![]() ![]() How can you make a sequel to a film when the original’s enduring brilliance is based so heavily on epic feels and gorgeous 80s nostalgia? There is just no logical next step, no way to strum all the same majestic chords on the heartstrings and still carry the story forward. But that would be an entirely different movie. Perhaps our hero could visit another human child, or maybe the sequel could be about grownup Elliott’s journey to ET’s home planet, many decades on. With ET, the next chapter is not so obvious. Steven Spielberg at a 40th anniversary screening of ET in LA, April 2022. The pathos of those final moments of the film in which the alien tells the small boy he will always be with him, then vanishes into the cosmos, might be entirely lost if the story were to continue. Elliott adores ET even though he knows almost nothing about him: the pair’s intense, odd-couple connection is so much more powerful when it remains an enigma. It’s certainly a cosy trip down memory lane, even if it breaks very little new ground.Īnd herein lies the rub for ET: it is so dependent on the relationship between young Elliott and the titular star-traveller that we do not really want to see what happens next. The commercial Thomas refers to is the 2019 Christmas ad, featuring the actor and ET himself, which was used to promote the internet service Xfinity in the US, and Sky in the UK. I think the commercial was as close as we’re going to get to a sequel and that’s why Spielberg okayed it.” And that would’ve been the best kind of throughline for a sequel. I think it’s really sad that we’ve lost Melissa Mathison, who was the screenwriter of ET, because if anybody could have made it happen it was her. ![]() “There was talk in the early 80s, because the studio was really pushing for it in light of the success that it had theatrically. ![]() “I think it should be left alone, but there’s always been talk of a sequel,” Thomas told Slash Film. Photograph: Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Images Show me the money … Tom Cruise at the Seoul premiere of Top Gun: Maverick, his highest grossing movie. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |