Steven Spielberg censored ET scene retrospectively and hasn’t been able to forgive himself for 22 years

Censorship is a thorn in the side of artists. It distorts the work of art and Steven Spielberg can tell you all about it. 20th anniversary of his sci-fi masterpiece ET – The Extra-Terrestrial, the director censored it on his own initiative. Today he sees this as a blatant mistake.

Steven Spielberg subsequently censored this scene in ET

In the original version of ET, federal agents point guns at fleeing children. After 20 years, Steven Spielberg thought it was a mistake to shoot this scene that way. He thought it was unbelievable that federal agents target children or shoot. He therefore changed these scenes for the anniversary version released in 2002.

That is the original scene:

And that is the censored scene:

Instead of firearms, the agents now held walkie-talkies in their hands. This was intended to make the film seem less brutal. The attack on September 11, 2001 also had an influence on the changes in the film. The changes were not particularly well received by audiences and critics. Peter Travers wrote a review for Rolling Stone about the anniversary version. In it, he listed the changes and summed it up:

Is this what two decades have done to free speech? “That was a mistake”: Why Spielberg regrets the change

Meanwhile, the directing icon is annoyed about her own intervention in the work. Spielberg now thinks he should never have changed the film.

That was a mistake […] I shouldn’t have done that.

At the Time100 Summit, he spoke about why a work of art should generally not be changed afterwards:

All our films are a kind of signpost to where we were when we made themwhat the world looked like and what the world received when we put these stories out there. So I really regret putting this out there.

You can see the whole interview here:

Meanwhile, there is ET for home cinema again in the original versionas the film was always meant to be. Steven Spielberg has learned from his mistake and we can assume that his remaining masterpieces will remain untouched by him.