Conclusions and Links

To begin with I'd like to thank you for getting this far. Hopefully it was all painless and now you see the film differently, however, a couple of explanations, and photos, are still required. 

As you will have noticed the central character (Jesus) keeps changing between Elliot and E.T., I suspect this shows Jesus as God and as Man, but I have no obvious image to show this. 

There are several "ideas" in the film that suggest other parts of the New Testament, however, they can not be illustrated easily by stills from the film. Elliot's mother being called Mary for example, or her "descent" into Hell during Halloween. Also his learning with, and then teaching, the Temple elders, which could be linked to Elliot showing E.T. the atlas and E.T. showing Elliot the (play-doh) stars. These I have not even tried to include as they would require sequences of stills, or even video, and I wanted to keep everything simple. 

Also the film doesn't follow the Biblical story, but jumps around. For example the Temptation by the Devil is much later in the film than in the Gospels. I have stuck with the Gospel chronology, fitting in the stills in the relevant places. 

Finally there are some serious omissions and extra inclusions, where is the Last Supper? and what was all that about drinking beer? If you can shed any light on these please contact me (ecat68k@gmail.com). 

The poster for the film, shown here, is deliberately an echo of Michelangelo's "Creation of Man", based on Genesis, 

not linked to the New Testament, but, I think, carries the general idea of the film. 

A final scene, both from the film and from me, is of the rainbow. 

This doesn't appear in the Gospels, but it is a promise from God to his followers not to hurt them again after Noah's flood. 

Which brings me to comments. If you have any I'd be happy to read them, and maybe even include any printable ones on this page at a later date. You can mail me at; 

ecat68k@gmail.com 

LINKS
On-line Bible
Wikipedia's E.T. page  Internet Movie Database E.T. page
Hollywood Jesus version of a similar idea 

Also there are many other internet pages making this E.T./Bible connexion, however, I hope that mine is the clearest, without needing to watch the movie again. 

I would also like to point out here that all this was started when I read, in a very bad, and error ridden, biography of Spielberg by John Baxter; 

"One American preacher detected 33 parallels between Puck's story (of E.T.) and that of Christ, including one that compared his magic finger to that of God enlivening Adam in Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel frescoes." 

Baxter was trying to show how idiotic some analysis of Spielberg's films can be. I hope these pages successfully show Baxter that maybe he should have paid more attention to that preacher! 

Most of the images on these pages are from publicity material and are availble freely from, for example, the IMDb, © 1982 & 2002 - Universal Studios. A few were not easy to find and were, therefore, taken as still photos from the 20th Anniversary DVD. (they do not represent the picture quality of the DVD, but rather the poor quality of my TV and digital camera, not the best way to take screen shots!) 

Made on a Mac.