Dom Robinson reviews

Special Edition

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Cert:

Cat.no: 9052169

Running time: 115 minutes

Year: 2002

Pressing: 2002

Region(s): 2, 4 (UK PAL)

Chapters: 20 plus extras

Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1 EX,
DTS 5.1 ES (Eng only)

Languages: English, Dutch

Subtitles: English for the hard of hearing, Dutch

Widescreen: 1.85:1

16:9-enhanced: Yes

Macrovision: Yes

Disc Format: 2 * DVD 9

Price: £22.99

Extras: Introduction by Steven Spielberg, John Williams Live at the Shrine Auditorium 2002 Premiere, Evolution and Creation of E.T., The Reunion, The Music of John Williams, The 20th Anniversary Premiere, Space Exploration, Designs Photographs and Marketing, Trailers

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Director:

Steven Spielberg (1941, A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, Always, Amistad, Catch Me If You Can, Close Encounter of the Third Kind, The Color Purple, Duel, Empire of the Sun, E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial, Hook, The Indiana Jones Trilogy, Jaws, Jurassic Park 1 & 2, Minority Report, Poltergeist (uncredited), Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List)

Producers:

Kathleen Kennedy and Steven Spielberg

Screenplay:

Melissa Mathison

Original Score :

John Williams

Cast :

Elliott: Henry Thomas
Gertie: Drew Barrymore
Michael: Robert MacNaughton
Mary: Dee Wallace
Keys: Peter Coyote
Tyler: C.Thomas Howell
Pretty girl: Erika Eleniak
E.T. voice: Pat Welsh

E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial: quite definitely one of the most well-known films ever made and still a classic even twenty years on. It also brought the attention of seven-year-old Drew Barrymore to the fore, who's easily gone on to have the biggest career of the whole cast, presuming you don't count Harrison Ford who shot scenes as the School Principal, which were later cut out of the final version.

I saw it, aged 9, on New Year's Day 1983. All was quiet on new year's day, except for some people blubbing in the audience as E.T. was forced to return to his homeland after the snooty government stepped in after a young boy named Elliott found him hiding in his summer house and allowed him to seek refuge in the family home.

Soon after E.T. originally lands, the family are sceptical about the door to the summer house being left open, the footprints in the dust leading Michael to conclude "The coyote's back again, Mum", but Elliott has other ideas and after going outside with a torch and hearing grunting in the bushes like a demented Sidney Cooke, he strikes upon a more pleasant revelation and consults the family over dinner while they discuss their Halloween plans.

What follows is a really fantastic film as Elliott happens across a once-in-a-lifetime friend and they begin to learn a great deal about each other and where they each come from.

This 20th Anniversary Special Edition has some welcome additions such as two new scenes, including one where E.T. takes a bath, plus improved special FX, most noticeable in E.T.'s spaceship and his facial expressions. Alas, in an attempt to be politically-correct, Spielberg has stupidly replaced all the guns with walkie-talkies. Bad idea.

Unless I'm mistaken, Spielberg has also removed the line about looking like a "terrorist" when in Halloween fancy dress.

The DVD set reviewed here was released on October 28th 2002 and six weeks following that is the release of a 3-disc version which also contains the original 1982 version with an RRP of £27.99. Since the Region 1 DVD contains the 1982 version as standard - and not at the expense of many extras - I think that's how the Region 2 version should've come out.

Note: E.T. carries a U-certificate, but the extra, Evolution and Creation of E.T., which has a PG-cert, means the entire boxset carries the higher certificate.

Hey, they got the 1982 version, but we didn't!

Presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, the picture is flawless to these eyes, but then you'd expect it to be so, given that the extensive restoration that Spielberg has undertaken in this project.

Both major home sound formats are catered for, of which I plumped for the superlatve DTS 5.1 ES option. Dialogue is clear as a bell, spot-effects are well-realised and when the DTS sound kicks in early on as E.T.'s spaceship takes off, it will rock your room more than a Manchester earthquake.

I do think that if the Dutch DD5.1 soundtrack had been dropped and some of disc 2's extras moved across to the other one, then the regular version of the film would've fitted on disc 2... or, put them both on disc 1 and use seamless-branching to flit between the two.

Mmm... hug.

Of the extras on the first disc, you don't get to choose from a list which is bizarre. It runs straight into the 2-minute Introduction by Steven Spielberg in 16:9 letterbox, after which comes the John Williams Live at the Shrine Auditorium 2002 Premiere, which is just an alternate soundtrack to the film, not that you'd be able to tell the difference.

And on to disc 2...

These begin with Evolution and Creation of E.T. (50 mins), another featurette in 16;9 letterbox (come on, it can't be hard to dig out the anamorphic version of these, given that so much work has gone into the film itself), which blends chat from the cast and crew with film clips and also includes the screen test for Henry Thomas you might have seen on TV at the time of the updated film's cinema release. There's also a look at the enhanced E.T.

Ah, The Reunion... (18 mins, 4:3) everyone gets together and discusses how they feel 20 years on. The Music of John Williams (10 mins, 4:3) shows footage from the film score's original recording as well as recent chat from Williams. As for The 20th Anniversary Premiere (18 mins, 4:3)... Hang on, the box said that this live piece was on disc one... Oh, it's the "making-of" that event and, as such, isn't particularly interesting.

Designs Photographs and Marketing shows off the designs of E.T, the spaceship, production photographs and how the film was marketed. Erm... the finger-light (right) looks like a massive dildo!

Space Exploration shows off the solar system, with E.T. explaining basic facts about each planet. Alas, the voice sounds more like Stephen Hawking with his voice-computer batteries having gone flat. This is followed by three Trailers, one for E.T. itself (2 mins, 16:9 letterbox), one for the Ubisoft game (1½ mins) (anyone remember the fantastic Atari VCS game??) and the Back To The Future DVD trilogy (4:3, 1½ mins), due to hit the shops in December 2002, at the time of typing.

Ok, some reasonable extras there, but a far cry from what you'd expect for a Special Edition. No audio commentaries and just the bare bones of the usual, all or most of which would've fitted on disc one had it dumped the Dutch soundtrack and alternative music track from Williams, and all of which are extras that you'll watch once and rarely return to.

Subtitles for the film come in both English and Dutch, with various other languages for some of the extras, there are 20 chapters to the film and the menus feature music from the film.

FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS
OVERALL

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2002.

DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.

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