1982: Greatest Geek Year Ever! (2022) - full transcript

E-F-P.

That is incorrect.

The correct spelling
of "nuisance" is N-U...

soon to compete are some very
dazzling science fiction films.

If you, like millions of
Trekkies, across the galaxy,

then you're waiting for
"Star Trek II," the movie.

"Blade Runner" is
a detective thriller

set in a very crowded Los
Angeles in the year 2019.

In a bold move to get the
kids out of video arcades

and back into the theaters,

Disney Studios is
offering "Tron."



The Columbia is back after
spending seven days in space.

The movie has plenty
of ice, blood.

And things that go
bump in the night.

We'll also be reviewing
two eagerly awaited films

from producer Steven Spielberg.

Americans popped in

between $5 and $9 billion
worth of quarters.

"E.T." is heavy
in visual effects.

It's set for
release on June 4th.

I can't think of a
year during my life

that the lineup was equivalent
as far as depth of storytelling,

epicness, significant
storytelling.

I've... seen things you
people wouldn't believe.

They liked to think
back in the '80s.



All those... moments
will be lost... in time.

There's still a little
hangover from the '70s,

And the '70s was, I
think, a golden age.

That was a time that
just blew everything up,

and so we were kind of
reaping the rewards.

Coming out of the '70s,
there was more of a sense

of character, the
antihero and the everyman.

Then all of a sudden we're
going to take that language

and put it into genre.

In the '70s, you had "Jaws."

Biggest summer blockbuster ever.

Why, you son of a...

Followed up two years
later by "Star Wars,"

which changed the world.

That was, I think, where so
many of us got hooked on movies,

when Spielberg and Lucas
changed everything.

After 1977, it was game over.

"Star
Wars"... It is more

than just a successful movie.

It is a box office phenomenon.

The film is breaking attendance
records all over the country.

Not since "Jaws"
have so many people

stood in line to see a movie.

"Star Wars" was a gateway.
We were hooked on sci-fi.

That's what we talked about
when we went to school.

Box office was
very much dominated

by high concept ideas.

Then in the wake of "Star Wars,"
you had "Superman," the movie.

You had "Alien." You
had other indie films

like "Dawn of the Dead"
and "Phantasm, "Halloween,"

and all of the studios
are trying to figure out

how can we duplicate
both the indie success

and the studio success
of these one-off movies?

We were doing very well
in the '60s and '70s.

But when "Star Wars" came out,

I thought, the major studios

have figured out
what we've been doing

on a low budget, and
they're taking these ideas,

and we are going
to be in trouble.

'Cause they saw that
stories of the fantastic

had a really wide appeal

and not just for a
teenage audience.

So they started making
studio-level genre films.

People were
starting to feel

they could do
something interesting

in a blockbuster template.

The idea that you could
make movies as varied

as "Poltergeist,"
"E.T.," and Blade Runner,

it's kind of a maturing of
the summer blockbuster...

It's too bad she won't live.

But then again, who does?

A lot of which is
science fiction.

People want to see
science fiction,

and so we gotta give that
to them, and I think '82 is

the year mass market science
fiction blockbusters...

That's the year their
voice broke, if you will.

You could certainly argue
there were better years

for cinema than 1982,

but there's no greater
geek year than 1982.

There are a lot of
great years for movies.

You could look at 1939
with "Wizard of Oz"

and "Mr. Smith Goes
to Washington."

So many people look at 1977 as
the greatest geek year ever.

But really, when it
comes down to it,

1982 is the greatest year
ever for movies, period.

Week after week, you have one
classic movie after another

that holds up 40 years later.

The reason 1982
was such a unique year,

it was a turning point
in a lot of ways.

It was this great moment
where, for whatever reason,

nerds accidentally won.

It was just a great
time to be a kid growing up.

I think our imaginations
were running wild.

We loved these adventures.

They were all
pretty hopeful, too.

You know, the feeling of the
films was something optimistic.

As your teacher, Mr. Spock,
is fond of saying,

I like to think that there
always are possibilities.

They weren't cynical. Somehow
that really affect us.

There's a feeling
to those movies...

Aloha, Spicoli.

a sense of wonder that
is just in all of them,

and that's something
that to this day I chase

and try to capture,

'cause you really wanna
pass it on to people.

So, when you're
a kid, kid experiences,

it's about people,
scenery, books, movies...

