ET: The Extraterrestrial is on Netflix this month. It was released in 1982 so maybe we don't remember everything about Steven Spielberg's follow-up to Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Raiders of the Lost Ark. What struck me first was the use of flashlights. X Files, CSI and many other shows copied the use of those flashlights. Do people remember the flashlight scenes from ET?
The second notable feature is the soundtrack. John Williams debuted as a creator of soundtracks in 1959 and composed soundtracks to several of the top films of the 1970s. Dialog does not define this film, except maybe, "ET, phone home." I bet the script is half the length of most films as Williams' sounds and music define most of the scenes.
Third, the cast is memorable as Drew Barrymore followed up with a significant career that people remember.
What is the other lasting impact of this and other Spielberg films?
I wonder how they affected our politics.
Here is a synopsis of ET.
Elliot, at ten years old, discovers a stranded extra terrestrial who is fleeing scientists from the United States government.
Gert, his younger sister, teaches ET how to talk while Elliot continues to bond emotionally with the creature. ET explains via a Buck Rogers comic that he wishes to reconnect with his family.
Outside, Sprinter vans full of electronics are intercepting the conversations of the children.
The family leaves. Mysterious figures in astronaut suits break into the house.
Elliot scrounges for wires, a sawblade and batteries. ET fashions a Speak-n-Spell connected to an umbrella which he places on a hilltop in the woods.
Well intentioned scientist/government agents are unrelenting. But, Elliot and his friends and family miraculously prevail in the rescue of the cuddly alien.
Also fraying on our trust of technology, the Three Mile Island nuclear plant had a radiation release in 1979.
Likewise, our post- Vietnam, post-Watergate cynical political world manifested as more cynical when Ronald Reagan got elected in 1980 by telling us that government was the problem, not the solution.
Post-Sputnik, science had been highly regarded. This was how the United States was to compete with the Soviet Union. Apollo 11 in 1969 proved that Americans via a US Government program could land on the moon. All it took was brave astronauts who happened to be scientists.
In the 1970s, popular scientists included Carl Sagan. His work predates SETI. Scientists were highly respected. Sagan's series, Cosmos, was a top program on PBS. Isaac Asimov was constantly churning out new work on subjects such as astronomy. Stephen Jay Gould was popularizing bioscience. Douglas Hofstadter got a Pulitzer Prize for a book about related abstract concepts.
1982, the launch of ET: The Extraterrestrial, feels like when science lost its luster in this country.
Maybe in 2020, following the disastrous consequences of leaders who ignore sound, consensus scientific and medical advice, we can start to respect the field once more.
The cool thing about science is that it self corrects. If people have better ideas that get better results than the scientists, we scientists are the first to acknowledge it!
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