How does the movie E.T. symbolize the theme of “fear of the unknown”?
Well, of course you see that from the way the government reacts to E.T. that people automatically fear the worst when it comes to things they aren’t well-versed about. In the film, the kids who discover E.T. are scared of him at first, but they actually give him the benefit of the doubt before casting him as some sort of monster. They experiment with him, talk to him, etc. On the other hand, the government agents capture E.T. because they have this notion of the worst possible scenario in their head about what E.T. could be and what his motives are. They don’t give E.T. the chance to demonstrate that he “comes in peace”, but rather, adopt this oh-no-the-world-is-going-to-end kind of philosophy because something unknown to them has crashed to earth.