That's what imprints on you.

The works of art, for example,
that you fall in love with,

that are most lasting.

You see "Star Trek" at age 12.

You know, if it's any good,
it's going to be major.

Or maybe even if
it's not any good,

it's gonna be major.

That's when you're
really consuming

art, movies, and music

that shape and mold you to who
you become later on as an adult.

You can't separate people
my age from the movies

of the early '80s
because they're so part

of who we were growing up.

We were
free-range kids.

We got to go out. Our
parents were like, "Hey, man,

come home when the sun goes
down. Be home for dinner."

My parents didn't
know what I did.

They just knew you had
gone off for the day,

and you'd be home
for dinner, maybe.

Ride our
bike somewhere.

Nobody cared. We had
our secret lives.

Even if "E.T." wasn't
about an alien,

kids today would think it
was a science fiction movie

because the kids leave in
the morning on bicycles.

Their parents don't
know where they are.

They show back up at dinner.

Parents don't ask
where they were.

They're not calling
'em on cellphones.

That was the life we had.

I'm a proud geek, was one
before it became fashionable.

Yeah, which I'm a
little bitter about...

because I feel
like I had to choose

between cultivating
being attractive

or reading comic books.

Look, an authentic voodoo doll.

And now you can
technically do both,

and that's a little frustrating.

Everything felt awesome,

and the movies really
reflected that.

When you get to '82, we're
coming out of Watergate,

we're coming out of Vietnam era.
Everyone's having a good time.

Yeah. Britain went
to war with Argentina

over the Falkland Islands,

but it wasn't any
kind of huge wars.

It coincided with
a time in America

where everything
seemed possible.

Reagan was in power. People
were more optimistic,

The economy was better, and
the movies sort of reflect

a sunnier, more fairy tale time.

Who would have ever
thought that Ronald Reagan,

the former movie star,

that he would be the President
of the United States?

- Bonzo!
- Mr. Boyd!

Bonzo, that wasn't
a nice thing to do.

The oldest President of the
United States at the time.

You don't
really become president.

The presidency is
an institution,

and you have temporary
custody of it.

That was all part of it.

It was all part of the fantasy
landscape that we lived in.

It was morning in America.
I wasn't politically aware.

I didn't know about

Ronald Reagan's
sort of politics.

I mean, I didn't know that I
didn't agree with the politics.

You just felt good
to be American.

The groundwork has been laid,

and now we will move
forward to capitalize

on the tremendous potential

offered by the ultimate
frontier of space.

The '80s became about
Reaganomics and making money.

People were feeling good,
so they wanted to play.

But I feel like it was more of
a social-physical interaction

with the entertainment
that we had back then.

When I think of 1982,
I think of the arcade

as being the clubhouse
of the teenage people.

The joke is that
teenagers have to find

their own place because
they're not civil yet.

That's why I loved being
a young teenager in 1982,

because part of going
to the movies is you had

to go to the movies
to see the movie.

We didn't have the
internet at our fingertips.

We didn't have the opportunity
to have everything on demand.

You couldn't press a
button and suddenly

have these things appear.
You had to work for it.

You had to take a chance.
Sometimes you'd ask the guy

who sold you the
ticket, "What's good?"

Our idea of social media
was standing on line

waiting three hours
to get into a film

where we would talk about our
enthusiasm, our excitement.

It's the fun, the excitement.

We get out here with all our
friends, and it's a good time.

Waiting in line is
even a good time.

You're like, "Oh, I'm not
going to see this movie today,"

'cause there'd be a long
line around the block.

Why are movies
called blockbusters?

Because the anticipated movies

have people lined
up around the block.

I did like when there
were less choices

and people watched
movies together.

The experience that you have

when you are part of an audience

is an experience that is
intensely intimate and personal

and collective at the same time.

We've gone on this
journey together.

We have shared something.

People we didn't even know
next to us laughing, crying,

doing whatever it was,

sharing that
unifying human bond.

Stepping back from what makes
going to the movies magical,

we have to look at
entertainment as medicinal.

It takes us out of our pain.

It takes us out of our
trauma and allows us

to go someplace where we can
feel safe for those two hours

and not worry
about our troubles.

These days, with the
way the world is,

there's a lot to escape from,

so it's a good bet that
many Americans this spring

will be going to that galaxy
long ago and far, far away.

