WEBVTT - Stranded on Earth 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:03.520 Are aliens here on Earth? Hollywood sure thinks so, and 0:00:03.640 --> 0:00:06.960 so did John Harrington. But there are other voices echoing 0:00:07.000 --> 0:00:10.680 the same idea, a veritable chorus in fact of leaders 0:00:10.680 --> 0:00:13.800 in the disclosure movement. Let's start with David Grush, the 0:00:13.840 --> 0:00:18.079 former US Air Force officer and intelligence official who testified 0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:22.280 to Congress, has recently stated publicly that the government holds 0:00:22.320 --> 0:00:26.800 records on several distinct kinds of non human biological life. 0:00:27.480 --> 0:00:31.240 Then there's doctor hal Putoff, a theoretical physicist and the 0:00:31.280 --> 0:00:35.320 co founder of the Stargate Remote viewing Project, who claimed 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:38.440 that the US government has recovered bodies from at least 0:00:38.440 --> 0:00:43.720 four separate extraterrestrial species. Lastly, doctor Eric Davis, a renowned 0:00:43.760 --> 0:00:48.360 astrophysicist who has worked extensively for the government and defense industry. 0:00:48.600 --> 0:00:51.959 But he goes one step further. He outlined four distinct 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:59.520 extraterrestrial biological life forms associated with recovered UFO wreckage, Gray's, Nordic's, 0:00:59.760 --> 0:01:05.479 and Reptilians insectoids. So the question has quickly evolved from 0:01:05.520 --> 0:01:09.000 are we alone? To how many aliens are living amongst us? 0:01:09.040 --> 0:01:12.080 And if they are here, what form are they taking? Now? 0:01:12.080 --> 0:01:15.680 Beyond the four already mentioned we've also heard stories of 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:19.120 little grays and large grays, tall whites and Nordics or 0:01:19.360 --> 0:01:23.040 are those the same things? Reptilians and insectoids but also 0:01:23.200 --> 0:01:27.039 mantoids or are those insectoids. It's all a little confusing, 0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:30.759 and just to take it even one step further, David 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:33.480 Grush even recently throughout the idea that we could also 0:01:33.560 --> 0:01:38.040 be looking at sentient plasmoids, whatever that means. For today, 0:01:38.080 --> 0:01:42.600 though we're primarily interested in aliens disguised as humans stranded 0:01:42.640 --> 0:01:46.560 here on Earth, living amongst us, trying to assimilate and survive. 0:01:46.880 --> 0:01:50.200 For this episode, we thought we'd try something where we're 0:01:50.200 --> 0:01:53.200 really just talking about the solo stranded on Earth, in 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:57.040 other words, just one alien physically present on Earth at 0:01:57.080 --> 0:02:00.200 a time. And we got this inspiration, folks, because we 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:02.480 did an episode a few back called The Men Who 0:02:02.560 --> 0:02:06.000 Fell to Earth, which was literally about a franchise, The 0:02:06.040 --> 0:02:07.720 Man Who Fell to Earth. That was a book and 0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:10.960 it was a movie, and it was as a pilot 0:02:11.080 --> 0:02:13.880 and it was everything, but it was about David Bowie, 0:02:13.919 --> 0:02:17.240 in most people's recognition, being stranded here on Earth. So 0:02:17.720 --> 0:02:20.720 we thought, let's take a look at this whole stranded 0:02:21.080 --> 0:02:24.800 mentality because the thing is the stranded alien thing is 0:02:24.960 --> 0:02:29.720 sci Fi's clean moral experiment. There's no agenda most times 0:02:29.880 --> 0:02:33.120 other than the alien is here and can't get back. 0:02:33.280 --> 0:02:36.119 But there's just one of them, so they are really alienated. 