The heroes of the new film “Earth to Echo," opening Wednesday, recall those in films such as “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” “The Goonies,” “Stand by Me” --- kids who bust free from the suburbs and the watchful gaze of their families, going by foot or BMX bike into the wilds, in search of aliens, or buried treasure, or more.
But with the exception of J.J. Abrams’ “Super 8,” which dipped its Cup of Nostalgia heavily into the same Spielbergian waters three summers ago, these sort of films don’t get made anymore.
“The family adventure movies that I grew up on, watching and loving, had kind of gone away in favor of a darker tone,” said “Earth to Echo” director Dave Green. “Why don’t they make these movies anymore?” he asked. (One theory: CGI animation now fills that family-friendly movie slot.) What happened to films with that “tone of fun and mystery and scares and action and heart”? By which he means “E.T.” “The Goonies” and “Stand by Me,” films that are “emotionally pretty honest with their kid audience.” Their plots are about “what you go through emotionally when you’re 12 or 13 years old”: the hard knocks school of heartbreak, being the outcast, losing your friends, but also the possibility of escape. “They always looked kids directly in the eye and they never really pandered to make those kids feel like movie kids.”
Made in 2011 but set in 1979, “Super 8” was “very much built for the nostalgia of people my age,” Green said, and his film is also a conscious homage to that era. In “Earth to Echo,” three preteen pals, Tuck, Munch and Alex, get one final night together before their families move away. Then they begin receiving strange signals on their cellphones, which lead them on a scavenger hunt-like expedition into the desert. As the boys find a stranded alien, which they name Echo, bits of a bigger puzzle are slowly revealed.
Echoes of 80s adventure movies can be heard everywhere in “Earth to Echo.” The pirate map from “The Goonies” is replaced by iPhones. Instead of the Oregonian "Goon Docks” neighborhood, which faces foreclosure due to the construction of a country club, the boys’ small Nevada suburb is slated to be razed for a mysterious highway project. The mistrustful government scientists in “Earth to Echo,” wielding flashlights and jingling key rings, are nearly identical to those in “E.T.”, and are perhaps equally up to no good. Soon, just as in “Stand By Me,” the gang becomes acquainted with deepening friendship, and what it means to do the right thing.
Related themes are also found in films such as “American Graffiti” (a group of friends’ last night together), “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” (government cover-up of aliens), “The Outsiders” (tough boys living on their own in a hideout), "The Explorers" (a youthful Ethan Hawke and River Phoenix make theor own spacecraft), and “Iron Giant” (boy befriends and protect robot from government forces). These plots also hinge on the interplay between faceless suburbia and adventure. How far from the cul-de-sac and manicured lawn can kids still find the unexpected? Or in the case of "Stand By Me," a dead body?
Typically, the boy heroes (and they are mostly boys) are still immune from the troubles of adolescence. They haven’t kissed a girl or driven a car (although they often must drive a car at a climactic moment). This innocence allows them to connect to fantasy, and possibility, which makes it safe for them to believe in monsters, space creatures, and pirates. It also makes them mistrustful grown-ups and their secret plans and intentions. “Something like this comes along that you have no power to stop,” laments Tuck, learning his lesson in how adult authority works. “Because you’re just a kid. Just a kid.”
Elliott, a loner who seems to have no friends of his own, worries the scientists will give E.T. “a lobotomy or do experiments on it or something,” and protects the alien from parents, the military, and government, all who see aliens as threat. The boys in “Earth to Echo” feel a similar connection to their spaceman, who makes R2-D2-like chirps and beeps. Like Elliott, the outcast foster kid Alex makes an emotional bond to Echo. Both feel like strangers on earth, and let down by the adult world. Echo, Alex says, is “lost and alone, on its own, just like us.” Meanwhile, parents are typically or too harried holding together their single-parent lives. Think of the many times the Mom in “E.T,” nursing her own heartbreak, is too checked out to even notice the weirdness (or outer space creature) around her. Kids slip through the cracks unnoticed. They are unsupervised and in control of their own risky secret mission. Sneaking along underground passages and hidden bike paths, by their wits they outsmart grown-ups, who are realistic obstacles, not cartoon villains. Likewise, the kids aren’t superheroes with superpowers. They’re just ordinary kids.
The kids in “Earth to Echo” do their best to distance themselves from adult cynicism. Because you never know: An alien or treasure map might bring meaning to their world. To be sure, there is magic in special effects --- who can forget the flying bicycles of “E.T.” – but true magic stems from testing the limits of risk and pushing the bonds of friendship. The mix of mundane and miraculous suggests similar adventures could happen to you, too.
“Earth to Echo” may be mostly intended for the age-group it portrays, but surely it hopes to nab parents who grew up on classic Spielbergian fare. Interestingly, a “Goonies” sequel is reportedly in the works. Perhaps we can find our revisit our fantasies of childhood adventure after all.
Ethan Gilsdorf is the author of "Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks." Contact him at www.ethangilsdorf.com or Twitter @ethanfreak.