I think that's one of the
things that whenever anybody

dismisses fandom of any kind,

my first thought is that
you don't really understand

what it is to hurt in
a way as an adolescent

and to find solace and safety.

At that time, certainly for me,

growing up in a
very abusive home,

movies were my safe space.

Why wouldn't I want
to stand in line

to have that ticket
to peace and escape?

Recently, it's hard not
to look back on 1982

and see it as a pioneering
time for original stories.

Some of the formulas
that we would now say,

"Oh, this is a formulaic movie,"

sometimes you were seeing that
formula for the first time

you know, in '82.

Telling you, man, I've been
in places like this before,

and white cops came and
with me and my friends.

The only thing that stopped
us from kicking their

is they had guns and badges.

Takes years of experience
to handle a joy like this.

Wanna bet?

As you move into
this new decade,

and you've got the benefit
of technology behind them,

they were like, how
do we make a story

that people care about that
also looks unbelievable,

like nothing that's
ever come before?

There is nothing like
that spirit of innovation

when everything
was new and iconic.

The movies that got
made are jaw-dropping.

Was an unbelievable year
for culture in America.

It didn't feel
that way at the time.

I didn't think I'm in
the midst of a golden,

you know, rainbow here.

- What about "Swords of Glory"?
- Crap.

- "Amarillo."
- Crap.

- "Sands of the Sudan."
- Crap.

Benjy, you want to see
movies? Get a job as an usher.

The rest of us are here to write

professional show
business comedy.

Now, looking back,
I say we'd be lucky

to get half as many good
films right now.

It was kind of a magical time

when the commerce
was supporting art

in a way that created
lasting legacy films,

so we get the best
of all worlds,

because somehow culture and
money meet around that time.

You sort of see the
auteurist filmmaking

converging with the
blockbuster mentality,

so you have people
like Paul Schrader

doing "Cat People"
for Universal.

You have somebody like Nick
Meyer doing "Star Trek II."

You have these really
original visions

merging with more
commercial sensibilities.

So many of these
movies feel so personal

even when they're in
the mainstream space.

These film brats were
telling you everything

about what was important to them

and what they had
loved growing up,

and that's what all
these genre movies were.

Could you even imagine
what the conversations

were like at that time?

"We're going to
make an entire movie

with puppets, no people,

and it's gonna cost just as
much as a movie with people.

It's gonna be risky and crazy,
and we're gonna take chances."

That's the spirit of

"We're going to do something
that no one has done before."

A lot of those movies in '82

would never be made these days

because they are risky.

Studios don't want to take
risks the way that they used to.

No one actually can
make a creative decision

without someone sitting down
and doing a spreadsheet on it.

I mean, when you look at 1982,
the number of successes seem

to really outweigh the
number of failures.

I would say to the people
making the decisions,

you know, maybe take
a few more chances.

We are living in the age of IP
and... and sort of IP hackery

in a sense that, like,
movies do not exist

or have any sort of
support unless they are

an existing property
of some kind.

With the new way in
which they decide

what big movies are made,

you'd never have a
"Star Wars" today,

you'd never have
an "Indiana Jones."

Back then, these
decisions on what to make

were made with instinct,
not algorithms.

I went out with a
movie a few years ago,

and all the studios said
it was a great script,

but they were passing
on it, and finally,

the very last studio
that passed on it,

I went to the head of
the studio, and I said,

"I don't understand this.
Everyone's saying how much

they love the script
and no one's making it.

Why won't you make it?"

And he said, "Well, it's not
based on something else."

And I said, "Well, you made
'Independence Day' with me.

That wasn't based
on something else."

And he goes, "I
wouldn't make it today

unless you called it
'War of the Worlds.'"

It's sad, and I
think it ultimately

hurt the movie business.

There were over nine
studios at the time.

I think there's four now.

This consolidation really
stifles competition,

and the good thing
about competition was

everyone wants to try and
do something different.

That year is when I was hired
by "Entertainment Tonight"

to be a film critic
on their show.

I think audiences are
responding to sequels

when the sequels are good.

I don't think there's any
other criteria that they have.

If the word of mouth
gets out that a sequel

is just a ripoff and is,
uh, taking them for a ride,

so to speak, they're
not going to show up.

It was the first
show of its kind,

but the other phenomena
was Siskel and Ebert,

longtime newspaper
critics in Chicago,

but their television show
made them household names.

