When I was 11 or 12 years old, I saw “ET the Extraterrestrial” at The Stadium in Woonsocket, RI.
Like every other human being on the planet, I loved it.
But despite my love, I also despised the scene in which Elliot releases the frogs from his science class. Unlike the rest of the film, the scene felt hokey and exaggerated and unrealistic. Too broad and detached from reality for my liking.
Way too many frogs hopping way too purposefully in one direction. Way too many kids assisting Elliot on his quest to free them. Way too coordinated of an effort. And was I really expected to believe that 10-year-old kids would be asked to kill their frogs – watch them die in a jar – and then immediately dissect them?
Even the kiss was ridiculous.
Also, and most importantly, I didn’t think the movie needed the scene. We already understood that Elliot and ET were connected. We didn’t need this stupidly written, poorly executed scene to make the point one more time.
When I got home, I immediately wrote all of this down in a letter to Spielberg, less coherently, I’m sure, and asked my mother to mail it to him. I asked Spielberg, with great earnestness, to let me preview his movies before their release. I explained that every movie I watched seemed to have one stupid scene, one logical inconsistency, or one flaw that could easily be corrected had someone just asked me first.
I offered to do that work for him.
I wanted for weeks for Spielberg to respond. He never did. Not even a postcard from an assistant thanking me for writing. I was devastated.
Last year, I was telling that story to an audience in answer to a question about how long I have been interested in stories. I had told the story many times in the past, but as I reached the end of the story this time, I paused.
Something hit me like a bolt of lightning.
For the first time in my life, it occurred to me that my mother never sent the letter.
How could she?
It was 1981. The internet didn’t exist. How could she possibly know where to mail that letter? Even today, the best I could do is send the letter to Amblin Entertainment and hope.
But back then? Without the resources that the internet provides?
She never sent the letter. As the realization struck me, I said it aloud, and the audience laughed. They had no idea that it had taken me nearly 40 years to come to that conclusion.
I’d love to know what Mom did with the letter. Did she hold onto it for years before ultimately discarding it? Did she toss it away when I wasn’t looking? Did she lose it and many other things when she suddenly lost the house in a tragedy of my ex-stepfather’s making?
Mom is gone, so I’ll never know.
But I stopped being annoyed with Spielberg. He hadn’t failed to respond to the still-accurate opinion of a middle school boy. He had never had the chance.
I like to think that had he received the letter, he would’ve reflected on my cogent argument and scintillating film analysis and agreed to screen all future films prior to their release for my approval. Maybe throw me a few bucks in the process.
Perhaps that’s wishful thinking, but when you’re imagining a future that never happened and will never happen, wishful thinking is absolutely permitted.
Even advised.
