Would the film have been considered as good without so much apparent audience manipulation?

https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/gyckmi/i_watched_et_again_recently_its_a_great_film_for/

We're led to believe that "the government" is trying to kidnap ET, but in the end they're only trying to help him out and there's nothing nefarious about it.

If anything, the government is only interested in dissecting ET after they think he is already dead. Which is understandable, that's how we learn about things.

The audience is led to believe that ET died, but then he comes back to life.

I know Steven Spielberg used this film as a kind of catharsis to discuss his parents divorce and the impact it had on him at that age, but it's still kind of a manipulative trope to use in a kids film like this. And Spielberg still uses it in many of his films, so I guess it wasn't that cathartic??

The "astronauts" (or scientists dressed up as astronauts for some reason) literally break into their house without even explaining anything and terrify the entire family. This scene was like straight out of Poltergeist.

Elliot was screaming "you're killing him!" when all the doctors were trying to help save him. ET wasn't dying because of anything they were doing, he was (most likely) dying from being an alien being on a weird new planet. Like how humans would die if we were to go to Mars and ran out of food/water/air.