0:02:36.160 --> 0:02:38.519 And then the question is always going to be reflected 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:40.920 in the movies or TVs. How are we going to 0:02:41.000 --> 0:02:43.359 deal with them? And how are they going to deal 0:02:43.440 --> 0:02:45.920 with us? Because now it's one on one. And of 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:50.480 course the greatest storyline about that everybody remembers is Et, 0:02:50.720 --> 0:02:52.720 but we're not going to start there. I was just 0:02:52.760 --> 0:02:55.360 thinking as we were doing this, Brent, there's a whole 0:02:55.440 --> 0:02:58.920 lot more to the stranded on alien than just Et. 0:02:59.160 --> 0:03:03.240 Although he's the one on everybody remembers. Yes, I'll give 0:03:03.280 --> 0:03:05.919 you one and then I'll let you run. The most 0:03:05.960 --> 0:03:10.560 popular alien stranded on Earth has got to be kel El. Superman, 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:14.919 Oh right, right. He's a crash victim. Now he doesn't 0:03:14.919 --> 0:03:18.480 have any idea of his home planet really when he 0:03:18.520 --> 0:03:20.600 gets here, so it's not like he's feeling like, oh 0:03:20.800 --> 0:03:23.840 I miss it so much, but he's still alienated. And 0:03:23.919 --> 0:03:27.120 one of the things about Superman has always been he's 0:03:27.320 --> 0:03:30.640 at his core, he's an alien, a stranger he's a 0:03:30.680 --> 0:03:33.520 strange visitor, but he's not the only guy either. There's 0:03:33.600 --> 0:03:37.600 been a lot of product out there in Hollywood generated 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:41.680 on the concept of aliens being here one at a time, 0:03:42.000 --> 0:03:44.600 and the earliest one I could find I'm talking not 0:03:44.760 --> 0:03:48.640 books or anything, I'm talking about film, and it's The 0:03:48.720 --> 0:03:52.280 Man from Planet X. That's nineteen fifty one, where an 0:03:52.360 --> 0:03:56.760 alien lands on a Scottish island and he's this vulnerable 0:03:56.880 --> 0:04:00.280 visitor and he bonds with the human signe and I 0:04:00.280 --> 0:04:02.560 won't go into it because no one's going to watch this, okay, 0:04:02.880 --> 0:04:05.200 But they were talking about in fifty one. And then 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:09.200 a personal favorite from nineteen fifty four is Devil Girl 0:04:09.280 --> 0:04:14.280 from Mars, which is she shows up, she's the sole Martian, 0:04:14.360 --> 0:04:17.560 she needs helf repairing her ship. The Cosmic Man in 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:21.000 nineteen fifty nine, another one single alien arrives in a 0:04:21.080 --> 0:04:25.799 sphere and the military immediately surrounds it. But another one 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:28.600 that we'll be talking about maybe in a future episode. 0:04:28.640 --> 0:04:32.440 But Jerry Lewis in nineteen sixty in the film Visit 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:35.400 to a Small Planet, is the guy who shows up 0:04:35.480 --> 0:04:38.280 here and he's all alone. And then I'm just going 0:04:38.320 --> 0:04:40.599 to lay this out there because it's the one that 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:43.680 everybody grew up on, and it's my favorite Martian. 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:50.800 I remember thinking he was such a persnickety alien, but 0:04:50.880 --> 0:04:53.080 I love the actor who was It was Ray Walston. 0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:55.760 Ray Walston, Yeah, so I loved him and other things 0:04:55.800 --> 0:04:58.839 and I bill, yes, it was the human. Yes. I 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:02.560 remember thinking when Mark came out with Robin Williams Yes, 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:06.800 that this was probably inspired by my favorite Martian. 0:05:07.480 --> 0:05:10.960 They're both sort of the alien observer who has been 0:05:11.080 --> 0:05:14.640 into human life if you will, who listen. I don't 0:05:14.680 --> 0:05:17.360 know what it says for alien intelligence that for season 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:20.880 after season they're still surprised by humanity because they've been 0:05:20.920 --> 0:05:23.520 there for a while. My favorite Martian, though, is interesting 0:05:23.600 --> 0:05:28.520 because the Martian who's here is an anthropologist, right. But 0:05:28.640 --> 0:05:32.880 again the Crash references in these things. He crash lands 0:05:32.960 --> 0:05:37.120 near Los Angeles. This reporter Tim O'Hare played by Bixby, 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:42.000 shelters him and invents this whole Uncle Martin identity. Listen. 