The Ethan Green strip isn't the funniest thing on the planet but it's not Family Circle/Garfield bad. Given that it's been going on forever, there was plenty of material there to make a slim (80 minutes-ish, minus opening and closing credits) movie. The problem was that they picked the wrong material to make a movie from and the wrong actor to build a movie around. Daniel Letterle is just plain wrong for Ethan, he comes across as too nelly and too stupid, and his body type and hair coloring are also wrong. The rest of the performances are adequate or what you would expect from a low budget movie put together in a few weeks. Again, the problem is both the script and the direction. It's basically a bad, sitcom level plot strung together over a 2.5 episode arc to make it into a movie level movie.
Some of the other aspects in the movie (the interstellar romance Ethan has or the Hat Sisters) would have made a better full length feature, but the producers probably felt that what limited audience it could get would be with the hints of nudity and romance. Unfortunately, they just leave you cold, especially in this day and age when porn is so readily available and better romance can be viewed for free in short films on Logo, to name just one outlet.
Frankly, given that they were able to make something as unfunny as Queer Duck into an animated feature (which actually was helped by a full length story), it would have made far more sense for Ethan to also have been an animated feature and also would have allowed for far more opportunity for the more interesting aspects of the comic strip to be filmed.
Some of the other aspects in the movie (the interstellar romance Ethan has or the Hat Sisters) would have made a better full length feature, but the producers probably felt that what limited audience it could get would be with the hints of nudity and romance. Unfortunately, they just leave you cold, especially in this day and age when porn is so readily available and better romance can be viewed for free in short films on Logo, to name just one outlet.
Frankly, given that they were able to make something as unfunny as Queer Duck into an animated feature (which actually was helped by a full length story), it would have made far more sense for Ethan to also have been an animated feature and also would have allowed for far more opportunity for the more interesting aspects of the comic strip to be filmed.