E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial: A Novelisation To Film Comparison

Ancient, grotesque space monster falls in love with horny, suburban divorcee; not the kind of children's story you'd expect to become one of the most beloved and highest grossing movies of all time. Yet this is exactly the premise of William Kotzwinkle’s 1982 novelisation of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial.

Those of you with fond memories of a charming and somewhat traumatising boy-meets-alien story might be surprised to find that, in the novelisation, Elliott barely rates a mention. Until the third act, Kotzwinkle spends more time detailing the thoughts and feelings of Harvey the dog than the human protagonist of the film. Instead, he reframes the story from E.T.’s perspective, with Elliott’s mum Mary taking second billing.

When Elliott is first introduced, he is described as a bespectacled 'twerp’ and a mediocre neurotic; 'the sort of person who falls under a train'. 

To be fair, none of the people in Kotzwinkle’s novelisation are particularly endearing. It’s almost as if the author didn’t like any of Spielberg's characters, and wanted to share his disdain with his readers. Mary is portrayed as a depressed, broken woman with little compassion for her children. Elliott's brother Michael is a bully who can't stand either of his siblings. Even E.T. himself fails to escape Kotzwinkle's dour lens. He is not portrayed as the benign Christlike figure we see in the film, nor is he the cute icon that adorned literally everything in the early eighties. Instead, he is recast as an old scientist who barely tolerates the humans that house him. He frequently refers to the children as dumb and a nuisance. He fantasises about Elliott’s mother and watches her sleep (like a million year old pot-bellied creep). Everyone who sees him describes him as a monster. When he is captured by the authorities, a doctor refers to E.T.’s ‘unspeakable ugliness’ and the fact that it is ‘natural to hate such an object and wish it dead’. 

Although he initially finds his own appearance attractive, after spending time with the humans, E.T. also views himself as a malformed, repugnant freak.

Kotzwinkle strips the film of all Spielbergian sentimentality (and Star Wars references). Elliott and the children don't fall in love with E.T. so much as they are brainwashed by his telepathic powers. There's no indication that Agent Keys has anything but contempt for 'the little bastard … the no-good little sonofabitch' Elliott, and therefore no chance that Keys will fill the role left by Elliott's missing father. Even the heart-wrenching, climactic scene where E.T. bids farewell to his friends is drained of all emotion, and transcribed in a single page – as if Kotzwinkle had seen the finish line and decided to barrel ahead with none of the literary flourishes he'd peppered throughout the novel.

The lack of sentimentality is not the only difference between the book and the film. As expected, the deleted scenes found on the DVD are reinserted – including E.T.'s near drowning in the bathtub and Elliott's meeting with the school principal (played by a faceless Harrison Ford). Both of these scenes, though, are expanded upon in unexpected ways.

In the film version, E.T. is left alone in a bathtub full of water and is later found fully submerged. This is played for laughs (oh ho, he might have drowned!), yet in the novelisation, E.T. is not naïve to the dangers of water, nor is he merely getting his kicks from holding his breath beneath it. Instead, he is using his microfocus to track tiny aquatic forms in the water.

When admonishing Elliot for the frog incident, the school principal ruminates on the former principal of the school who had been convicted of being a sexual offender. After witnessing Elliott levitating in his office, he swallows a handful of quaaludes from his confiscated drugs drawer. This is not your typical, children's movie fare, and only one of many drug references throughout the book. One such scene involves Harvey the dog attempting to hide E.T. from Mary by dancing on his hind legs in front of him. Mary asks Harvey, “Did Michael put speed in your Alpo?”

E.T.'s powers are also explained and expanded upon in ways that are not apparent in the film. He excretes gas from his toes to create the mist that camouflages him at the beginning of the story. He converses with plants and vegetables (yet their sentience doesn't stop him from eating them when hungry), and has the ability to enter the dreams of humans. He can burn holes through metal with his magic fingers, use sign language to explain the meaning of life, the universe and everything, and heal injured miners via live television stream.

Other differences in the book include multiple references to the sublime deliciousness of M&Ms (before Mars, Inc. refused permission for the use of their product in the film), and a couple of random encounters with an owl – which bear a striking resemblance to the awful prairie dog gags in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The novelisation also alters the age of the Dungeons and Dragons crew (Tyler, Greg and Steve), making them fifth graders like Elliott. They are in his Biology class; witnesses to his drunken emancipation of the frogs, and earlier, his unconscious doodlings of Speak and Spell schematics on the blackboard in front of the class.

There is another character that appears to either have been deleted from the film entirely, or surreptitiously added by the author – Lance. Lance is a nerd. He looks like a nerd, is constantly referred to as a nerd, and is disliked by all who meet him. In the book, Lance discovers Elliott's secret and becomes telepathically linked to E.T. Lance helps the gang escape the authorities by sending them in the opposite direction, and leads Mary and Gertie to the landing site. He is superfluous and unlikeable, but another interesting surprise in a book full of surprises.

Although Kotzwinkle's take on the film is somewhat jarring, it elevates what might have been a simple retelling of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial into something more. Like the best film adaptations, the author has built upon the source material to create a text that is substantially different, yet still familiar. It doesn't necessarily change our opinion of the movie or its characters; instead, it presents us with a new, fresh perspective.

His follow-up book, E.T. The Book of the Green Planet, was published three years after the film's release and begins immediately where the previous story ends. Did the film's sentimentality and reception temper Kotzwinkle's dark prose? Did his writing soften to pander to a younger audience? Is the novel of an unmade sequel of a 37 year old film of any interest to anyone other than me? Leave your answers and comments in the section below.