0:05:42.200 --> 0:05:45.400 It doesn't hold up well. Most sitcoms from the sixties 0:05:45.400 --> 0:05:48.600 are pretty silly. Mork and Mindy at least as Robin 0:05:48.600 --> 0:05:52.279 Williams who you watch Mark and MINDI and you just 0:05:52.320 --> 0:05:54.280 go did they have scripts? For this or did they 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:56.560 just have improvisational things for Rod. 0:05:57.279 --> 0:06:00.040 Yeah, it's with everything he did. Actually, one of the 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:02.279 funny things about more coan Miindi, someone pointed out to 0:06:02.320 --> 0:06:04.560 me recently was at the beginning of the show and 0:06:04.560 --> 0:06:07.520 the title sequence he crash lands in an egg. 0:06:07.839 --> 0:06:09.880 Yes, so a lot of crash land. 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:11.960 And I remember when I saw that, I'm like, what, 0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:14.799 so he's not an alien because that's not a UFO. 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:17.479 What's going on here? It was so confusing. 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:21.080 Shout out to Boulder, Colorado where that takes place, and 0:06:21.200 --> 0:06:23.120 just one other and then we can move on because 0:06:23.560 --> 0:06:27.240 we could literally and will if the podcast continues, we'll 0:06:27.240 --> 0:06:30.320 be talking about all of these things in greater detail. 0:06:30.720 --> 0:06:32.880 But in nineteen seventy eight, the one that is the 0:06:32.960 --> 0:06:36.599 closest to et and sort of form and structure is 0:06:36.640 --> 0:06:41.120 the cat from outer space. And it is so bizarre. 0:06:42.040 --> 0:06:44.760 There's a cat. It's not actually a cat. It's an 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:48.839 alien that looks like a cat, an Abyssinian cat. Now 0:06:48.880 --> 0:06:49.880 I'm not a cat person. 0:06:50.200 --> 0:06:53.000 My brother had an Abyssinian okay, yours, well, beautiful like 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:55.599 they look like Egyptian cats. If that's a thing. 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:58.880 You were harboring, your brother was harboring an alien apparently 0:06:59.360 --> 0:07:02.719 and not being straight with you about that. So anyway, 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:07.359 this one emergency lands, contacts its distant mothership, receives a 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:12.160 deadline it's going to be coming for you, recruits a human, 0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:17.320 tries to retrieve and repair the spacecraft that's not ET material. 0:07:17.560 --> 0:07:21.360 But there is a lot of that though, of repairing spacecraft. Listen, 0:07:21.400 --> 0:07:24.640 I'm throwing aside about ten pages of research here right now, 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:27.720 because the truth is, there's just so many of these things. 0:07:27.960 --> 0:07:31.440 And this episode, we're going to start with the Granddaddy. 0:07:31.880 --> 0:07:36.240 After this break here, we're gonna trot out ET. 0:07:36.840 --> 0:07:37.800 Yeah. 0:07:37.880 --> 0:07:40.320 I love ET, by the way, because I watched it 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:45.600 again last night, and I have to say it was 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:49.240 so much fun. It's just fun. And it's forty four 0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:50.600 years old right now. 0:07:50.720 --> 0:07:52.640 So yeah, and it still holds up. It's one of 0:07:52.720 --> 0:07:55.600 those movies that I feel will be an enduring classic 0:07:55.720 --> 0:08:17.480 for generations. I'm Brent Friedman. Years ago, a family friend 0:08:17.520 --> 0:08:21.080 who became a cabinet member in the Reagan administration disclosed 0:08:21.080 --> 0:08:24.560 to me that aliens are real. They're here, and he'd 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:25.360 seen them. 0:08:25.520 --> 0:08:28.880 I'm Bryce's Abel. Later, when we were producing Dark Skies, 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:33.160 an NBCTV series about an alien invasion. We were approached 0:08:33.160 --> 0:08:34.959 by men who said they were from the Office of 0:08:35.080 --> 0:08:38.520 Naval Intelligence and they wanted to give us inside information 0:08:38.840 --> 0:08:41.079 in exchange for access to our show. 0:08:41.440 --> 0:08:44.640 We didn't take that deal, but we have never stopped 0:08:44.679 --> 0:08:45.440 thinking about it. 0:08:45.960 --> 0:08:49.320 That's why we do this podcast. We're working out ideas 0:08:49.320 --> 0:08:53.200 in real time about how Hollywood is portrayed aliens and 0:08:53.280 --> 0:08:54.760 why every. 