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In the original fairy tale Beauty is the youngest daughter of a once wealthy merchant. At the beginning of the story his fleet of ships are lost on a storm and the family loses everything. usually they end up moving from the city to the country because of their new found poverty. One day the family receives word that one of the ships survived with some of the cargo in tact. The father leaves on a trip to go recover the cargo and asks his daughters what they would like him to bring back as a gift for them. I forgot what the first two ask for but Beauty being the best of his daughters asks for only a rose because it's relatively worthless and won't cost him anything (or so she thinks). On his way back to his family the merchant is caught in a freak storm and takes refuge in the Breast's castle. There are no talking enchanted servants just sort of invisible ones? He finds a warm fire and a dinner set out for him and everything is fine until he gets ready to leave and sees an amazingly perfect rose which he picks for Beauty. This is what causes the Beast to fly into a rage and to demand the merchant must pay for taking his most prized possession because dude's really into his flowers. They come to an agreement that the merchant can go home to his family but either Beauty (the person who the rose is for) or the merchant has to return and live with the Beast. (Which is one way to get a roommate) In the end Beauty decides to go after forcing her father to tell her what is wrong. There's no deadline to get her to love her . Every night he asks her to marry him and every night she politely refuses. They actually are really civil in the tales I've read. He gives her clothes and jewelry. She still feels homesick though so he gives her a magic ring and mirror which will get her home and back to the castle. She's only supposed to stay for a week but her sisters make her stay for like a week and a day i think? And of course she feels awful and rushes back to find the Beast dying which makes her cry on him and profess her love which saves him like the movie. In several of the older ones her sisters purposefully try to keep her home and drive a wedge between them out of jealousy because women are each other's worst enemies am I right? (Sorry this is so long I love fairy tales/folklore/mythology! I'm a giant nerd)

Actually sorry guys I just found out there is a protest tonight at the Dallas Police Headquarters and I want to be there to support finding justice for Botham Jean. Dallas is topsy turvy right now and I want to do my part in helping the people of color in this town.

I realize that Peter Krause is an anchor and not a reporter but if he lacks the journalistic instincts to investigate anything at all about how his son came to be cursed and the existence of real magic in the world then I am afraid the people of New York are being poorly served by their local news.

That poor boy in the dance belt did not deserve to be on his murder list.

Am I alone in thinking that NPH was trying to backdoor his way into an audition for Daredevil? This movie would have been film shortly after the early success of the first few MCU movies and with new heroes popping up he saw this as a chance to play a character he liked. His character wears red sunglasses and is a snappy dresser just like Matt Murdock. He also seemingly good at darts, golf, and other activities that would be hard for a blind person unless they had some sort of radar sense. Also he uses a white cane which is topped with a large diamond just like the one used by Wilson Fisk aka Kingpin aka Daredevil's arch-nemesis. Given the target demographic for this movie wouldn't be interested in Daredevil I can only assume these were NPH's suggestions which paints him as a very Matt Murdock like figure.

Let me start this post by saying that I'm sorry... I genuinely thought that "the more, the merrier" theory would apply to the discussion of this movie and I was clearly wrong... I noticed that the movie had 3 different editors (one for every movie genre maybe? Horror/Musical/Comedy) this once again debunks the "the more, the merrier" theory and apart from the uneven general tone of the movie IMHO the various editors made the exposition of information and backstory clunky and some important facts are burried by all the unimportant dialogue and "out of the blue" actions of most of the characters. The flashback at the beginning is set up like a nightmare the main girl is having when she wakes up the day the kids come to camp... But then they put the "10 years later" text and that happens various times throughout the running time of the movie Also they didn't use the camp/forest setting to it's full potential This was the 2nd time I saw this movie, I also noticed near the end that, when the main girl goes to the dressing room to find the guy and the costumer dead the play goes into full bad improv disaster mode I felt the movie also went into that mode... I have some more things to say but I want to ponder a little bit more...

I think one of the reasons Beauty And The Beast stories work so well is we never see the beast before his transformation. We just hear, from the beast himself, that he was cursed by a witch. Since we only ever see the better version of him, we assume the witch was evil. But not here. The witch was in the right and he was straight up awful. He deserved his curse. While the movie doesn't work for a lot of reasons, it's broken from the very beginning due to changing the story structure. Also, I understand why June missed Vanessa Hudgens dad murdering his drug dealer's brother. I had to rewind that scene three times since we only hear a gun shot off screen.

Too many murderous camp cooks in the murderous camp kitchen, as they say.

This was Meatloaf's chance to be the murderer instead of the murder victim.

I agree about not having to apologize! At least this wasn't Tommy!

Definitely don't apologize. I think the are some good ideas in this movie. I think I just went in with different expectations than what it was. There some parts I really enjoyed and I'm glad I saw it.

I haven't had a chance to rewatch E.T. again but I probably have not seen this movie since I was 8, so I'm very eager to see how I feel about it now. As previously mentioned I believe in the Titanic thread there is a popular term that some of us her have coined as the "Goonies Conundrum" as a way to describe a movie that people who watched in childhood seem to love and those that saw it for the first time out of childhood do not enjoy. You could say it is a form of nostalgia but I don't think that E.T. necessarily falls into the Goonies Conundrum. From what I can recall and what I've heard, read, and know this is a well crafted movie. Good effects, acting, etc. so empirically it is a good movie and not just a cause of "I liked it as a kid." As mentioned there seems to be a lot of backlash on the FB group over this movie. I don't go there but from what Sycasey said some of the complaints are that people are looking back at this too nostalgically. I would say I'm shocked but this is not the first time I've heard backlash for E.T. and specifically this critic. It makes me wonder if there is a certain layer of people just fighting back against it because it is something they've been told is great which either puts a different set of expectations on it or creates the "so impress me" attitude of viewing while going in. However, another part of me wonders if it is the victim of 80s over saturation. The 80s is hot right now with things like Stranger Things, movie and tv remakes and reboots, Atomic Blond, etc. that all cash in on this nostalgia for the 80s. Stranger Things lifts a lot from E.T. in particular, so I wonder if people that are viewing it now and disliking it is because they've seen it all repeated and copied that they are just tired of it.

