On its release E.T. the Extra Special Alien was a bonafide cultural event with the movie quickly becoming one of the highest grossing in the history of the medium and being so popular that it was re-released, twice. In specific regards to that second re-release Spielberg eventually came to disown it because it didn’t make it explicitly clear that the government wanted to shoot a small child and his alien friend in the back as they were running away in terror.
Now changing movies after the fact isn’t uncommon though you’d probably expect the name on an article discussing it to be George Lucas and not Steven Spielberg. But at some point in the early 2000’s Lucas was seemingly able to bring Spielberg over to the Dark Side and convince him that E.T. needed to be fixed.
Known variously as the 20th Anniversary Edition or more simply, the Special Edition, this re-release of E.T. was a glimpse into a potential future where Steven Spielberg was too polite to ignore George Lucas’ calls and endlessly tinkered with his own movies.
Much like his the Star Wars Special Editions, the E.T. re-release sports numerous changes realised using CGI like making Elliot’s cape flap in the wind whilst flying through the air on his bike or fixing shots of E.T. running where it looked like he’d shit himself. The issue is, like Lucas, once Spielberg started fixing obvious the obvious mistakes he’d made back in the 80’s, he began fixing stuff that seemingly bothered only himself and nobody fucking else.
For example ADR was used to change a single word of dialogue in the film from “terrorist” to “hippy”, seeing as the re-release occurred after 9/11 and adding more lights to E.T.’s spaceship to make it look more, spaceship-y.
However the most infamous change and the one Spielberg came to regret the most is the digital removal of guns from the hands of Federal Agents chasing after Elliot and his little alien buddy. You see, in the original shot the G-Men are armed with fucking shotguns and it’s clear they’re just itching to engage in some alien skeet shooting.
In the re-release Spielberg insisted that they use CGI to replace these shotguns with walkie-talkies so it didn’t look like the government was willing to Dante a child out of the air with shotgun combos to prevent an alien from escaping their clutches. A decision he later came to regret, noting that the film was a reflection of the time and that as shitty as it was to show government agents trying to detonate an alien skull with a boomstick, that was the movie he made and he stood by his vision. At the time.
In fact, Spielberg felt so strongly about this that he used his considerable clout to basically have the special edition deleted from existence in favour of the original cut, mistakes and all. A move known in the industry as a Reverse Lucas. How? Well basically every time they re-re-release E.T. Spielberg only gives his blessing to the original cut and demand that it be included on any releases of the special edition. Essentially giving fans two cuts of the movie for the price of one. Eventually Universal realised it’d just be easier to only release the original version and as a result it’s the special edition of the film that’s harder to track down.