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:58.360 Episode is different because there are so many questions. 0:08:58.080 --> 0:09:01.360 We're looking for answers. It's an act of investigation. Let's 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:29.960 do this together, all right, folks, let's talk ET. We 0:09:30.040 --> 0:09:32.480 all have our memories, which we like to do on 0:09:32.520 --> 0:09:36.040 this show. Brent, where were you? What was so interesting 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:39.120 to me, though, is in nineteen eighty two when ET 0:09:39.360 --> 0:09:41.560 came out and there's this whole backstory, and I know 0:09:41.600 --> 0:09:43.760 you've got some good stuff to lay on us. But 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:46.000 in nineteen eighty two, I didn't know much about it, 0:09:46.080 --> 0:09:49.400 but I was reviewing films at PBS. It wasn't my 0:09:49.400 --> 0:09:52.520 full time gig. I wasn't a film reviewer, but if 0:09:52.559 --> 0:09:56.600 anybody reviewed films there, I would review the films. Okay, 0:09:57.000 --> 0:10:00.000 there was a screening of ET the Extraterrestrial That was 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:01.880 interesting because you knew at least it was about an 0:10:01.920 --> 0:10:05.160 extraterrestrial and you knew Steven Spielberg had made it. So 0:10:05.240 --> 0:10:08.080 I went and saw this thing blind. I took my wife, Jackie, 0:10:08.120 --> 0:10:10.240 she wasn't we weren't married yet, but we went out 0:10:10.240 --> 0:10:12.840 on a date into Beverly Hills and watched it. And 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:17.520 so I really got that wonderful experience where a film. 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:19.800 I love to do this even today, where you let 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:22.079 a film you know is going to be okay, it's 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:24.080 pretty good, you've heard about it, but you don't know 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:26.720 the details, you haven't asked about the details, and it 0:10:26.920 --> 0:10:27.679 washes over you. 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:28.400 Yeah. 0:10:28.480 --> 0:10:33.439 Man, that was just great. And as I understand it, 0:10:33.600 --> 0:10:37.079 we came very close not to having the wonderful ET 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:40.040 version that we all remember. 0:10:41.200 --> 0:10:45.600 It's true, there's a really interesting backstory to ET. But 0:10:46.240 --> 0:10:50.440 let me frame this with something to remind our listeners 0:10:50.559 --> 0:10:53.840 and viewers that, in our opinion, there is some evidence 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:56.839 that Steven Spielberg took the same deal that we were 0:10:56.840 --> 0:11:01.120 offered by JC, that was intelligence for influence. Now we've 0:11:01.160 --> 0:11:05.280 already examined close encounters, we've examined disclosure Day through that optic, 0:11:05.320 --> 0:11:08.280 but now here we are with ET. Now, according to 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:12.880 our source Toby Hooper again another episode we I think 0:11:12.880 --> 0:11:15.880 it was episode number two. We talked about this, just 0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:20.559 like Close Encounters. He said that Stephen was given information 0:11:21.120 --> 0:11:24.040 and that ET was based on a true story. Now, 0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:26.200 if you do some digging, you're going to find out 0:11:26.240 --> 0:11:30.000 there's some truth in that statement on ET. You have 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:34.000 to understand that after Close Encounters, the studio was very 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:38.000 interested in doing a sequel, of course, and what Spielberg 0:11:38.040 --> 0:11:41.280 pitch was a violent home invasion film, and the idea 0:11:41.440 --> 0:11:45.160 was by doing that under the Close Encounters banner, it 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:48.199 would keep the title alive at the studio. The plot 0:11:48.280 --> 0:11:53.400 was inspired by the infamous nineteen fifty five Kelly Hopskinville 0:11:53.760 --> 0:11:58.440 Goblin encounter in Kentucky, where basically a rural family claimed 0:11:58.440 --> 0:12:02.160 that they were besieged by small, aggressive, gremlin like creatures. 