In the 1960s, Steven Spielberg’s mother had an affair with his father’s best friend. In love with the woman who broke his heart, his father chose to shoulder the blame, refusing to inform Spielberg and his three younger sisters of the affair. The result was an icy paternal relationship; Spielberg resented his father for destroying his cherished family dynamic. He exalted his mother as a saintly figure that embodied everything his father stole from him. 

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Spielberg spent decades struggling with the trauma, funneling his emotions into his work. Close Encounters of the Third Kind’s Roy Neary gets so consumed by an extraterrestrial calling that he drives his family away, neglecting them forever to board the alien spaceship. You can feel Spielberg’s confusion, surrendering Neary’s choice to the unknowable power of the cosmos. The calling cannot be understood, combated, reasoned with, or ignored. If ever a movie concluded without its creator understanding what he sought to comprehend, this was it. Consciously or otherwise, the quest can never feel like anything but what it is: in many ways, that lack of pretense draws us to E.T. 

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A simple movie can cast vast divides, but it can also unite us. Spielberg has often proven that unifying force, irrespective of tone, thematics, or genre. Between 1975-1993, three of his films became the highest-grossing movie ever released, those that didn’t regularly finished in the top three at the worldwide box office, and six would eventually get added to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. If ever someone wanted to understand the why of Spielberg’s legacy, they need look no further than E.T.

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Studio executives were hesitant to finance the production: they believed the film had limited commercial potential and only preadolescent appeal. Mars, Inc. refused to allow M&M’s to feature, assuming the alien character would frighten kids and put consumers off the candy-coated treat. Everywhere Spielberg turned, people understood neither him nor themselves.

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Thus, creating the film would require improvisational attention to detail. Producer Kathleen Kennedy hired workers from the Jules Stein Institute to create ET’s eyes. Actress Pat Welsh, a lifelong smoker, went through two packs daily to voice the creature. The remaining voice effects were contributed by Debra Winger, otters, horses, and a burp recorded by Spielberg’s college film professor. Two little people and a legless 12-year-old took turns wearing the costume. After the creature’s $1.5 million construction, Spielberg declared it “something only a mother could love.”

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Spielberg wrote the screenplay (a first draft) on notecards, kept them in his pocket during shooting, and never storyboarded, allowing him to work with the child actors freely. He stationed the camera low to simulate the physical perspective of a child and shot chronologically so Henry Thomas, Drew Barrymore, and Robert MacNaughton would develop an attachment to the creature, creating a more emotional farewell. Considering everything ET represented to the children whose father abandoned them, the approach fit a heavy subject.

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According to the National Census Bureau, 19.5 million American children live in fatherless homes, and the effect of paternal abandonment is well-documented: poor academic performance, fear of intimacy, and low self-esteem. 71% of high school dropouts, 85% of incarcerated youth, and 90% of runaway children are fatherless. Even with a support system, Elliot was not guaranteed a great life without his father in it. He was not alone but was lonely. He needed ET, just like we did, in ways that defy belief.

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E.T. got produced on a $10.5 million budget. After re-releases, its worldwide gross stands at $792 million, recouping its budget 75 times. Fifty companies received licenses to produce E.T. merchandise, generating a projected $300 million profit. Video game disaster aside, it dominated the holiday season: shopping malls featured ET dressed as Santa and Marty Merchant released a Christmas song about him. E.T. was everything, everywhere, all at once; 40 years later, it’s still an indelible part of popular culture. The question is… why? 

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E.T. feels almost like Spielberg was torn between two worlds: the one where he needs his father and another where he forsakes him entirely. The idea came to him in Tunisia while shooting Raiders of the Lost Ark. He’d conceptualized an imaginary friend in 1966 after his parents’ separation. In 1981, isolated from his loved ones in a faraway country, he decided to make that alien friend into a movie. Spielberg said at this year’s TCM Film Festival, "when your parents get divorced, “the world collapses. The sky falls on your head… it’s something that never goes away. And it becomes part of the wash.”

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For better or worse, few artists are as self-assured as Spielberg; his romance with sentiment has gotten praised as often as maligned. Age affects people differently: some cocoon themselves in sentimentality; others become too jaded to espouse it. Spielberg spent decades reconciling his paternal abandonment through his work. As with any healing process, we can see the resolution take shape, both through the resentment of Close Encounters and the gratitude of Saving Private Ryan. As much as he can be, he is a healed man. E.T. is the giant leap in that healing.

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We seek escapism in movies; by definition, a trip to the theater is a desire to see things that are either outright impossible or exceedingly difficult to find. Reducing this concept to visuals is reductive. The truth E.T. offers is that something difficult to find; discovering it in the movie is what keeps us coming back for more.

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We remember the days a child could walk to the end of his driveway to grab a pizza from the delivery man. We long for the days when children weren’t glued to a digital manual on how to live. Childish disputes were precisely that: childish. The insults were colorful in only the way a child could be; nothing could be worse than getting called a “supremist,” or getting accused of having “zero charisma.”

