#236: ET, Classic Gaming

Podcasts Galactic Watercooler
#21

Two things:

Drew Barrymore in Scream: Her character dies in the first 5 minutes, and she was killed early intentionally. Audiences weren’t familiar with horror/thriller films where a headliner would actually die so early. It was a surprise and served to throw the Audience right at the beginning of the film.

Spacesuits: I haven’t seen this movie in a LONG time (still need to watch). Here’s the story I came up with somehow: I always assumed that the people wearing the astronaut suits were doing so to provide a good PR. “We’ll go to the kid’s house wearing EVA suits! The kids will love it!”
And then some slick-hair evil guy says “No! We have to get the alien right now!” and so everyone rushes in. So: Spacesuits for PR, Environmental suits for the people who are actually going to be handling the alien.

And I’ve used an awful lot of colons in this post.

#22

What bad press?

#23

Same thing was done in Psycho, but yeah, it wasn’t common.

#24

I remember having these when I was younger.

It might not have been the same packaging in the UK, I just remmeber getting a picture card and for years I think of brown custard creams as ET biscuits.

#25

I’m not sure I agree. Marion is guilty of stealing the money and the Audience becomes suspicious of her. Not being innocent anymore (and definitely being a good 15-20 minutes into the show) I don’t think the audience takes the surprise quite the same way.

But your point was basically that Janet Leigh was a high-profile star at the time, and you didn’t expect to see her bite it that quickly.

#26

Digitally removing guns and replacing them with radios was the big one, changes due to advances in CGI less so because that is in the eye of the beholder.
I wasn’t even a fan of the movie but the press were all over Spielberg for changing things to adjust to a “modern” audience which is why we no longer have Han shooting first, another fine example of retroactive adjustment.

I believe the 20th anniversary DVD had both versions of the movie though?

#27

“E.T. shot first.”

#28

When Spielberg did this, it was shortly after The original Star Wars Trilogy had been…changed. I was sure it was marking the end of my childhood. I’m pleased that not every filmmaker has made the effort to “fix” their work.

#29

Lucas breathe.

#30

Yes I believe it does have both versions, and both restored. Unlike Star Wars and Lucas. Also ET is like a CGI ET, he just looks weird in the newer version, especially if you saw it when it first came out. Not so sure if you see it now for the first time it will matter so much.

Just stupid. I eat Reese’s Pieces because of this movie, why mess with a good thing? Gonna delete that part too because 10 years from now product placement will be banned?

#31

I’m not a big horror fan, but I thought the way they did that was brilliant.
They say the reason the shower scene in Psycho was so shocking is not the blood or violence, which was tame, especially by today’s standards. The audience follows Janet Leigh as the protagonist, and half way through the movie she resolves to do the right thing. The shower scene starts as a sort of cleansing metaphor, and then: reee reee reee.

#32

That’s the best sound effects to text conversion I may have ever read!

#33

The term is onomatopoeia. (Yeah, I thought it was just a literary term, too, but then saw Matt Fraction use it in his Twitter feed to describe the POWs and ZAPs you see in comics.)

And people say you can’t learn from Twitter… :slight_smile:

#34

“Goodbye Elliot” is one of 101 shirts to help you relive the 80s, as brought to my attention by Splatterson.

#35

The Steven Seagal movie that they were thinking off during the cast where he dies in the first ten minutes is Executive Decision, also starring Kurt Russell, Halle Berry, Jon Leguizamo, and Oliver Platt.

#36

I am not sure why, but the segment on gaming had me laughing to the point of tears. Maybe it was the sounds in the background, or something.

#37

Great show as (nearly) alwas. Would have liked more if you would have included the Millennium Falcon in the tractor beam story instead of Trek. :wink:

Listening to your Audi 6000 vs. Volkswagen Fox sound discussion, you made a mistake, Chuck.

Audi is actually a 99,55 % subsidiary of Volkswagen since 1964. So although the cars don’t have something in common, the companies do.

We demand a LOST arc in the near future!!

#38

i acutally played the Michael Jackson game on in the arcade. it was awesome. second only to the arcade simpsons.

#39

Thanks to the movie “The Blind Side” our family calls everything “PlayBox” now. We have a Wii, Playstation, Playstation 2 and Shooter Jr has the xBox 360. But to us, they are all now “Playboxes.”

#40

That’s as much as maybe, but how much time have you spend under the hood of a VW Fox? :stuck_out_tongue: