Home is a 2015 computer-animated feature film from DreamWorks Animation directed by Tim Johnson, based on the 2007 children's book The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex. The film is about an endearing but inept race of aliens called the Boov who invade Earth in order to take cover from their alien enemies and move the human race to Australia to live in pre-fabricated cities while the Boov take the rest of the world. After one hapless Boov accidentally transmits the Boov's location, he goes on the run from the rest of the Boov and runs into a young Human girl called Tip who's searching for her mother. A short film Almost Home was released in front of both Mr. Peabody & Sherman and non-Chinese/Korean prints of Rio 2, detailing the events before the start of the movie proper.
The film stars Jim Parsons, Rihanna, Jennifer Lopez, and Steve Martin.
Despite receiving mixed reviews from critics, the film was warmly received by the general public. The film became a box office success, grossing $386 million worldwide against its $135 million budget.
Previews: Trailer 1
, Trailer 2
In July 2016, a Sequel Series titled Home: Adventures with Tip & Oh premiered on Netflix.
Not to be confused with any of these other works also titled "Home".
Home provides examples of:
- Accidental Kidnapping:
- Inverted near the beginning - while seemingly every other human was captured by the Boov and relocated to Australia, Tip is unintentionally left behind in New York.
- Captain Smek took a rock from the Gorg, which turns out to contain the next generation of his race.
- Accidental Truth: To get the other Boov to move out of his way, Captain Smek says that he's carrying a baby. We later learn his shusher's rock is an incubator.
- Actor Allusion: Jim Parsons once again plays an obnoxious character who doesn't understand human behaviour and annoys everyone around him.
- Adaptational Alternate Ending: The book The True Meaning of Smekday has a century-long Time Skip at the end where Tip suddenly dies of old age during the unveiling of the time capsule. The film adaptation completely throws this out in favor of a happy ending, and Tip lives.
- Aerith and Bob: Only three Boov are referred to by name: Oh, Captain Smek, and Kyle.
- Alien Invasion: The Boov take complete control of Earth (including rebuilding several monuments such as the Statue of Liberty to resemble Captain Smek) and relocate all the humans to Australia.
- Aliens Are Bastards: Played with in regards to the Boov. They were only looking for a place to call home, but in doing so they deprived other species of their homes.
- An Alien Named "Bob":
- Kyle has a rather normal name, unlike most of the other Boov.
- Several one-shot Boovs have names like Tony.
- All of the Other Reindeer:
- After moving from Barbados to America, Tip was treated different from other kids and had trouble fitting in.
- Oh is so disliked among his people, his name was the way people reacted to his presence. An annoyed, exasperated "Oh..." sound.
- Amplifier Artifact: The Gorg super chip, which supercharges any device it's plugged into.
- Argument of Contradictions: Oh and Captain Smek have one of these over whether or not Oh would make another mistake. Smek decides it's so fun that they keep doing it for a while before he finally gets fed up with it and decides he should just erase Oh, though he doesn't get the chance.
- Attack Drone: The smaller Gorg ships that attack Oh and Tip are this.
- Award-Bait Song: "Feel the Light," courtesy of Jennifer Lopez.
- Baffled by Own Biology: When Oh hears catchy music by Rihanna on the radio, he starts to dance uncontrollably. He's freaked out by the sensation of this movement, thinking it's the result of some kind of mind control.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted when Tip gets hooked up to the Boov's database and makes some... interesting faces.
- Benevolent Alien Invasion: The Boov are told by Smek that this is what they're doing, and to be fair they don't cause any harm on purpose. It should also be noted that it really is benevolent compared to most invasions in such stories.
- Big Bad: The Gorg. Or so Smek says...
- Bizarre Alien Biology: The Boov have six legs each, change colors when experiencing different emotions, discharge gas from appendages that grow out of their head (which also seem to be their noses), have flexible skulls, can eat almost anything, and apparently have a third form of waste disposal. And they have two uvulas.
- Bizarre Beverage Use: When Oh upgrades Tip's mother's car, it is renamed Slushious. True to its name, it uses slushies as fuel.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: The Boov see cowardice as a desirable trait. Oh's main character arc is learning to take risks, and eventually convincing the others that it can be beneficial too.
