Steven Spielberg regrets editing guns out of ET

Legendary director Steven Spielberg has admitted that he regrets removing guns from a 2002 re-release of his 1982 sci-fi blockbuster ET: The Extra-Terrestrial. In the 20th-anniversary edition, firearms were replaced using computer graphics. Spielberg has spoken out against censorship of "our cultural heritage."

Spielberg expressed regret in an interview with The Times, as reported by The Telegraph on Thursday, stating, “All our movies are a kind of a signpost of where we were when we made them, what the world was like and what the world was receiving when we got those stories out there. So I really regret having that out there.”

The film’s 1982 theatrical cut includes a scene of officers chasing young kids with firearms. Spielberg edited the guns out for the 20th-anniversary release of the film and replaced the firearms with walkie-talkies. He did so because he believed that "it was too much for federal agents to approach unarmed kids with firearms."

“For me, it is sacrosanct,” Spielberg said. “It’s our history, it’s our cultural heritage. I do not believe in censorship in that way.”


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