Imagine, film critics
becoming household names.

1982 was the best
year at the box office

in the last 30 years.

You never saw people talk this
passionately about art on TV.

Gene and Roger
were not scripted,

and they disagreed, and
it was fun to watch.

It seemed to me that
"Sophie's Choice"

was about the fragility of love.

I don't get the treachery
of the hearts bit.

I also don't agree with you
that this film's that good.

- We disagree.
- Okay.

In 1982, Tribune hires them
to do a syndicated show

called "At the Movies."
It's immediately success.

They became the
nation's movie critics.

And they end up really
influencing what people see.

With the success of
Siskel and Ebert,

this idea of, well, you've
got two guys together,

and are they doing two
thumbs up or one thumb down?

And suddenly it became about
aggregation of two critics,

which then led on
to Rotten Tomatoes

and this whole idea of
aggregating critics.

The strongest
memory I have of that year

was the second week of June.

And no other month
before or since

has matched the quality
of June of 1982.

That's the month and the year

that I officially fell
in love with movies.

Sometimes two or
three classic movies

opening on the same weekend,

and it's like, jeez,
what do you choose?

On June 4, 1982,

you had "Star Trek II:
The Wrath of Khan,"

and "Poltergeist" opening
on the same freaking day.

One week later, June 11th,

you have "E.T. the
Extra-Terrestrial."

For, like, decades, it was like

the highest grossing
movie of all time.

All of a sudden, there are
two Steven Spielberg movies

coming out within a
week of each other,

and the first one that
came out was "Poltergeist."

"Poltergeist" was another film
that was fanciful in nature,

with some scares built into it,

almost any age group
could and did respond to.

I think it was
using the child...

Hello?

Being sucked into
the television.

She was so tuned in.
She was truly an empath,

and she was 5.

Mike Fenton and I were casting
"Poltergeist" and "E.T."

almost simultaneously.

So Heather O'Rourke
initially came in for "E.T."

Steven saw her at the
commissary, and he's like,

"Oh, you should really come
in for... for 'Poltergeist.'"

They're here.

It went more for the
heart than for the scare.

Reach back into our past when
you used to have an open mind.

- Remember that?
- Uh-huh.

Okay. Just try to use that.

I remember less the
moments I jumped

than I do how much I was
rooting for these people.

Whoo-hoo! Whoo!

Stephen and Tobe both felt

very strongly that the family
was the most important aspect.

- Good night, sweetie.
- Good night.

Okay, lights out.

Closet light! Closet light!

My fault. My fault.

Turn it on, Mommy!

Tobe really had a real
sense of the horror,

how to create the darker moods,

but I think it was
Steven's influence

to keep the family stuff really
strong in the foreground.

That was the key in all
of Spielberg's movies,

is that it really
focused on the heart.

Are you with us now?

Can you... Can you
say hello to Daddy?

Hello, Daddy.

Hello, sweet pea.

A lot of this comes
back to verisimilitude,

these art forms
finding a reality

that's much closer to
your own experience,

your own lived experience
than you expect it to be.

Can you see Mommy?

Mommy,
where are you? Where are you?

Why can't it be fantastic and
very real at the same time?

Just sort of based the
lifestyle on a lifestyle

I'm familiar with, growing up
in suburban Phoenix, Arizona,

in tract homes with
cul-de-sacs and 2-car garages.

And this suburban
lifestyle breeds

a certain kind of individual.

Seeing the parents in
their bedroom at night,

trying to hide a
joint from the family,

you know, I'd never seen
that in a movie before.

Hi, honey.

Is everything okay?

And yet it still felt
like a wholesome family.

Also has, like, super
babelicious mom and dad.

Like, this...

Like, that era,
they're, like, very hot,

cool mom and dad characters,
but it's also scary.

"Poltergeist"
scared me straight to 1983.

Static on a television
still scares me,

and we all owned TVs
like that in 1982.

I'm like, no, I'm
not here for that.

I don't understand the title.

I still don't know
what it means.

- What does "poltergeist" mean?
- No one knew what it was.

We found a... We found
a German book, uh,

that had... it
was "poltergeist,"

And, uh, it was all in
German, so, you know,

but we knew it was about ghosts,
and we showed that to Steven.

He said, "That's the title."

He gave us a page.

There were some bullet
points that he wanted to hit.

