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.