Spielberg regrets swapping out guns in rerelease of ET: ‘I never should have done that’
Julia Johnson
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Director Steven Spielberg admitted on Tuesday that he regrets changing his famous film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial to adapt to modern sensitivities.
“That was a mistake. I never should have done that. E.T. is a product of its era,” he told the crowd at the Time 100 Summit in New York City. “No film should be revised based on the lenses we now are either voluntarily or being forced to peer through.”
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The movie was originally released in 1982. In the classic, guns are carried by police officers as they chase down children and their extraterrestrial friend. Additionally, the mother in the movie said to her child, “No, you’re not going as a terrorist,” in reference to a Halloween costume.
However, these were both nixed from the 2002 20th anniversary edition of the film. Instead, police officers donned walkie-talkies while tracking down the children and E.T.
The guns were swapped out using digital animation.
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Now, Spielberg says he is “disappointed” in himself.
“I should have never messed with the archives of my own work, and I don’t recommend anyone do that,” he said.
“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,” he said. “So I really regret having that out there.”
This comes as the classic works of authors such as Roald Dahl and Agatha Christie have been edited by publishing companies to remove offensive or outdated content. Even more modern authors, such as R.L. Stine, have reportedly had their work changed without their knowledge.
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“Nobody should ever attempt to take the chocolate out of Willy Wonka,” Spielberg said, referencing Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
“For me, it is sacrosanct,” he explained. “It’s our history. It’s our cultural heritage. I do not believe in censorship in that way.”