He wanted it to be
a ghost story set

in a middle class
housing development,

that the ghost
comes out of the TV.

It had originally
been written by

Michael Grace and Mark Victor,

but Steven Spielberg
wrote the shooting draft.

We only had six weeks
to write the screenplay

because we were set
to go on strike.

Film was in production, and we
were striking our own movie.

Steven sent a PA out to get
us from the line...

'cause he said, "I think
you guys want to see this."

It's a really cool scene.

So we went in, and we saw
the room was on a gimbal,

and it turned
around and all this.

Steven is a strong producer.

He was the guy who brought
Tobe Hooper in to direct.

He was quite generous,

offering it to this
guy who had only done

the genius "Texas Chain
Saw" and then "Eaten Alive."

It's very intimidating to have

the world's most successful
filmmaker producing your movie

and kind of talking about how
to do what he saw in his mind

as a screenwriter.

I was on the set
of "Poltergeist,"

and I watched it happen.

This thing is
growing out of her,

and it's getting
larger and larger,

and the shoulders are almost
going up to the ceiling.

Just when you begin to see
the fingers, it goes, whoosh!

Breaks up like blowing a
smoke ring apart in the air

and then goes shooting up
into the area by location.

He's an enthusiastic filmmaker.

You know, he says, "Hey,
what about a two shot here?"

And we move in, and Tobe was
hesitant to come in and say,

"Well, how about this?"

The collaboration
between Tobe and Steven

was very interesting.

Steven was there. He
was there every day,

and I think truly, Steven
wanted to direct it himself,

but because he was
going to do "E.T.,"

he couldn't really do both,
and his price was too high.

He was getting ready
to shoot "E.T.,"

and he was under a
contractual obligation

to Universal to make "E.T.,"

which meant he couldn't work
on another film as a director.

What we saw there was that

Tobe was in the
director's chair,

and Steven was standing
right behind him

with his hands on
the chair.

Tobe, I think, respected
Steven and went along with it.

I'm sure it was very
hard on Tobe in many ways

'cause Steven is a
strong personality.

I think the result really
had both influences.

Tobe directed the movie.
He called "action" and "cut."

His creative
influence was there,

but both of those
men made that movie.

Yes, there were a lot of
fights about who did it,

but it was not between
the two of them.

It was a collaboration,

but doesn't feel
like a Hooper movie.

It feels like a Spielberg movie.

"Poltergeist" does feel
like a Spielberg film,

but it is absolutely the lensing

and framing of a
Tobe Hooper film.

I'm embarrassed to say I
cried in "Poltergeist."

I remembered being so
connected to Heather,

but I had no idea that it
would be that well received,

not only critically,
but at the box office.

I think that movie is
the perfect metaphor

for the summer of 1982
because Tangina says...

This house has many hearts.

And the summer of
1982 has many hearts.

MGM has "Poltergeist"
for release on June 4th.

This Steven Spielberg production
is about a suburban family

terrorized in their
spooky new house.

"Poltergeist" is
anxiously awaited

by those who like to have
the heck scared out of them.

They're here.

Also from the mind of
Steven Spielberg is

"E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial."

Little is known about this film

except that it stars
a friendly alien,

lost and alone, 100,000
light-years from home.

I had just joined the staff
of a still-new television show

called "Entertainment
Tonight," or "E.T,"

and along came a movie called
"E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial."

What a glorious movie... A
film that reminded the child

inside you that there was
still such a thing as wonder,

that that was a quality that
you didn't have to discard

just because you're growing
older chronologically.

For me, the pinnacle of
Steven Spielberg's career.

Since then, they've
come up with this jargon

about four-quadrant movies.

Screw the quadrants. He just
knew how to tell a great story

that would have broad appeal.

The craziest thing is that

"E.T." started off
as a horror film.

It began as an unofficial
sequel to "Close Encounters."

Columbia wanted
Spielberg to do a sequel,

and he wasn't that
interested in the sequel.

He came up with the
idea for "Night Skies,"

which was aliens
landing at a farm

and attacking a farm family.
It was, uh, he described it as

"Guns Along the Mohawk,"
um, with aliens,

and it was a horror film.

The screenplay was
written by John Sayles.

Ron Cobb was going to direct it.

Steven Spielberg was going
to be the executive producer.

They had this basic idea

based on research

Spielberg had done when he was
working on "Close Encounters"...

