# ET: Why does E.T. Get sick?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/et-why-does-e-t-get-sick/230129
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [February 20, 2004, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/et-why-does-e-t-get-sick/230129 "2004-02-20T02:02:55Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2016, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/et-why-does-e-t-get-sick/230129/21 "2016-11-01T11:25:57Z")
When ET _and_ the flower are brought back to life, I always thought it was because his people zapped the general area with a reanimation ray. That’s why Eliot asked “Does this mean they’re coming?” (To which ET replied “Yes!”)
ET was dead as a doornail. How would he ever be able to resurrect himself? Despite the Jesus allegory, I always considered the movie from a scientific (not religious) viewpoint. Once you’re dead, you’re dead, unless there’s some kind of external intervention.
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### Author:  [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2016, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/et-why-does-e-t-get-sick/230129/22 "2016-11-01T12:18:34Z")
I think it’s the symbiosis. That’s why he got sick, and why he came back. Remember, he also revived dead flowers and healed wounds.
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### Author:  [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2016, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/et-why-does-e-t-get-sick/230129/23 "2016-11-01T13:24:47Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#):
>
> I think it’s the symbiosis. That’s why he got sick, and why he came back. Remember, he also revived dead flowers and healed wounds.
Symbiosis with whom? Eliot? His people (other ETs)? 😕
I don’t think even Jesus could reanimate himself. I believe resurrection came from the outside.
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### Author:  [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2016, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/et-why-does-e-t-get-sick/230129/24 "2016-11-01T13:44:49Z")
> [@terentii](#):
>
> Symbiosis with whom? Eliot? His people (other ETs)? 😕
All of the above, but he needs symbiosis with his own people to maintain his life force; and if he is separated from them, he has a certain amount that he can use for himself and also on others, but they are a drain on him and he is only replenished when he is around his own kind.
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### Author:  [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2016, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/et-why-does-e-t-get-sick/230129/25 "2016-11-01T14:26:58Z")
Of course, here’s the _real_ question:
If E.T. could fly at the end of the movie, why didn’t he fly up to the spaceship at the start of the movie and save himself?
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### Author:  [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2016, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/et-why-does-e-t-get-sick/230129/26 "2016-11-01T15:06:12Z")
The door was closed.
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### Author:  [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2016, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/et-why-does-e-t-get-sick/230129/27 "2016-11-01T22:55:50Z")
> [@buddha\_david](#):
>
> Of course, here’s the _real_ question:
>
> If E.T. could fly at the end of the movie, why didn’t he fly up to the spaceship at the start of the movie and save himself?
Oh great, that ruined the movie for me now! I have no answer for that one.
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### Author:  [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2016, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/et-why-does-e-t-get-sick/230129/28 "2016-11-01T23:39:26Z")
OMG, I just learned my wife (b. 1984) has never seen this! Mind blown.
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### Author:  [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2016, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/et-why-does-e-t-get-sick/230129/29 "2016-11-02T04:45:54Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#):
>
> The door was closed.
And the ship was moving \*way \*too fast!
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### Author:  [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2016, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/et-why-does-e-t-get-sick/230129/30 "2016-11-02T12:09:59Z")
> [@terentii](#):
>
> And the ship was moving \*way \*too fast!
What about when he was first trying to get back, though?
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### Author:  [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2016, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/et-why-does-e-t-get-sick/230129/31 "2016-11-02T13:04:16Z")
> [@tracer](#):
>
> “Not agreeable enough” is probably the understatement of the year.
>
> Take some distilled water, let it set out for a few hours, and then look at it under a microscope. It’ll be _crawling_ with bacteria it picked up from the air. E.T.'s alien lungs would’ve been inhaling dozens of those little microorganisms with every breath he took.
>
> Sure, us human beings inhale the same bacteria, but we’ve co-evolved with them for millions of years and have all sorts of built-in defense mechanisms against them. E.T.'s body has never _seen_ anything like terrestrial bacteria before. E.T.'s lungs evolved to ward off infection from the germs on _his_ home planet, which are going to be ever more dissimilar from our germs than Sequoia trees are dissimilar from people.
