"This time...it's OFF THE HOOK!"

February 23, 2011 8:55 AM

ET Sequel: "ET-X" [SLYT].
posted by Fizz (37 comments total)

What a terrible idea!

That said, didn't Morgan Freeman pretty much screw up fighting the invading aliens in Dreamcatcher? Why send a loser in to do the job?
posted by tomswift at 9:04 AM on February 23, 2011

That said, didn't Morgan Freeman pretty much screw up fighting the invading aliens in Dreamcatcher? Why send a loser in to do the job?


Didn't he also screw it up with that terrible lottery idea as President in Deep Impact?
posted by Fizz at 9:07 AM on February 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

Hilarious!
posted by IvoShandor at 9:09 AM on February 23, 2011

OMJ = Oh My Jupiter?
posted by DU at 9:12 AM on February 23, 2011

There's something really satisfying about so much effort having been put into doing such a spot-on trailer for the worst movie possible.
posted by cmoj at 9:12 AM on February 23, 2011 [8 favorites]

> There's something really satisfying about so much effort having been put into doing such a spot-on trailer for the worst movie possible.

"Bad Boys 3: Meet the Transformers" is coming out?
posted by Burhanistan at 9:14 AM on February 23, 2011

It was worth it all just for "Secretary of Defense E.Z. Reader"
posted by DU at 9:14 AM on February 23, 2011 [3 favorites]

At the beginning, I was saying "please don't let this be real."
By the end, I was begging for it to be real.
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 9:22 AM on February 23, 2011 [6 favorites]

Whew! I thought this was going to be another porn parody.
posted by cazoo at 9:22 AM on February 23, 2011

I would very much like to see this movie.
posted by narwhal bacon at 9:26 AM on February 23, 2011

Yes. This was excellent.
posted by Jofus at 9:28 AM on February 23, 2011

> Whew! I thought this was going to be another porn parody.

E.T. Bone Home. (NSFAnyone)
posted by Burhanistan at 9:29 AM on February 23, 2011

Owwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwch.
posted by heyho at 9:33 AM on February 23, 2011 [3 favorites]

OMJ = Oh My Jupiter?

OMJ = Oh My Jonas (Brothers)?
posted by rh at 9:35 AM on February 23, 2011

Supercrocs in the sewer.
posted by Babblesort at 9:37 AM on February 23, 2011

OMJ = Oh My Jonas (Brothers)?

So this is a derail, but I googled it. I eventually did find that it probably was Oh My Jonas (/me burns down civilization) but not before I found that Wikipedia redirects OMJ to a page detailing the characters on Spongebob. Because of "Old Man Jenkins"?
posted by DU at 9:44 AM on February 23, 2011

I would love to see this movie, as filmed by Spielberg his own bad self. This would be as good a time as any, I think, to link back to a comment Prospero made a while back: one of the most criminally underrated comments I've seen on Metafilter if only for the way it's peeled open my opinion of an entire genre and rubbed salt in it.

[...] ET is a pretty clever trick, because while you, the audience member, are distracted by the little animatronic alien making its quirky noises, just as if you're the standard Spielberg protagonist, you don't have your eye on the ball--you're not noticing the single mother in the kitchen who drifts off to the edge of the frame and cries for a little while, then turns and re-enters the action with a false smile on her face as if there's nothing wrong. And listen to the wisecracks that the doctors make over ET's corpse--that is a complicated and bitter movie, with a deliberate sugarcoating to make the subversion commercially palatable.

posted by mhoye at 9:45 AM on February 23, 2011 [5 favorites]

Owwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwch.
posted by heyho at 12:33 PM on February 23

By far, the best part. So predictable, yet so funny.
posted by bitteroldman at 9:50 AM on February 23, 2011

OMJ = Oh My Jonas (Brothers)?

Side note: apparently OMLG (Oh My Lady Gaga) is now standard parlance in the Chinese blogosphere.
posted by kmz at 9:51 AM on February 23, 2011 [2 favorites]

Side note: apparently OMLG (Oh My Lady Gaga) is now standard parlance in the Chinese blogosphere.

OMC, how bizarre!
posted by rh at 10:01 AM on February 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

Did someone say OMD? no?
posted by item at 10:13 AM on February 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

There's a missed joke opportunity somewhere in the whole CGI-the-guns-into-walkie-talkies, revisionary thing that Speilberg did for the 20th anniversary DVD release.
posted by chococat at 10:38 AM on February 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

Is it my imagination, or was the footage with Henry Thomas actually new footage specifically for this trailer?

If so, my respect for Henry Thomas has skyrocketed. Even more than the fact that he was a million times better than Leonardo DiCaprio in Gangs of New York.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:00 AM on February 23, 2011

There's a missed joke opportunity somewhere in the whole CGI-the-guns-into-walkie-talkies, revisionary thing that Speilberg did for the 20th anniversary DVD release.

You saw the big red and white warning at the beginning, yes?

The following preview has been approved for audiences who have seen "E.T. The Extraterrestrial"

(The Original. Not the one with the walkie-talkies.)

Rated R: Restricted
Audiences should proceed with caution.
Contains scenes with Bruce Willis

posted by zarq at 11:40 AM on February 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

You saw the big red and white warning at the beginning, yes?

Ack!
Totally didn't read that. Carry on.
posted by chococat at 11:58 AM on February 23, 2011

This was awesome, until the very very last, throwaway gag:

Derek Johnson Productions
A subsidiary of Johnson Realty LLC

Then it became epic.