0:12:02.800 --> 0:12:05.000 Now this is interesting because it'll come back later in 0:12:05.040 --> 0:12:09.599 our show. Spielberg hired screenwriter John sALS to pen a 0:12:09.679 --> 0:12:13.880 script featuring five distinct alien visitors. There was a vicious 0:12:13.960 --> 0:12:18.360 leader named Scar with a light emitting finger, and a gentle, 0:12:18.440 --> 0:12:23.080 curious outcast named Buddy, and Buddy ends up befriending the 0:12:23.080 --> 0:12:27.320 family's autistic son, who gets left behind, and then Buddy 0:12:27.320 --> 0:12:30.079 gets left behind on Earth when his hostile crew departs. 0:12:30.600 --> 0:12:35.319 So just to put a bow on this, legendary makeup 0:12:35.520 --> 0:12:38.920 artist Rick Baker was hired to design the terrifying creatures, 0:12:39.320 --> 0:12:42.400 and Toby Hooper was actually in line to direct it, 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:47.400 so obviously none of that happened. Spielberg had a change 0:12:47.400 --> 0:12:49.800 of heart. He didn't want to make something scary. He 0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:52.560 was very caught up in the emotional concept of the 0:12:52.600 --> 0:12:56.599 single alien connecting with the lonely child. He scrapped the 0:12:56.640 --> 0:13:00.800 whole project and hired Melissa Matheson to write the script 0:13:01.320 --> 0:13:04.600 because in fact John Sales had turned it down, and 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:07.800 then all of the abandoned horror elements, both from the 0:13:07.840 --> 0:13:11.199 Family Horror and The Alien Horror, got diverted into other 0:13:11.280 --> 0:13:15.480 movies that Spielberg was associated with, particularly Poltergeist and Gremlins. 0:13:15.920 --> 0:13:18.640 First of all, just a couple of things that sparked. 0:13:18.640 --> 0:13:21.480 Whilet's say you're talking about that was first I had 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:23.600 always heard that Spielberg, at least this is what he 0:13:23.679 --> 0:13:27.520 said on the extras on the that I watched last night. 0:13:28.000 --> 0:13:30.080 He said he always wanted to tell the story about 0:13:30.440 --> 0:13:33.280 children of divorce because that's what he was, and so 0:13:33.480 --> 0:13:35.600 he was going to make a movie about children of divorce, 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:37.840 and he was going to make the ET version that 0:13:37.880 --> 0:13:40.800 you described, and then he decided let's put them both together, 0:13:40.880 --> 0:13:44.040 in which case that also gave you a lighter, brighter 0:13:44.320 --> 0:13:48.880 Et than the one that was originally described. And just 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:52.160 for perspective, we haven't described actually what the story of 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:55.400 ET is, because, let's face it, most of the people 0:13:55.440 --> 0:13:59.120 listening to this already know that it's Elliott who befriends Et. 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:03.199 And what's interesting, though, is to see Elliott and Et merge, 0:14:03.440 --> 0:14:06.760 not just mentally but physically. By the end of the film, 0:14:06.920 --> 0:14:11.200 they are symbiotically connected and almost die together, which is 0:14:12.080 --> 0:14:15.079 partly why I think people like it. Some majefrities weeping, 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:19.040 Oh my god, Elliott can't die, He can't die. That 0:14:19.200 --> 0:14:21.640 was a very popular movie, though, let's just put this 0:14:21.720 --> 0:14:25.520 in perspective about what it did. It touched people so 0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:29.840 much that it surpassed Star Wars as the highest grossing 0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:30.760 film of its time. 0:14:31.040 --> 0:14:31.720 That's amazing. 