- During the audition, Henry Thomas expressed his sadness by thinking about the dog he died that day. The director Spielberg cried as he watched, and immediately decided on him.
- Michael Jackson recorded the theme song "Someone In The Dark", but never used it. It can only be heard in the album of alien space stories memorial. The story is told by Michael Jackson.
- Harrison Ford played the principal of the school. The only time he was stopped by the director was when Spielberg thought his appearance was too compelling. The screenwriter of the film, Melissa Marsson, was Ford's wife at the time.
- Before the film was released and screened in the United States, in order to combat piracy, the video tape was made of green plastic.
- The face of the alien was designed after the poets Carl Sandberg, Albert Einstein and a pug.
- Alien in the basket, Elliott rides a car to fly over the moon, and has become a trademark image of Amblin Entertainment.
- In 1982, Spielberg filmed two films: Aliens and Poltergeist. Aliens represent distant dreams, and noisy ghosts represent distant nightmares.
- The film has been selected as one of the 20 greatest movies selected by Entertainment Weekly.
- Except for Eliot's mother, adult faces didn't appear until halfway through the movie.
- To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the release of the film, Universal Pictures recovered all the video tapes on the global market and released it in the spring of 2002, re-editing and restoring the clipped version of that year, and Universal also specially changed the company's trademark to "ET" A picture of a small and medium boy carrying ET into the air.
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial behind the scenes gags
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial quotes
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Mary: If you ever see it again, whatever it is, don't touch it, just call me and we'll have somebody come and take it away.
Gertie: Like the dogcatcher?
Elliott: But they'll give it a lobotomy or do experiments on it or something.
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Michael: Maybe he's some animal that wasn't supposed to live; kind of like those rabbits we saw. He could be a monkey or an orangutan.
Elliott: A bald monkey?
Gertie: Is he a pig? He sure eats like one.