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It reminds us that loss can fracture a family without destroying it entirely. After all, Elliot’s never abandoned him. A parent can still laugh with their children, and brothers and sisters can still offer support. Regardless of what they've endured, they make the best of life and get rewarded for the soulfulness we lose as we age. If we accept what we cannot change and embrace what we have, that special something can fly us past the moon or defy death itself. 

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We know this when we’re young without realizing it and dismiss it as we age because we’ve taught ourselves not to embrace it. We define our perspective by hardships, but rarely in a good way. It’s easy to speak of learning from mistakes, taking the good from the bad, and growing from our trials; acting on them is another matter. How often do we forget that everyone is young to someone older: that we all, no matter our age, have something to learn? How often do we remember that there are things we should never forget?

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We fail to find that middle ground, the sweet spot of life where we know we are in the good days as we live them out. E.T. is not a love letter to Spielberg’s father; it is a longing for what he should have been, a lament on what he failed to be, and a resolution to find it regardless. It is not always an absent father; sometimes, it’s a more permanent loss or something that seems innocuous. We all experience the world and get shaped differently, but everyone understands Elliot's pain and the desire to become whole again, even if he doesn’t.

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After all, Elliot was too young to comprehend what he and ET were to one another. That is the magic of the movie.: reminding us that we should forget what we know and feel: feel the loss but also gratitude for an opportunity to recapture what we lost, one way or another.

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E.T. will not always be in Elliot’s heart but his mind: it is up to Elliott to feel the memories. ET is a safe place but not one where he can hide: ET must go home, and so must Elliot. It is the defining component of a movie experience: whatever we find there is ours only for a while; it is on us to churn those memories into something more. E.T. knows it cannot tell us how to accomplish this, only show us that what often doesn't seem worth it always is: supporting your family, looking towards new beginnings instead of longing to resolve tragic endings, and trusting that renewal will bring that resolution.

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Elliot’s father may never return, but that's irrelevant; ET has given him the same thing Spielberg needed from his imaginary alien friend: the father he no longer had. In some ways, he was also the father to ET that his father refused to be for him. He ushered him into an unfamiliar world, held him by the hand as he opened him up to its possibilities, and allowed himself to learn from him as much as he taught ET. We all have the power to be something incredible to those we care for most; E.T. makes us believe we can wield it.

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It is proof that even if we don’t realize it, we crave complex stories, though not always through intricate structures or a spider web of thematics. E.T. gives us something we all need at every juncture of life. We need it when wide-eyed and optimistic, ready to explore the world, even if it only extends to the end of our California cul de sac. We need it when we must raise a family alone. We need it to remind us that life only ends when we draw our final breath; before that, it is our duty to live. We must welcome the alien into our home and hearts and fight to do right by those who have done right by us. Elliot never gives up on his friend, even in death; ET looks out for Elliot without hesitation, the way Spielberg felt his father should have looked out for his family. The result of this mutuality was not only a global phenomenon but a life-changing undertaking for its director.

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E.T., the movie about no longer needing his father, convinced Spielberg he was ready to become one. He always had the instincts; Henry Thomas’ audition was improvised at Spielberg’s behest, proof that we should always let children be themselves. During her audition, Barrymore told Spielberg that she was the lead singer of The Purple People Eaters, a punk band who painted their faces and played to sold-out crowds. Her vividness inspired him to give her the part, proof that we should encourage a child's imagination. In 1984, Spielberg renewed his romance with Amy Irving; their son, Max, was born two years later. Spielberg had repaired himself with the defining part of his legacy.

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We can use many things to explain our enduring love for E.T.: John Williams’ legendary score playing over the iconic flight past the full moon. We can mention Reese’s Pieces, drunk ET, and the glowing finger during a touching goodbye. We know about the cutesy mimicking of Gertie’s horrified shrieks and the moment through the glass as Elliot resurrects his alien friend, much like a young man would want to reform his broken family.

‍E.T. helps us understand that our hardships are ours to control. We cannot prevent them from happening; for better or worse, life will out. Fathers will leave, loved ones will die, and friendships will fade. All we can do is open the door when opportunity knocks. E.T. shows us the value of the fight that forges unbreakable bonds and helps us remember the meaning of life: to live it.


We have to fight for the ones we love the way Spielberg felt his father didn’t fight for him. We must give to and look after others as they do for us. We must see the world like E.T. instead of Close Encounters. If we can do that, remembering that the way forward is with belief instead of bitterness, we can be everyone E.T. wants us to be. We can be the mother who provides and protects despite her sorrows, the siblings who support each other, the child who discovers himself among the wreckage of abandonment, and the alien who reminds them all that the ones who love us can never leave. If we look inside, they’ll always be right there.