This, uh, incident that had
happened in a rural farm

where the people claimed

that they had been surrounded
by these little E.T.s.

and this is during the cattle
and horse mutilation period.

They're inside. The things
are trying to break in

and, uh, fought them off with
shotguns and various things.

And Rick Baker took the time
and designed these five aliens.

They are pretty spectacular.

The lead alien is
pretty terrifying.

He's got this long, bony
finger with a blade,

and that's what he's cutting
and dissecting the cattle with.

There was a character
in the story

who was a friendly alien,

and there was a young child
in the story who was autistic,

and Buddy and the autistic
boy created a connection.

When he's clicking
with this alien,

it's, like, touching,

and John Sayles just nails
these scenes of this alien

and this boy while all
this horror is going on.

They had this plan, and
it all kind of fell apart,

because eventually what
Steven Spielberg realized

was that that wasn't the movie.

I think it was at Columbia
then, and they said,

"Oh, we've got this other movie,
'Starman, ' with Jeff Bridges.

We're not going to make some
big space fantasy for kids

when we've already
got a space movie,"

and I think that's when he
moved to another studio,

and with that move, I
think, kind of rethought it.

So he rethought it
with Melissa Mathison.

She had co-written the script
for "The Black Stallion."

She was also Harrison
Ford's girlfriend.

She was with Harrison
on location in Tunisia

when they were doing
"Raiders of the Lost Ark."

They got together,
and they, you know,

really didn't take much
from... From what I had done.

The ending of the
script, I think,

is what probably got her,

because the last
paragraph of the script,

Buddy, the nice alien,
is, like, kind of lost,

walking around terrified, like
a stranger in a strange world.

And because you see his
relationship with the boy

throughout the whole movie,

and just to know that he's now
stuck on Earth all by himself,

it's like a
heartbreaking ending.

Like, you really
feel bad for him.

And that ending of "Night Skies"

is the jumping off
point of "E.T."

It was, really,
what about this thing,

of this "E.T." who gets left
behind? Wouldn't that be cool?

The intersection
of the two scripts

is that I got to read it.

When the Writers Guild
said, "Well, you were one

of the writers who
was near this thing.

Do you think you should get
any credit?" I just said,

"No, not at all, but
this is really good."

If Spielberg can
keep the budget down,

he's got a nice little
Disney movie here.

It got put into turnaround,
and then Universal was like,

"Hey, Columbia, could we
just, like, buy that off you?"

This story goes that Universal
gave Columbia 5% as the gift,

thank-you for selling
them the script

and getting it
out of turnaround.

And quietly, Columbia said
they made more off that 5%

than any of their
studio's films that year.

Okay, Mom, you can look now.

Aah!

Oh, that's great!

Stay there!

I auditioned
for "Used Cars,"

and I didn't get it,

but Steven works very far ahead.

He was already playing
around with "E.T.,"

and he knew whatever
adult appeared in there,

he wanted them to be childlike.

And so when "E.T." came about,
they called and offered me...

Bye!

The role of Mary.

They had me come
over to the studio,

and in a room behind
a locked door,

I read what was
entitled "A Boy's Life."

And I remember calling my
agents on a rotary phone

and saying, "You know,
I don't know how much

this is gonna do for me,

but I think it's gonna
do a lot for the world,

and I really wanna be
a part of this film."

E.T...

home phone.

E.T. phone home.

It's not a film about divorce,

but it is about the
after effects of it,

and that comes from
Spielberg's own life as well.

His depiction of families,

like this incredibly
naturalistic depiction

that he had in
"Close Encounters"

and in "Poltergeist,"
the fact that in "E.T.,"

that felt like the most real
version of sitting around

a dinner table to someone
who had a brother and sister.

What are you going
as for Halloween?

- Not going to stupid Halloween.
- Why don't you go as a goblin?

Shut up.

We're dropping in on
these people's lives.

There was a clutter
to the house.

There was a lived-in
sense to the house.

Messy homes, messy lives.

I remember the moment I
walked onto the soundstage,

and E.T. was
standing over there,

and I walked in,
and I just stopped,

and I looked at him and I went,

"Oh, my God. He's beautiful."

I mean, you just got
him right away...

All the love that the movie
brings forward through him.

Carlo Rambaldi did
such an amazing job

capturing the heart of who E.T.
was in his face and his eyes.