- Brick Joke:
- During a "pee break," Oh takes a bite out of a urinal cake, thinking it's a "blue mint." When the rest stop is blown up, a urinal crashes to the ground a short distance away, followed by a urinal cake with a bite taken out of it.
- Tip hit a Boov with a booby trap that covered him in glitter, and he still has it on during the Dance Party Ending.
- In addition to going "Number One" and "Number Two" like humans, the Boov also go "Number Three". The events of the climax almost make Oh go Number Three.
- One of the Brain Boov suggests Playing Possum to ward off the Gorg. Even at the end, she's still pretending to be dead.
- Oh invited the entire galaxy to his party. Which is why the Dance Party Ending includes species we've never seen arriving on Earth.
- Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Oh's descriptions of the components he rejects for salvaging from the Gorg ship range from "broken" and "useless" to "likely to cause thermonuclear fusion". Tip is appropriately concerned by that last one.
- Bring My Brown Pants: Discussed. After almost being crushed by the Gorg ship during the climax, Oh says the fear almost caused him to go Number Three.
- Broken Pedestal: Oh idolizes Captain Smek, even though the guy's an egomaniac and a complete moron and looks down on Oh for not being successfully socialized and believing in things like friendship and individuality. Tip's influence gradually helps Oh figure that Captain Smek doesn't need to be listened to.
- Buddy Picture: Most of the film focuses on Oh and Tip's journey to Paris, and then Australia, to find Tip's mom.
- By Wall That Is Holey: Oh appears to be crushed by the Gorg mothership, but is spared because that particular portion was hollow.
- Casting Gag: J-Lo as Tip's mom, as a reference to Oh's name in The True Meaning of Smekday.
- Celebrity Paradox: When Tip decides to put on some music, she and Oh listen to "Dancing In The Dark", a song made for the film sung by Rihanna.... who also voices Tip.
- Central Theme: Finding your home. Family is another.
- Chekhov's Gun: Tip's Christmas present to her mother.
- When Tip is leaving the apartment, she grabs a pair of ballet slippers. Later, at the Eiffel Tower, she goes up not just on her tiptoes, but fully en pointe.
- Chekhov's Skill: Oh reflects light off a mirror to distract Tip early on. This comes in handy later when Tip uses it to distract the Gorg driving the Mothership, using the mirror that was supposed to be her mom's Christmas present.
- Colony Ship: The Boov and Gorg main ships are large enough to carry their entire respective races.
- Color-Coded Characters: Tip is associated with green and orange, while Oh is associated with blue and purple. Lucy is associated with white and light grey.
- Color-Coded Emotions: The Boov change colors to reflect emotions. Red is anger, yellow is fear, orange is happiness, blue is sadness, and pink seems to be affection. In addition, they turn green when they lienote .
- Color Failure: The Boov turn white when extremely shocked, as opposed to yellow for merely scared.
- Comedic Work, Serious Scene: This is a comedic film about a girl and an alien going on a trip across the world, but it has several poignant moments, such as Tip breaking down in tears after her failed attempts to find her mother, and Tip sobbing when Oh appears to have been crushed by the Gorg's ship.
- Conscience Makes You Go Back: Played with, Oh has a minor Heroic BSoD when he tries to get Tip to go onto the Boov dropship to save her and fails before going himself. He does return, though. However, if he hadn't gone, the Boov mothership would have been destroyed by the Gorg, killing all the Boov and the Gorg likely would have destroyed Earth out of spite.
- Cool Car: Oh makes a few modifications to Tip's car so it can fly, which apparently made it semi-sentient, as it's expression is shown to change occasionally.
- Cowardly Yellow: The Boov change colors to reflect emotions, and naturally yellow represents fear.
- Dance Party Ending: The films ends with Tip, Oh, Lucy, the Boovs, and some of their human friends dancing with each other, along with the Gorg and several species of aliens we're unfamiliar with in the space around Earth.
- Deadly Euphemism: After his bungling threatens to bring the Gorg to Earth, the other Boov threaten Oh with being "erased".
- Death Glare: Tip gives a pretty nasty glare to Oh when he tries to ditch her at the gas station to flee to Antarctica.Oh: What is the purpose of your face?
