Probably Unanswerable Questions
Location and cornfield; E.T.’s biology and risks; keys; school; Sally; Mary’s romance; leaving Earth; Elliott’s future
In the discussion (11)
Approx. transcript time · 01:35:19Read transcript
- The California setting remains imprecise: Elliott points near Tahoe, while the visual geography mixes the valley and redwoods.
- The backyard cornfield appears from one angle but not others, making its existence puzzling despite its effectiveness.
- The plant-like description prompts joking questions about E.T. as a Beyond Burger and whether he could be eaten.
- Hypothetical disasters include a raccoon attack, bicycle crush, herpes, medical dissection, contacting invading aliens, alcohol poisoning and a DUI.
- The many keys’ functions are unknown; house, storage, car and trunk are possibilities, and keeping them over a hazmat suit seems especially odd.
- Whether the school continued having children chloroform live frogs after the escape remains unanswered.
- Sally’s identity and relationship to the absent father are unknown; a performer transcribed as Dana Wheeler-Nickleson is proposed as a type, with the appearance of the imagined character disputed.
- The father’s departure is reconsidered as a young couple falling out of love; the hosts connect it with Spielberg later learning a more complicated account of his own parents’ split.
- E.T.’s Halloween reaction to Mary prompts a joking attraction question; Keys’s behavior raises a more plausible future date with her.
- Elliott accepting the invitation to space divides the panel: some would go as children, others stay with family, with future sports and entertainment making departure less appealing.
- Elliott’s next decade is imagined either as chasing an unrepeatable high through drugs or creating magical stories for others; Michael’s future is pessimistically imagined too.