Current Events > I saw ET for the first time today. Had never seen it before. It was decent.

(+) Yeah! (+)

I think you would have to be a child to really appeciate it, and the storytelling was also too slowpaced, but it was alright. There was a certain charm. There was definitely pathos with Elliot and the other characters. Some of the special effects held up quite well, like near the end, when they were cycling through the air against the sunset.

There was some stuff that surprised me, though. I'm surprised little kids in America are allowed to kill then vivisect frogs. Also, I'm surprised how reference heavy the film was, e.g. Space Invaders and Yoda.

Thoughts on this film? How old were you when you first saw it?

I saw it as a kid, probably 8 or 9 years old. I haven't seen it in 20+ years and remember a lot of it, loved it back then.

As for the dissection thing, yes it happens in science classes, but everything comes from a lab and isn't alive when it arrives. Younger kids usually will do earthworms, frogs and other stuff is more middle school/high school.

You never dissected stuff in school?

That slow pace was fairly typical of the time.

It's good. In terms of Spielberg's filmography, I'd say it's toward the middle alongside a film like Hook.

It's absolutely as good as it could have been. It's just that, if I'm being honest, aliens are kind of boring when they don't mean us humans harm.

I like the film because of the production values and the attention to detail. I like it because ET himself is a likable little character. And I like it because I feel somewhat obligated to like it. I don't want to be the stick in the mud who says, "Hey, I don't like ET."

It's not going to be on any top ten lists of mine. Not unless I specifically make a top ten of friendly alien movies. In which case, it would easily be number one.