>
> I’m surprised his crewmates were running around out in the open without wearing biohazard suits.
Since the zombie has arisen already - years of sci-fi movies and books notwithstanding, the odds of the physiology of an ET matching close enough to anything on Earth to serve as a breeding ground for bacteria seems to this non-biologist to be extremely low (and let’s not even talk about half-Vulcans . . .)
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### Author:  [@bienville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bienville)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2016, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/et-why-does-e-t-get-sick/230129/32 "2016-11-02T13:29:23Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#):
>
> That’s the kind of thing that bugs me about film adaptations of Superman. Yes, he was created by a couple of Jews, and they clearly intended him as a kick-ass Moses allegory, not the suffering Jesus filmmakers since Donner have tried to force on audiences.
Hmmm, maybe Spielberg thought of it as a Moses story but then Mathison got all Jesusy with it. This was during the period when she had a thing for carpenters.
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### Author:  [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2016, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/et-why-does-e-t-get-sick/230129/33 "2016-11-02T13:44:56Z")
> [@Folacin](#):
>
> Since the zombie has arisen already - years of sci-fi movies and books notwithstanding, the odds of the physiology of an ET matching close enough to anything on Earth to serve as a breeding ground for bacteria seems to this non-biologist to be extremely low (and let’s not even talk about half-Vulcans . . .)
As I remember, in the scene at the end where the scientists are examining the dying E T and Elliot, one of them announces excitedly that the alien has DNA. So maybe?
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### Author:  [@Kinthalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kinthalis)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2016, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/et-why-does-e-t-get-sick/230129/34 "2016-11-02T15:35:20Z")
Yes! I’m alive!
I’m always worried that one of my zombie threads will pop up and I’ll be dead and miss out on the follow ups.
Definitely deserved props on that Symbiosis answer.
Follow up, unrelated question: What age to introduce kids to ET? I want my son to see it, but he’s only 3, so probably not yet. How old were you when you first saw it?
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### Author:  [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2016, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/et-why-does-e-t-get-sick/230129/35 "2016-11-02T15:44:52Z")
> [@Kinthalis](#):
>
> Follow up, unrelated question: What age to introduce kids to ET? I want my son to see it, but he’s only 3, so probably not yet.
Data point #1. Drew Barrymore was 7 when she played Gert.
Data point #2. Gert was a five-year old.
You should be able to take it from there.
> [@Kinthalis](#):
>
> How old were you when you first saw it?
I was 26.
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### Author:  [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2016, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/et-why-does-e-t-get-sick/230129/36 "2016-11-02T17:55:46Z")
> [@Kinthalis](#):
>
> What age to introduce kids to ET? I want my son to see it, but he’s only 3, so probably not yet.
IIRC, my first daughter saw it when she was two, and she loved it.
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### Author:  [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2016, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/et-why-does-e-t-get-sick/230129/37 "2016-11-02T18:17:35Z")
That movie was great fun to see for the first time in a full movie theater.
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### Author:  [@Snooooopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snooooopy)
#### Post date: [November 5, 2016, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/et-why-does-e-t-get-sick/230129/38 "2016-11-05T03:33:12Z")
Jumping into all of those pits looking for telephone parts is why E.T. got sick. If you’re going to be hanging around in a bunch of pits, you’re bound to come into contact with some really disgusting stuff. And the stress of constantly having to run away from all of those federal agents is bound to compromise your immune system. I hope they had some fancy antibiotics on the ship.
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### Author:  [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)
#### Post date: [November 5, 2016, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/et-why-does-e-t-get-sick/230129/39 "2016-11-05T18:54:31Z")
> [@Snooooopy](#):
>
> Jumping into all of those pits looking for telephone parts is why E.T. got sick. If you’re going to be hanging around in a bunch of pits, you’re bound to come into contact with some really disgusting stuff. And the stress of constantly having to run away from all of those federal agents is bound to compromise your immune system. I hope they had some fancy antibiotics on the ship.
Love it! \
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### Author:  [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)
#### Post date: [November 7, 2016, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/et-why-does-e-t-get-sick/230129/40 "2016-11-07T00:49:21Z")
He didn’t listen when he was warned not to drink the water.
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