E.T. sound (1 Viewer)

[ScottR]

Was the sound for the '02 re-release taken from the 1982 35mm or 70mm print? As some of you know, there is a sound effect missing from the hospital scene when the plastic curtain is torn down. Originally, E.T. groans (and you can still see his mouth open.) I was wondering if the groan was added for the '85 re-release. It seems odd that Spielberg wouldn't have noticed this error during the re-release premiere.

 

[Bryan Tuck]

I don't know, but I was wondering that myself. I was disappointed that the effect was missing. To me, it really drove home that he was dead.

I remember from the theater showing that the effect was not in the 20th anniversary edition (I figured it was part of the "toning down"), but I was expecting it in the "original" version on DVD, but it was missing there as well. Oh, well; it's a minor caveat, but still kind of curious.

 

[ScottR]

It seems that the effect was simply left off by mistake.

 

[Damin J Toell]

My guess is that the soundtrack is a brand new mix that is "upgraded" from the 35mm Dolby Stereo (aka 2.0 surround) track to 5.1. 70mm blowup mixes of 35mm films tended to be rush jobs finished in the time for a premiere, while the later 35mm mix tended to be the final mix. Known examples of this include Star Wars and Alien. I would imagine that if any specific older mix was the basis for the new track, it was probably the 35mm Dolby Stereo mix. The actual physical sources that were the basis for the DVD track, however, may have erroneously included an unfinished element to which the sound effect was never mixed in, and this error probably went unnoticed through the remainder of the process.

DJ