intelligent and not half as insulting as yours.
In other words — you had a great time.
If you are a kid, it’s a fun show. If you are an adult, it’s something you can take your spouse and kids to see, without worrying.
It is not High Art. Spielberg never pretended that it was.
Art expresses an emotion; propaganda and cheaply sentimental crap try to “make you feel” an emotion.