Reel Critics

Allen MacDonald

Universal Studios should have filed a restraining order on behalf of

E.T. against Steven Spielberg. Fox should do the same for the original

“Star Wars Trilogy” to protect it from George Lucas.

These guys can’t help themselves -- they have to mess with perfection.

I won’t use this space to review the original “E.T.” As it remains --

even in this new, altered form -- a magical experience, having lost

little of it’s luster and impact. However, I will pose this question: was

it necessary to tinker with a near perfect film?

The short answer is no.

Ask any filmmaker if they’d change anything about a completed film,

and they’ll usually spout off a quick mental list. No director ever

really finishes a film, they simply move on or can no longer stomach

tinkering with a project they’ve seen so many times that they no longer

have a clear perspective.

Steven Spielberg has stated his reason for doing this latest reissue

was the opportunity to subtly alter E.T.’s performance in scenes where

the animatronic puppet didn’t quite deliver the performance he would have

liked. Spielberg feels the movie has aged and needs to catch up with the

modern audience. For me, the old puppet still looks more real to me than

the digital face-lift E.T. has been given.

Using current technology, digital artists have “painted” over E.T.’s

face in nearly every scene in which he appears, adding texture to his

skin and details to his expressions so he can better emote.

I have to admit, I was impressed with the early scenes. Especially in

the opening chase sequence when E.T. zooms through the forest to avoid

capture, his orange heart aglow as his body bounces. In the original

version, E.T. was obviously sliding on an unseen track.

These remastered scenes work because Spielberg reveals E.T. slowly, a

little bit at a time, mostly shrouded in shadow and mystery. Digital

effects work better in dark lighting; it hides the warts. This was why

“Jurassic Park” worked so effectively nine years ago.

Yet, as E.T. progresses into fully lit scenes, the results are often

disastrous. The worst example of this is a restored scene that was

deleted from the 1982 cut. In it, E.T. has some wacky adventures with

tooth paste and takes a bath while Eliot fields a phone call from his

mother. Spielberg originally cut these scenes because he felt the puppet

didn’t work in it. This is one of the few scenes that has a fully

reanimated E.T. (most scenes only involve face animation), and it

borderlines on the ridiculous.

It feels like a parody of the character rather than an organic part of

him. Here, the animators throw restraint to the wind and give us a

version of E.T. that is painfully reminiscent of Jar Jar Binks of “Star

Wars Episode I” infamy. The added scene is also over the top and

extraneous. I can see why it was cut: it tells us information we already

know.

Spielberg wisely leaves E.T. untouched in the final act. Here, E.T.

and Elliott are kept together in quarantine (After 20 years, I doubt I’m

spoiling the story) and E.T. appears effectively sickly, withered and

heartbroken. The puppet works because he’s really in the scene, not added

later. The actors interacted directly with the character.

To be fair, the digital touch-ups of E.T.’s space ship are awesome, as

is the remastered sound design, which remains chilling and eerie in the

opening; warm and life affirming near the end.

Compared to George Lucas’s special edition tweaking of the original

“Star Wars Trilogy” in 1997, the “E.T. -- 20th Anniversary” mostly stays

in sync with its original tone. My main problem with digital effects is

they don’t seem a part of the scene. They look flatter, less dimensional.

When E.T. ceases to exist within the frame, some of the magic simply

gets lost in the process.

* ALLEN MacDONALD, 29, is currently working toward his master’s degree

in screenwriting from the American Film Institute in Los Angeles.