History Film / ETTheExtraTerrestrial

* SistineSteal: Michelangelo beat Spielberg to the "touch fingers with a magical being" shot by a few centuries, but that didn't stop the image lifted from the Art/SistineChapel from appearing front and center in the movie's DVD cover and several posters.

In 2019, Xfinity released a four minute ad in which ET returns and catches up with a now adult Elliot, again played by Henry Thomas who stated doing a full feature film sequel likely wouldn't work, but this was the perfect way to follow up on the story. Spielberg agreed, and named the ad an official part of the film's canon.[[note]]Melissa Mathison, who wrote the film's screenplay, had sadly died a few years earlier before she could give her own take on it.[[/note]]

* AngerBornOfWorry: When Elliot returns after being missing for one night, his mother's first reaction is shouting at him but she quickly regains a motherly attitude.

* BuildingIsWelding: Lots of welding is shown when Elliot's home is turned into a high-security zone by the government.
* CassandraTruth: No one believes Elliot that he saw an alien in the cornfield.

* EekAMouse: A girl in class screams when Elliot puts a frog on her shoes.
* EverytownAmerica: While the town Elliot live in is never mentioned, he points to Northern California on a map when showing E.T. where they live (the actual house is in the L.A. neighborhood of Sunland-Tujunga at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains).

* {{Flatline}}: The fact that the life forces of E.T. and Elliott have been linked is indicated by electrocardiograms. As E.T. slowly dies, the link breaks and Elliot's own life signs get better while E.T.'s dive towards a flatline.

* FreeTheFrogs: A drunk-by-proxy Elliot disrupts the frog dissection in his science class.

** A lot of background details give educated adults a Genius Bonus or Parental Bonus. For instance, overheard snippets of conversation Mary has on the phone suggest she's waiting for someone named "Jerry" on Halloween (who stands her up, however, which is why she's muttering invectives through the wand she's carrying in her teeth as she gets in her car to go find her children). The doctors' dialogue [[spoiler:while they're trying and failing to save E.T.]] is [[ShownTheirWork real medical talk]] and indicates they have some credible working theories on what the problem is, and a number of people are shown carrying away sealed containers presumably containing just about every item that came in contact with E.T. and might have his DNA on it and loading it into vans to be taken to government labs for analysis. A glance around the quarantined room (particularly after everybody steps out [[spoiler:to give Elliot some time to make his farewells to E.T.]]) shows a camera mounted on a tripod pointed at the hospital beds; ''somebody'' had the sense to be getting a record of everything happening during what's basically America's FirstContact with an extraterrestrial.
* FullMoonSilhouette: The TropeCodifier in the scene where ET makes Elliot's bike fly. The image of the bike silhouetted against the moon became the logo of Creator/StevenSpielberg's production company Creator/AmblinEntertainment.
* FutileHandReach: Elliot trying to reach E.T. from his operating table.

* GirlishPigtails: Gertie has these, as does at least one girl at Elliot's school.

* HeroStoleMyBike: Michael and Elliot hijack the van that was supposed to transport the body of E.T. away.

* InterrogationByVandalism: A variant. Elliot and Michael threaten to destroy Gertie's doll if she talked to anyone about E.T.
* InvisibleToAdults: To keep Gertie from telling their mother (Mary) about E.T., Elliot claims E.T. is this. She doesn't believe him, but Mary spends a lot of the movie proving him ''[[FailedASpotCheck right]]''.
* TheJoyOfFirstFlight: When E.T. and Elliot go on a bike ride and E.T. causes them to go over a cliff at which point they start flying. Elliot is at first yelling for them not to go too high, but soon after relaxes and begins to enjoy himself, culminating in the iconic shot of them flying across the moon, and all of it set to John William's unforgettable score.

* KissingUnderTheInfluence: Elliot, psychically drunk on E.T.'s beer, kisses the pretty girl in his science class.

* LongingLook: The blond girl in Elliot's class seems to have a crush on him as she keeps sending longing looks his way.
* LostInTheMaize: Elliot's first encounter with E.T. is during a JumpScare moment at night in a cornfield by the house involving a ScaryFlashlightFace of the alien.
* MeaningfulBackgroundEvent: The pretty classmate Elliot swings back into the room in order to steal a kiss is clearly already pretty interested in him [[{{Foreshadowing}} earlier at the bus stop]], and seems a bit sorry to see him go when the teacher hauls him away.

