Video Review: Turkish E.t.

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Speilberg captured our hearts with the original E.T. Now watch Turkish filmmakers terrorize our minds.

Seanbaby

 

 

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The magic of ET penetrated our hearts with friendship when it was released, then re-released, then re-released again with the script altered and all of the guns digitally transformed into walkie talkies. Now, Steven Spielberg might have thought he was some kind of genius when he came up with the idea to ruin his masterpiece by adapting it to today’s wussier, more panties-faced culture, but Turkey was way ahead of him. Because they finished their own inferior re-make of the film years ago. And as you probably know from our reviews of Turkish Superman, Star Wars and The Wizard of Oz, when Turkey ruins a movie, they ruin the sh*t out of it.

 

The first 30 minutes are taken up with scenes of Elliot and his friends at school. I’m not sure if Turkish schools are converted prison camps or if the location scout for this movie was insane, but these children look like they attend classes on the set of The Road Warrior. Their playground is loose rubble and exposed rebar surrounded by a spiked steel fence. Their science class is a tiny closet filled with explosives, soldering equipment and frogs in jars. For recess, the teacher lets them play in the street outside the steel bars with a mangy stray dog and a car with four flat tires. And to make it even more depressing, their school uniforms have lacy doily bibs attached to them that make the bullies look like little grumpy French maids.

 

Elliot lives with a bird, his mother, some woman and his father who guides Elliot through childhood while riding on the back of his own giant and uncontrollable moustache. I have to apologize here because despite my enthusiasm for their films, I don’t speak a word of the Turkish people’s language. So, when the entire town gathers around the school to stare at a dead dog, I can’t even begin to guess why. It’s the same mangy stray dog as before, only dead. I immediately thought about how the Turkish Coalition for Animal Rights wouldn’t allow filmmakers to kill a dog just for one confusing scene in a movie, then I realized that that group doesn’t exist. This isn’t a country where people have the spare time to form clubs to complain about things. When you send your kids to a school pieced together from garbage and your facial hair is about to claim your face the property of the Moustache Empire, you as a people have more important things to worry about than how nice you are to stray dogs.

 

Finally, after what seems like an eternity of broken down cars and rubble, E.T. shows up. A strange object appears in the sky, which is brought to life using classic Turkish movie magic – a group of people staring in awe at something off camera that we never see. Later, out in the woods, the silhouette of a lumpy ape-thing stumbles through a wall covered in disco lights. A mob with gardening tools soon forms to beat whatever is visiting our planet with shovels. While this is going on, Elliot’s father is chasing his children down with a pair of tongs. Since it doesn’t make any sense for him to do this, we have to assume that his moustache is controlling him for its own wicked reasons.

 

RECREATING A CLASSIC SCENE 1: Elliot and E.T. meet for the first time

In the original film, Elliot is searching through the darkness and suddenly shines his flashlight on E.T.’s face. This surprises them both, and he and the nasty little moon turtle scream and run from each other in panic and space panic, respectively.

 

In the Turkish version, Elliot escapes from his father’s barbecue utensil rampage to search the woods for the spaceship. By following the sounds of its croaking, he finds it hobbling around the woods and hitting itself in the face with its own arms. After watching it do this for a half a minute, Elliot shines a flashlight near it, sort of illuminating the fog surrounding it, and the two of them jog slowly in opposite directions.

 

While running from E.T., Elliot sprains his ankle. The next morning, his mother cares for the wound with the ancient Turkish remedy of slapping a steak on it and wrapping the whole thing in toilet paper. Elliot then stays home from school, probably because the smell of rotting meat is emanating from his ankle. He climbs out of bed and limps through the mangled ruin of his house to find E.T. in a doorway. There’s an awkward silence as the two stare at each other, which is suddenly and insanely broken when E.T. launches a blast of smoke from its crotch. I have no idea if this was some sort of miscue with the fog machine or if E.T. comes from a race of creatures that has developed fire-extinguishing groins to be used as greeting devices. Either way, it made me rewind the tape many, many hilarious times.

