(Columns often contain opinions, and they belong to their author)
With Artemis II’s lunar flight, we looked to the sky in eager anticipation again.
People looked toward the sky for space vehicles multiple times in the 80s – particularly once in 1986 during a tragedy, sometimes for U.F.O. conspiracies, and, once, on screen in 1982 for something critically acclaimed and wondrous.
The Challenger exploded in 1986, making us look toward the sky on our T.V. screens during a tragic time. And we now have hoped and prayed for the safety of another crew.
In 1982, an outer space vehicle resembling two metallic colanders placed together in a sphere flew across the screen above California redwoods, leaving behind a beloved squatty young titular alien, “E.T.” And our fascination with outer space and aliens continued in this family-friendly science fiction film by Steven Spielberg.
A free showing of the classic extraterrestrial film will be at 2 p.m. Sunday, April 19 at the Miller Theater.
Some of us looked toward the sky through repeat visits to this film. And some of us remember right where we were as we remembered where we were during more tragic occurrences.
I was 7 when I first saw “E.T.” with an older cousin at a Regency Cinema of a different kind, which I think was at another Regency Mall in Jacksonville, Florida. My mother’s family was there, so we often visited there during the summers and holidays. Thinking back to the big cinema, though, I remember concrete steps as high as my dining room ceiling leading into the big plate-glass doors. Or at least they seemed that high to a 7-year-old. And the huge marquee with all of its flashing bulbs had so many overwhelming choices.
The multiplex concept was new to me, so the looming garish oddly patterned carpet in the lobby seemed like it truly expanded into another world. And when I saw “E.T.” there, I was truly taken into another world with the alien’s culture and how he adapted to ours. I loved everything about the film except for one thing.
Though I later realized during watching that the brown alien E.T. was benevolent, the jump-scare when E.T. is first introduced to Elliott, played with a combination of innocence bordering on worldly wiseness by Henry Thomas, gave me a nightmare.
But many joyful memories of the film and the comradery with the alien itself abounded both in the rescue mission of the film and in my imagination. As many friends did, I wanted to be friends with E.T. – to have him around me all the time. I asked for and got a pleather extra-terrestrial not long after that and a few of the alien toys along with Dukes of Hazzard ones that Christmas (I don’t think I got into He-man stuff until 1983).
Speaking of music, what would “E.T.” be without John Williams’ riveting piano score which runs the gamut from adventurous to truly poignant? His music for the famous bicycle flying scene is something I easily remember. In fact, one of the seasons of “Stranger Things” had an homage to that scene with a twist. So the memory of it has made quite an impression.
Also, where would so many films be without his scores? I believe it was Spielberg himself who said Williams’ music becomes a character itself. It is hard to imagine the film without it and without the memories of my pianist sister (still pretty good even at 12) playing some of it in later years.
Next, I had another cinematic viewing of the film in a cinema which just had two theaters in Orangeburg, South Carolina. I remember it vividly because we took my neighboring Grandma Hattie and Great Aunt Evelyn, who lived together like “The Golden Girls” in my Grandma’s house. Where we ate now has a classic giant bucket sign (now painted black) in the sky and had been serving Chinese food for a while.
Under this bucket, we ate at one of the early K.F.C.’s in the region – back when I remember it being better and back when people did not eat out every day. We had big buttery corn on the cob wrapped in yellow plastic (not those pitiful coblets or frozen niblets), mashed potatoes, real biscuits (I worked as a K.F.C cook for a couple of years in university; they soon moved to what I call frozen hockey puck biscuits), and original recipe chicken. -Not to mention strawberry parfaits. Man, those were good. I think we also had green beans, but I hated those at the time, so I probably blocked out the memory. Nevertheless, food, such as the meal before, buttery popcorn, and sweet candy, do become ingrained in the movie-going experience. After all, I started getting obsessed with Reese’s Pieces thanks to product placement in “E.T.” and having it at concessions. It worked!
By the way, I was worried even then about what my senior citizen relatives might think of the film. I thought they might not like it or understand it. But the universality of the themes of love and understanding between the alien and the youth were appreciated by them. Though a little too young to completely understand it, I was also very embarrassed by my elderly relatives having to hear Elliott scream, “It was nothing like that, penis breath” to his older brother. (The older brother warranted it in some ways by egging Elliott on about what he had seen or had not seen upon first exposure to E.T.) Lines like that were par for the course in 80s cinema. And the line only showed the struggles of a single parent family and one parent trying to rein them in.
