Thank you, John Williams

Rating: 5/10 (12 September 2019)

As a kid, I was an E.T.-emo kid. Owned the puppets, boardgame etc. The movie touched me many times.
As an adult, I'm done with it. Why? First of all, I never liked the character of Elliot. He's a depressing kid, not enjoyable to watch and a character that doesn't even try to make the best of the situation he and his family are at the moment.
As Robert Englund once said about the ANOES-remake: You never should start a movie with kids who are already depressed. I think this goes for E.T. as well. There's nothing to like or identify with in Elliot.
That being said, I have to talk about the 2002 digital 'upgrades' by Spielberg. The first one in the movie is a good one: E.T. running towards the space-ship, being chased by Keys and his gang, used to be just a stiff doll on a tracking rail. The digital upgrade is a very good improvement.
But the rest of the digital upgrades are trash. Everybody knows about the walkie-talkies being replacements for the guns. Even Spielberg himself regrets that today. But the worst are the scenes in which the beloved alien is replaced by a digital version of him. The animated E.T. acts and behaves way different than the puppet versions and moves as if the laws of nature towards physical life do not count for his part. The additional scenes add nothing to the movie. I was looking forward to them when I first heard about it, but they were a letdown.
Because of these reasons I have grown to dislike E.T. Except for the soundtrack by John Williams. Listeneing to that is a time-travel trip back to 1982 when as a kid I was enachented by the magic of this movie. Thank you, John Williams!