Fantasia

Who said Disney films were just for kids? Walt Disney’s third animated feature film ‘Fantasia’, released in 1940, inspired Spielberg to create the night scenes seen in 1982’s ‘E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial’. After watching the scenes of Mother Night flying over with her cape, covering a daylight sky as a child, Spielberg thought that was what night-time looked like, and embraced this idea for the opening of the classic film.

He said: “I wanted the opening of E.T. to be that kind of Mother Night. You know, you come down over the trees, you see the stars, and suddenly you think you’re in space - wow, you’re not, you’re in a forest somewhere. You’re not quite sure where; you might be in a forest on some distant planet.”