Thematic Shortcomings of Smekday’s Adaptation

On its own, the DreamWorks movie Home is a cute and heartwarming—if a little bit strange—narrative about family and friendship. If you haven’t seen it, the basic premise is that aliens called the Boov take over Earth and send all the humans to Australia. The protagonist, a girl named Tip, avoids forced relocation and travels to Australia with a friendly Boov named Oh to find her mother.

What many people don’t know is that it’s an adaptation of a (really good) book called The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex, which does involve family and friendship but also centers themes addressing imperialism. I’m not nitpicky when a film adaptation doesn’t follow its book precisely, but I think it’s great to capture the depth and complexity of its original themes. Unfortunately, the seemingly surface-level changes in Home really detract from the anti-imperialist and anti-racist ideas that make Smekday so special, wasting amazing potential in favor of more generic messages.

Most consequentially, Home removes one of Smekday’s main characters: Frank, an Indigenous Diné man who accompanies Tip on the journey. Out of everything in the movie, this change is especially harmful. The idea behind The True Meaning of Smekday is that when the Boov invade Earth, send the humans to designated areas, and take over human homes to call their own, they recreate colonial histories—and particularly echo European colonialism in North America. Cutting the story’s only Indigenous character minimizes real-life connections and important historical commentary. While the movie occasionally alludes to imperialist perspectives through scenes that reveal how the Boov view humans, it ultimately falls flat. Without Indigenous representation, a powerful metaphor for the problems with colonialism becomes mostly just another alien invasion movie.

When it comes to viewpoint characters, Home makes another major shift: Smekday takes place from Tip’s perspective and is clearly about her, while Home takes place from Oh’s perspective to the point where I’m not actually sure who’s the protagonist. This is significant because Tip is a multiracial Black girl who provides important representation, and sidelining her in favor of telling the alien’s story abandons a valuable opportunity to center a Black female character. Why can’t a young woman of color lead her own story without sharing and even giving up the spotlight? When we consider that these aliens parallel European colonizers, it’s even more unfortunate.

There’s also the whole issue with the holiday called Smekday, which I think is worth mentioning since, you know, the book is called The True Meaning of Smekday. Changing the name to Home really reflects thematic changes in the story, showing the shift in focus from anti-imperialist themes to themes of friendship and familial love. When the Boov arrive, they make a new holiday named Smekday after their captain Smek, replacing Christmas. Having a holiday for Smek parallels how several U.S. holidays center imperialists and colonizers. What’s the true meaning of Columbus Day? Contrary to what many elementary school classrooms still teach, it’s not good. More broadly, Smekday reflects beyond the idea of holidays how imperialists and colonizers continue to be celebrated and revered, forcing readers to question who we consider our heroes.

Finally, the movie completely diverges in its ending. (Spoiler warning for Home and Smekday until the end of this paragraph. But they’re still good even if you know what happens.) In both stories, the Boov are chased by a worse species of alien called the Gorg coming to invade Earth. At the end of the movie, the Gorg turn out to be one friendly individual here to reunite with their children, providing a heartwarming message about family meant to parallel Tip and her mom. At the end of the book, the Gorg are as bad as they seem. They’re all clones of one individual—the most powerful and bloodthirsty of the species—who won the “survival of the fittest” game when everyone killed each other. The extreme homogeneity in which everyone is the “ideal” powerful person without diversity further comments on racial issues with its resemblance to eugenics. Additionally, although the Gorg might seem to justify or mitigate the Boov’s colonization of Earth since the Boov are seeking refuge, the book thematically shows that this isn’t the case—just as desperate times don’t justify or mitigate real-life colonization. The movie makes another unfortunate change: Oh saves the world in the end, while in the book, Tip saves the world. Home therefore alters the original storyline to have the (male) alien take the lead rather than letting a Black girl be the hero.

Aside from these major thematic points, Smekday includes other interesting details that contribute to its racial commentary. There’s minor character Dan Landry, the politician who deals with the alien stuff and tells Tip to stay out of things—but also takes Tip’s glory in an accurate representation of the all-too-common case of white men getting credit for Black women’s accomplishments. There’s discussion of Tip’s biracial heritage (she’s Black and Italian) and all the microaggressions that she encounters. If you’re interested in reading Smekday, you’ll also be able to enjoy other fun elements from comics, newspaper clippings, and other media to Happy Mouse Kingdom to a variety of side characters that contribute to a unique and interesting world—and it’s a hilarious work, succeeding in humor where Home occasionally falls flat.

Ultimately, Home is a decent movie about friendship and family with inklings of anti-colonialist criticism. The True Meaning of Smekday is an amazing book about friendship and family with overarching themes centering anti-colonialist criticism. Although the movie evidently intends to take this different route, I believe that tackling colonialism head-on would have been much more effective and allowed this work to truly stand out. I also feel that some changes, like removing Indigenous representation and sidelining a Black female lead to center a male alien, are wrong and worthy of indignation regardless of what the movie chooses to focus on. While both works have their own value, Home doesn’t really meet its potential; too many people are ignorant when it comes to America’s unfortunate past, and directly addressing these issues would have been truly valuable.