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Retro SciFi Film of the Week…

The Day Time Ended (1979)

Remember that film about an extraterrestrial (ET) that comes to Earth and befriends a little girl? The ET does miraculous feats and at first he doesn’t talk and just uses hand gestures to communicate with the little girl. The ET has a large head, skinny limbs, and pale reptilian-like skin. In the beginning she is the only one who knows but later everyone finds out about the ET.

I’m referring, of course, to The Day Time Ended (1979). Yeah, three years before the movie “E.T. the Extraterrestrial” was released in 1982 there was this low-budget movie with a similar plot. Other writers have claimed that E.T. had plagiarized their work. (I far as I know, the producers of this film made no claims of infringement.) The courts ruled that the plot was too general to claim infringement, so if anyone wants to do a remake of E.T. without purchasing adaptation rights, there’s plenty of material available out there that predates E.T.

The Day Time Ended had a plot that was a lot more complicated with multiple alien species, time travel, and other stuff that I can’t make heads or tails of. It’s a poorly executed project with bad acting, lousy special effects and cinematography, and an unclear story arc. The best actor in the film was the little girl, which gives you an idea of just how bad the acting was.

This one’s probably not worth watching unless you like to see rare B-movie science fiction along with some of the historical artifacts, like an analog dial AM car radio, a detachable pull-top soda can, and of course those goofy late-70s haircuts.

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Accessible video description:

A little girl watches as smoke flows under a door and an alien appears. It is about one foot tall with a large head, big eyes, thin body and pale skin. It jumps up on the bed post and then jumps across the room to a dresser as it accidentally knocks over a potted plant. The ET spins around and stops like a figure-skater as the plant rights itself. Silly music plays in the background.

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