On three.
One... two... three.

No! Stop it!

No!

And cut. Cut.

We all saw E.T. as another
character that we worked with,

and for the kids,

Steven went to incredible
feats of keeping E.T. alive.

- And...
- He's really real.

- Crazy story.
- Then why all those wires?

These aren't wires.
Those are his feet.

Do you know that?

They would stick the hydraulic
E.T. over in a corner.

Well, one day we found
Drew talking to him.

So after that, Steven
had two guys on that E.T.

the whole time,

so he could make movements
and blink and do his head

so that Drew kept that
illusion of life about E.T.

What E.T. represents,
it's just imagination.

And when the adults come,

they're coming to destroy
this kid's imagination.

How other people are
allowed to see E.T...

It's from Elliott being like,

"I want you to see
my imagination."

Grown-ups can't see him.
Only little kids can see him.

I remember Mike
Fulmer and his team

were building the
miniature bikes,

and I think it was Tom St.
Amand sculpted the kids,

and he had to
sculpt a little E.T.

to put in the basket.

Well, on his desk were
these photos of E.T.,

and I remember
looking at it, going,

"Oh, my God, this is the
ugliest thing I have ever seen.

No one is gonna see this
movie," and I was so wrong.

"E.T."
was done in secret.

The teaser was just
clouds with lights.

You knew that it was gonna be
something to do with aliens,

but you had no idea
what "E.T." was.

Even I, who'd read Starlog,

I'd read everything about "E.T."
I didn't know what it was about.

Late May, they had
theatrical sneak previews

around the country,

and it just so
happened that in Fargo,

they had... they had one of
these, so I went to the theater

and had this experience
with this movie

that just blew me away.

And the movie obviously
hadn't opened widely yet,

so nobody else had seen it,

and I'm sitting here
trying to tell people,

like, what it was that I
had seen and experienced.

You just couldn't do
it. People looked at you

like you were...
Like you were crazy.

We went over and stood in
line at the Cinerama Dome

with everybody else for
three hours to see "E.T."

People were screaming,

they were crying,
they were applauding.

It was the discovery
of that summer.

I'm getting chills
even thinking about it.

It was one of the most

magically transporting
movies I'd ever seen.

No matter who you were
or what ethnicity you were,

you could see yourself
in that story.

That's what made
"E.T." so special.

Like, when Elliot
takes off on the bike,

that's not Elliott on the
bike. That was me on the bike.

That was me trying
to get E.T. home.

That's the gift that
Steven Spielberg possesses.

My acting teacher, who
is this Cuban émigré...

...who spoke
very strangely, um...

uh, had seen a
movie that changed his life.

He said...

"I've seen the best
performance by an actor ever.

It is the E.T."

E.T., E.T., E.T. be good.

And I remember being
so excited because, uh,

'cause E.T. totally transported
me, and I bought it.

I 100% bought that this
was an alien creature.

You know, I know Carlo
Rambaldi designed it,

and an army of technicians
brought him to life.

For my acting teacher, who
was my God at the time,

they had brought to the screen
the greatest performance ever.

Steven asked me
during the filming...

He said, "Dee, they're already
asking me about doing a sequel."

He said, "What do you think?"

And I said...

"I think you should leave it
the classic it's gonna be."

I'll...

be...

right...

here.

Bye.

"E.T." did a great
job with marketing

because I still have "E.T."
toys and "E.T." everything.

Like, you had to have
some sort of "E.T." toy

so your friends
knew you were cool.

E.T., E.T.

My kids are wild about "E.T."

Now there's a whole
collection of "E.T." toys.

- This one talks.
- Home.

The movie comes out.
Initially, there's no toys.

Spielberg realizes his mistake,

immediately
greenlights everything.

They were literally
chartering the 747s

with no passengers,

filling the plane with
the "E.T." things.

Luckily for Spielberg

and everybody who had
points on the movie,

the movie was in the
theaters for almost a year.

So by the time it came, the
merch still did very well.

There was an "E.T." game. We
actually had the "E.T." game.

I remember it. It
was really hard.

No one could win it.

"E.T." video game? Wow.

It's the video game

that lets you
pretend you're E.T.

Basically, this game
comes out based on "E.T.,"

and it's... it's not a good game.
It's a really frustrating game.

I remember just, you know,
not really getting it

and not in a not getting
"Blade Runner" kind of way.