0:14:31.960 --> 0:14:36.760 That's truly amazing. It received nine Academy Award nominations and 0:14:36.840 --> 0:14:39.320 I think it won four of them. It got entered 0:14:39.360 --> 0:14:42.200 into the National Film registry, but I think ninety four. 0:14:42.360 --> 0:14:45.760 So over a decade later, it turned phone home into 0:14:45.840 --> 0:14:49.120 a universal phrase. Parents have been telling kids now, phone 0:14:49.120 --> 0:14:52.160 home for ages now. And it got me addicted to 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:54.840 Reese's pieces. And I bet the M and M people 0:14:54.880 --> 0:14:58.760 to this day regret not fighting stronger to get that. 0:14:58.920 --> 0:15:01.960 And it also made Ello It's moon crossing bicycle one 0:15:02.000 --> 0:15:05.600 of cinema's most recognizable images, and our friend of the show, 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:09.800 Ernie Klein, has stated that it is his favorite scene 0:15:09.960 --> 0:15:12.720 in film. So I just have one question for you, 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:14.160 because we all know what we're talking about. At the 0:15:14.280 --> 0:15:16.920 very end, they're being pursued by the government, which again 0:15:17.240 --> 0:15:21.120 is one of the standards of these stranded on Earth things. 0:15:21.240 --> 0:15:25.160 Quite often, the government is the bad guy. The human 0:15:25.240 --> 0:15:28.520 that the alien has bonded with is trying to help them, 0:15:28.520 --> 0:15:31.840 but the government's trying to capture them. Blah blah blah. 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:33.880 And at the end of ET and by the way, 0:15:33.920 --> 0:15:35.720 they shot that out near my house, I look at 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:39.320 ET and I'm like, wow, that looks like my neighborhood there. 0:15:39.560 --> 0:15:42.320 But at the end of it, they're being pursued relentlessly, 0:15:42.360 --> 0:15:48.720 and suddenly these five kids on bicycles are airborne and honestly, today, Brent, 0:15:48.880 --> 0:15:50.800 if they shot, if they did a remake, none of 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:53.120 those kids would be on real bicycles. They would all 0:15:53.160 --> 0:15:56.840 be a gang of those fat tire electrical bikes, which 0:15:57.040 --> 0:15:59.440 has the city council while to live up in arms 0:15:59.480 --> 0:16:03.320 because they drive around like gangs. Here's my question for you, though. Yep, 0:16:04.360 --> 0:16:07.640 these five kids, one of them has et in the 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:12.560 basket and they're flying through the sky. Why are they 0:16:12.600 --> 0:16:14.240 pedaling their bicycles? 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:20.120 That's an existential question. I guess it's muscle memory. 0:16:20.640 --> 0:16:23.280 I never thought about it at all, and yet there 0:16:23.360 --> 0:16:26.960 they are and they're pedaling. Yet they're flying through the air. 0:16:27.600 --> 0:16:31.760 Do they think that pedaling will is making them go fast? Well, 0:16:31.920 --> 0:16:32.360 I don't know. 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:36.560 If I jump into my ten year old brain riding 0:16:36.560 --> 0:16:39.800 a bike, if I started to get altitude, I would 0:16:39.920 --> 0:16:43.040 keep pedaling. I think it would just be wrote instinct 0:16:43.040 --> 0:16:44.880 out of fear that if I stop, I'm going to 0:16:44.920 --> 0:16:47.960 actually go down and crash. But I don't know. It's 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:48.840 a very funny. 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:52.560 Question, and that whole ending does very much make one 0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:55.520 thing very clear, and that's what Spielberg said. Out to 0:16:55.560 --> 0:16:59.160 do children see a person and they see the alien, 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:03.040 they see this person not like them, but a person 0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:09.480 adults initially see that same creature entity NHI as a 0:17:09.520 --> 0:17:13.120 specimen or a security problem. And that's where a lot 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:15.800 of the conflict and some of these things has come about. 