ET The Extra Terrestrial

Loved alien now 25 years old

For a generation the prase "E.T. phone home" has been a funny and well known sentence.
Next week E.T.'s 25 years birthday is celebrated in Hollywood.
Steven Spielberg released his film about the funny little alien E.T. at the film festival in Cannes, May 1982.
Some days later - on June 11th - it had it's opening night in the US and it immediately became a mega hit. Which it has been ever since.

Fhe movie has later been published on dvds and been showed in TV several times. Spielberg and his staff have never been slow to exploit those extra income potentials and the film put new standards at the beginning of the 1980s, as to merchandise.

The film has appeared in three versions - the most impressing and radical one of these are the 20 year version, which premiered five years ago. A DVD version contains both the revised and the original version.
Spielberg changed some of the scenes with the help of digital technology, but was later criticised for political correctness because of the changes. Spielbergdefended himself with that he since the first recordings had become like a father to the film and now thought that the pistols in the police officers' hands were just rather too threatening (in the new version those police officers carried torches).

The Film originates from Spielberg's own childhood where he created a character while his parent's were getting a divorce.
The film describes family affairs and typical American suburban-environments, which are very analogous with the circumstances and the surroundings from the instructor's own childhood.

already in the film's first months Spielberg and Melissa Mathison were busy writing the manuscript to an "E.T. 2".
In that film the three children were abducted by evil aliens and had to seek after E.T.s' help.
But the first movie enjoyed so much success and Spielberg was so satisfied with it that he decided to drop all plans for a continuation. He simply could not live up to all the expectations.

25 years later

November 29th, 2007 together with all of the actors, photographers, technicians and second crew Spielberg will be celebrating the film's 25 years' jubilee. The set will be a special gala performance in The Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Los Angeles. A celebration, which is arranged by Academy of Motion Picture and Sciences - the same organization, who stands behind the distribution of Oscars, which will take place on February 24th next year - for the 80. time.