https://twitter.com/search?q=DiggingET

This will be documented in film by Lightbox and Fuel, but I'm not sure when it will be released.

https://twitter.com/search?q=DiggingET

This will be documented in film by Lightbox and Fuel, but I'm not sure when it will be released.
Can you explain more of this?

https://twitter.com/search?q=DiggingET

This will be documented in film by Lightbox and Fuel, but I'm not sure when it will be released.


Is this going to be a new film?

Is this going to be a new film?
What about?

E.T. has already been made!

What about?

E.T. has already been made!


E.T. 2:  Return to Earth ?

ET: Back to the 70's ... Can you dig it?

What about?

E.T. has already been made!


This was never a thing in Europe, but it was a big thing in North America. 

The E.T. game for the Atari 2600 was rushed into production and was horribly buggy and flawed.  Worse, Atari management was so convinced (at the time, Atari was owned by Warner Communications, aka Warner Bros., whose name lives on in Time Warner to this day, but back in 1982, it was merely the movie company that produced E.T. the movie) that the success of the movie was going to drive sales of the game cartridge that they not only made about 5,000,000 cartridges, they spent millions more building new consoles for customers who never came.  So what does one do with millions of unsold cartridges that one needs to get off the books in a big hurry?  Right.  Dump 'em into a hole in the ground, run over it with a bulldozer, and having provably destroyed the assets, take the tax write-off.  Where they were buried was roughly known, but if they were buried at all remained the subject of some minor speculation for some 30 years.  It's one thing to believe they were buried, it's quite another thing to prove it.  Thus was born the urban legend about the buried E.T. Cartridges.

Last year, someone finally scraped together enough funding to make a film about it, and they got permission to drill around the area, found some tantalizing hints, brought in the heavy equipment...

http://i.imgur.com/sNDMyNe.jpg

...and there they were...

http://i.imgur.com/1EE4BLX.jpg

Proving once and for all that the urban legend was, in fact, true.

Everyone always rips into the E.T. game for Atari.  I loved that game.  It was the first video game I ever finished. 
I'm a little disappointed to see Breakout was one of the games buried.  If Steve Jobs were still alive, he'd be quite upset to know the game he (and when I say he, I mean Steve Wozniak) worked so hard on was just tossed aside.

This is something I remember. The reason the E.T. game was rushed was due to a nightmare holiday deadline.

The deal was to have the game done in time to be produced for sales during the holidays, which was too short of time span(If the they could have gotten the rights much earlier in the year it would have been a different story). Normally, Atari games took months to make. E.T. had to be made in 5 weeks.

No one but Howard Scott Warshaw took up the job. He accepted the challenge to make a game that quickly.

The game actually sold better than the rumors say, it sold around 1.5 million. The problem was that they made around 5 million carts of the game.

Warshaw isn't ashamed of making that game, he feels it's an achievement(In an issue of EGM, he also mentioned that he was proud, stating that while it wasn't a good game, it was a complete game and not just some junk data on a cart). He was joyous to hear about excavation that found the games.

No one but Howard Scott Warshaw took up the job. He accepted the challenge to make a game that quickly.

The game actually sold better than the rumors say, it sold around 1.5 million. The problem was that they made around 5 million carts of the game.

Warshaw isn't ashamed of making that game, he feels it's an achievement(In an issue of EGM, he also mentioned that he was proud, stating that while it wasn't a good game, it was a complete game and not just some junk data on a cart). He was joyous to hear about excavation that found the games.


And now that the Atari community has fixed the bugs in the game, it's actually a pretty decent game.  That he got as far as he did in five weeks is a miracle; if he'd had just one or two more weeks, the story might have worked out differently.  It wouldn't have protected Atari's 2600 cash cow from superior consoles that were on their way, but it might have delayed the Video Game Crash of 1983 by months.  It's not Warshaw's fault, and nobody at any of the game publishing houses could have known that the timing of the release of E.T. would have had such an effect on the industry in the ensuing 1-2 years, never mind that we're still talking about it 30 years later.

This was never a thing in Europe, but it was a big thing in North America. 

The E.T. game for the Atari 2600 was rushed into production and was horribly buggy and flawed.  Worse, Atari management was so convinced (at the time, Atari was owned by Warner Communications, aka Warner Bros., whose name lives on in Time Warner to this day, but back in 1982, it was merely the movie company that produced E.T. the movie) that the success of the movie was going to drive sales of the game cartridge that they not only made about 5,000,000 cartridges, they spent millions more building new consoles for customers who never came.  So what does one do with millions of unsold cartridges that one needs to get off the books in a big hurry?  Right.  Dump 'em into a hole in the ground, run over it with a bulldozer, and having provably destroyed the assets, take the tax write-off.  Where they were buried was roughly known, but if they were buried at all remained the subject of some minor speculation for some 30 years.  It's one thing to believe they were buried, it's quite another thing to prove it.  Thus was born the urban legend about the buried E.T. Cartridges.

