A sarcastic humanoid duck is pulled from his homeworld to Earth where he must stop an alien invasion with the help of a nerdy scientist and a struggling female rock singer.A sarcastic humanoid duck is pulled from his homeworld to Earth where he must stop an alien invasion with the help of a nerdy scientist and a struggling female rock singer.A sarcastic humanoid duck is pulled from his homeworld to Earth where he must stop an alien invasion with the help of a nerdy scientist and a struggling female rock singer.
- Awards
- 5 wins & 4 nominations
Chip Zien
- Howard T. Duck
- (voice)
Holly Robinson Peete
- K.C.
- (as Holly Robinson)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaAccording to reports at the time of the movie's release, George Lucas had just built the $50-million Skywalker Ranch complex, and was counting on this film to get him back in the black. When it bombed, he was forced to start selling off assets to stay afloat. His friend Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple Computer, offered to help by buying Lucasfilm's newly-launched CGI animation division for a price well above market value. Lucas, in dire straits and thankful for the assistance, agreed. That division eventually became Pixar Animation Studios.
- GoofsPalm trees in Cleveland, Ohio.
- Quotes
[Together in bed, Beverly seducing Howard]
Howard T. Duck: [flustered] I've got a headache...
Beverly: And I've got the aspirin!
Howard T. Duck: Be gentle.
- Alternate versionsIn the UK two cuts totalling 46 secs were made to secure a PG rating. One is of Lea Thompson pulling a condom out of Howard's wallet, the other is of the bad guy sticking his tongue in a car cigarette lighter socket to recharge himself. The scene with the condom was left intact on the film's television premiere on the BBC. Although the cuts were fully restored in 2008 for the 12-rated Metrodome release the same company reissued the film later in the year with a PG certificate, and this release lost 52 secs of cuts to photo shots in a sex magazine and a scene where Howard works in a sleazy sauna parlour.
- ConnectionsEdited into Nostalgia Critic: Max Payne (2019)
- SoundtracksHunger City
Performed by Lea Thompson, Dominique Davalos, Liz Sagal, Holly Robinson Peete (as Holly Robinson)
Produced by Thomas Dolby
Written by Thomas Dolby and Allee Willis
Featured review
Transported
Sometimes a film is bad in uninteresting ways, so you are doubly cheated. Truly bad films are a special pleasure for me because they allow you to examine your limits in ways that the cozy ones don't. And when they relax in competence, sometimes you can fill the voids and create your own success outside the lines.
Even when things get the bleakest, you can fall back on wondering how you could fix the thing. What is the shortest path from this failure to a film that works. Usually in this game, there's the task of removing what offends and then exploiting the one, usually one device that could reward.
The reward here is the one that "Napoleon Dynamite" "Igby Goes Down" and a host of John Hughes movies exploited, the notion of a familiarity with unfamiliarity. Something deeper than different. Its the one thing that Marvel comics understood and they hammered at it from all sides. If they were a political party, they'd be in and dealing with human needs instead of finding war.
So the potential reward is uninteresting, as uninteresting as political dialog.
Where does this thing go wrong? The answer is uninteresting in the extreme, I fear. In matters like this, you count on the filmmaker or writer to have a sense of place in the humor. Sometimes it doesn't have to actually be funny, but if that place is well founded and presented with confidence, then you go along for the ride.
In fact it may even be better that way: that's why people like Ed Wood so much. Corman. The thing knows what it is and lives. This is a collection of glancing hits. None of the arrows stick. No one found a groove.
There is one interesting scene. We know that our savior is a girl so the salvation will be through sex. And we also know that she is a performer so that the construction of the thing will have her "show" Howard how to perform in the play that is his little life.
So we have a sequence where she discovers a condom in his wallet. Then she teases him with her dancer's body and he responds. They commit to sex, at which point the story turns, the inner stage substituted for the outer.
If this film worked, if it had been presented with confidence even, that one scene could be on my list of the great ones. Its a great, deep idea, worthy of the guy who wrote "American Graffiti" and the best Indiana Jones movie.
Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.
Even when things get the bleakest, you can fall back on wondering how you could fix the thing. What is the shortest path from this failure to a film that works. Usually in this game, there's the task of removing what offends and then exploiting the one, usually one device that could reward.
The reward here is the one that "Napoleon Dynamite" "Igby Goes Down" and a host of John Hughes movies exploited, the notion of a familiarity with unfamiliarity. Something deeper than different. Its the one thing that Marvel comics understood and they hammered at it from all sides. If they were a political party, they'd be in and dealing with human needs instead of finding war.
So the potential reward is uninteresting, as uninteresting as political dialog.
Where does this thing go wrong? The answer is uninteresting in the extreme, I fear. In matters like this, you count on the filmmaker or writer to have a sense of place in the humor. Sometimes it doesn't have to actually be funny, but if that place is well founded and presented with confidence, then you go along for the ride.
In fact it may even be better that way: that's why people like Ed Wood so much. Corman. The thing knows what it is and lives. This is a collection of glancing hits. None of the arrows stick. No one found a groove.
There is one interesting scene. We know that our savior is a girl so the salvation will be through sex. And we also know that she is a performer so that the construction of the thing will have her "show" Howard how to perform in the play that is his little life.
So we have a sequence where she discovers a condom in his wallet. Then she teases him with her dancer's body and he responds. They commit to sex, at which point the story turns, the inner stage substituted for the outer.
If this film worked, if it had been presented with confidence even, that one scene could be on my list of the great ones. Its a great, deep idea, worthy of the guy who wrote "American Graffiti" and the best Indiana Jones movie.
Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.
helpful•108
- tedg
- Apr 19, 2006
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Languages
- Also known as
- Howard
- Filming locations
- Petaluma, California, USA(Petaluma River is used for almost all waterway scenes, with takeoff from Western Avenue)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $37,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $16,295,774
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $5,070,136
- Aug 3, 1986
- Gross worldwide
- $37,962,774
- Runtime1 hour 50 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1
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