It was more like it
just wasn't fun to play.

You play for two screens,
and all of a sudden,

ET's in a hole again. It's
just... It's just a terrible game.

A video game's the
opposite of a movie.

It's how fun it is to
play that's important.

It's not a passive experience.

It's not something
you're watching.

The "E.T." video game
probably was the start

of what is a long lineage

of crappy adaptations
of mainstream media.

If this worked in this genre,

those people, those geeks,
are gonna like this, too.

I don't think Steven
Spielberg felt that way.

I mean, he likes
playing video games.

Best game... the game
that I still think

is the best game...
- "Centipede."

they've ever made
is "Asteroids."

I do think there was this hubris

on the part of the people
running Atari at the time

that, "Well, it's gonna
say. 'E.T.' on the box,"

and they loved 'E.T.'
Right? Isn't that enough?"

You would go into like
a Sears or a JCPenney.

The video game section

would just be nothing
but stacks of "E.T."

If any game ever deserved
to be headed for a landfill,

it was Atari's "E.T."

Literally, There was this
urban legend that Atari

was so ashamed of the game

that they buried all the unsold
cartridges in this landfill.

It was a far more
interesting and nuanced story

than I thought.

"E.T." just seemed
like a crappy game

that was made way too quickly,

and that's the
story that was told

and became kind of
the urban legend.

The day that Warner inked
a deal with Spielberg,

they set in motion a disaster.

It was Atari trying to achieve
sales through a license.

Now at Toys 'R' Us, the
new "E.T." cartridge,

only $33.97.

Help E.T. phone home with
the Atari Video Game System,

now just $124.87.

But it takes a
lot of negotiating

and a lot of time and such,

And by the time they
were done with a deal,

it was schedule driving
a game development,

which is never a good idea.

The deal was inked in August,

and the cartridge had to be
ready for release November 1st.

At that time, it
took a full year

to fully create a cartridge,
vet it, test it, tweak it.

So you had September,
October... Two months.

The probability of
creating a good game

in that amount of time is zero.

And the creator of "E.T."
did a fantastic job

for the amount of
time he was given.

He actually only had,
like, five weeks,

and we typically took 10 months.

The heart of the
creative process

is the programmer.

I try and create basically
a sensory experience

that evokes a certain
feeling in the user.

I mean, I tend to
program from a concept.

Poor Howard signed up for it,

and he's been panned as
creating the worst game ever.

No, he created
the best game ever

that had ever been
done in two months.

Only from Atari, made especially
for systems from Atari.

The video game that lets
you help E.T. get home

just in time for Christmas.

Happy holidays from Atari.

Video games were so important
because it allows kids

to feel like they
are independent,

and they're having an
adventure in and of themselves

outside of their
parents' control.

It empowered a lot of people

who are not necessarily
good at sports

to all of a sudden
get street cred.

1982 is the... the peak
for the video game...

Original early video game boom.

First of all, you think about
all of the great video games.

One of my favorite
games was "Pitfall!"

"Pitfall!"... designed by
David Crane for Activision.

It was Indiana Jones.

They didn't call it
"Raiders of the Lost Ark,"

but that's what it was.

I'll assume I was influenced
to put it in a jungle

instead of somewhere else
because of a popular movie.

No one ever seen anything
like that before.

I only had eight
bits to work with,

eight pixels to make a
character that looks human.

You felt like you were
drawn into this story.

Just last night, I was lost in
the jungle with Pitfall Harry,

surrounded by giant scorpions
and man-eating crocodiles.

There were three
different consoles

that were all very popular.

There was the Mattel
Intellivision.

Mr. Intellivision, how come
all you ever talk about

are sports games?
- Sorry?

Intellivision now has
games like the arcade.

I know.

Magnavox Odyssey.

More than 40 games in all.

Odyssey... The
excitement of a game,

the mind of a computer.

It was also the Atari
2600 or the VCS,

they called it back then.

More color, more
sound, and more action,

and naturally, it's from Atari.

Atari was almost like the
Apple of the time. It was huge.

The reason why you
see a big "Atari" logo

in "Blade Runner" is
nobody at the time

would have ever thought
Atari would go downhill.

Well, I was watching "Blade
Runner," loved the movie.

It was this vision
of the future,

and there was the Atari logo.
And I said, "Yo!"