E.T. The Extra Terrestrial is a film
which had a truly fascinating affect on my psychology as a young
child. It kindled two very opposing emotions within my mind which
seldom stem from a single experience. On the one hand, E.T. traumatized
me. That’s not even an exaggeration. I could have been no older
than five years old when I first saw the 1982 Steven Spielberg
classic and the whole experience had some seriously horrendous
effects on the proceeding years. The opening shot, where the camera
pans down on a set of evergreen trees, only to instantaneously jump
to a shot of a dark alien ship surrounded small aliens was a horrible
sight for my infant eyes. Even the gloomy score by John Williams
which accompanies the shot of the aliens who stalk the forest was too
much for my young mind to take. I couldn’t stand it. Seriously, it was one of those
moments where I realised that I was unable to un-see that which I had
just seen. Those haunting images were berried within my mind forever and
there was nothing I could do about them.
Then there was E.T. himself. Even to this very day, if I unexpectedly see a photograph of that tubby little fella, I jump straight out of my skin. This is quite odd, as I no longer have a fear of this particular fictional creation. In fact, I think he’s quite a cute little chappy. But whenever a shot of him pops up in front of me, my emotions will sometimes whisk me back to a time where that face caused great night terrors for me.
People laugh these days when I admit of
my fear toward Spielberg’s science fiction classic. They can’t
understand why I was so frightened of this little splodge of an
alien, but when I say the film had traumatising effects on my
day-to-day life, I really do mean it. I clearly remember that every
time I saw an evergreen tree at night, I would begin to tremble
uncontrollably; I simply refused to go upstairs on my own; I hated
one of my cat’s meows because it loosely resembled E.T’s scream
and one time, when I was on holiday in Greece, I ran from my parents
because I saw a dustbin that look a little bit like his head.
There are even behaviour patterns that
still exist today. Two examples which I can think of off the top of
my head is the fact that I have to sleep with a light on and that I
cannot keep the curtains open as soon as it grows dark. These habits occurred
straight after I first saw this film. I was convinced that if I
turned my light off when I went to bed, then E.T. would light up the
room with that glowing red heart of his. As for the window, well I fooled
myself into believing that if I left the curtains open after dark then
it would allow E.T. to scare the living shit out of me by pressing his squidgy
head against my window and screaming uncontrollably at me.
Fear and trauma are not the only
effects that this film had one me as a child however, as the film
also helped to inject a sense of wonder into my mind. It’s very
bizarre to think that the very same film caused me both horrific
nightmares and wonderful dreams at the very same time, but it honestly did. The film was a magical
story about a young boy who managed to find friendship in the most
unlikely of places.
Even at the age of five, I was a pretty darn
lonely child. I didn’t have many friends at school and I was in
desperate need of someone to spend my time with. Isolation played a big part in the
earlier parts of my life. I had loving parents, but they weren’t
enough. I wanted friendship, but simply couldn't find it. I was an odd kid, and the other children in the playground were not taken by such a character trait.
Before watching E.T. I
use to fantasize about meeting a robot who I would run off into the
country side with. It was a bit of a weird fantasy, but it was there,
nonetheless. I didn’t like anyone at school, so the idea of an
android friend seemed oddly appealing to me (also, I remember seeing
an advert on television about a little girl who ran off with a robot.
I think she ventured off into the sea with it or something. Anyway,
if anyone knows about that advert then please help me find it.
Seriously, I’m convinced that I made it up in my head, but I wont
be happy with until I know for sure!).
Eventually I watched E.T. and amongst
all the horrors and scares of that long necked creature, I managed to
relate to the film’s protagonist. Elliot, like me, was alone and in
need of a friend. He was a kid who was locked off from his family. He
didn’t get on with his siblings, his mother failed to understand
him and his father had ran off to Mexico. None of this happened to
me, but I still felt locked off from the world as a young infant, so
I forced myself into emphasizing with Elliot.
As always, Spielberg hams up the
fantasy angle of this film very much so, making the whole story appear
as though it is something of a dream. Everything is beautiful, romantic
and down right lovely. Spielberg’s fantastical aesthetics,
intertwined with my overly nostalgic remembrance of this story
creates a fond memory of a time where I found friendship through a
work of pure fiction.
