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Earth to Echo

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Wikipedia article




'Earth to Echo' is a 2014 American science fiction film directed by Dave Green, and produced by Ryan Kavanaugh and Andrew Panay. Based on a screenplay by Henry Gayden, the film stars Teo Halm, Brian "Astro" Bradley, Reese Hartwig, and Ella Wahlestedt as four neighborhood friends who find a robotic, telekinetic alien in the desert, and are soon hunted by dangerous forces who seek to take the alien, who the kids name "Echo", for themselves. The film is shot in a found footage style through many perspectives, including through a handheld camera, smartphone cameras, and the robot's eyes.

The film was originally developed and produced by the Walt Disney Company, under the leadership of Rich Ross, but Disney, unsatisfied with the project, sold the distribution rights to Relativity Media in 2013, on the advice of producer Andrew Panay. Relativity Media theatrically released the film in the United States on July 2, 2014. 'Earth to Echo' received mixed reviews from critics, who criticized the cinematography and editing.

Plot





Three childhood friends, Alex, Tuck, and Munch, live in a small Nevada neighborhood that will soon be demolished for a highway construction project, and they will all have to move away because of it. The day before they're set to move, each of their phones start displaying random geographical patterns, which Munch discovers lead to coordinates in the desert 17 miles away. They decide to spend their last night together biking to the coordinates to investigate, recording their experience on various video cameras.

Tuck, Alex and Munch arrive at the coordinates and follow the map to a dusty, rusted object under an electrical tower. The object starts to copy Alex's ringtone, and they follow another map to a nearby barn. There, the object telekinetically repairs itself using various objects around the barn. The boys find the object contains a cybernetic alien that can answer yes or no questions. They learn it is from another planet and has accidentally crash landed on Earth and is seriously injured after being shot down by an unknown force. The group follow another map to a pawn shop, where the object further repairs itself, allowing the alien to reveal itself. With its eyes damaged, it uses Alex's phone camera to see. While in an alley, they decide to name the alien "Echo".

They follow another map to the house of Emma, a classmate of the boys. Emma discovers Echo and joins their team, as they try to find objects for Echo to repair itself with. They follow another map to an arcade, where Emma pieces together that the object Echo is trying to repair isn't a spaceship, but rather a key to one. At the arcade, Alex is caught by a security guard. Emma goes back in to rescue him, with Echo helping by causing a distraction. Stopping at a restaurant, the four talk and reconcile, keeping Echo hidden in a backpack, before a construction worker arrives and takes the backpack with Echo inside, loading it into a truck. Munch leaps into the back of the truck just as it pulls out of the parking lot, leaving the rest of the group behind.

Tuck, Alex, and Emma go to a party hosted by Tuck's brother's girlfriend, where they steal his car to catch up with Munch and Echo. They find the construction site where Munch is being interrogated and Echo is being experimented on, but they get caught by the same construction worker. The construction worker, revealed to be a scientist named Dr. Lawrence Masden, ruthlessly explains to them that he and his group (implied to be government agents) shot down Echo when he came to Earth, and intend to prevent him from going back home so they can study Echo's technology. They also believe that, if Echo repairs the spaceship and takes off in it, it will kill everyone in the neighborhood. The kids lie, and say they will help find Echo's spaceship.

They are taken to a scrap junkyard, where Echo seemingly dies as a result of the violent experimentation inflicted on him, but with encouragement from the kids, he revives, completes his repairs, and distracts the agents long enough for the kids to drive back home. Making it to Alex's home, the spaceship key goes into the ground by itself, and they realize the agents invented the false construction project as a cover to dig up the neighborhood, as the entire ship, however it got there, is in the ground beneath it. Trusting Echo, Alex takes him down the hole made by the key. At the bottom, the group finds a room that turns out to be the spaceship's core, where the key connects to the rest of it. Once the key is connected to the core, allowing Echo to use it to pilot the ship, he begins starting up the ship.

After they all say goodbye and the kids exit the core, the ship's separate parts telekinetically come out of the ground all over the neighborhood, and reassemble it in mid-air, and all without destroying the neighborhood. Once fully reassembled, the ship then flies away. The project put on by the agents is abandoned but Alex and Munch relocate anyway, as their families have already bought new homes elsewhere. However, as Tuck's didn't, he stays, and new neighbors and residents move in to the neighborhood. Sometime later, the three and Emma meet up again, as the film ends with Alex holding up his phone towards the sky.

In a post-credit scene, Alex addresses his friends as his phone apparently starts to move and glitch out.

Cast



* Teo Halm as Alex Nichols

* Brian "Astro" Bradley as Tucker "Tuck" Simms

* Reese Hartwig as Reginald "Munch" Barrett

* Ella Wahlestedt as Emma Hastings

* Jason Gray-Stanford as Dr. Lawrence Masden

* Algee Smith as Marcus Simms

* Cassius Willis as Calvin Simms

* Sonya Leslie as Theresa Simms

* Kerry O'Malley as Janice Douglas

* Virginia Louise Smith as Betty Barrett

* Peter Mackenzie as James Hastings

* Valerie Wildman as Christine Hastings

* Mary Pat Gleason as Dusty (Mullet Lady at Bar)

* Chris Wylde as Security Guard

*Brooke Dillman as Diner Waitress

* Myk Watford as Blake Douglas

* Tiffany Espensen as Charlie

* Israel Broussard as Cameron

* Sean Carroll as Podcast Voice (voice)

Production



'Earth to Echo' was commissioned by Andrew Panay, Panay Films President of Production, under the working title, 'Untitled Wolf Adventure', while the studio shifted leadership between Rich Ross and Alan Horn. After Horn's succession as Chairman and viewing a final cut of the film, he decided to put the film into turnaround. After Producer Andrew Panay met with Relativity President Tucker Tooley, Disney eventually sold the film's distribution rights and copyrights to Relativity Media in 2013.

Distribution



Release

The film was initially scheduled for release on January 10, 2014 and April 25, 2014. After being delayed, 'Earth to Echo' premiered on June 14, 2014 at the Los Angeles Film Festival and opened in theaters across the U.S. on July 2, 2014.

Marketing

The first trailer was released on December 12, 2013.

Home media

The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment on October 21, 2014.

Reception



Box office

'Earth to Echo' opened on July 2, 2014 in the United States in 3,179 theaters, ranking at #6, and accumulating $8,364,658 over its 3-day opening weekend (an average of $2,590 per venue) and $13,567,557 since its Wednesday launch. , the film had grossed $38.9 million in the U.S. and $6.4 million overseas, for a total of $45.3 million worldwide, against a $13 million budget, making it a moderate box office success.

Critical reception

Review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes summarized the critical response: "'Earth to Echo' doesn't do itself any favors by beggaring comparisons to 'E.T.', but for younger viewers, it should prove a reasonably entertaining diversion". The website surveyed 126 critics with a determined rating average of 5.37 out of 10. The website assigned the film a score of 50%. Another aggregator Metacritic surveyed 31 critics and gave the film a score of 53 out of 100, which indicate "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A-" on an A+ to F scale.

Awards and nominations



References




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