* MirrorScare: When Elliot appears behind the fridge door after his night out in the woods. It's played for surprise more than shock.
* MissingChild: Elliot goes off into the woods to help E.T. and stays the night, causing his mother to report him missing.

* NoAntagonist: The government agents tracking down ET can be intimidating but they are actually very benign compared to most examples. They act in what they feel is best for the situation, treating the family with respect once they finally arrive and the main agent empathetically calls ET a miracle, and even [[spoiler:allows Elliot time to say goodbye when he has "died"]]. The main drive of the movie is getting ET back with his own people and the agents may get in the way due to not having all the information.

* ObviousStuntDouble: During the bike chase, [[https://imgur.com/a/AqfAv38 as this image shows]], 10-year old Elliot's stunt double is a full-grown man. Having the teenagers' stunt doubles as taller-than-average men did not make this much less obvious.
* OhCrap:

* PlayingSick: Elliot fakes a fever, going so far as to hold a thermometer to a light bulb, in order to spend the day with E.T. In an extra scene in the extended version, he also pretends to throw up over the phone.
* PowerWalk: The government agents do this as they head for Elliot's home.

** The 20th Anniversary Edition also had several ''more'' products conveniently edited into it in various places. (Originally, a lot of the products in the refrigerator in Elliot's home had to be turned backward to conceal their brand names since the products' makers hadn't paid to be plugged.)
* PullTheIV: After stabilizing, Elliot rips the IV from his body and head in a rage.

* RecurringCameraShot: The iconic shot of Elliot's bike flying across the moon is actually repeated later as the gang is going to meet E.T.'s ship, the bikes shown flying across the setting sun, though this shot is considerably less known.

* RuleOfCool: Having Elliot find ET in a cornfield added a lot of drama and tension to the scene. However all the daytime shots of the house clearly show there is no cornfield in their backyard.

* ScullyBox: PlayedForLaughs in-universe. When Elliot gets intoxicated by E.T.'s PsychicLink, he kisses a female classmate. Since she's much taller than him, he stands on top of a tripped classmate to kiss her.
* ShipperOnDeck: The reason Elliot reenacted the kiss scene from ''Film/TheQuietMan'', was because E.T. was telepathically influencing him while watching that movie.
* ShirtlessScene: Elliot while being operated on to the scene where he informs Michael that E.T. is alive.

*** Michael does a mocking impression of Yoda in the scene where Elliot reveal to him E.T.
*** Also, when the government agents invade Elliot's house, the astronauts get a [[VaderBreath well-known breath]].

* SiblingRivalry: Several times, including Michael being a BigBrotherBully, Elliot calling him "penis breath", the boys threatening to steal Gertie's doll and Elliot calling Gertie a "twerp".
* SinisterSurveillance: This movie [[{{Anvilicious}} lays this trope on pretty thick]] with close-ups of an agent's eye and a couple of {{Empathy Doll Shot}}s in a number of scenes showing the government's agents listening in on Elliot and Michael, and later searching through their house for E.T. This creepiness builds to a crescendo when they finally reveal themselves by gathering together and moving in for what's basically a full-scale ''home invasion''.

* StaggeredZoom: Onto Elliott's face as they approach the police barricade, before cutting to one agent pulling out his shotgun, then back to Elliot as he braces himself for the worst, right before E.T. makes all the bicycles fly.

* {{Synchronization}}: E.T. and Elliot share a psychic bond. As Michael puts it, "Elliot feels [E.T.]'s feelings."
* TastesLikeFriendship: Elliot makes friends with the alien by offering it [[ProductPlacement Reese's Pieces]]. Interestingly enough, this led to Reese's Pieces sales rising as much as 65% in 1982.
* TechnoBabble: The doctors' talk around Elliot and E.T. on the operation tables.
* TheyWouldCutYouUp: Elliot is understandably afraid that something like this will happen to E.T. if ''any'' grownups find out about him. He doesn't even trust his mother. And the government is indeed looking for him, but we never do find out what they had in mind because he's terminally ill when they find him and curing his condition becomes priority #1.
** And then when [[spoiler:that fails]], this turns into [[spoiler:AlienAutopsy, as Elliot assumes this is what they plan to do with his body and tells Keys as much. Keys doesn't try to deny it, though events afterward render any questions as to whether that was indeed what they were planning another moot point. (From the background dialogue, the doctors indicated all the equipment they'd used on E.T. was being sent to a lab for analysis, though, so their plans to do an autopsy on E.T. are a near-certainty as well.)]]
* ThisIsReality: Elliot's response when Greg asks if E.T. could just "beam up".

* WhamLine: A bit of one when the doctors notice E.T. and Elliot's psychic link being severed as Elliot's vitals recover while E.T.'s head for total cardiac arrest.

* WeaponForIntimidation: Those guns, which Elliot's mother Mary is understandably upset to see the government agents waving around while chasing her kids.

** Then when Elliot approaches the roadblock at the end of the movie, spotting one agent pulling out his shotgun, Elliot fears the worst and closes his eyes, praying for a miracle. E.T. senses his fear and intervenes.
* WhiteAndGreyMorality: Elliot is the hero who can do no wrong, just wanting to help ET; his family are also obviously the good guys by association with him. The government agents and scientists, while they are eventually revealed to be doing commendable work for a worthy cause, are [[GoodIsNotNice more than a bit creepy and overbearing about it]], and spend most of their time in rather sinister shadowy settings.

[[caption-width-right:350: [[TagLine He's afraid, he's totally alone, and he's 3 million lightyears from home.]]]]

* BigStupidDoodooHead: Subverted when Eliot angrily calls Michael "penis breath." It sounds like something a ten-year-old would say, but when you think about it, he's calling Michael a cocksucker.
* BittersweetEnding: E.T. [[spoiler: survives and gets to go home, but Elliot has to tearfully accept that it's more-than-unlikely he'll ever see him again.]]

* BleepDammit: When Michael returns home during Elliot and E.T.'s first day together and looks into the fridge, he sings to himself, "Nothin' but health shit..." The "shit" is silenced out in the 20th-anniversary version, but every other utterance of the word was left untouched.

** E.T. being able to make Elliot's bike fly comes in handy when trying to avoid the FBI.

** Also, that seems to be the principle behind the flying bikes, as seen when [[spoiler:Elliot and Michael's buddies all take flight on their bikes to evade the feds.]]

* CoveringForTheNoise: When Elliot doesn't want Keys to notice that E.T. is still alive in the cooler box, he starts crying to cover up E.T.'s bubbling inside.
* DelayedReaction: After E.T. died Elliot walks past the pot in which the flowers suddenly start to revive. It takes a moment for him to realize what is happening.

* EverytownAmerica: While the town Elliot live in is never mentioned, he points to Northern California on a map when showing E.T. where they live. (The actual house is in the L.A. neighborhood of Sunland-Tujunga at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains.)
* ExposedExtraterrestrials: When Gertie hasn't dressed him up in women's clothes and Michael and Elliot haven't thrown a white bed sheet over him, E.T. waddles around naked. {{Justified|Trope}}, since E.T. clearly has [[BarbieDollAnatomy nothing of note between his legs]].
* TheFaceless: With the exception of Elliot's mother, the audience doesn't see the faces of any adults until the final third of the movie, playing up the film's perspective from a child's POV.
* FailedASpotCheck: Mary fails ''several'', even when Gertie blithely disregards her promise to Elliot and Michael to keep quiet and tries to introduce E.T. to her mother. To drive home how absent-minded and distracted by her daily grind she is, Mary even fails to draw any conclusions upon getting a call from Elliot's school about his AlcoholInducedIdiocy in class that day, asking whether they're sure they've got the right Elliot while she's ''sniffing an empty beer can'' E.T. left on the floor.

* {{Flatline}}: The fact that the life forces of E.T. and Elliot have been linked is indicated by electrocardiograms. As E.T. slowly dies, the link breaks and Elliot's own life signs get better while E.T.'s dive towards a flatline.
* ForgotToMindTheirHead: When Elliot shares the good news about E.T.'s revival with his brother, the latter jumps in the air and bumps his head on the ceiling of the provisional lock.

