Elliott, he came to me, too!


So when Elliott is all hooked up to monitors and etc he talks to the guy with the keys, who says "He came to me, too! I've been waiting for this since I was (12?) years old!"

What do you think he means by that? Did he meet ET, or come across the aliens studying plant life as a kid? Or is he just saying that he has been looking for UFOs ever since he read his first sci-fi conic, or what?

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I've always leaned toward the latter--that he's been waiting for the proof behind his beliefs/hopes since he was Elliot's age.

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What do you think he means by that? Did he meet ET, or come across the aliens studying plant life as a kid? Or is he just saying that he has been looking for UFOs ever since he read his first sci-fi conic, or what?
It's totally ambiguous, but at the same time, seemingly ET didn't recognize him, which would be an indication that they'd never met, yet maybe ET grew apart from him or forgot him.

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Sounds reasonable to me.

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He just means he's been wanting to discover an alien since childhood. He says "I've been WISHING for this since I was 10 years old." He hasn't met ET before. That would be kind of absurd, if the same alien got marooned twice on the same planet. He'd be rather a screwup.

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In-movie it was a technique to make Eliot sympathyse and trust him. Meta-movie it was a way to pull adults into remembering their childhood and be open-minded to immerse in the movie. He's also the lone good guy in the middle of the bad guys.

He didn't mean he had an encounter back when he was 12, he said he also wanted to meet an alien and therefore the alien came to him too. It was on his 12 that he read about ETs and ever since he wanted to meet one.

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