If you’ve ever been a child, you’ve almost certainly seen E.T. at least once. And if you’ve seen it, you've more likely than not fallen in love with it. At least a bit.
Arguably the most all-round satisfying result of the more saccharine side of Steven Spielberg’s directorial persona, it’s remarkable how E.T. still delivers so much charm and emotional punch today, 35 years after it arrived in cinemas, despite it now looking rather dated in some ways.
In fact, far from distracting you from the film, the nostalgic feelings you get from soaking up its wall-to-wall 1980s suburban style actually just add another layer of emotional connection. As well as making you realize just how much you miss big hair.
Release details
Studio: Universal
What you get: Ultra HD Blu-ray; HD Blu-ray (REGION FREE); Digital HD Movie code
Running time: 115mins
Extra features: Two deleted scenes; recent 12-minute featurette interviewing Spielberg about the making of the film; The E.T. Journals showing raw behind the scenes footage; A Look Back retrospective documentary; The Evolution and Creation of E.T. documentary; The E.T. Reunion, bringing the cast and crew back together to discuss the film; The Music Of E.T. on John Williams’ score; 20th Anniversary screening featurette; Compendium of design artwork, production photographs, and marketing materials; trailers
Best Audio Mix: DTS-X
Key kit used for this test: Samsung UN65KS9800 TV, Oppo 203 UHD BD player, Panasonic UB900 UHD BD Player
Picture Quality
If you’re looking for a retina-challenging, pixel-busting showcase of the picture quality extremes 4K and HDR can deliver, E.T. isn’t it. Does that mean it’s a bad transfer? Not at all.
The thing is, the E.T. regrade is subtle. Neither the HDR nor sharpness are ‘turned up to 11’. In fact, they barely scrape past six or seven. This results, though, in a look that not only respects the original, overtly natural look of the film, but also, perhaps, understands the limitations of what you can sensibly do with a film of E.T.’s vintage without starting to introduce picture problems.
The introduction of HDR definitely opens the image up a little. Daytime exteriors enjoy a much more natural light with a higher baseline brightness level. Light peaks such as reflections on vans and E.T.’s skin have more intensity. The endless array of household lamps that often seem to be a scene’s only source of light glow more vividly. However, there’s nothing close to the light intensity witnessed on titles such as Guardians Of The Galaxy 2 (reviewed here) or, more relevantly, the 35th Anniversary 4K HDR release of Blade Runner (reviewed here).
It’s the same situation with the film’s colors. There’s a bit more punch in stand-out vibrant elements such as drinks cans, E.T.’s red heart, the ‘stained glass’ window in Elliott’s closet, and the film’s impressive collection of 1980s jumpers. For the most part, though, the 4K HDR re-grade seems more about subtly reinforcing the film’s deliberately natural look than reinventing the color wheel.
I have to say there were a few times when I thought a bit more could have been done with the color grading without leading to color balance issues; the flashing police lights, for instance, could maybe have been pushed harder.
However, as well as appropriately enhancing rather than outright changing the look of E.T., it seems that taking a relatively subtle approach to HDR and expanded color has perhaps helped the 4K transfer keep a grip on grain/noise in a way that the much more aggressive 4K HDR regrade of the also 35-year-old Blade Runner (along with a few other 4K remasters of relatively old films) occasionally does not.
With ET, while the grain is more palpable than it is on the HD Blu-ray, it’s reasonably consistent throughout the film, and for the vast majority of the time just feels part and parcel of a ‘filmic’ finish.
The natural rather than forced look to the grain may also be down in part to the 4K Blu-ray of ET not looking as sharp as the Blade Runner 4K release (or a number of other 4K rescans of relatively old films I’ve seen). It still delivers some welcome detail improvement over the Blu-ray, though - especially in areas where bright lighting lets you make out more textures.
One last thing to add about the E.T. 4K transfer is that its HDR doesn’t just subtly improve bright scenes and image elements; it also brings out noticeably more detail in dark areas than you see on the HD Blu-ray. In fact, the 4K master made me realize for the first time just how much the HD Blu-ray seems to ‘crush’ dark areas, despite being a strong HD transfer in most ways.
There’s a trade off for this extra shadow detail, in that the darkest areas of the 4K HDR picture don’t enjoy quite such deep blacks as the HD Blu-ray. For me, though, this is a trade well worth making, as it means the image looks consistently more balanced and natural.
Sound Quality
The 4K version of E.T. enjoys a new DTS:X mix that’s similar to the HDR/4K picture upgrade in that it only delivers a relatively subtle improvement over the DTS-HD mix found on the previously released Blu-ray. There’s a more ‘joined up’ feel to John Williams’ classic score, helping it achieve an even more immersive impact, plus there’s a touch more definition and precision to the placement of effects.
We’re certainly not, though, talking about anything like the same level of enhancement you get with the barnstorming Dolby Atmos remix created for the 4K re-issue of Blade Runner (reviewed here).
Purists may like to know that Universal has thoughtfully provided the option of playing the original stereo mix in English if you want to keep closer to the original theatrical experience.
Extra Features
The standard 4K release of E.T. features more than three hours of extras, all housed on the HD Blu-ray. There’s nothing new here; the Blu-ray is simply the 2012 30th anniversary release, with the same extras. But if you never owned this before, the good news is that you’ve got more than three hours of pretty decent stuff to get your teeth into.
Two deleted scenes kick things off, one adding some more Elliott/E.T. downtime in a bathroom-based sequence, and one adding some night-time footage from the film’s Halloween section.
Much more substantial and worthwhile is a relatively new 12-minute featurette interviewing Spielberg about the making of the film.
The E.T. Journals, meanwhile, is a mammoth 54-minute documentary made up completely of behind the scenes footage shot on the set in 1981. It’s pretty raw in appearance and structure, as you might expect - but that actually turns out to be part of its charm, giving us a fascinating glimpse of the day to day mundanities of a major movie production, as well as the working methods of a master director.
A Look Back is a more standard, 37-minute ‘making of’ documentary that mixes original behind the scenes footage with more recent cast and crew interviews. It offers more than enough extra perspective to warrant viewing as well as the unmissable E.T. Journals.
The Evolution and Creation of E.T. is another substantial documentary, running to more than 50 minutes. This starts to go over quite a bit of the same ground covered by the previous documentaries, so if you’re looking to save a bit of time this is for me the disc’s most skippable extra.
The E.T. Reunion is up next. This 18-minute featurette is a decent bit of fun that brings pretty much all the key cast and crew members back together in a sort of ‘mass interview’ format, intercut with clips from the film.
The Music Of E.T., meanwhile, is a fascinating 10-minute insight into John Williams’ superb score, based around a 2002 interview with the man himself and clips of Spielberg working with him at the time the film was being made.
Up next is a worthwhile 18 minutes documentary covering the 20th Anniversary screening at the Shrine Auditorium in LA, where John Williams and a full orchestra played the score live along with the film.
Finally there’s a nice selection of design artwork for E.T. and the spaceship, production photographs, and marketing materials.
Verdict
The 4K HDR release of E.T. isn’t demo grade material in the normal sense of the word. Its HDR and 4K enhancements are relatively gentle compared to most 4K Blu-ray titles.
On this occasion, though, I don’t think the subtle approach is a bad thing at all. It makes the film look and sound better than it’s ever looked and sounded before without losing the naturalistic feel of the original photography or delivering the now ageing source material with excessive grain or color balance issues.
The extent of the upgrade may, I guess, not be enough to persuade everyone who already owns the Blu-ray to upgrade to the 4K version. For me, though, the lure of seeing a childhood favorite enjoying a sensitive new bit of 21st century polish is irresistible.
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