Character page for Steven Spielberg's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
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Elliott
"He came to me!"
Played by: Henry Thomas
- Big Brother Bully: In order to make sure Gertie doesn't tell their mom about E.T, Elliott and Michael invoke this by threatening to torture her toy doll.
- Coy, Girlish Flirt Pose: Elliott is a deceptively good ladies' man.
- Kid Hero: At the end, he pulls off the entire escape plan to get E.T. back to his ship.
- Middle Child Syndrome: Invoked because he's the middle child between Michael and Gertie.
- Psychic Link: E.T. forms an empathetic one with him, which grows increasingly stronger over the film.
- Red Is Heroic: Wears a red hoodie as he, Michael and their friends attempt to get E.T. to his home ship.
E.T.
"I'll...be...right...here."
Voiced by: Pat Welsh (English; film), Audrey Wasilewski (English; current)
Dubbed by: Perrette Pradier (French, 20th anniversary edition)
- All There in the Manual: The novelization and other tie in books expand on E.T.'s origins and his homeplanet.
- Badass Adorable: He's cute in an unconventional way, and he has formidable Psychic Powers.
- Bizarre Alien Biology: Background dialogue from the doctors indicates that E.T.'s DNA uses six nucleotides instead of four (this may help explain why he got sick: Earth's food doesn't provide him sufficient nourishment).
- Curious as a Monkey: Goes to explores the house when left alone.
- A Dog Named "Dog": An extra-terrestrial named E.T. (The Extra-terrestrial)
- Far-Out Foreigner's Favorite Food: Loves Reese's Pieces (M&Ms in the novelization).
- Four-Fingered Hands: Has four fingers on each hand.
- Gadgeteer Genius: Surprisingly, considering he's a botanist: He builds a wind-operated emergency beacon, transmitting in his own language, out of common household items (and a Speak and Spell). What's more, his ship hears his transmission and comes back for him!
- Healing Hands: His famous finger.
- Heart Light: Probably the Trope Codifier. His species feature a huge heart that glows red under certain condition.
- Innocent Blue Eyes: Has a huge pair of them.
- Insufficiently Advanced Alien: Elliot's brother thinks E.T. may just be a worker, and isn't necessarily a great scientist or anything. E.T. is actually a botanist, but has more than enough engineering know-how to make a communication device. Then again, he ran away screaming when a can of pencils fell over and the kids did initially think he was a hairless monkey.
- Internal Reveal: The kids obviously have to explain things to their mother when Elliot falls ill from E.T.'s Psychic Link. And this is moments before the government stepped in and placed their entire house under quarantine.
- Learnt English from Watching Television: Learns some basic words (y'know:"phone" and "home") from Sesame Street in a fairly well justified way: the show had basic words sounded out next to a picture of what it was talking about. It is a show directed at preschoolers, after all.
- Long Neck: He is able to make his neck longer. Usually does this when he is frightened, but near the end when he has to say goodbye to Elliott's older brother he does this too.
- Messianic Archetype: Right down to the resurrection and the Michelangelo touching of fingers between man and the Divine. So blatant was the parable it was spoofed on The Simpsons:Rev. Lovejoy: I remember another gentle visitor from the heavens, he came in peace and then died, only to come back to life, and his name was... E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial. (cries) I loved that little guy.
- Spielberg himself has said he never intended the film to be interpreted as a religious fable, and has himself joked about it.
- No Biological Sex: Gertie's not so sure whether E.T. is a boy or a girl, while Elliot insists he's a boy. While they all end up going along with Elliot on this, the obvious complete lack of any kind of genitals in all of E.T.'s people makes that a purely arbitrary designation. The books, of course, pretty much confirm this. While behind the scenes, E.T. was referred to, and conceived by his creator Carlo Rambaldi, as male.
- No Name Given: E.T. is the nickname Elliott gave him. Justified in the fact E.T. knows limited English and we never see him interact with any of his species. (In the sequel novel, E.T.: The Book of the Green Planet, even after E.T. returns to his home planet the narration always calls him "E.T." His own people are only ever described referring to him as "The Doctor of Botany".)
- Plant Aliens: The creators state that E.T.'s species is plantlike in their anatomy and are asexual. His heart in particular is gourdlike in appearance.
- Psychic Powers: Telepathy and telekinesis.
- Starring Special Effects: He's an animatronic puppet, doubled by a little person in a suit in long shots, who is the most prominent feature of this movie.
- Sweet Tooth: Quickly develops a fondness for Reese's Pieces candy.
- Taught by Television: He learned English mostly by watching TV.
- Vague Age: According to the novelization of the film he's over 10 million years old. Other sources put him at about 800 years old, and he's shown to be a child in the Expanded Universe book E.T.: The Book of the Green Planet.
- Verbal Tic: In the film's novelization, E.T. is able to speak much more coherently (rather than only knowing a handful of words), but due to learning English from a Speak-'n-Spell, he usually starts sentences with the command to "Spell..."