Last year, someone finally scraped together enough funding to make a film about it, and they got permission to drill around the area, found some tantalizing hints, brought in the heavy equipment...

http://i.imgur.com/sNDMyNe.jpg

...and there they were...

http://i.imgur.com/1EE4BLX.jpg

Proving once and for all that the urban legend was, in fact, true.
Many thanks

When are they going to rebury them??? 

When are they going to rebury them??? 
When the finance has been found to film it.

E.T. 2:  Return to Earth ?


Steven Spielberg would have to come up with a better plot for this story after 32 years later.

ET: Back to the 70's ... Can you dig it?


;D

Everyone always rips into the E.T. game for Atari.  I loved that game.  It was the first video game I ever finished. 
I'm a little disappointed to see Breakout was one of the games buried.  If Steve Jobs were still alive, he'd be quite upset to know the game he (and when I say he, I mean Steve Wozniak) worked so hard on was just tossed aside.


I wasn't crazy about the game, just playing it was so confusing.

Steven Spielberg would have to come up with a better plot for this story after 32 years later.
That is one reason why there has been no sequel to E.T., Steven Spielberg could not come up with a suitable storyline.

That is one reason why there has been no sequel to E.T., Steven Spielberg could not come up with a suitable storyline.


cast members are older now.

Many thanks




wait...someone funded the dig....and they were specifically looking for the ET cartridges...and they are making a movie about it???/



aw man... I thought some dudes were digging up a landfill and accidentally stumbled upon one cartridge.... now it's not as interesting as I made it up in my head when I saw (but never listened to) news footage about finding a cartridge.  (I saw the second pic but not the first one

That is one reason why there has been no sequel to E.T., Steven Spielberg could not come up with a suitable storyline.



cast members are older now.



henry thomas is old enough to play a dad to a little girl who stumbles upon his old friend ET.  She doesn't think dad will believe her when she finds him so she keeps hiding him.... when ET first spies dad he lets out an  "ooooh....El-i-ott!"  gets excited and (as ET is prone to do) Eliot has just entered the garage thinks he hears something, comes back in and sees the daughter leaning against the closet door trying to look nonchalant.... 

later when dad finally sees ET the daughter's all "Dad I can explain I..... " before she can finish Eliot rushes to ET and gives him a big hug and we all cry and rejoice as we two old pals reconnect....    other stuff happens too be nothing more important that those events described above  :D

henry thomas is old enough to play a dad to a little girl who stumbles upon his old friend ET.  She doesn't think dad will believe her when she finds him so she keeps hiding him.... when ET first spies dad he lets out an  "ooooh....El-i-ott!"  gets excited and (as ET is prone to do) Eliot has just entered the garage thinks he hears something, comes back in and sees the daughter leaning against the closet door trying to look nonchalant.... 

later when dad finally sees ET the daughter's all "Dad I can explain I..... " before she can finish Eliot rushes to ET and gives him a big hug and we all cry and rejoice as we two old pals reconnect....    other stuff happens too be nothing more important that those events described above  :D


who'll play E.T.? ???

who'll play E.T.? ???


Debra winger.

Debra winger.


Okay ... that might just work!

Here's more of the story behind the dig.  The dig went to 30 feet instead of the predicated 18 feet, so only 1300 cartridges were recovered, 100 will go to the production company, 500 will go to museums, and 700 will go up for auction. 

If you don't get one of the 700 auctioned games, there are still about 700,000 more cartridges down there if future generations want to take a shot at it.

Okay ... that might just work!


No it won't. ::)

Debra winger.


The guy who was played by ET, Pat Bilon passed away 30 years ago.

who'll play E.T.? ???

Debra winger.
From wiki:

"The major voice work for E.T. was performed by Pat Welsh, an elderly woman who lived in Marin County, California. Welsh smoked two packets of cigarettes a day, which gave her voice a quality that sound effects creator Ben Burtt liked. She spent nine-and-a-half hours recording her part, and was paid $380 by Burtt for her services. Burtt also recorded 16 other people and various animals to create E.T.'s "voice". These included Spielberg; Debra Winger; Burtt's sleeping wife, who had a cold; a burp from his USC film professor; and raccoons, otters, and horses."