After participating in a master class at the Time 100 Summit, Steven Spielberg mentions that he regrets editing guns out of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial was released in 1982 about an alien that gets left behind on Earth after the rest of his group gets chased away by U.S. government vehicles. The alien befriends a 10-year-old boy who helps keep him safe until he finds his way back home.
While the director has previously criticized the idea of older films being re-edited to appease modern sensibilities, agents’ firearms were replaced with walkie-talkies in the 20th-anniversary edition.
“That was a mistake,” he said on stage. “I never should have done that. ET is a product of its era. No film should be revised based on the lenses we are now, either voluntarily, or being forced to peer through.”
In 2022, Spielberg had already explained that the guns would be returning for the 30th-anniversary release, explaining that he was “disappointed” in himself.
“‘E.T.’ was a film that I was sensitive to the fact that the federal agents were approaching kids with firearms exposed and I thought I would change the guns into walkie-talkies…I should have never messed with archives of my own work, and I don’t recommend anyone do that. All our movies are a kind of a signpost of where we were when we made them, what the world was like, and what the world was receiving when we got those stories out there. So I really regret having that out there.”
It was later brought up by the Time 100 moderator regarding Roald Dahl and other authors’ books being censored for offensive language and republished with language considered more inclusive by today’s standards.
“Nobody should ever attempt to take the chocolate out of Willy Wonka! Ever!” Spielberg jokes. He added on a more serious note, “For me, it is sacrosanct. It’s our history, it’s our cultural heritage. I do not believe in censorship in that way.”
