Uploaded November 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
In hindsight, it’s a story so simple a child could’ve come up with it. A story about a boy, feeling lost and alone in the world. He befriends a small alien, similarly lost and alone in the world. Their bond is almost immediate, and in a few short days they become the best of friends. But the alien doesn’t belong here, and the boy knows it. One day soon, that loveable creature will have to return home, and when he does, he won’t be coming back... The end.
It might not sound spectacular on paper, but with the right storyteller in charge, the result broke millions of hearts and earned hundreds of millions of dollars. When Steven Spielberg’s E.T. The Extraterrestrial came out in June of 1982, the world was not quite prepared for just how much of a phenomenon the movie - and its title character - would become. Before long it would be the biggest movie ever released. It wasn’t cynical or violent, it made no excuses for how sentimental it was, and it did not play fair when it came to toying masterfully with the audience’s emotions. And the people loved it almost as much as the boy loved his extraterrestrial pal.
In hindsight, it’s a story so simple a child could’ve come up with it. A story about a boy, feeling lost and alone in the world. He befriends a small alien, similarly lost and alone in the world. Their bond is almost immediate, and in a few short days they become the best of friends. But the alien doesn’t belong here, and the boy knows it. One day soon, that loveable creature will have to return home, and when he does, he won’t be coming back... The end.
It might not sound spectacular on paper, but with the right storyteller in charge, the result broke millions of hearts and earned hundreds of millions of dollars. When Steven Spielberg’s E.T. The Extraterrestrial came out in June of 1982, the world was not quite prepared for just how much of a phenomenon the movie - and its title character - would become. Before long it would be the biggest movie ever released. It wasn’t cynical or violent, it made no excuses for how sentimental it was, and it did not play fair when it came to toying masterfully with the audience’s emotions. And the people loved it almost as much as the boy loved his extraterrestrial pal.