- You No Take Candle: "E.T. Phone Home".
Michael
Played by: Robert MacNaughton
- Big Brother Bully: At first Michael teases Elliot mercilessly, until he shows Michael E.T for the first time.
- Big Brother Instinct: In the beginning of the film, he bullies both Elliot, and Gertie (the latter to a lesser extent), but becomes far more protective of them as the film progresses.
- Character Development: He goes from a basic Jerkass to caring about E.T. and wanting to help him just as much as his younger siblings—he's very upset upon finding him near death, and even more so when he does die, then just as thrilled as Elliot when he revives.
- Drives Like Crazy: During the film's climax. Justified; he is only learning at this point and is in an extremely stressful situation.
- Skewed Priorities: "We're all gonna die and they're never gonna give me my license!"
Gertie
Played by: Drew Barrymore
- Annoying Younger Sibling: Elliott tends to think she is this more so than Michael.
- The Baby of the Bunch: Justified as she's the youngest out of her siblings.
- Children Are Innocent: While she's not so gullible to believe everything her brothers tell her, she doesn't quite understand their reasoning for keeping E.T.'s existence from their mother and so blithely chatters about him to Mary whilst letting him wander about in the open. She also is distraught when seeing doctors use a defibrillator on E.T., not realising they're trying to revive him, and excitedly tells Keys about E.T.'s family coming to collect him.
- Girlish Pigtails: She has her hair in pigtails throughout the film.
- Little Miss Snarker: She's very snarky for a five year old.
- Saying Too Much: Tells Keys about E.T.'s family coming for him. In a deleted scene she's the one who tells Mary Elliott's in the woods.
- Screams Like a Little Girl: Justified as she's a 5 year old girl who's just seen an alien for the first time.
- Tomboy: Given that she's 5 years old, with two brothers who are 10 and 16, it's not surprising that she is one. She wears a baseball cap and for Halloween she sports a cowgirl costume.
Mary
Played by: Dee Wallace
- Animal-Eared Headband: On Halloween, she dresses up in a leopard costume complete with an Animal-Eared Headband.
- Boyish Short Hair: Zig-zagged, she does indeed have this haircut but is always seem wearing a dress.
- Corpsing: In-Universe she's visibly trying not to laugh when chastising Elliot for calling Michael "Penis-breath".
- Failed a Spot Check: The first time she sees E.T., she doesn't think he's anything but a stuffed doll.
- Long Hair Is Feminine: Averted and defied. Is generally feminine despite her pixie cut.
- Mama Bear:
- Once shown E.T. for the first time, while she is unaware of the alien's relationship to her child, her first impulse is to grab her obviously ill son and get him away from the strange creature.
- She later tries to protect the kids when the government agents finally make their way into her house.
- Parental Obliviousness: Often fails to spot E.T. when he's mere feet away from her.
Greg, Steve and Tyler
Played by: K.C. Martel (Greg), Sean Frye (Steve), C. Thomas Howell (Tyler)
Dubbed by: Kelyan Blanc (Greg, French, 20th anniversary edition)
- Character Development: Despite the flat characterization cited below, they, like Michael, go from being a bunch of jerks to enthusiastically pitching in to help Michael and Elliot escape with ET and being just as moved and awestruck as everyone else at seeing his spaceship take off.
- Flat Character: They don't get much characterization other than Michael's close teenage friends and are mainly in the background for the majority of the film.
"Keys"
Played by: Peter Coyote
- Big Bad: Sort of. He is the lead scientist who wants to capture E.T., but even still he doesn't come across as a bad guy.
- Hero of Another Story: Something must have happened to Keys to get him interested in aliens, since he claims he's been waiting for something like E.T. to appear since he was 10 (while his claim that "[E.T.] came to me too" seems unlikely, he might be rationalizing this as being the truth From a Certain Point of View). He and the rest of the government investigation team are just given very quick (and sinister-looking) scenes where they investigate the remains of E.T.'s and Eliot's shenanigans up until they converge on the house.
- No Name Given: He begins the film as a nameless, faceless figure distinguished by the bunch of keys hanging from his belt; later in the film, when he becomes a more sympathetic figure, his face is shown, but his name is never revealed. He's even listed just as "Keys" in the ending credits.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: The police and government agents are the villains of the film, but even then they are very reasonable, never actively trying to harm the children when they find out and even giving Elliott time to grieve after E.T. dies. This is particularly true of Keys, who gently talks to Elliott to try and figure out what's wrong with E.T., while declaring to Elliott that E.T.'s presence on Earth is nothing short of a miracle.
- Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist: He has a job to do that conflicts with the protagonists and is part of a group that comes across as very scary, but he is a good man at heart who has been wanting to meet an alien since he was 10, wants to save E.T., sympathizes with Elliott ("I'm glad he met you first."), and when he sees E.T. is going home, he just watches alongside Mary, and doesn't do anything to prevent it.
