Steven Spielberg’s Lost E.T. Ending: The Bold Reason He Scrapped It
Think you know how E.T. ends? The 1982 classic almost closed on a dramatically different note—Steven Spielberg had a very different farewell in mind.
We all know how E.T. wraps: the glowing finger, the brutal 'I’ll be right here,' the ship punching into the sky while John Williams turns your tear ducts into a sprinkler system. Perfect. Turns out, that wasn’t always the plan.
The alternate ending Spielberg almost went with
In a recent chat with Yahoo! Movies, Robert MacNaughton said the original script didn’t end on the spaceship. It jumped ahead to a quieter epilogue back at the kids’ table.
'The last scene was going to be all of us playing Dungeons and Dragons again, except this time, Elliott's the dungeon master.'
- After the D&D reveal, the camera would pan up to show the homemade alien communicator still running, a little wink that Elliott was keeping contact with E.T. across the stars.
- The idea left the door cracked for a follow-up, or at least the sense that their connection didn’t end when the ship vanished.
Why we never saw it
Spielberg ultimately stuck the landing we know: the goodbye on the forest floor and that enormous musical crescendo. The D&D tag is a neat, low-key coda, but it shifts the vibe from cosmic catharsis to quiet tease. Different movie, different aftertaste.
The takeaway
Most fans have no clue E.T. almost ended with a tabletop reset and a sequel- friendly nudge. Cool idea, but I’m glad they went with the gut-punch. Some endings aren’t meant to whisper; they’re meant to soar.