It was a lovely, fantastical tale of
friendship which warmed my heart and then broke it by having Elliot and E.T depart from one another. It was wonderful, but at the same time, as I
have already mentioned, it was downright horrifying.
Now lets just stop to think about this
for one moment. This was a film which gave me night terrors for
almost all of my childhood, but was also a film which helped me feel
less alone during a majority of that very same childhood. That’s
about as nonsensical as a man finding happiness by marrying the
person who persistently makes him feel like shit. It just doesn’t make sense, that a
film managed to warm my heart and make it jump out of its skin all at
the same time. It’s a weird mixture of lovely and nasty; blending
into something hugely unique. And unique it bloody well was.
The hybrid sensation of fear and wonder
clashing head on gave the film an enigmatic quality which no other
experience has ever brought on in me. E.T. was a right old puzzle of
a feature for me back in the mid 1990s, but I’m honestly grateful
for having experienced it. It just goes to show how wonderful and
complex the human mind really can be. To think that something managed
to both scar and support my childhood is an irony which I enjoy
having had. It’s a complex irony which brought on a selection of incredibly unique and
interesting feelings in me.
E.T. The Extra Terrestrial is
one of those films that will stay with me for a very long time. The
impact that the film had on my emotional perception of the world is
one which is far too exclusive and infrequent to merely forget about.
So how do I perceive the film with my
now ‘adult’ mind? Well, the experience is pretty
much the same as it was for me as a child, minus the whole trauma
bit of course. E.T. is no longer my interpretation of the devil. In fact, he’s
quite a cuddly little darling as a matter of fact. When I watch those
opening scenes, I no longer see a group of savage aliens, but a heard
of alien explorers; intrigued by the flora and fauna of our world.
When Elliot pulls open a sheet of tall grass to reveal a screaming
alien, I don’t see a monster trying to scare me to death, but a
frightened little child who's light years from his home. When I see that
tiny creature hobbling toward Elliot’s bed in the middle of the night, I don’t see the most
terrifying life form in the universe, but a friendly little animal
coming to say hello.
As for the wonders of a young boy
making friends with a young alien? Well, all those themes are still
very much there. They never left me and that’s wonderful. But
without the added terror on top of them, it has made the climactic
departure of these two creatures even more heart-breaking than I ever
remember it being. I can’t help but watch those final moments with
my mind of today without a tear coming to one's eye.
It really is one of those beautifully tragic moments of cinema. Two
friends, who were born stars apart, managed to find one another and
enrich both of their lives. It’s beautiful and to see them depart
from one another is outrageously sad.
These days, I often wonder what Elliot
and E.T. are up to now (not in real life of course, but in their own
fictional reality). Did Elliot manage to find friendship with other
humans, or did he become a social recluse after his encounter with an
extra terrestrial? Did E.T. ever get to return to earth, or was his
family forever traveling from star to star, refusing to return to
past worlds? Did Elliot and his siblings ever reconnect with his
estranged father, or did he end up loving Mexico far more than his
children?
Who knows, but then Spielberg went and
made an interesting comment in one of his documentaries for his 2005
film War of the Worlds. This was were Spielberg mentioned that
he liked to think that the killer aliens from his version of the film were from a
planet that belonged within the same galaxy as E.T’s home world (so
not mars then) which pretty much suggests that from his point of
view, the events of E.T. happened in the same reality as the events
of this version of H.G. Well’s science fiction classic. If that’s
the case, then Elliot’s fate probably consisted of him being turned
into a ball of heat ray induced ash, along with his mother, his
brother, his sister, his estranged father (along with all his Mexican buddies) and all of those other kids
who ignored him back at school. As for E.T? Well I take it that his
family were on the run from the very same aliens who more than likely
tried to fuck their world over too; meaning that they either died out
for trying to exist amongst the vacuum of space for prolonged periods of
time or were caught up and killed by the same murderous aliens who attempted to wipe out mankind.
Well if that’s the fate of
Spielberg’s 1982 classic, then he’s pretty much fucked my
childhood over in the way that he managed to fuck up the childhood’s
of countless Indian Jones fans back in 2008. The man just doesn’t
know when to stop, does he?