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:18.679 And I just want to get to the wrap on 0:17:18.800 --> 0:17:20.920 ET because we had so many other things to talk about. 0:17:20.920 --> 0:17:23.040 But I told you I saw it and reviewed it. 0:17:23.600 --> 0:17:26.640 Or was the film reviewer for this PBS station here 0:17:26.640 --> 0:17:30.520 in la Kset. So I went back and I was 0:17:30.560 --> 0:17:34.160 going to review it, and they didn't let me review ET. 0:17:34.920 --> 0:17:38.000 They said it was not serious. It was we were a 0:17:38.040 --> 0:17:41.280 news group, news beat is what it's called, and so 0:17:41.320 --> 0:17:45.920 they didn't see this as newsy enough. Now imagine today 0:17:45.960 --> 0:17:48.679 a film like ET came out, people would all be 0:17:48.760 --> 0:17:51.920 wanting to review it because we're getting tranches of government 0:17:52.040 --> 0:17:55.439 documents and all that stuff. But back then, I just 0:17:55.480 --> 0:17:58.240 remember my news director looking at me as I'm standing 0:17:58.240 --> 0:18:01.040 in his office, saying, it's great and we could really 0:18:01.040 --> 0:18:03.520 talk about this, we could do that, and he just 0:18:03.560 --> 0:18:06.639 looked at me and said, we are not going to 0:18:06.720 --> 0:18:09.439 review that film. Go back to your office, get some 0:18:09.480 --> 0:18:12.800 work done. So times have changed a little bit. We're 0:18:12.840 --> 0:18:14.840 a little more open to that kind of thing a 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:15.320 little more. 0:18:15.400 --> 0:18:18.920 Yes, yes, my last thought on et is just from 0:18:18.960 --> 0:18:22.679 a cinematic standpoint, something that always stuck with me was 0:18:23.440 --> 0:18:27.399 how Steven Spielberg introduced the government bad guy played by 0:18:27.400 --> 0:18:31.760 Peter Coyote. It's just his keys that shangled, and the 0:18:31.840 --> 0:18:35.479 idea being is that the alien entity the et is 0:18:35.520 --> 0:18:39.919 so has hyper senses, and so he associates that sound 0:18:39.960 --> 0:18:43.600 of the jangling keys with being hunted, and it's just 0:18:43.600 --> 0:18:47.080 such an interesting thing. It makes him very childlike right 0:18:47.080 --> 0:18:49.640 off the bat. And I never forgot that. I never 0:18:49.680 --> 0:18:52.600 forgot from a cinematic standpoint how economical that was. 0:18:52.760 --> 0:18:56.080 With the exception of the Mother Mary, no adults are 0:18:56.119 --> 0:19:01.600 portrayed except for Keys Laid in the film. You're seeing 0:19:01.640 --> 0:19:04.119 from sort of ground level, from a kid's level, and 0:19:04.160 --> 0:19:06.480 when you finally see him, it's Peter Coyote, who, by 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:09.520 the way, if I'm not mistaken, is the voice of 0:19:09.600 --> 0:19:12.720 most of Ken Burns things and most of James Fox's 0:19:12.880 --> 0:19:16.760 UFO documentaries. Oh that's right, including the Phenomenon. So there's 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:22.040 connections everywhere. What I particularly liked, though, is that Keys 0:19:22.520 --> 0:19:27.119 Peter Coyote, when he's finally revealed he's a decent guy. 0:19:27.560 --> 0:19:30.280 He's there to get a job done, but he also 0:19:30.400 --> 0:19:34.080 understands how painful this is for Elliott and how once 0:19:34.119 --> 0:19:36.680 they think that Et is dead, it's hey, let's give 0:19:36.680 --> 0:19:40.199 the kid a moment alone with his grief. And so 0:19:40.240 --> 0:19:43.640 he's a decent guy. And then, frankly, like a lot 0:19:43.680 --> 0:19:46.879 of these movies, at the end, there's a big goodbye scene. 0:19:47.400 --> 0:19:51.080 Et gets to say goodbye to Elliott and Gerty the 0:19:51.080 --> 0:19:54.680 little girl gets to kiss him goodbye. And let's face it, 0:19:54.960 --> 0:19:57.840 Keys who is there in the scene. He could run 0:19:57.960 --> 0:20:00.680 up and grab Et in his own arms and run 0:20:00.720 --> 0:20:03.520 in the other direction, but he doesn't. He lets him go, 0:20:03.840 --> 0:20:05.920 which is something that's going to happen in another film 0:20:05.960 --> 0:20:10.080 we want to talk about. Starman. Okay, flash forward just 0:20:10.119 --> 0:20:13.359 two years, folks, just two years, and there's a pair 0:20:13.880 --> 0:20:19.360 of aliens