Editing E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (section)

==Themes==
[[File:ETChrist.jpg|thumb|Spielberg admitted that this scene triggered speculation as to whether the film was a spiritual parable.<ref name="take 22">{{Cite news| first = Judith | last = Crist | title = Take 22: Moviemakers on Moviemaking | work = Viking | year = 1984}}</ref>]]

Spielberg drew the story of the film from his parents' divorce.<ref name="salon">{{Cite news|first = Charles | last = Taylor |url=http://dir.salon.com/story/ent/movies/feature/2002/03/22/et/index.html |title=You can go home again |work=[[Salon (website)|Salon]] |date=March 22, 2002 |access-date=September 11, 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080802152730/http://dir.salon.com/story/ent/movies/feature/2002/03/22/et/index.html |archive-date=August 2, 2008}}</ref> Gary Arnold of ''[[The Washington Post]]'' called it "essentially a spiritual autobiography, a portrait of the filmmaker as a typical suburban kid set apart by an uncommonly fervent, mystical imagination."<ref name="arnold">{{Cite news|first=Gary|last=Arnold|title=E.T. Steven Spielberg's Joyful Excursion, Back to Childhood, Forward to the Unknown|newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]|date=June 6, 1982|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/22/AR2005062201424.html|access-date=December 30, 2017|archive-date=November 27, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171127041359/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/22/AR2005062201424.html|url-status=live}}</ref> References to Spielberg's childhood occur throughout: Elliott fakes illness by holding a thermometer to the bulb in his lamp while covering his face with a heating pad, a trick frequently employed by the young Spielberg.<ref>{{harvnb|McBride|1997|p=13}}</ref> Michael picking on Elliott echoes Spielberg's teasing of his younger sisters,<ref name="20thAnniversaryDVD" /> and Michael's evolution from tormentor to protector reflects how Spielberg had to take care of his sisters after their father left.<ref name="reunion"/>

Critics have focused on the parallels between the lives of E.T. and Elliott, who is "alienated" by the loss of his father.<ref name="sebeok">Thomas A. Sebeok. "Enter Textuality: Echoes from the Extra-Terrestrial." In ''Poetics Today'' (1985), Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics. Published by Duke University Press.</ref><ref name="back">Ilsa J. Beck, "The Look Back in E.T.," ''Cinema Journal'' 31(4) (1992): 25–41, 33.</ref> [[Pauline Kael]] noted that "Elliot (his name begins with an 'E' and ends with a T.') is a dutiful, too sober boy who never takes off his invisible thinking cap; the telepathic communication he develops with E.T. eases his cautious, locked-up worries, and he begins to act on his impulses."<ref name="Kael">{{Cite magazine| last=Kael| first=Pauline| title=''E.T. The Extraterrestrial''| date=June 14, 1982| magazine=The New Yorker}}</ref> [[A. O. Scott]] of ''[[The New York Times]]'' wrote that while E.T. "is the more obvious and desperate foundling," Elliott "suffers in his own way from the want of a home."<ref name="aoscott">{{Cite news | first = A. O. | last = Scott | author-link = A. O. Scott | title = Loss and Love, A Tale Retold. | work = [[The New York Times]] | date = March 22, 2002 | url = https://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/22/movies/critic-s-notebook-loss-and-love-a-tale-retold.html | access-date = April 11, 2008 | url-status=live | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080621032356/http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9404EED71138F931A15750C0A9649C8B63 | archive-date = June 21, 2008 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news| first=Philip | last=Wuntch | title=Return of E.T. | work=[[The Dallas Morning News]] | date=July 19, 1985 }}</ref> At the film's heart is the theme of growing up. Some critics have suggested that Spielberg's portrayal of suburbia is very dark, contrary to popular belief. According to A.O. Scott, "the suburban milieu, with its unsupervised children and unhappy parents, its broken toys and brand-name junk food, could have come out of a [[Raymond Carver]] story."<ref name="aoscott"/> Charles Taylor of Salon.com wrote that "Spielberg's movies, despite the way they're often characterized, are not Hollywood idealizations of families and the suburbs. The homes here bear what the cultural critic Karal Ann Marling called 'the marks of hard use'."<ref name="salon"/> Relatedly, scholarship has emerged on the film regarding its subversion of the nuclear family dynamic, in which Elliott is growing up with a physically absent father and an emotionally absent mother; this aspect of the movie offers an exploration of upbringing within a nontraditional family structure.<ref name='"Making E.T. Perfectly Queer"'>{{cite journal |last1=Beloso |first1=Brooke M. |title=Making E.T . Perfectly Queer: The alien other and the science fiction of sexual difference |journal=Feminist Media Studies |date=4 March 2014 |volume=14 |issue=2 |pages=222–236 |doi=10.1080/14680777.2012.724023 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14680777.2012.724023?scroll=top&needAccess=true| issn=1468-0777}}</ref>

