Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence: How Well Do You Know the Film E.T.?

Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence: How Well Do You Know the Film E.T.?

A Film That Feels Like Childhood

Some films stay with you as stories. Others become feelings. Steven Spielberg’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, released in 1982, manages to do both: a dark backyard, a glowing fingertip, a bicycle silhouetted against the moon—and suddenly you remember what childhood wonder felt like.

But remembering an image isn’t the same as remembering the whole adventure. Can you retrace the steps between Elliott’s first frightened encounter and that tearful farewell?

Our new trivia game, Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence: How Well Do You Know the Film E.T.?, puts that question to the test. Before you play, let’s revisit the friendship at the heart of the film.

Spoiler alert: the journey below includes the ending.

Left Behind on Earth

The story begins not with an invasion but with a quiet expedition. Alien visitors explore a nighttime forest, collecting plant specimens until approaching humans force a hurried departure. One small explorer fails to reach the spaceship in time.

It’s a wonderfully unsettling opening. We understand the visitor’s vulnerability before Elliott ever meets him. Earth may be home to us, but to this stranded creature, it’s enormous, strange, and dangerous.

Elliott’s discovery unfolds through noises, uncertainty, and a memorable exchange involving a baseball tossed into a shed. Their early encounters are anything but calm.

Then comes a more persuasive introduction: candy. A trail of Reese’s Pieces helps Elliott draw the frightened visitor closer. First contact, it turns out, benefits from a snack.

An Unlikely Friendship Takes Shape

Hiding an extraterrestrial from your mother is not a sensible plan. For Elliott, however, protecting his new friend quickly becomes more important than being sensible.

His older brother, Michael, and younger sister, Gertie, join the secret. Each brings a different energy: Michael’s skepticism gradually gives way to loyalty, while Gertie’s startled reaction becomes affectionate curiosity. Their efforts to conceal E.T. turn the family home into a playground of close calls.

The stuffed-animal hiding place is especially delightful. A creature from another world can almost disappear among the everyday oddities of a child’s bedroom.

But this isn’t merely a comedy about keeping a pet nobody would believe exists. Elliott and E.T. develop an extraordinary emotional and physical connection. When E.T. drinks beer at home, Elliott feels the effects at school. The resulting classroom chaos is funny, but it also reveals something deeper: these two increasingly experience the world together.

The Little Details that Bring it Back

Ask someone what they remember about E.T., and the answers often arrive as a collection of objects and gestures: Reese’s Pieces, a glowing finger, a pot of flowers.

Those details matter because they make an impossible visitor feel tangible. E.T. investigates an ordinary household with the curiosity of someone for whom nothing is ordinary. Toys, television, food, and kitchen appliances become discoveries.

His healing touch gives his strangeness a gentle purpose. The glowing fingertip isn’t just a visual effect; it becomes an expression of care.

Carlo Rambaldi’s creature effects help make E.T.’s face and movements remarkably expressive. John Williams’s score gives that physical performance an emotional companion, moving from mystery to playfulness to soaring release.

You may forget a line of dialogue. The feeling carried by the music can remain for decades.

“E.T. Phone Home”

Few movie phrases have traveled farther than “E.T. phone home.” It’s easy to quote—and easy to overlook how much longing sits inside it.

E.T. loves his new friend, but he still wants to reach his own people. His homemade communicator, assembled from earthly equipment including a Speak & Spell, turns household ingenuity into an interstellar lifeline.

Halloween offers the children a perfect opportunity to take him outside. Under a ghostly sheet, an actual alien can pass as just another trick-or-treater. His enthusiastic response to a child dressed as Yoda adds another lovely joke: on this particular night, the neighborhood almost looks familiar.

Elliott takes E.T. into the forest to send the signal. Along the way comes the bicycle flight and its famous passage across the moon.

It’s a breathtaking image, but it serves a very personal mission. Beneath the spectacle is a homesick traveler asking to be found.

When Wonder Turns to Fear

The film’s magic becomes frightening when E.T.’s health deteriorates. His connection with Elliott means the danger reaches both of them, turning their friendship into something the family cannot simply hide or explain away.

Michael finds E.T. pale and barely responsive beside a stream. Soon afterward, the authorities enter the family home.

The transformation is disturbing precisely because the setting is familiar. Rooms associated with toys, meals, and sibling arguments become clinical spaces filled with equipment, protective suits, and urgent voices.

The adults are not all presented as heartless villains. Even so, their procedures feel overwhelming from the children’s perspective. Elliott sees his friend becoming a patient, a specimen, and a mystery to solve.

The medical scenes strip away the adventure’s freedom. For a while, love seems powerless against separation and loss.

The Escape and the Goodbye

E.T.’s apparent death is devastating. Then a small visual clue brings hope back: the flowers revive, signaling his return to life. His people are coming.

Grief gives way to a rescue operation. Elliott and Michael help get E.T. out of government custody, and Michael’s friends join the escape on bicycles. What began as a private secret becomes a shared act of loyalty.

The chase builds toward another impossible flight, this time carrying the group beyond the pursuing authorities and toward the forest rendezvous.

Yet the film’s greatest emotional impact comes after the excitement. At the spaceship, rescue means goodbye.

Elliott wants E.T. to stay. E.T. wants Elliott to come. Neither can have exactly what he wants.

Touching Elliott’s forehead with his glowing finger, E.T. promises, “I’ll be right here.” It’s a farewell that makes room for both heartbreak and reassurance.

What Memory Keeps—and a Rewatch Restores

Memory preserves the moon, the finger, and the farewell. A rewatch restores the quieter story around them: Elliott’s loneliness, a family feeling someone’s absence, and the comfort of finding an unexpected friend.

Ready to see how much of that journey stayed with you? Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence: How Well Do You Know the Film E.T.? offers the chance to put your recollection to work.

You might remember enough to impress yourself. You might also discover the best possible reason to watch it again.