It really cannot be understated just how much of a cultural phenomenon and massive success E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial was in the world of filmmaking. Steven Spielberg‘s signature family sci-fi adventure achieved levels of success that were simply unmatched in the era, becoming the then highest grossing movie of all time and consistently drawing in audiences as it dominated the box-office for nearly the entire year of 1982 before further dominating the home video market when it released on VHS in 1988.
As is the case with many cultural phenomenon films, there were a multitude of different attempts from various other filmmakers inspired by E.T. to have their own similar take on its style of story. Whether it be modern-day films that were mostly inspired by E.T. or more blatant ripoff movies of the 80s and 90s, these E.T. wannabees massively fluctuate in quality and memorability. While films like Super 8 and The Iron Giant found great quality within the E.T. formula, these films were certainly not up to snuff compared to Spielberg’s masterpiece.
10
‘Earth to Echo’ (2014)
Combining the classic E.T. style story with one of the most prominent filmmaking fads of the 2010s, Earth to Echo‘s hook can most adequately be described as “E.T. if it was found footage.” Instead of just following one child, it follows a trio of young boys who begin receiving strange encoded messages on their phones that lead them to a mysterious alien. They then find themselves helping the alien on its journey to contact its home planet, becoming greater friends in the process.
The concept and potential is certainly there for Earth to Echo to be an enjoyable watch, but the biggest issue is just how uninspired and unmemorable the full experience is. It also doesn’t help that found footage as a whole is largely associated with the horror genre, with this film doing very little to justify the usage of found footage to tell its story aside from just following trends and needing a gimmick. The film is easily the most prominent of the modern-day E.T. knockoffs, and compared to some of the garbage on this list, it’s league better in terms of quality, but still not very good.
9
‘Purple People Eater’ (1988)
Based on the iconic 1958 novelty song of the same name, Purple People Eater attempted to combine the name recognition of the song with the classic structure of E.T. to find great 80s success. However, the film itself simply isn’t very memorable outside some wacky casting, with Academy Award-winning Ned Beatty as the grandpa and a young Neil Patrick Harris playing the 12-year-old boy in one of his first on-screen roles.
The film follows a young boy who, after playing the classic song, manages to actually summon the purple people eater himself. However, instead of helping this alien figure return home, the duo of child and purple people eater instead team up to help an elderly couple being evicted by their greedy landlord. It’s a strange mixture of ideas and concepts that just doesn’t really work, although the costuming of the purple people eater himself is certainly well-made.
8
‘A-X-L’ (2018)
A-X-L shows that an E.T. knockoff doesn’t necessarily have to include an alien from outer space, as the film almost beat-for-beat repeats the same themes and emotional hooks with a cybernetic robot dog that doubles as a piece of dangerous military technology. A robot dog may seem more fun and interesting than yet another alien at first, but thissci-fi family movie does very little to excite or sell the audience on the impact of the titular robot dog, making him out to be a poor man’s mixture of E.T. and aMichael BayTransformer.
The final product is about as predictable and formulaic as one can imagine,repeating a lot of the same story beats asE.T.without nearly the same emotional pull or compelling impact of Spielberg’s directing. This film managed to be so blatant and boring in being an E.T. knockoff that it may have single-handedly killed off the prospect of E.T. knockoffs for good, as there really hasn’t been another major E.T. knockoff since this film’s middling box-office performance.
7
‘Can of Worms’ (1999)
The film follows a teenage boy who believes that he himself is an alien that doesn’t belong on earth…
E.T.’s success was far from entirely being centered around English-speaking audiences…
This strange combination of bad alien designs…
This film follows up on…
This terrible movie you’ve never heard of…
This McDonald’s funded nightmare attempts…
[nospin]Here you can find the original article…
