Opinion: I actually <i>would</i> like to thank the Academy

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I vowed a long time ago never to refer to the ‘Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ with a straight face until the Academy graduates its first class of cadets. But maybe sometimes all that solemn self-regard about Oscar® has its value.

Last week I got a chance to attend a 25th-anniversary screening of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater. As I regard E.T. not only as a fine movie but as an essential weapon in America’s Cold War soft power arsenal, I was bracing for the worst from this screening to a nearly full house (stocked with parents like me in various stages of disappointment, denial and bargaining at their children’s insufficient enchantment with one of the great warhorses of our own youth). The film has been famously modified by its own creator, who in 2002 released a remix filled with bad improvements, including but not limited to some additional footage (in a movie that is not terribly fast-paced to begin with), the obligatory CGI version of the eponymous alien (seamless, flawless and charmless from what I’ve seen in the trailer) and most notoriously, digital hoodoo that removes the firearms from the hands of the federal-agent characters at the climax.

This last has always struck me as a crucial error in a drama that flirts throughout with tweeness and needs at least a hint of danger to work, but I’ve never wanted to find out. On the principle that you don’t have to smell a whole egg to know it’s rotten, I’ve avoided the re-edited version, but figured I’d swallow that scruple in the spirit of the occasion.

What a pleasant surprise to find I didn’t have to do that. In the version screened the other night the feds were armed and dangerous the way God and Steven Spielberg made them. There was no additional footage or digital E.T. either. (I didn’t pay attention to whether the word ‘terrorist’ had been undisappeared from one line of dialogue.) And it turns out I have the Academy to thank. All official screenings must be of the version that was originally eligible for Academy Award consideration, which made it necessary to strike a brand new print of the undesecrated E.T. for this screening.

Sure, we could carp about the presumptiousness of honoring a film for its handful of technical awards without mentioning that the movie itself was beaten out for Best Picture by Richard Attenborough’s Ghandi (a picture Ben Kingsley himself is unlikely to want to sit through again). But at least the Academy’s strict adherence to its own rules resulted, in this case, in a small stumbling block on the path to universal mediocrity.

This also leaves me curious about this whole new-prints-of-old-versions business. It costs between $6,000 and $10,000 to strike a new print from existing materials, and according to a representative of the Academy, studios frequently make new prints for the organization’s screenings, then donate them to the Academy’s archives. In this case, however, the person I spoke with at the Academy says Universal did not donate the print after the screening. So where did it go? Seems like a simple question, but after a week of trying to find out from spokespeople for Universal and Dreamworks, I have no answer.

That doesn’t mean there’s anything fishy; the Academy representative I talked with noted that the organization already has several copies of the film in its archive and thus didn’t particularly need to keep a new print. A spokesperson for Dreamworks says she believes the print will in fact be donated to the Academy (though for two days now she has been unable to confirm that) so it could just be a miscommunication. And of course, 10 grand is a drop in the bucket to these behemoths. But the rule of thumb is that when people can’t get you information, there’s something wrong with the information. And you’d think that having re-edited your old work, you’d keep a close watch on 35mm copies of what is now your rough draft.

So I’m positing or hoping that Spielberg has seen the error of his later years and is planning a New Coke/Classic Coke bait and switch, in which the original version of this Hollywood classic will sneak back into circulation, and the 2002 disimprovement will be quietly retired. Maybe this will even build into a groundswell, and all those director’s cuts, definitive editions and other misguided remasterings will begin to recede in favor of the versions that actually pleased audiences in the first place. Then again, maybe not. But I’m still happy that the real E.T., rather than a post-9/11 impostor, got one more chance to phone home.