The_Film_That_Changed_My_Life

E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial
83
Tell me the story of when you saw the film.
Herzlinger: E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial was released in 1982 in the theater,
and I grew up in New Jersey, and I remember my parents took me and my
little sister to go see it at the Eric 5 Theatre in Pennsauken, New Jersey.
I was six years old. I just remember being so excited. Keep in mind, I’d
only been going to the movies since 1980. The first movie I saw at the theater
was The Empire Strikes Back. And I just couldn’t get over what I was looking
at, and at the time I didn’t understand how important marketing campaigns
were or what a marketing campaign even was, but everywhere I looked,
there was E.T. There were trading cards, there was bubble gum, there were
action figures, dolls. I went out and got all of them.
Did you actually own the trading cards before you saw the film?
Herzlinger: Of course, and even then I realized, when I saw the movie
I was disappointed, because there were images on the trading cards that
weren’t in the movie. I didn’t know anything about deleted scenes. I can
explain the design of these trading cards; I had the whole set. The blue background
with the stars all about it, and the picture was a shot of Elliott, played
by Henry Thomas—one of the best performances by any actor, let alone a
child actor—being levitated in a chair. And what I found out years later as I
grew up was that it was a deleted scene: he went to the principal’s office, and
the principal was played by none other than Harrison Ford.
Your parents took you . . .
Herzlinger: . . . and my sister Stacey, who is two years younger than I am.
So we all went to see it, and I remember just being in awe of the fact that
I was afraid. And remember, at six years old, I’m recognizing that this is
something being projected on the screen, but it’s so much more than that.
Every time I’ve watched the beginning of the movie since then, I always
hoped that E.T. would catch up with the ship and not get stranded. That
movie is so visceral, it’s so organic an experience. I was so into the movie
when Elliott saved E.T. and brought him into the house with the Reese’s
Pieces, I became addicted to Reese’s Pieces because of that.
And then I do remember something that has never happened since then
in my entire moviegoing experience. The film burnt out. The film burnt out