** There's also a shout-out to [[Franchise/StarTrek that other Star-thing]]:
--->"Well, can't he just [[TeleportersAndTransporters beam up]]?"\\

''E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial'' is a 1982 ScienceFiction film directed by Creator/StevenSpielberg. By the end of its initial theatrical run (which ran from early June of 1982 into early June of 1983), it had unseated ''[[Film/ANewHope Star Wars]]'' as the highest-grossing film of all time, and adjusted for inflation it currently stands as the 7th highest-grossing film of all time. Music/JohnWilliams' score, flying bicycles, and an UglyCute alien hero are just the tip of the iceberg here. The film became so iconic that Spielberg started using the flying bicycle scene as [[VanityPlate logo]] for Creator/AmblinEntertainment.

E.T. learns English -- if only a few words -- through the kids and especially television, and finally is able to tell them what he wants: to "phone home." Elliott helps him rig up a telephone-like device from such things as a Speak-and-Spell to attempt to transmit a message to his planet. But as they wait for a response, E.T. gradually sickens -- as does Elliott, because the alien has developed a psychic bond with him. The government scientists (led by a NoNameGiven character played by Creator/PeterCoyote) catch up with E.T., and soon all seems lost for the poor little guy. It will take ThePowerOfLove and a daring escape to set things right...

* AvoidTheDreadedGRating: The use of the insult "penis breath" (along with maybe the [[UranusIsShowing "Uranus" joke]]) in this film as well as one use of the word "shit" and a few uses of "damn", was Spielberg specifically gunning for the PG rating. Ironic, considering the first line was removed in the infamously LighterAndSofter re-release (the one best known for the walkie-talkie guns).

* ShirtlessScene: Elliot while being operated on to the scene where he informs Micheal that E.T. is alive.

* AliensLoveHumanFood: E.T. loves the Reese's Pieces Elliott leaves a trail of for him to follow.

* AnguishedDeclarationOfLove: A platonic example, [[spoiler: Elliott when he thinks E.T. is dead.]]

* BigStupidDooDooHead: Subverted when Eliot angrily calls Michael "penis breath." It sounds like something a ten-year-old would say, but when you think about it, he's calling Michael a cocksucker.

* DisneyDeath: [[spoiler: The title character]] appears to have died from an illness but comes BackFromTheDead as the spaceship nears.

* ExposedExtraterrestrials: When Gertie hasn't dressed him up in women's clothes and Michael and Elliot haven't thrown a white bed sheet over him, E.T. waddles around naked. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]], since E.T. clearly has [[BarbieDollAnatomy nothing of note between his legs]].

-->'''Mary''': [[FunnyBackgroundEvent I am not paying for frogs!]]

** A lot of background details give educated adults a Genius Bonus or Parental Bonus. For instance, overheard snippets of conversation Mary has on the phone suggest she's waiting for someone named "Jerry" on Halloween (who stands her up, however, which is why she's muttering invectives through the wand she's carrying in her teeth as she gets in her car to go find her children). The doctors' dialogue [[spoiler: while they're trying and failing to save E.T.]] is [[ShownTheirWork real medical talk]] and indicates they have some credible working theories on what the problem is, and a number of people are shown carrying away sealed containers presumably containing just about every item that came in contact with E.T. and might have his DNA on it and loading it into vans to be taken to government labs for analysis. A glance around the quarantined room (particularly after everybody steps out [[spoiler: to give Elliot some time to make his farewells to E.T.]]) shows a camera mounted on a tripod pointed at the hospital beds; ''somebody'' had the sense to be getting a record of everything happening during what's basically America's FirstContact with an extraterrestrial.

* MeaningfulBackgroundEvent: The pretty classmate Elliot swings back into the room in order to steal a kiss is clearly already pretty interested in him [[ForeShadowing earlier at the bus stop]], and seems a bit sorry to see him go when the teacher hauls him away.

-->'''Tyler''': "[[TemptingFate We made it!]]" *agents attack* (softly) "Oh, shit!"

-->'''Mary''': This is '''my''' home!

--> '''Gertie:''' Anyways, why would Elliott go to the forest? Why would he do such a thing?

** And then when [[spoiler:that fails]], this turns into [[spoiler: AlienAutopsy, as Elliot assumes this is what they plan to do with his body and tells Keys as much. Keys doesn't try to deny it, though events afterward render any questions as to whether that was indeed what they were planning another moot point. (From the background dialogue, the doctors indicated all the equipment they'd used on E.T. was being sent to a lab for analysis, though, so their plans to do an autopsy on E.T. are a near-certainty as well.)]]

--> '''Nurse:''' The boy's coming back. We're losing E.T..

-->'''Mary''': No guns! They're '''children'''!

* NoAntagonist: The government agents tracking down ET can be intimidating but they are actually very benign compared to most examples. They act in what they feel is best for the situation, treating the family with respect once they finally arrive and the main agent even empathetically calls ET a miracle. The main drive of the movie is getting ET back with his own people and the agents may get in the way due to not having all the information.

* DeletedRole: Originally, Elliot was supposed to have an Eddie Haskell-like friend named Lance. He still appears in the novelization and the storybook.
** Creator/HarrisonFord cameos as the principal in a deleted scene, but only the 1996 Signature Laserdisc has this scene.

* BigNo[=/=]PleaseDontLeaveMe: [[spoiler:When Michael wakes up and sees the flower that E.T. has revived begin to die again, he shouts out a Big "NO!", which is cued up in synch to Elliott's scream of "E.T., DON'T GOOOO!!!", right before E.T. flatlines.]]

''E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial'' is a 1982 ScienceFiction film directed by Creator/StevenSpielberg. By the end of its initial theatrical run (which ran from early June of 1982 into early June of 1983), it had unseated ''[[Film/ANewHope Star Wars]]'' as the highest-grossing film of all time, and adjusted for inflation it currently stands as the 7th highest-grossing film of all time. Music/JohnWilliams' score, flying bicycles, and an UglyCute alien hero are just the tip of the iceberg here. The film became so iconic that Spielberg started using the flying bicycle scene as logo for Creator/AmblinEntertainment.

''E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial'' is a 1982 ScienceFiction film directed by Creator/StevenSpielberg. By the end of its initial theatrical run (which ran from early June of 1982 into early June of 1983), it had unseated ''[[Film/ANewHope Star Wars]]'' as the highest-grossing film of all time, and adjusted for inflation it currently stands as the 7th highest-grossing film of all time. Music/JohnWilliams' score, flying bicycles, and an UglyCute alien hero are just the tip of the iceberg here.

*** E.T.'s species is canonically present in the Star Wars universe during the events of Film/ThePhantomMenace courtesy of a ShoutOut in the other direction, so it's entirely possible he *does* know Yoda, or at least another Yodan.

* AdultFear: Mary's is justified since at least in her point of view: her son gets sick, misbehaves in school and goes missing on Halloween. She then ends up seeing a creature, that she never thought would exist and that in her mindset may have done something to harm her child. Just as she was about to get her kids away from the house, a bunch of men in strange suits end up trapping her in her own home. Said men tell her that her son might die.

* AllThereInTheManual: E.T.'s backstory. He's a member of a low-grade HiveMind, essentially a sentient drone: In some ways his intelligence is very simple and childlike, in others, very sophisticated, as befitting field crew. When he is cut off from his group mind, his body, not equipped to handle isolation, begins to break down, hastened by Earth's very high gravity. His telepathic bond with Elliott slows the process, but also makes him an accidental PowerParasite, draining Elliott. When his ship gets in range, he automatically reconnects with the network, which immediately halts the decay and heals him.
** Also in TheBookOfTheFilm by William Kotzwinkle, it's revealed that E.T. is [[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld ten million years old!]]

* MoodWhiplash: You’ll be hard pressed to find a movie where you go from laughing to crying so much in such a short period of time.

-->--'''E.T.'''

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: The last we see of the science class is a drunk Elliot being taken away to the Principal's by his teacher. We never find out if any of the other kids who joined in with the antics were punished as well.