SOURCE: Mott, Donald R., and Cheryl McAllister Saunders. “I'm Going to Make You a Star.” In Steven Spielberg, pp. 110-28. Boston, Mass.: Twayne Publishers, 1986.

In the following essay, Mott and Saunders explore the inspirations behind E.T. and comment on the film's critical reception and suspected religious symbolism.

Dear E.T.,

I love you and want you to come to my house on Christmas Day and spend the night with me in case I get scared. E.T. I love you.

Love,

Heidi

Letters to E.T., 1983

Spielberg, with the help of special effects wizard Carlo Rambaldi and hundreds of artists and technicians, decided literally to make a star for his next film, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. Described by Paul Sammon as “a squat, wrinkled, mud-colored beastie with a perpetual chest cold,” E.T. was the unlikely popular and media sensation of 1982.¹ This ugly, but endearing electronic-mechanical alien...