 

While the two get to know each other, the filmmakers are pretty faithful to the events of the original movie. E.T. still levitates things with his space powers and heals Elliot’s wound with his loving touch. However, there are a few differences. For example, in Turkey when E.T. learns to say a few words, Elliot doesn’t run in and announce it to his mom. He tells his bird, in BIRD. That’s right, using chirps and coos, Elliot can speak bird. Also, there was no Turkish budget to get any Reese’s Pieces, so when E.T. and Elliot share candy they use the next best thing: gray, gravel-shaped food chunks. Who knows what it is, but judging from the texture of the disgusting half-chewed remnants of the treats that spill out of Elliot’s mouth while he talks, there’s a good chance this is the dog they killed earlier.

 

That night, Elliot has a dream where his classmates and teachers are doing a line dance around E.T. If you’d like an exact demonstration of this line dance, get in front of a mirror, grab your nipples and prance. While this is going on, police sirens sound, the camera pans up to Elliot’s bird and all the children disappear. What does this mean? Obviously, if I can’t even decipher what food these people are eating, there’s no way I’m going to be able to make sense out of these madmen’s surreal dream sequences.

 

Now and then the movie shows a trio of people on the trail of E.T. who are tracking him with a beeping battery tester. Of course, since E.T. seems to be constantly leaking fog, it really shouldn’t take uncomplicated everyday devices to find him. E.T. emits so much mysterious mist that during most scenes, your heart can’t even feel the magic of togetherness through the thick smokescreen. If E.T.’s sitting still, fog billows out of him, and if he’s moving, small clouds of smoke puff in from off camera. This is done with a groundbreaking combination of smoke machines and people smoking cigarettes just out of frame.

 

RECREATING A CLASSIC SCENE 2: Phooone Hooooooome

In Spielberg’s version, the device E.T. uses to call home is made of a Speak n’ Spell and a huge pile of electronics and metal. It all spins and blinks and genuinely looks like it could be used to communicate to whatever race of half-turd space tortoises spawned this horrible thing.

 

In the Turkish remake, E.T. creates a device that can be broken down into three sections and transported – a metal globe, a circular saw blade and an umbrella covered in tin foil. The children take E.T.’s phone and attempt to sneak out of Elliot’s house, but end up waking his parents. E.T. shoots some smoke out of itself and dances, which understandably scares the hell out of them. The alien flees to the next room where he literally gives the other woman who lives with them a heart attack. The children put her in bed, throw a wet napkin on her forehead and leave for the amusement park. And once E.T. turns on all the rides with his mind, they completely forget about how they almost terrified their family to death. The filmmakers, however, don’t. In between scenes of E.T. riding bumper cars and ferris wheels, they cut to shots of Elliot’s parents curled into fetal positions, screaming.

 

It’s about here when the film’s continuity falls apart. Elliot is sick in bed and E.T. is gone. His bird tells him that E.T. can be found in the trunk of the alien chasers’ car that just parked outside. Elliot runs out and sure enough, E.T. is there, making sickening croaking sounds and gushing smoke. The alien chasers violently drag the two of them to Elliot’s room where they put E.T. in a bed and leave to let everyone cry. And I agree with you – the Turkish government’s alien studying policy is really messed up. A few minutes later, the alien chasers come back to warn them that the REALLY mean alien chasers are here, and they need to pick up their ugly dying alien and get out of there.

 

RECREATING A CLASSIC SCENE 3: Evil Government Scientists

In Spielberg’s original version, the evil government agents in biohazard suits construct a network of tunnels to capture and study the alien, who eventually escapes from armed guards by making bicycles fly. The dramatic silhouette of the children’s flying bikes against the moon is still today one of the most constantly and unfunnily spoofed sequences in movie history. In Spielberg’s second version, this sequence remained the same except the guards are no longer armed and the children’s flying bicycles have been digitally replaced with less offensive flying wheelchairs decorated in gender-neutral unicorn stickers.

 

In the Turkish version, the alien is attacked by a strike force made up of an angry mob of peasants, soldiers dressed as storm troopers, police and firefighters. The children assault the mob right back with gas grenades and marbles. A few of them put on party hats to enhance their combat abilities. Then they steal a cart from an old man by, and I’m not making this up, patiently waiting for him to die on his feet from old age. I repeat: not making this up. E.T. and the children all climb into the cart and fly to safety. And since the film’s ineptitude is far greater than my linguistic ability, I’m afraid you don’t get an adjective to describe how stupid this cart looks floating across the various scenes of Turkish wasteland. Unfortunately, I also can’t describe the ending because I don’t have enough tears left to live through the despair of these children saying their heartbreaking goodbyes to their slimy turtle