If anyone in my generation were asked what their favorite movie of all time is, I do not doubt that E.T. by Steven Spielberg would be one of the top three on the list. This movie was truly a pioneering movie in that it brought so much change in the movie industry and the way the audience thought about movies. The reasons E.T. was such a success was that it revolutionized the way people thought about extraterrestrials, it made science fiction movies to leap into a new era of technology, and that it brought many generations of viewers together into one theater.
One of the important reasons for the E.T.'s success was in the way it displayed extraterrestrials as a friendly and kind being as opposed to something strange and hostile as seen in movies previously released to E.T. The way the aliens were portrayed in the earlier movies as evil creatures that wanted to invade earth and kill all humans. On the other hand, the alien portrayed in E.T. was a friendly and timid creature who was lost on earth; he posed no threat to the humans because he was powerless. E.T. was able to eliminate the fear that people had about possible existence of aliens and their invasions by introducing a powerless, friendly, and likeable alien who everyone could sympathize with. E.T. did so well because it truly revolutionized our views of existence of aliens out there.
Another critical factor, which led E.T. to a big success in the box office, was the technology behind the scenes of the movie. In the earlier science fiction movies, the scenes were often shot in the set with pictures as backgrounds and toy models were used for spaceships. E.T., on the other hand is a product of "blue screen" technique where they could make anything such as flying and spaceships appear very realistic. The scene where the children fly off on their bikes with E.T. in the basket was one of the most memorable movie scenes of all time. The most amazing technique used had to be the development of the E.