Them's Fightin' Words

J-Rab and I got to talking about ET last night which I watched once and only once back when I was about seven.

Back then I was easily frightened by anything vaguely weird or scary and so it was with great trepidation that I even watched ET in the first place because let’s face it, ET is fucking weird and ugly. He looks like a cross between a turtle without a shell and a turd that’s been left in the sun too long.

I didn’t trust that little asshole one bit. The minute he appeared on screen I was like, “What the hell IS that thing?! I don’t like it. It makes funny sounds and it looks like it’s up to something. Also, it’s ugly and it’s creeping me out.”

Of course, I changed my mind somewhat as the movie played out. Drew Barrymore seemed to like the little freakshow so he couldn’t have been all bad, except for the bit when they dress him up in drag, that didn’t sit well with me either. He looked like that cranky old granny from The Golden Girls with too much self tan and a cheap blonde wig.

Still though, I grudgingly began to like the precocious little scamp once I’d figured out that he was actually pretty harmless and despite his freakish appearance, didn’t want to kill / eat the children.

Then it got to the end of the movie and everything started going to hell. The little fucker got all sick and started turning an off-grey colour, EXACTLY like a turd left in the sun too long and right then and there I wanted nothing more to do with him.

They put the little bastard in that giant plastic tent thing and hooked him up to all those machines and he started acting all weird and freaking out so I switched off the TV, completely traumatised, and went off to play Lego and try to put the whole tortured experience behind me.

“You never watched the end of ET?!” J-Rab said as I got to this point of the story.

“Nope. It was traumatising enough watching that shifty-eyed little turd-alien go all grey and sick, actually watching him die would have pushed me straight off the edge.”

“ET doesn’t die!”

“What?”

“ET doesn’t die, the kid comes back and rescues him and then they ride off on the kid’s bike and ET makes it fly and they go over the moon.”

“Really? Holy shit.”

“And then it ends when the spaceship lands and other little ET-guys come and fetch him and take him back home. ET go home!”

“Huh. And all this time I thought he just up and died and that was that.”

“No! Why would they make him the main character in a kid’s movie and then just kill him off?”

“I dunno! They killed Bambi didn’t they?”

“They killed Bambi’s mother!”

“Oh yeah… so ET doesn’t die?”

“No, ET doesn’t die.”

ET doesn’t die guys. All these years I’ve been living under the false pretence that ET snuffed it, 20 years I’ve been living a lie.

And no, this doesn’t mean I’m going to watch it again. 

I still think ET’s an ugly little cross dressing creep

-ST