Steven Spielberg on removing guns from ‘E.T.’: “That was a mistake”
In a recent discussion at Time’s 100 Summit, acclaimed filmmaker Steven Spielberg expressed regret about his decision to edit out the guns featured in his 1982 sci-fi classic E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
The ‘Special Edition’ of E.T. included many changes to the original work, including the controversial decision to digitally edit the guns in the film in order to change them into walkie-talkies. At the 100 Summit, Spielberg said: “That was a mistake. I never should have done that. E.T. is a product of its era. No film should be revised based on the lenses we now are, either voluntarily or being forced to peer through.”
Even at the time of the release of the ‘Special Edition’, many fans and critics criticised Spielberg’s alterations to the original cut and blamed it on the prevailing atmosphere of political correctness. Famously, South Park made a fantastic episode called ‘Free Hat’ in which Trey Parker and Matt Stone attacked both Spielberg and Lucas for destroying their own legacies.
While explaining his thought process at the time, Spielberg elaborated: “E.T. was a film that I was sensitive to the fact that the federal agents were approaching kids with firearms exposed, and I thought I would change the guns into walkie-talkies… Years went by, and I changed my own views. I should have never messed with the archives of my own work, and I don’t recommend anyone do that.”
The filmmaker added: “All our movies are a kind of a signpost of where we were when we made them, what the world was like and what the world was receiving when we got those stories out there. So I really regret having that out there.”
Watch the interview below.
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