So was the metal killer going to just kill everybody anyway? Don't we see him before the announcement of the play? So it is just coincidental that the killer he's paying homage to is also the main character of the play they are going to do that year? Also did he want to kill the kids because he hated them, that's why he had their head shots and was slashing them up, or did he want revenge on Meatloaf for his mother's death? Or was it two birds with one stone?

I don’t think it’s so much that they don’t live up to an “ideal form of beauty” so much as - if the version is done well - the audience is able to look past the Beast’s looks themselves. We fall in love with the Beast for who he is, not what he looks like, so when he transforms into a human, it’s like he’s an imposter.

I'm gonna have to agree with June that The Beast from 1992 did have more attractive qualities than when he became human. My friend and I make a joke all the time how ugly that cartoon human version is and then once upon a time we found this mini comic on Deviant Art and I have it permanently saved lol.

I think since that's the last play his mother was in the night she died that it was just a coincidence that they decided to do it at the camp. I also think he had it out for everyone because of how deranged his mind had gone, but I'm not exactly sure if there was a true motive or if he had just gone crazy.

Haven't listened to the episode yet so if this is covered in it, apologies. Apparently the book this was based on tries to go the Vampire Academy route of being tongue-in-cheek with covering the original stories it's based upon, by having the main character in a chatroom where he talks with others who have been transformed into creatures, making playful reference to the various references to all of the versions of Beauty and the Beast. Also, I have to assume that Neil Patrick Harris is making the same type of film choices as Samuel L. Jackson, who has admitted that he chooses a role based on wanting to do a movie like he liked to watch as a kid or likes to watch now, but in NPH's case, it's books he enjoyed reading to himself or his kids and hears that they're making an adaptation. Looking over his filmography there's Starship Troopers, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, Beastly, Gone Girl, A Series of Unfortunate Events, and various DC animated films. And was there ever a reason as to why he was made to look like Matt Murdock with the Kingpin's walking stick?

tayshaun, how DARE you block reggie miller's game sealing layup in game 2 of the 2004 eastern conference finals! i still have nightmares about that play. couple that with paul george breaking his leg on a chasedown block, and you've got some serious PTSD when it comes to giving extra effort on the defensive end for pacer fans! to top it all off, in the recent summer movie uncle drew, reggie miller's character "lights" twists his ankle after a chasedown block! talk about insult to injury for pacer fans!

Growing up, my mom worked opposite hours of my dad so someone was always home. One weekend, she told my dad to take my sister and me to see E.T at the theater. My dad haaaaaates kid-related entertainment, so instead he took us to see Poltergeist (which, interestingly, was also rated PG). BUT we got there late -- right at the part where Steve Freeling was arguing with his neighbor about the television. Anyway, we missed the titles...and I mustn't have gotten the memo that we were no longer going to see E.T. So I'm watching Poltergeist, thinking it's E.T. and being like "Why is E.T. doing all this terrible stuff??!" I was 6 years old.

Oh god this fucking movie, for some reason I thought they'd already released this episode. The concept of a dad telling some random dude that he can have his daughter to repay a debt has not aged particularly well. That said, my favorite part of some of reviews of this movie are from the reviewer saying how much more attractive they find the main character after he goes through his transformation. At that point they're saying alot more about themselves than they are about the movie.

I guess they were from big tomato cans or something, considering his job.

The boys really aughta give us a tutorial for how to go to the bathroom. It can be tough . I never know when I'm sposed to flush the damn thing.

Nah I'm much closer to you here (I think I have it #12 or 13). Like I said, I've been turned off the film since it initially scared me; I can't imagine ever really loving it after that. I do get the nostalgia people have, but it wasn't mine. It was warmer than I remembered when watching it last night, but there's still a lot of things about the story that I question as basic nonsense, and I know the score is everyone's favorite, but I prefer a minimal style there myself.

But isn't "strengthening their familial bond" what we mean by "father figure"? I mean, sure, E.T. isn't raising Elliott to be an adult; as sycasey said it's more abstract. He's just a presence in the family which teaches some lessons to one particular family, makes them all closer, then leaves. It is for sure a strong contrast with the actual father, who did the opposite: left the family a mess.

I Tweeted this already, but I showed E.T to my 6-year-old and he loved it. He actually had to leave the room when E.T. was dying because he was so upset. I'm with Amy on the whole debate of whether kids will get it or not. They will get it, but they have to be exposed to it. To use on of Paul's examples, The Beatles are my favorite band, but it's not like I was alive when they were together. I didn't "discover" them until I was a teenager looooooong after they disbanded. I didn't have to be there to "get" them. The same thing can be said about The Wizard of Oz. Most of us have placed it pretty high on our personal lists and I dare say none of us were alive when it was released. Hell, for a lot of us our parents weren't even born. Thinking kids won't "get" something just because it doesn't have cell phones or computers or something is pretty silly and doesn't give children a whole lot of credit. And, yes, my kids love The Beatles too