Reviewing Fanhome’s ‘ET The Extra-Terrestrial’ Build-Up Kit Stages 6-8

The third shipment arrived yesterday for Fanhome’s ET The Extra-Terrestrial Build-Up Kit. Now, the first thing you may yourself, as I did, is why in the hell is this box so large? Have we gotten to the torso already?

We have not. The box is almost comically oversized so that this installment’s posters could be shipped whole and unfolded. I appreciate that. A personal pet peeve is folding frameable posters and prints, for any reason. The fine folks at Fanhome also shiped my posters in a stiff cardboard folder within the enormous box, further protecting the corners from being dented by courier mishandling. Cheers for all of that. 

This was the most complicated set of building stages to date, but mostly because I have massive hands, and the parts are small. There is also gear grease involved, and that stuff wants to get everywhere. Stage 6 rolls with stage 5, which I left in the sealed baggie from the last shipment, to prevent lost parts and unnecessary steps.

Stages five and six set up the motor and gears that drive the little brown fella’s eyes. That little battery pack that I mentioned before for the glowing finger is also used to check these stages for correct assembly and operation.

The servo and gear setup is pretty loud at the moment, but I suspect at least some of that noise is buried within the rest of the head parts and the skin that will eventually stretch over everything. The model also speaks lines from the film later down the line, so that may play a role in covering some of the mechanical sounds as well. 

By the time Stage 8 is complete, two servos are in place, one operating the eye movement from side to side. The second servo and some gears are also in place, which appear to be positioned to control the model’s blinking eyelids once some other parts are installed to connect them. The gearboxes are greased and sealed. The eyes move back and forth rapidly and noisily, and this right pointer finger glows.

As with every completed shipment to date, I have some fun little things to creep guests out with and a stack of informational magazines to read. The added dilemma this month is these three beautiful prints captured from the film.

There’s ET in flight in Eliott’s (Henry Thomas) bicycle basket, Gertie (Drew Barrymore) kissing ET, and Elliot and ET in the woods. They’re all gorgeous, capturing iconic moments, but I simply do not have space for three new framed prints on my wall, so I have to choose just one. 

After the next shipment, I’ll do a full progress video. I’m guessing the rest of the parts for the eyelid movement will be in one of the next stages. It would also be cool to get the skin for the back of the head so I can start really freaking people out. 

Fanhome’s ET The Extra-Terrestrial Build-Up Kit subscription service is available at this link, along with their other kits from Batman ’66, Fast & Furious, Star Wars, Marvel, Transformers…