Hammers High: E.T.-Ray-Speilberg controversy

In 1982, when “E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial” released, amidst universal critical acclaim and acceptance of audience, it was alleged by Satyajit Ray that the story was plagiarized from his script of “The Alien”.

Ray himself said, “E.T. would not have been possible without my script of The Alien being available throughout the United States in mimeographed copies." To this Spielberg responded, "I was a kid in high school when his script was circulating in Hollywood."

Well there are certain striking similarities. Further, Spielberg’s “Close Encounter of the third Kind” (1977) also has similarities to The Alien’s plot.

Plot of “The Alien”: A spaceship lands near a village in Bengal at night, by morning villagers think it to be a temple risen from underground. The Alien in the ship interacts through dreams with a kid in the village, they eventually become friends. The Alien plays harmless tricks on the villagers, and after a while it leaves.
Marlon Brando agreed to play the role of American scientist, and were

What must be noted is that The Alien was the first script to show Aliens as non harmful beings. E.T. too had central theme of a friendly relationship of a child and an alien. Whereas “Close…” had a theme of an Alien ship landing in the middle of nowhere, where it stays harmlessly and later goes away.
Well how much of the plots were ripped of The Alien is for you to decide. It came to a full circle when finally in 2003 “Koi Mil Gaya” was made in India, an obvious adaptation of The Alien.

PS: we will do an exclusive on The Alien in coming editions under our new series, Unmade, featuring famous shelved projects. By the way if you get link to original Script of The Alien do post a link to us, we would love to have a look.