Kyle Chandler's 'E.T.' Replacement Sci-Fi Hit Is Officially Streaming Free

Published Sep 12, 2026, 12:08 AM EDT

Lloyd ‘Happy Trails’ Farley: the man, the myth, the legend. What can be said about this amazing - and humble - man that hasn’t been said before? Or, more accurately, what can be said in public? Born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, Lloyd is a master of puns and a humorist, who has authored one pun book to date - Pun and Grimeish Mint - and is working on a second. His time with Collider has allowed Lloyd’s passion for writing to explode, with nearly 1,000 articles to his name that have been published on the site, with his favorite articles being the ones that allow for his sense of humor to shine. Lloyd also holds fast to the belief that all of life’s problems can be answered by The Simpsons, Star Wars, and/or The Lion King. You can read more about Lloyd on his website, or follow his Facebook page and join the Llama Llegion. Happy trails!

Kyle Chandler, who first rose to fame with the 1996 CBS series Early Edition, is capturing viewer attention again with his unconventional turn as Hal Jordan in Lanterns. But it’s not his first foray into the sci-fi genre, with a prominent role in the MonsterVerse franchise as Mark Russell in Godzilla: King of the Monsters and Godzilla vs. Kong, and a far, far less prominent one in the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still. Most notably, three years after the latter (and 15 years before Lanterns), Chandler starred in Super 8, an underappreciated, Spielbergian sci-fi masterpiece that sees Chandler at his best. And it’s currently streaming for free on Pluto TV.

It’s 1979 in Lillian, Ohio, and Deputy Sheriff Jack Lamb (Chandler) and his 14-year-old son Joe (Joel Courtney) are left to mourn the death of wife and mother Elizabeth in a workplace accident. It’s a death that should never have happened in the first place, with Elizabeth called in at the last minute to cover the shift of co-worker Louis (Ron Eldard), who called out with a hangover; Jack places the blame for his loss squarely on Louis’ shoulders. Joe, meanwhile, opts to remember his mother by tenaciously holding onto a locket carrying a photo of her and himself as a baby.

Four months pass, and Joe’s friend Charles (Riley Griffiths) has gathered Joe and four other friends, including Louis’ daughter Alice (Elle Fanning), to take part in the zombie movie he’s making for a Super 8 film competition. But while filming one night at a train station, they capture footage of a pickup truck crashing head-on into an approaching train, derailing it and forcing the teens to run. After the chaotic moment has subsided, they look around and find crates filled with strange white cubes. Peculiar, but so is the fact that the driver of the truck is their biology teacher, Dr. Woodward (Glynn Turman). Despite his grave injuries, he points a gun in their direction and warns them to forget what they saw. With that they flee, just as Col. Nelec (Noah Emmerich) and his Air Force convoy descend on the location.

The friends would be glad to forget what they saw, but with strange things happening around town, Joe and Charles look at their footage and notice a large, alien creature escaping the train amid the mayhem. Worse yet, the creature has abducted Alice along with a number of other town citizens. The crew are determined to rescue Alice, so they break into Dr. Woodward’s trailer to see if they can find out what they’re up against.** What they discover is mind-blowing**. Dr. Woodward used to be a government researcher, and in 1963, he was called on by the Air Force to experiment on an alien whose ship, composed of the white cubes they found, crash-landed on Earth. During the experiments, the alien connected with Woodward psychically, convincing him to help it escape, an effort that was thwarted by Nelec. Now, after years of being held captive, the alien is free, and seemingly intent on exacting revenge on humanity. How can a group of teens possibly save the day?

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