E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

As one of the truly iconic American movies, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial deserves the very best DVD presentation has to offer, and Universal has certainly delivered. The deluxe Limited Collectors Edition sports the digitally enhanced version released theatrically this year and includes an entire extra disc of well-chosen, well-produced extras. One unexpectedly moving featurette shows the cast and crew reunited for the glorious 2002 "re-premiere" in Los Angeles' Shrine Auditorium, where composer John Williams and a 100-piece orchestra played the Oscar-winning musical score to accompany the newly spiffed-up film. Williams figures in another featurette devoted solely to the music: Candid postproduction footage shows him playing the famous flying theme on the piano while an enthusiastic Steven Spielberg listens for the first time. The director, who defends his digital tinkering as a means of mollifying "the perfectionist in me," admits in his specially filmed introduction that certain shots "always made me cringe." In other featurettes, cast and filmmakers reunite to discuss the film's impact, confirming what many of them have said separately: nobody expected E.T. to become a cultural phenomenon. The array and diversity of contemporaneously shot behind-the-scenes material is nothing short of amazing, and it's difficult to imagine Universal coming up with a more comprehensive documentation of this beloved film's production. In the two decades since E.T. was first released, various documentaries covered aspects of its making, but now-familiar revelations--such as Spielberg's admission that he developed the idea as a consequence of his parents' divorce--have been expanded upon for the DVD. Is there's every reason to believe that this will be one of the biggest-selling DVDs to date? Yes. --Ed Hulse