In fact, Dee Wallace played single mother Mary Taylor with a mix of haggardness and occasional bemusement. When Elliott says his inappropriate line, she yells at him for doing it but also giggles a little. Here is a mother realistically trying to raise a boy, a teen, and little girl even with the inappropriateness that 1980s suburban kids were exposed to through early cable or even their peers at school. Yet she is also human and reacts to off-color lines with shock coupled with amusement as we all do sometimes.
She also contends with Michael, Elliott’s sarcastic older brother played by Robert MacNaughton who brings over his geeky D&D friends. And she fusses at them when they say inappropriate things, thankfully not seeing that one of them tries to do a grosser version of a wet willy at some point toward her when her back is turned. Michael does show some good breeding by yelling, “Stop it!” to his ill-mannered friend. Mary has been doing some things right.
Nevertheless, Wallace shows Mary at her most overwhelmed – post-divorce and prone to be upset. And contending with a houseful with the teens coming over. Eventually, their ordering a pizza without her permission (made evident by Elliott dropping on it and stepping on it when being distracted by the initially hidden E.T.) becomes the last straw. At the discovery of the trampled pizza, one of the teens calls Elliott a “douche bag.” Mary (Wallace) yells, “No douche bag talk in my house!”
MacNaughton, a typical older sibling, does sardonically condescend to Elliott quite often as his young teen friends do. But he begins to respect him more as they both grow to know and help E.T.
Next, in one of her earliest roles, Drew Barrymore added extra precociousness to the youngest child Gertie. At first, like I was, she shows fear about E.T. But she grows to love him and even has a few comedic scenes with him, including dressing him up in tea party-style drag. Elliott yells that she should give E.T. his dignity.
Much later, when E.T. stumbles around after getting into some beer, he gets hit by the fridge door. Gertie’s mother does not see him as he hits the floor out of view. Gertie says that the mother may have killed him. I read somewhere that Barrymore improvised the line. She was a natural, and I have liked her as an actress to the present day.
Finally, I think my late father may have gone with us to the Regency Mall Cinema in Augusta’s Regency Mall to see it or the Masters Cinema. Seeing E.T. at a small cinema in Augusta with my dad was special. He was a techie with AT&T who also ran a side satellite business that I helped him with installations for even as a child.
I remember him loving the tech in the film, particularly the aspects with E.T. trying to phone home and the rigging together of all the parts he did to make a communication device. “Phone home” brings a whole new level of interest as does a satellite transmitter device made of an umbrella and other parts when a techie phone company guy watches.
Speaking of those science fiction aspects, I never realized how much “E.T.”, among other films and books, affected my science fiction and fantasy writing in high school. Though not as terrible as the MSTK’d /riff-tracked “Mac and Me” E.T. rip-off, one of my clumsier E.T.-like efforts involved a character in a boy choir trying to help an alien out. (I had just read “The Lord of the Flies” and dealt with my own bullies outside of choir but marveled at how the more formal choir kids could become more susceptible to darkness.)
Within my novella, the alien spoke in a high-pitched voice – basically soprano. I think the alien was pink with chewing gum-bubble-like cheeks. The young teen was a late bloomer like I was and still sang soprano as a young teen, and the choir director was loosely based on my slightly eccentric but caring youth choir director.
I had been a chorister in a co-educational children’s and youth choir in church from ages 5 to 18 and, as a teen, had gone to yearly van trips to a youth choir festival for adjudication. (I was adjudicated as a baritone soloist my junior year and accepted at Baptist All State Choir but as a late bloomer who sang soprano when I was a freshman and alto when I was a sophomore.) For some reason, in my novella, I had the authorities chasing down the choir van. And they obtained the alien and possibly even killed it. I think an older bully was part of the conspiracy, too. Being a teen, I did tend to make my writing a little darker. -The death of innocence.
As one disappointed sophomore girl who was an avid reader and one of my earliest fans (pale as Data from “Star Trek: The Next Generation” from staying in to read so much), “You squished it! Out of nowhere you built up all this hope, and you squished it!” Yes, very different from the great hope that was built up by “E.T.” and very different from the hopeful writing I would compose in maturity (but with some gritty realism.)
So many memories of seeing “E.T.” so many times can converge as one thinks of reseeing it. Make some new memories with family and/or friends on Sunday, April 19 at the Miller.
Author and veteran journalist Ron Baxley, Jr. is working on releasing an Oz holiday story collection this year and has been promoting a WGA-registered Southern T.V. series, “Progressively Gr-80s”. His fantasy and Oz books can be found at regional bookstores, comics and gift shops. His other columns and stories can also be found here: Ron “Teek the Oz Geek” | Substack .