alone stranded on Earth movies and they're released 0:20:19.359 --> 0:20:22.600 the same year, nineteen eighty four, and they are Starman 0:20:23.000 --> 0:20:27.680 starring Jeff Bridges and Karen Allen, and also The Brother 0:20:27.760 --> 0:20:32.480 from Another Planet starring Joe Morton, directed by John Sales 0:20:32.520 --> 0:20:34.960 who actually plays one of the maybe men in black 0:20:35.080 --> 0:20:38.640 or whatever in the thing. And they both are very 0:20:38.680 --> 0:20:43.479 different tellings of a story about an alien who is 0:20:43.640 --> 0:20:46.520 left here on the planet, and the one that's by 0:20:46.640 --> 0:20:48.640 far closest to ET is Starman. 0:20:49.000 --> 0:20:53.040 Yeah. Absolutely, And I think both of those movies do 0:20:53.200 --> 0:20:56.479 something that made them very relatable and gave them an 0:20:56.480 --> 0:21:00.520 emotional center. So with Et, et is coming to a 0:21:00.560 --> 0:21:03.280 family that doesn't have a father, and not to say 0:21:03.320 --> 0:21:05.760 that he is a father figure, but he brings the 0:21:05.800 --> 0:21:11.400 family together. He provides that paternal protective center. In Starman, 0:21:11.680 --> 0:21:14.280 we meet a woman named I believe Jenny played by 0:21:14.400 --> 0:21:18.719 Karen Allen, and she has lost her husband. And what 0:21:18.760 --> 0:21:22.919 does Starman do. He comes to her in the guise 0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:26.159 of her dead husband, not on purpose, though not on purpose, 0:21:26.200 --> 0:21:28.160 He just sees a piece of hair and he goes 0:21:28.400 --> 0:21:31.520 DNA like, Yes, he comes out of an orb. 0:21:31.760 --> 0:21:34.359 Frankly, he's an orb. Yes. 0:21:34.480 --> 0:21:38.560 Yes. And so both of those stories then lend themselves 0:21:38.640 --> 0:21:42.479 to being more about how the alien character helps repair 0:21:42.560 --> 0:21:45.560 the humans and bring them together, bring them closure, or 0:21:45.600 --> 0:21:48.200 whatever the case may be, and that makes it very 0:21:48.200 --> 0:21:49.640 relatable on a human level. 0:21:54.800 --> 0:21:56.840 I have a personal connection. I think that both of 0:21:56.960 --> 0:21:59.960 one is emotional and the others. In Brother from Another Planet, 0:22:00.119 --> 0:22:03.040 Joe Morton plays the brother and I worked and wrote 0:22:03.080 --> 0:22:05.320 for Joe Morton on a show called Equal Justice in 0:22:05.359 --> 0:22:08.479 ABC series, and Joe is a great guy. This is 0:22:08.520 --> 0:22:11.240 like seven years after the movie where his career was 0:22:11.240 --> 0:22:13.960 really starting. I don't think his career took off because 0:22:14.000 --> 0:22:16.199 a Brother, which a lot of people did not see. 0:22:16.400 --> 0:22:19.480 It was just a smaller indie film where a Starman 0:22:20.000 --> 0:22:22.840 was a mega hit. A couple of things about Starman. 0:22:24.119 --> 0:22:30.399 It begins with the Voyager spacecraft's gold record. Folks, remember 0:22:30.440 --> 0:22:35.040 that we sent out a couple of voyager craft with 0:22:35.160 --> 0:22:38.520 a gold record album on it that basically is an 0:22:38.560 --> 0:22:42.760 invitation to come visit Earth. Yes, and that's why Jeff 0:22:42.800 --> 0:22:48.919 Bridges in orb form is coming to Earth. He's been invited, Yes, 0:22:49.000 --> 0:22:52.840 So he doesn't get treated very well as an invite, 0:22:53.119 --> 0:22:55.680 and it's the same thing he gets there. They always 0:22:55.680 --> 0:22:57.760 put a clock on it, so the clock is okay, 0:22:57.800 --> 0:23:01.320 in three days, you have to be I think Arizona 0:23:01.720 --> 0:23:04.440 in order for the craft to come pick you up, which, 0:23:04.480 --> 0:23:06.720 of course the craft has to pick up Et and 0:23:06.760 --> 0:23:09.520 all that. Couple of funny things that I thought. My 0:23:09.560 --> 0:23:14.800 other connection though to Starman is Karen Allen plays Jenny. 0:23:14.840 --> 0:23:19.720 Four years later, I had my first TV series on CBS. 0:23:19.800 --> 0:23:22.320 It was called k O'Brien, and we were casting the 0:23:22.400 --> 0:23:25.919 lead actress who would play a female surgeon in New 0:23:26.040 --> 0:23:29.440 York City, and the one that Bill Asher, who was 0:23:29.560 --> 0:23:32.199 my executive producer on it, and I both wanted, was 0:23:32.280 --> 0:23:36.119 Karen Allen. Okay, and I think we were close to 0:23:36.160 --> 0:23:39.760