Someone Gave A Brilliant Reason For Why E.T. Came Back From The Dead
One thing I love about geek culture is we analyze meaningless stuff to an insane degree. Of course it's not meaningless to us, we get it, but the general population thinks we are wasting our time. While the layman could describe the death and resurrection of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial as "movie magic," Greg Reimer of Medium gives a much more detailed reason! Steven Spielberg, if you're reading this, make this canon!
So essentially the whole theory is hinged on the fact that E.T. comes from a species of aliens that are reliant on communication through the use of telepathy and psychic links. Through the use of their "hive minds," the species are able to heal their own tissue and remove waste internally in their chests (hence the red glow).
The stress of healing themselves and others is in no way a burden to the species when working in unison, but very hard on an individual without a psychic link to his companions. Reimer elaborates:
"The range of this telepathy appears to have limits comparable to—or slightly beyond—the scale of planetary orbit. Thus, when E.T. is first stranded on Earth, his situation is more dire than it appears. Separated by a vast distance from his fellows, his physical deterioration begins immediately. In order to survive, E.T. quickly establishes an ad hoc hive mind with the first conscious being he encounters; a young boy named Elliot. This link is of course evident throughout the film, particularly when Elliot shows symptoms of intoxication after E.T. ingests alcohol. The connection is nevertheless weak, and has the unfortunate side effect of taxing Elliot’s own vitality, but by re-purposing Elliot’s brain as a surrogate computer, E.T. buys himself enough time to build and deploy a distress beacon."
E.T. isn't just trying to get off our planet because he's homesick, he needs to be with his friends to survive! This also explains why Elliot magically recovers once E.T. is essentially clinically dead. You really need to check out the full article to appreciate the awesome amount of thought that went into this!
Do you agree with me that it should be canon? Or do you think it's just extensive fan fiction?