George Lucas Isn’t the Only One Tinkering With His Movies, Steven Spielberg Made Changes to Close Encounters and E.T.

George Lucas has become notorious among sci fi fans for his endless tinkering with the original three Star Wars movies and people keep pleading that he just leave those films alone (or at least give us back the original versions). But the fact is that Lucas is not the only tinkerer as his Blockbuster brethren Steven Spielberg made changes after the fact to two of his classic films: 1977’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind and 1982’s E.T. – The Extra-Terrestrial.

Spielberg’s changes to Closes Encounters of the Third Kind where pretty innocuous and actually helped set the precedent for the director’s cut of films that we would see so often in the years to follow. While producing the original film, Columbia Pictures had pressured Spielberg to get it into theaters by the end of 1977, whereas he wanted more time and would have preferred a Summer 1978 release. He gave in to their demands and agreed to the earlier release date, though, and ultimately was unsatisfied with the final product. But because the film was a huge box office draw, the studio agreed to let him do a director’s cut which would get a brief theatrical release in 1980. They agreed to this, though, on the condition that he would give audiences a look inside of the mothership at the end of the film. Spielberg accepted those terms and also included several new scenes he wanted which added further character development as well as a scene showing the discovery of the SS Cotopaxi in the Gobi Desert. He also edited out some scenes and actually shortened the overall length of the movie by three minutes from the original version (trimming down that Budweiser commercial that seemed to go on forever). Then in 1998, Spielberg did some more edits to the film for the Collector’s Edition released on VHS and Laserdisc. This version had mostly minor changes, though it did take out the scene showing the interior of the mothership, as Spielberg had never wanted to include that in the first place.

Now where these changes to CE3K were mostly minor (except the mothership scene demanded by the studio), Spielberg took a much more Lucas-like approach when preparing E.T. – The Extra-Terrestrial for its 20th anniversary release. First, he added some CGI to improve some special effects he felt did not come out well in the original version. These included some shots showing E.T. and some showing the spaceship. Then he made a change to the one scene where Federal agents with guns threatened the fleeing E.T. and Elliot. Spielberg felt that the guns were a bit too much for a film with such wide appeal to children and he used CGI to change those to walkie-talkies (see picture above).

But there is one important difference between Spielberg and Lucas when it comes to these changes: he kept the original versions (both for CE3K and E.T.). The home video releases have included the re-edited films as well as the original theatrical releases. Lucas, on the other hand, has never re-released the original versions of the first three Star Wars films (though he does plan on doing it for the first movie on its 50th anniversary). And when Spielberg was asked which version of E.T. people should watch, he said “I always tell them to look at the original”. So he took the artistic license to make changes to his films, but still acknowledged the authority of the originals, which makes those alterations at least a bit more palatable to his fans. Now if only George Lucas would indulge his editing obsession by taking Jar Jar Binks out of the prequel trilogy…

Buy Close Encounters of the Third Kind on Home Video:  Blu-ray | DVD | 4K UHD | VOD

Buy E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial on Home Video:  Blu-ray | DVD | 4K UHD | VOD