Steven Spielberg Reveals Mistake He Regrets Making While Editing 'E.T.'

Steven Spielberg Reveals Mistake He Regrets Making While Editing 'E.T.',Steven Spielberg admitted this week that he regrets editing the guns out of his movie E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial in its re-release years later. The acclaimed movie had a scene where federal agents brandished rifles and handguns while pursuing children when it was first released in 1982, but the [...]

Steven Spielberg Reveals Mistake He Regrets Making While Editing ‘E.T.’

Steven Spielberg admitted this week that he regrets editing the guns out of his movie E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial in its re-release years later. The acclaimed movie had a scene where federal agents brandished rifles and handguns while pursuing children when it was first released in 1982, but the 20th-anniversary edition changed those weapons into walkie-talkies. In a recent conversation at Time’s 100 Summit, Spielberg explained why he regrets that change today.

“That was a mistake. I never should have done that,” Spielberg said bluntly. “E.T. is a product of its era. No film should be revised based on the lenses we now are, either voluntarily, or being forced to peer through.” Spielberg tried to explain his thinking at the time of the change while also explaining why he no longer thinks he made the right move. He recommended other filmmakers learn from him on this mistake.

“E.T. was a film that I was sensitive to the fact that the federal agents were approaching kids with firearms exposed and I thought I would change the guns into walkie-talkies,” he said. “Years went by and I changed my own views. I should have never messed with the archives of my own work, and I don’t recommend anyone do that.”

“All our movies are a kind of a signpost of where we were when we made them, what the world was like and what the world was receiving when we got those stories out there,” Spielberg went on. “So I really regret having that out there.”

The guns were just one change made for the 2002 re-release of E.T., made possible with CGI technology that was relatively new at the time. It was also used to enhance an early scene where E.T. is seen running through a cornfield and to add more lights and effects to his spaceship. Some alternate scenes and deleted scenes were added to this “Special Edition” as well, but it is now out of circulation.

Still, editing out the guns stood out among the changes as a politically-motivated alteration. Critics at the time condemned this move, along with an edit to change the word “terrorist” to “hippie” in another scene. These changes were mocked in a South Park episode at the time titled “Free Hat.”

E.T. has been re-released several times since then and the 20th anniversary edition has been left out of most of those releases. Most recently, the 35th-anniversary release was an Ultra HD Blu-ray in 2017. It is available now wherever movies are sold, with a corresponding digital option.

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