Love and sacrifice...

Rating: 8/10 (14 December 2016)

The movie opens with a spaceship in the middle of the forest. There are many aliens there working on plant life. The seem to have it growing inside of the ship and they are picking up some from the forest floor to take with them. Humans show up and try to capture the aliens. The aliens close up their ship and ET gets left behind. The humans keep looking for him but he hides well. Soon Elliot discovers ET in his back shed but his family doesn't believe him. Everyone goes out to search, but find nothing. Everyone goes to bed except for Elliot. He wasn't convinced that it was nothing. He goes back outside to search. Elliot and ET run right into each other and they both start screaming in fear of one another.
The next morning Elliot leaves the house and decides to leave a trail of food in order to meet up with ET again. That night Elliot is really determined to find ET so he sleeps in his backyard. Soon, ET comes out of the shed and reappears to Elliot. Elliot is terrified at first but understands that ET won't hurt him. Elliot takes him into his house and up to his bedroom. Elliot falls asleep and the next morning fakes being sick so he won't have to go to school. He tries to communicate with ET but the language barrier is too difficult to make work. When Elliot's brother and sister get home from school, he shows them. Their reactions were horrible, but they all agree to keep him a secret.
Elliot eventually has to start attending school again. ET is left at home to get into everything. ET gets in the fridge and drink all the beer. Somehow Elliot ends up drunk at school. This is the first time we see that ET and Elliot have linked up and are now in a sense one with each other. By the end of the day, ET can talk and he starts building technology to contact his home. There now sits a truck across from their house that detects that ET is living with them. The next day the kids and ET go out trick or treating for Halloween. This will be their first attempt to connect ET with his home. While everyone is out of the house, the people parked outside decide to break into the house to look for evidence. ET's invention to call home works and Elliot is very excited. Then he realizes that he's going to lose ET and that makes him cry.
The next day, Elliot and ET get really really sick. They both feel like they are dying. Elliot's mom tries to run away with the children but men in space suits show up and take ET and Elliot. ET separates from Elliot and Elliot gets healthy. ET continues to keep getting sicker. Finally ET dies. Next thing we know, ET is alive and Elliot and his brother steal ET because his people are coming for him. Everyone is in an uproar! All the adults are chasing the kids who are trying to take ET back to his ship. The kids make it to the forest and the spaceship appears.
For me, the theme of this movie is sacrifice. ET needed help and the children protected him and took care of him. Once he was dying, they felt helpless and afraid. When he died, that was the lowest point of the movie. The despair felt by the children was unbearable. Once ET came back to life, the children knew it was do or die. They sacrificed everything to make sure ET was safe and with his people. All that sacrifice happened because of love!