{"id":6990,"date":"2014-07-03T06:16:17","date_gmt":"2014-07-03T13:16:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/?p=6990"},"modified":"2014-07-03T06:16:17","modified_gmt":"2014-07-03T13:16:17","slug":"earth-to-echo-patches-together-other-great-kids-movies-to-make-a-mediocre-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/?p=6990","title":{"rendered":"‘s movies to make a Mediocre one"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nMy plan to establish my review of Earth to Echo<\/em> as different from other subjective rants is to make sure I don\u2019t focus ENTIRELY on the fact that it is a carbon copy Spielberg\u2019s kiddie classic, E.T. <\/em>The parallels are too numerous (poster art, cute alien, kids running from the government, dealing with abandonment etc.) to count and perhaps I\u2019ll just come up with a separate article that chronicles this in detail. I\u2019ll do it if the film makes $200 million domestic. Let\u2019s set the bar high so I don\u2019t have to do it.<\/p>\n

So to diversify the content I\u2019d also like to point out that Earth to Echo <\/em>(let us call it E.T.E <\/em>for short) also borrows heavily from other 80\u2019s children classics. There are large chunks of The Goonies <\/em>(let\u2019s save the neighborhood by going on an outlandish adventure) and Stand by Me <\/em>(let\u2019s pack our bags, lie to our parents where we are going and go see an alien). They even play Buddy Holly\u2019s Everyday <\/em>in a pawn shop scene, a lovely song found on the Stand by Me <\/em>soundtrack.
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\nThe level of homage is so prevalent that it can be argued that there isn\u2019t a single original thought in the entire thing. A pieced quilt of a film that abuses homage to the point of rip-off. \u00a0I\u2019m actually wondering if litigation will be brought up relating to copyright infringement.<\/p>\n

The sad thing is that E.T.E <\/em>borrows elements from all of these great films but fails to capture any of the magic they hold. To quote (and pay homage to) Mr. Roger Ebert: \u201cThis film knows the lyrics but not the music.\u201d There is no wonder of adolescence or awe to the discovery of our little CG friend. \u00a0The film goes through the motions and the payoff is void of any emotional weight.<\/p>\n

The plot is incoherent at times and it is apparent that there was some effort to fix this in post. Motivations are vague and I\u2019m pretty sure that the alien comes back here to Earth so he can get his ship and leave again. So\u2026.. why not just stay gone in the first place?<\/p>\n

BUT—- The target audience isn\u2019t going to care about any of this<\/strong>. I took a seven year old boy (AKA The Key Demo) and he loved it. He wasn\u2019t worried that the entire plot was culled from other sources. He doesn\u2019t even know those other sources exist. Ten years from now he may discover E.T. <\/em>and figure out that E.T.E <\/em>is a sham but for right now, he wants the tee shirt of the cute little robot owl looking thing.<\/strong><\/p>\n

One last note: The fact that E.T.E <\/em>is a Fourth of July release is a key indicator that this summer is far from stellar. Paired with a horror movie (Deliver Us from Evil)<\/em> and a Mellissa McCarthy vehicle, this is not the tent pole popcorn flicks we expect on this coveted weekend. It\u2019s also sad to say that among the usual Summer parade of sequels, this supposed \u201coriginal\u201d movie is actually just another re-tread.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My plan to establish my review of Earth to Echo as different from other subjective rants is to make sure I don\u2019t focus ENTIRELY on the fact that it is a carbon copy Spielberg\u2019s kiddie classic, E.T. The parallels are too numerous (poster art, cute alien, kids running from the government, dealing with abandonment etc.) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1911,5267,6655,6846,7080,11676,16813,19721],"class_list":["post-6990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-astro","tag-dave-green","tag-earth-to-echo","tag-ella-wahlestedt","tag-et","tag-kids-movies","tag-reese-hartwig","tag-teo-halm"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6990\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}