Other critics found religious parallels between E.T. and [[Jesus]].<ref>{{Cite magazine|first=Stanley|last=Kauffmann|author-link=Stanley Kauffmann|title=The Gospel According to St. Steven|magazine=[[The New Republic]]|date=July 27, 1982|url=https://newrepublic.com/article/76829/the-gospel-according-st-steven|access-date=December 17, 2017|archive-date=July 8, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190708142203/https://newrepublic.com/article/76829/the-gospel-according-st-steven|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>Anton Karl Kozlovic. [https://www.usask.ca/relst/jrpc/art8-cinematicchrist.html "The Structural Characteristics of the Cinematic Christ-figure,"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050223221011/http://www.usask.ca/relst/jrpc/art8-cinematicchrist.html |date=February 23, 2005 }} ''[[Journal of Religion and Popular Culture]]'' 8 (Fall 2004).</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kozlovic |first=Anton Karl |date=January 2, 2023 |title=The Cinematic Christ-figure: From Everyman to Antihero-antichrist |url=https://journal.uinsgd.ac.id/index.php/kt/article/view/20034 |journal=Khazanah Theologia |volume=5 |issue=1 |pages=1–20 |doi=10.15575/kt.v5i1.20034 |issn=2715-9701|doi-access=free }}</ref> Andrew Nigels described E.T.'s story as "crucifixion by military science" and "resurrection by love and faith."<ref>Nigel Andrews. "Tidings of comfort and joy." ''[[Financial Times]]'' (December 10, 1982), I11</ref> According to Spielberg biographer [[Joseph McBride (writer)|Joseph McBride]], Universal Pictures appealed directly to the Christian market, with a poster reminiscent of [[Michelangelo]]'s ''[[The Creation of Adam]]'' (more specifically the "fingers touching" detail) and a logo reading "Peace".<ref name="McBride pp323-38" /> Spielberg answered that he did not intend the film to be a religious parable, joking, "If I ever went to my mother and said, 'Mom, I've made this movie that's a Christian parable,' what do you think she'd say? She has a Kosher restaurant on Pico and Doheny in Los Angeles."<ref name="take 22"/>

Several writers have seen the movie as a modern [[fairy tale]].<ref name="gordon">Andrew Gordon. "E.T. as a Fairy Tale," ''Science Fiction Studies'' 10 (1983): 298–305.</ref> Critic Henry Sheehan described the film as a retelling of [[Peter Pan]] from the perspective of a Lost Boy (Elliott): E.T. cannot survive physically on Earth, as Pan could not survive emotionally in [[Neverland]]; government scientists take the place of Neverland's pirates. Furthering the parallels, there is a scene in the film where Mary reads ''Peter Pan'' to Gertie.<ref name="sheehan">{{Cite news|first = Henry | last = Sheehan |title=The Panning of Steven Spielberg |work=Film Comment |date=May–June 1992 |url=http://www.henrysheehan.com/essays/stuv/spielberg-1.html |access-date=July 16, 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070703105619/http://www.henrysheehan.com/essays/stuv/spielberg-1.html |archive-date=July 3, 2007}}</ref> [[Vincent Canby]] of ''The New York Times'' similarly observed that the film "freely recycles elements from" ''[[Peter Pan (1953 film)|Peter Pan]]'' and ''[[The Wizard of Oz (1939 film)|The Wizard of Oz]]''.<ref>{{harvnb|Rubin|2001|p=53}}</ref> Kael writes that "from the opening in the dense, vernal woodland that adjoins Elliot's suburb (it's where we first hear E.T.'s frightened sounds), the film has the soft, mysterious inexorability of the classic tale of enchantment. The little shed in the back of the house where Elliott tosses in a ball and E.T. sends it back is part of a dreamscape."<ref name="Kael"/>

Producer [[Kathleen Kennedy (producer)|Kathleen Kennedy]] noted that an important theme of the film is tolerance, which would be central to future Spielberg films such as ''[[Schindler's List]]''.<ref name="20thAnniversaryDVD" /> Having been a loner as a teenager, Spielberg described it as "a minority story".<ref>{{harvnb|Rubin|2001|p=22}}</ref> Spielberg's characteristic theme of communication is partnered with the ideal of mutual understanding; he has suggested that the story's central alien-human friendship is an analogy for how real-world adversaries can learn to overcome their differences.<ref>{{cite video | people = [[Richard Schickel]] (interviewer) | title = Spielberg on Spielberg | publisher = [[Turner Classic Movies]] |date = July 9, 2007}}</ref>