'E.T. Extinction': The Latest Fake Trailer Internet Hit

Fake trailers and remixed ones have become must see events on the world wide web. Seeing the cleverness at work, done for free mind you (unless they want to get sued to death), almost makes you want these movies to become a reality. It's also brilliantly shows how a movie can easily be manipulated and sold to the movie going audience. A classic example of that was "The Shining," remade into a romantic comedy to the tune of Peter Gabriel's "Solsbury Hill."

The latest fake trailer to become an internet phenomenon is also one of the most hilariously inspired: "E.T. Extinction." Yes, the lovable creature from Steven Spielberg's 1982 classic (which should have won Best Picture over "Gandhi") is back, but this time it is on a mission of the upmost urgency. E.T.'s people are headed back to Earth in droves, but they're out to claim it as their own and kill off its inhabitants. They even interrupt a Jonas Brothers concert and give young teenage girls a real reason to scream louder than at their latest rock star crushes. It's up to Elliott and E.T., whom he almost runs into with his car to save the planet from total destruction, and we're not just talking global warming here.

The trailer is a brilliant mash up of various movies, many of which featured Morgan Freeman ("The Sum Of All Fears," "Deep Impact," "Outbreak," etc.). Seeing Morgan's facial features change from character to character may be a little disorienting, but he's in just about everything these days, so it's obviously easy to use him for this. Bruce Willis is also predominantly featured as his character from "The Siege" declares marshal law and threatens to shoot down the terrified extra terrestrial while Henry Thomas begs them not to.

Also featured are Drew Barrymore whose appearance seems primarily derived from the Adam Sandler comedy "50 First Dates," Dee Wallace Stone makes a two-second appearance, Peter Coyote shows up to save the "important" people, and even C. Thomas Howell pops up inviting E.T.'s people to do their worst (and they do). Robert MacNaughton, whose acting career unfortunately didn't last long after "E.T." is said to have been kidnapped which leaves us only of pictures of him to see. Then again, he fares better than Barrymore's career which the trailer implies has her getting married to one of E.T.'s former friends. Looks like they want her to do more than have her kiss their funny little noses!

"E.T. Extinction" also makes great satirical use of the movie's most iconic images. The one where we see Elliott and E.T. on the bike and riding across the moon has been done over and over again, and yet seeing the two of them on a motorcycle (Elliott having long since gotten his driver's license) is a riot. E.T.'s friends are rendered in scary fashion as their necks extend out like Cobra snakes ready to strike. There's also a spoof on the "ouch" moment and a more sinister take of E.T. hiding among the stuffed animals. With their glowing fingers, they easily incinerate the helpless human beings like Spielberg did in her version of "War Of The Worlds."

The man behind this trailer is Robert Blankenheim, and he previously did "Titanic: Two The Surface" under the pen name of Derek Johnson. According to his website, he is a graduate of Chapman University and currently resides in Los Angeles. Robert said his fake "Titanic" trailer was all of his own making, and that includes the editing and visual effects. A lot of the clever effects came about once he mastered the programs of Adobe After Effects and Lightwave.

With the "E.T. Extinction" trailer, Robert sifted through literally hundreds of movies in order to come up with a storyline (however improbable) for the sequel that Spielberg never made happen (for good reason). To hear him describe how he went about working on it speaks volumes of how long it took him to make it:

"I can tell you that I ended up using clips from 33 movies along with 11 shots that I had to shoot myself in order to create the trailer. Out of the 115 shots in the trailer, there are 80 effects shots ranging from simple (adding ships to the background) to difficult (animating a talking ET)."

Both of Robert's trailers have garnered over a million views on the internet, and we are all eager to see what he will pull off next, whether or not he gets paid for it. In a time of endless remakes and needless franchise reboots, even the most fake of trailers like "E.T. Extinction" have more inventiveness and creativity than anything Hollywood has to offer it seems. And yes, of course, it promises to be in 3D...