Many years...

Rating: Null/10 (6 November 2004)

It took me a number of years to finally appreciate the brilliance of E.T. I saw it originally around the time of its 5th anniversary and, as a seven year old found it rather dull. I didn't return to the movie for more than a dozen years and, in the mean time, I had grown and developed a taste for more subtle film-making. Though subtle may not be synonymous with Steven Spielberg, I do believe that the adjective is appropriate for E.T. Yes, there's the requisite chase at the end and the suspense engendered by the adult characters, but, on the whole, this movie is a subtle exploration of family and how it works in today's society.
A lot of people hate Steven Spielberg, think of him as a hack who doesn't deserve his notoriety. Looking at E.T. again, I wonder how they can say this. E.T. is a fantastic movie that is fun for kids and also teaches them a lesson about acceptance and love that in the hands of a lesser-filmmaker would have been heavy-handed and trite. Spielberg knows that there's a lesson buried within his movie - a lesson to accept others as they are regardless of their differences - but he does not press this upon us.
That is why, for me, E.T. will always be his defining picture. Within it are the adventure elements that characterize his brilliant first-phase and the social consciousness that appears in his later work. However, the social consciousness, as it does in The Terminal and to an extent Schindler's List, does not overpower the story and beat us over the head. For me, that subtle treatment of a very "adult" theme in an otherwise science fiction movie proves Spielberg's brilliance regardless of the naysayers' opinions.