- Deface of the Moon: The Gorg ship plows through Saturn's rings on its way to Earth.
- Dirty Coward: This is practically the Boov's hat. As Oh himself puts it: "When probability for success drops below fifty percent, Boov give up." Captain Smek is even worse, often shoving aside other Boov to ensure his own safety. The conflict of the movie is because he stole something significant the last time he ran away. Part of Oh's Character Development is moving beyond this.
- Disney Death: It momentarily looks like Oh was crushed by the Gorg's machine, but there was an indentation in it large enough for him to fit without being crushed.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: The Boov convince themselves that the humans are simple and backwards in order to feel better about basically taking over the Earth. Oh even tries to convince Tip that the Boov "liberated" humankind, and later says that Captain Smek taught them that humans were little better than animals. The parallels to human colonialism and the history of maltreating natives should be obvious.
- "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: The soundtrack approaches a Do It Yourself album. Rihanna worked with director Tim Johnson to create a concept album for the film. Three of the eight songs there are by her, and one is by co-star Jennifer Lopez. Which in a way means that some of the songs are tied more to Tip, and that one is tied to Lucy (as they're voiced by Rihanna and Jennifer, respectively).
- Do Not Adjust Your Set: Captain Smek does this in a deleted opening available on the Blu-ray, breaking in on all human electronic entertainment to announce that the Boov are taking over.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Tip and her mother reunite, the Gorg gets the next generation of its race back, Oh finally has real friends and the respect of his fellow Boov, and the Boov and humans make peace with each other.
- Easily Forgiven: The Boov are forgiven pretty easily at the end for having forcibly relocated all humans and taken over the planet, though they are shown to have fixed everything afterwards and no one died. The fact that Boov technology is practically magic compared to human tech might have something to do with it.
- Captain Smek in particular, who by his own stupidity and incompetence nearly drives not one, or two but THREE entire races to extinction. He steals the incubator containing the entirety of the Gorg's nee generation, thus turning the Gorg's wrath upon the Boov, and as they flee they accidentally get humans caught in the crossfire. Despite this potentially apocalyptic scenario, Smek gets off pretty lightly, simply getting demoted from captainhood and becoming the Boov ship's DJ instead.
- Economy Cast: There are only five named, voiced characters in the whole thing. On the other hand, there are thousands of both human and alien extras.
- Edible Ammunition: Oh turns boxes of "Burrito Torpedoes" from the convenience store into actual functioning explosives, though they're still no match for the Gorg ship's armor.
- Egopolis: Captain Smek renames Earth "Smekland".
- Embarrassing First Name: Tip isn't fond of being named "Gratuity". But also insists that only her friends call her "Tip".
- Everything Makes a Mushroom: A small mushroom cloud is caused by an exploding gas station.
- Extreme Omnivore: The Boov are willing to eat a lot of strange things, including footballs, motor oil, and paintings. Vincent van Gogh's "The Starry Night" nearly ends up being lunch. While Tip and Oh are on the swinging Eiffel Tower, Tip notices a Boov about to eat the art piece and swipes it from him.Boov: I am not paying for that.
- Film of the Book: Loosely based on the novel The True Meaning of Smekday.
- Floating in a Bubble: Boov drive around on flying discs that generate bubbles when they're running to serve as the windows.
- Flying Car: Oh rebuilds Tip's broken car so it can fly, under the impression that it was supposed to do that.
- Foreboding Fleeing Flock: Oh and Tip discover that the Boov are flying alongside them, but are not attacking them. Turns out they were fleeing a Gorg drone.
- The Foreign Subtitle: Home: A Minha Casa (My House) (Portugal).
- Foreshadowing: As seen in Accidental Truth above, when the Gorg mothership shows up at Earth, Smek pushes through the crowd of Boov, yelling "I'm carrying a baby!" Turns out he's carrying the Gorg's babies inside the rock.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: When first showing the modifications to Slushcious, you can see a cash register readout that shows "5318008" and "707".
- From Zero to Hero: The main character, Oh, went from being universally disliked by all of the other Boov, to being elected their leader. And all it took was saving his entire race.
- Glad I Thought of It: Captain Smek doesn't hesitate to take credit for the ideas of others.
- Go Out with a Smile: Oh smiles at Tip just as he's about to be seemingly crushed by the Gorg mothership's foot.
- Had the Silly Thing in Reverse: When Oh repairs Tip's car, he accidentally wires the brakes and gas backwards.
- Hands Looking Wrong: Tip grabs Oh's wrist to show him his hand after he insists that Boov don't turn green when they lie.
- Hartman Hips: Lucy and Tip both have hips that are as wide as their shoulders.
- Heel Realization:
- Oh has a major revelation that his own people themselves are entirely the cause of all their persecution problems.
- After Oh saves the Boov using a Gorg Superchip, Kyle realizes that he should have accepted Oh as his friend and sides with him against Smek.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Attempted by Oh, to save the Gorg pod when he was about to be crushed by the mothership. He throws the pod to Tip since he wouldn't be able to escape it.
- Hostile Terraforming: Downplayed. The earth is restructured, but the Boov's technology reset it easily.
- How Dare You Die on Me!: A major turning point in Tip and Oh's uneasy alliance comes when Oh dives underwater for a couple of hours and she kicks him and rants about him letting her think he'd died.
- Imagine Spot: Oh has a brief one when he considers hiding in Antarctica. It's about five seconds of him hugging penguins.
- Invading Refugees: The Boov take over Earth because the Gorg destroyed their homeworld.
- Inventional Wisdom: Oh complains about the wisdom of an e-mail system in which "send" and "send all" are two giant buttons on the same screen, reflecting a common complaint about Reply and Reply All buttons in real-life email applications. Less remarked upon is why anyone except maybe Smek would need to send a message to every sentient being in the galaxy at once.
- Irrevocable Message: Oh's message can be retracted (even bypassing the light-speed limit that prevents it from reaching the Gorg immediately), but only by someone who has his password.
- It Runs on Nonsensoleum: Oh manages to accidentally transmit his invitation to the entire galaxy by accidentally hitting the "Send All" button. Despite requiring time to reach it's destination, the message can be instantly canceled at any point of transmission before it does.
- I Will Find You: Tip's main goal throughout the movie is to rescue her kidnapped mother. Turns out it's also Gorg's, who's looking for the next generation of his species.
- Kindhearted Cat Lover:
- Tip is very close to her pet cat, Pig.
- Oh grows quite fond of Pig and the feeling is mutual.
- The Kindnapper: While the Boov do forcibly relocate the humans, they do so without harming them. They offer them ice cream during the trip to their new settlement (which already has plenty of houses for them), and even provide them with an "Ask a Boov" station for inquiries. Though this is mostly due to Captain Smek telling the Boov that humans are a backward species that need their "help."
- Knight of Cerebus: Things get much more serious when The Gorg enters the picture,even if he himself is not evil at all.
- Lack of Empathy: The Boov, embracing a Dirty Coward mentality for their whole society, have absolutely no regard for any of the natives they forcibly relocate as they conquer Earth. When Oh finally gets that perspective and the courage to stand up to Captain Smek about what they are doing to humanity, everything changes for them.
- Last of His Kind: The Gorg is the only adult member of his species left. The rock Captain Smek stole from him contained the entire next generation of Gorg; he was trying to find it so he wouldn't be the last Gorg.
- Literal-Minded: The Boov. In just one example, Oh finds a cookbook as he sets up his housewarming party. He cooks it.
- Living Mood Ring: The Boov change colors to reflect emotions. Red is anger, yellow is fear, orange is happiness, blue is sadness, and pink seems to be affection. In addition, Oh has a bad habit of turning green (possibly with guilt) when he lies.
- Lock-and-Load Montage: Tip laying out her make-up kit before disguising Oh is treated as one. Leading to...
- Makeover Montage: ...or not, as it turns out; Oh thinks she's done as soon as she's given him a beauty mark, and is amazed at how unrecognizable he's become, and she just rolls with it.
- Meaningful Echo: When Tip and Oh first meet, she locks him in a freezer and tells him "No, you cannot come into the out!" when he asks. In the climax, Oh locks Tip and Lucy in her car (to protect them from being crushed by the Gorg mothership) and tells her "Tip can't come into the out now."
- Mirroring Factions: As explained in the end by Oh, the Gorg was simply acting irrationally violent and making poor decisions out of sadness and anger at the Gorg children being essentially kidnapped, which is different from the Boov's Blue-and-Orange Morality but a lot closer to how a human would react.
- Mobile-Suit Human: The Gorg is revealed to be a small starfish-like creature wearing a large suit.
- Monumental Damage: Played with. We see several Earth monuments, but many aren't really damaged, just floating in air. The ones with faces have been modified to look like Captain Smek. In the end, the Boov fix it.
- Mood Whiplash: The film's soundtrack album has a big case of this. The fourth track, Rihanna's "As Real As You and Me" tells us that "There could be a freak accident / There could be a fatal disease / I know we hate to think about it / But this as real as you and me..." This is immediately followed by Charli XCX's "Red Balloon" - "Ah-ooh! If you got troubles, let 'em go / Let 'em soar so high, high into the sky just like a red balloon / Ah-ooh! Don't let your worries get to you / Let 'em float on by, high into the sky just like a red balloon..." The musical styles of the two songs are just as different as the lyrics.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Oh, when he realizes how wrong his race was to invade the Earth, and then later that Gorg was only after the Boov because they stole his species' entire next generation.
- Mythology Gag: In The True Meaning of Smekday, the Boov Tip befriends is named J-Lo. Here, Tip's mother is played by the real J-Lo.
- Nice Guy:
- Oh. While he can be annoying, he is well-meaning and friendly.
- Tip is quite friendly and kind-hearted.
- Lucy Tucci. Every appearance and mention of her shows that she is a kind, thoughtful person and a great mom.
- Noble Bigot: One of the Boov's two Hats (The other being Dirty Cowards). Part of the reason the Boov displace Humanity with minimal preamble is because Smek told them that Humans are backwards primitives. Part of Oh's Character Development is coming to terms with the fact that Humans are more complex than he thought.
- No Endor Holocaust: The start of the movie shows the (almost) entire human race being relocated to Australia, and the Boov making significant changes to everything in an attempt to figure out what to do with their new home, but the ending implies they were easily able to just put everything back the way it was.
- Noodle Incident:
- Oh claims the Boov have three methods of excreting waste. "Number 1" and "number 2" seem to be analogous to humans, but "Number 3", which they only have to do once a year, is evidently quite uhh...spectacular.
- Also, Almost Home has a mention of "Carnivorous unicorns, remember those?"
- No Ontological Inertia: Oh's invite will take roughly 40 hours to reach the Gorg, yet cancelling the invite immediately stops the signal even though it was mere seconds from reaching them.
- Obliviously Evil: Smek tells his people that humans are mere primitive animals, and the Boov honestly cannot understand why humans would have any complaints about being abducted from their homes and relocated to concentrated housing developments in Australia without so much as a by-your-leave.
- Overly Long Gag: The back and forth between Oh and Captain Smek with Oh pleading that he won't screw up again and Smek arguing there's a chance that he might.
- Papa Wolf: The Gorg tailing the Boov across the universe and laying waste to everything in their path was all a desperate quest to rescue his stolen children.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: A single beauty mark is sufficient to make Oh look like "a completely different Boov", to the point that its subsequent removal is treated as a Dramatic Unmask that results in one of the on-looking Boov fainting in shock. Still doesn't fool their security's facial-recognition software, though.
- Parasol Parachute: When Tip, Oh, and several other Boov crash through a cluster of open umbrellas, some Boov grab umbrellas to float themselves to the ground.
- The Password Is Always "Swordfish": The Boov (by order of Captain Smek) all use "Password" as their password. This causes a problem when Oh uses a long rambling sentence created with a mentality they cannot understand.
- Photo Montage: The credit sequence includes an epilogue montage of Oh and Tip and their friends and family. In one of the photos, Oh and Tip are reading a book with an illegible title but the distinctive cover design of The True Meaning of Smekday. Another photo shows Tip doing a book report for it—with the book's title clearly visible at the top—on her computer.
- Phrase Catcher: Where Oh's name comes from: he is so disliked that if someone recognizes him they just groan "Oh" in annoyance.
- Priceless Paperweight: Captain Smek silences other Boov by hitting them on the head with the rock on the end of his "shusher wand". We later discover that the "rock" contains the entire next generation of Gorg, which is the true reason the Gorg has been chasing the Boov.
- Playing Possum: One of the Brain Boov suggests pretending they are dead so the Gorg will leave them alone. She continues pretending even at the end of the film.
- The Pollyanna: The Boov are described as an "overly optimistic, yet inept, alien race".
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Tip gives one to Oh for what his species have done to Earth, after he tried to get her to come with him for safety. Tip also tells him his people are not even his family.
- Running Gag: Early on, the Boov are shown throwing away anything they don't understand the purpose of and leaving them in floating spherical piles. We continue to see more of these over the course of the film, including accordions, umbrellas, statues, and picnic tables.
- Rushmore Refacement: The Boov manage to reface pretty much every monument with a face, on top of levitating them all. All the monuments are put back and restored once the Boov make peace with the humans.
- Shout-Out:
- When the Slushious blasts away from the gas station, it leaves a license plate spinning on its corner a la Back to the Future.
- The five-note vocalized intro to Feel The Light is reminiscent of the five-tone musical phrase used by the UFO in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
- Sinister Geometry: The Gorg mothership and its drones resemble a bunch of giant, spiky pyramids stuck together, while the Boov colony ship is basically a giant sphere.
- Slapstick: Typically Oh is on the receiving end of this.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: The song "Red Balloon" by Charli XCX plays during the Boov invasion of Earth, which sees all of humanity abducted and displaced from their homes while the aliens overrun the cities. Then again, from the Boov perspective it's quite fitting since it's quite a peppy and fun song (and the sequence does involve a lot of things floating up like balloons).
- Space Brasília: Happy Humans Town looks like a repetitive suburb.
- Spell My Name with a "The": The two prominent alien species are called The Boov and The Gorg. It's literal in the latter's case, as there is only one of them.
- Squashed Flat: Pig gets flattened against a car window.
- Stating the Simple Solution: After the Brain Boov thinks up ideas as creating an Alternate Universe where the Gorg don't exist and Playing Possum, one of them suggests accessing Oh's e-mail account and deleting the message. Unfortunately, it wasn't a case of The Password Is Always "Swordfish".
- Strange-Syntax Speaker: The Boov (especially Oh) regularly mix up tenses, verbs, nouns, and English grammar in general with phrases like "Can I come in to the out now?" and "It should to hover much better now."
- Super Not-Drowning Skills: Oh spends several hours underwater at one point. Presumably, so can the other Boov. In the book, the Boov had been an aquatic race until recently in their history, hence the diving skills.
- Toilet Humor:
- Oh uses a toilet scrubber — with water from the same toilet— as a tongue scrubber.
- Oh drinks "a bowl of lemonade" in a gas station's bathroom.
- Ugly Cute: When Smek shows the Boov footage of a human baby, they recoil in disgust and horror... except for Oh, who remarks "Awww, they're so ugly they're cute!"
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: During an attempted peace conference with the Gorg, Captain Smek ran and grabbed a small rock on the way out, placing it on his "shusher wand." It is later revealed that the rock actually contains the next generation of Gorg, which is the true reason the Gorg has been chasing the Boov.
- Vichy Earth: Boov ocuppy Earth at the start of the movie.
- Visual Pun: At the party during the end of the movie, Kyle has a cocktail glass with a screwdriver in it.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Smek makes his last appearance in the movie when he gets run over by the Boov who congratulate Oh for being made the captain. He briefly returns at the end of the movie when he parties with other Boov on the moon.
- Worthless Yellow Rocks: The Boov gather all the articles they consider useless in spherical piles floating in the sky. Among the items given this treatment are cars, bicycles, trashcans, toilets and in Paris, statues and monuments.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Captain Smek convinces the Boov that humanity will be perfectly fine with being relocated so that the Boov can take their homes. As Oh later sees, this is very much not the case. As the Boov are rushing back to their ship, the humans are seen chasing them out.