Astro Zombie: "Is it my imagination, or was the footage with Henry Thomas actually new footage specifically for this trailer?"

I also wondered about this, and had the same reaction as you.
posted by yiftach at 1:23 PM on February 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

Astro Zombie: Is it my imagination, or was the footage with Henry Thomas actually new footage specifically for this trailer?

If so, my respect for Henry Thomas has skyrocketed. Even more than the fact that he was a million times better than Leonardo DiCaprio in Gangs of New York

I had the same reaction; almost everything was (more or less very well) spliced in clips from other films, and CGI'ed details such as the Reese's brand and Reese's Pieces rain (chocolate rain?). But the Henry Thomas stuff seems unmistakably shot just for this trailer, and I'm fairly certain the David Morse stuff was also shot just for this. Or at least, I couldn't figure out what movie it was from.
posted by hincandenza at 1:59 PM on February 23, 2011

This is great. Nice use of the Transformers score.
posted by brundlefly at 2:26 PM on February 23, 2011

I wanted so bad for this to be real. Damn you by proxy, MetaFilter, for building up my hopes and then dashing them all in the span of less than three minutes. (I didn't watch it the whole way through before checking this thread to see if it was a parody.)
posted by not_on_display at 3:14 PM on February 23, 2011

The ET Sequel was called "The Green Planet." It came out in 1985. It was one of the first big novels I read. There was a friend of ETs in it called Flop-Glopple (he was a different kind of creature). I always thought he looked something like a set of used gym socks (don't ask me why - I was nine at the time).

Anyway.... this is not the ET sequel.
posted by Nanukthedog at 3:27 PM on February 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

> Is it my imagination, or was the footage with Henry Thomas actually new footage specifically for this trailer?

I'm pretty sure the footage of adult Elliot meeting E.T. on the road at night is taken from the film 11:14 which Henry Thomas was in.
posted by Ask Ives at 4:29 PM on February 23, 2011

I seem to remember some sort of commercial where the flowers in Elliot's room, some baseball levitate, and thenas thefamiliar ET Theme starts up, Elliot runs to the window to see ET in some sort of Laser-Tag like astronaut vest. I always considered that a sort of ET sequel.
posted by ShawnStruck at 4:58 PM on February 23, 2011

A lot of nice touches there. Including the silly laundry list of 3D technologies at the end, which starts out normal but then keeps going with ViewMaster, Pulfrich and Anaglyph...
posted by George_Spiggott at 7:01 PM on February 23, 2011 [2 favorites]

Nanukthedog! I totally remember that from grade 3 or so. I didn't really like ET at the time (too boring, too scary - the government doods) but remembered liking the sequel book.

--

Yeah, I saw the fake "MPAA Warning" at the beginning but after watching a couple of minutes, I was actually starting to wish that this was real.

otoh, HEY! I *like* Bruce Willis movies.
posted by porpoise at 7:03 PM on February 23, 2011

otoh, HEY! I *like* Bruce Willis movies.

Me too. Bruce Willis hate has become a bit of a weird mystery to me and I find myself talking about it too much. I'm not even really a big fan or anything, it's just when I lived in Japan, I once rented 12 Monkeys and had the box out in my room when a couple of my friends came over. Yu spoke a bit of English, his girlfriend Yayoi not so much. They saw the rental case and started having a bit of a conversation in Japanese, Yayoi looked kind of distraught about something. They stop talking and it's silent while Yu tries to think about how he can translate this for me. Yu and Yayoi look at me and Yu asks "do... you like Bruce Willis?" I said, "yeah he's been in some good movies. Do you?" Then he looks over at Yayoi and they had another conversation in Japanese in hushed tones that sounds kind of serious. This was no "yes or no" answer, here. Keep in mind we weren't even planning on watching a movie, it was just lying there in the room. They look to me again and Yu says "maybe Yayoi... does not... like Bruce Willis." OK, whatever, right? But because this whole thing is going down like I've offended them or something, I ask "How come?"

Another conversation. Longer this time. Yayoi is normally painfully shy and quiet and I can now hear her rattling off words rather quickly, very out of character. Yu is nodding, and then goes off on a bit of a tear himself after some consideration. It looks to me like something serious, like a "relationship talk," only we're just making small talk about Bruce Willis as far as I know. After all this, they both look over at me again and Yu says, cryptically: "why do YOU think Yayoi does not like Bruce Willis?"

The language barrier was too difficult for me to overcome so I didn't really push here and sort of shrugged it off. We went to the bar and life went on. But I'm stumped and it's driving me nuts! I got nuthin. What a strange thing to say! Does she know him? Did he run over her dog or something? Is there some obvious reason to not like Bruce Willis I'm overlooking here? This question has been in the back of my mind for 6 years now, at this point I feel like there's gotta be some deep meaning to it. Like the sound of one hand clapping or a tree falling in the forest. Maybe there's no answer to why people hate on Bruce Willis.
posted by Hoopo at 10:08 PM on February 23, 2011 [4 favorites]

This ET thing is ridiculous and great, and I want to know the answer to Hoopo's question too. The only lead I found in a cursory search was that Bruce Willis makes (and has made for 20 years) lots of tv commercials in Japan, so maybe he endorsed something she disapproved of, or that sort of thing?
posted by LobsterMitten at 11:10 PM on February 23, 2011

You do realise that if you talk about it too much, they'll think it's a meme and make the damn thing, and if it all comes true, it will be your fault.
posted by Grangousier at 11:23 PM on February 23, 2011