You cannot watch this movie without thinking back to Indiana Jones, Disney's Atlantis, and Avatar the Last Airbender; but the movie is a direct homage to the exotic explorer genre. On another level, it is a reframing of Disney's Brave, a less than successful story about the intergenerational trauma of a child living up to and/or rejecting a parent's expectations and repairing the damage to their relationship.

Strange World fails to deliver on the human story. The characters conversations and behaviors are too abrupt, like the Cliff Note version of human interaction:

• Dad, I don't want to be an explorer. I like plants.
• Fine, I'll abandon everyone here and that will be the end of this conversation.

The visuals reference Avatar: Legend of Kora for city and character design; and the blue space Smurf version for the fantastic visuals of the wilderness. Imagination runs wild in the visual design, which annoying sounds like R2D2 knock offs.

The plot hits you over the head like an anvil, which like the blue space Smurf movie, ruins so much of the magic.