Forty Years of E.T. — Tracing film's impact on Stranger Things, creative thinkers

Steven Spielberg is best known for giving life to dinosaurs in their splendour and horror with Jurassic Park movies. But the filmmaker delivered a record-breaking global phenomenon before he changed the way for commercial cinema with VFX and his dinos. In 1982, Spielberg presented E.T. at the Cannes film festival. It became a cultural influence and a global super success, releasing across different countries for over six years (E.T. came to India in 1986). 40 years on this film continues to rule as a huge cultural influence on writers and content creators, with its footprint particularly visible in Netflix’s record-breaking series Stranger Things .

E.T comes with its own treasure of trivia and back stories. Speaking to The New York Times in 1982 Spielberg surprised readers when he said that E.T was this movie about a kid dealing with divorce, a vision that screenwriter Mellissa Mathison developed into a full-scale story in just 8 weeks. His parents divorced when he was young, and this left a huge dent on his childhood. Spielberg first dealt with it with the father’s character in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) also about aliens and discoveries from outer space. But with E.T. he came full circle, where his lead, the protagonist Elliott (Henry Thomas) comes to accept that departures are sometimes inevitable, and learns to deal with them. Elliott and his siblings Michael (Robert McNaughton) and preschooler Gert (Drew Barrymore) collaborate in their innocent, kid-like ways to hide E.T and then help the liquid-eyed, alert and wrinkly extra-terrestrial being escape from the clutches of ominous G-men and find his way home. Both Elliott and E.T are lost and then find their way back. It’s a simple, highly imaginative story of a family that worked wonders on people’s imagination with bicycles that can fly and kids that can make radar devices out of electronic battery-operated toy phones.

E.T. created room for a host of films about science geek stuff that in turn, generated, sci-fi as a major genre in commercial films. Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, Goonies; and mature films about communicating with life in space with Contact and the more recent Arrival. James Cameron turned the concept of the extra-terrestrial creature with the Aliens movies; malevolent ones from more powerful civilizations set to attack life here. In fact, while Spielberg re-visited sci-fi and outer space with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and War of the Worlds later, the idea of an evil dangerous villain from outer space, one that can wipe out galaxies, forms the crux of the final Avengers movies (here with Thanos).

That stories about extra-terrestrial life have huge appeal emerges from the controversy that involved filmmaker Satyajit Ray and Arthur C Clarke , the acclaimed science fiction author, called Ray in 1982, asking him to sue Steven Spielberg because E.T. had similarities to his unmade script, The Alien. In the Sixties, Ray had sent a lithographed copy of his script about an alien landing in Bengal and befriending a young boy. He wanted to make the film with Peter Sellers and Marlon Brando, and was in talks with a couple of studios, but it never got made. E.T. had a similar story which upset him but he didn’t take legal action for stories in the sci-fi realm were floating across the studios. Later Spielberg denied reading or copying from Ray for he pointed out that when the Indian filmmaker’s script was indeed circulating in studios, he was in high school. As is often the case separating facts from creative influence becomes complicated in such cases.

For a film set in the past, E.T. has left an indelible influence on the future work of many. With Stranger Things, this is most visible. Matt and Ross Duffer, twin brothers behind this cult super popular series, have acknowledged the influence of Steven Spielberg films on them. As kids growing up in the 90s’, the Indiana Jones franchise and Close Encounters… are amongst their favourites. In Stranger Things, markers like DMX bikes, transistors and homemade walkie-talkies, obsessive science and space aficionados as its young school going protagonists, harken back to the world of E.T. This is an age of innocence and curiosity, where there is little fear and fierce friendship and sibling loyalty.

In their story, the kids hide Eleven, a girl their age who has been forced to grow up in isolation and inside a laboratory because she has extraordinary powers. Ominous G-men, both scientists and security bosses, do everything in their power to keep her locked up. Their experimentation has created an alternate, dark universe below the fictitious town of Hawkins- Upside Down, a world that sustains by sucking out the life force of its people. Upside Down is an impossible concept that gets validated in the context of this retro Eighties world. In a scene where Eleven is taken out into the world, at a school event, in disguise, the makers almost directly adapt a strategy from E.T- where the character is taken out in disguise during Halloween and almost mistakes a child in Yoda costume as a compatriot (a salute to George Lucas from Spielberg).

Stranger Things takes these fundamental elements from a curious Eighties American childhood and youth and super sizes it into a larger-than-life, immersive universe. Similar in style but with a greater supernatural bent and with time travel, the German series Dark also builds upon the friendships of youth that have to deal with a crisis from the past. Both are very popular with millennial and Gen Z viewers, which reiterates the charm of retro stories and of a time when life functioned without the Internet.

E.T. turns forty today, 10 June. As Hollywood press reports, the Duffer Brothers are working together with Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment on a Stephen King novel, The Talisman. All those elements — sci-fi, supernatural, mystery, fantasy- should merge in this artistic collaboration of those that relish in creating alternate worlds and reimagining life in space. This could well be a classic viewing experience for everyone, from those who grew up on E.T. and are also addicted to Stranger Things.

Archita Kashyap is an experienced journalist and writer on film, music, and pop culture. She has handled entertainment content for broadcast news and digital platforms over 15 years. 

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