Explorers (1985), dir. Joe Dante, Paramount Pictures
Last year we looked at Joe Dante's last full length feature but before we close the book on him, I thought it only fair to look at some of his other offers that we overlooked throughout the years. Explorers was such a film, and it might have been a vision of things to come regarding his career.
Ben Crandell (Ethan Hawke) is your typical daydreaming kid. One dream, however, sticks out. Ben is zooming through clouds before they break and he finds himself hovering a vast almost circuit board like structure.
He finally draws what he sees and shows said drawing to his best chum Wolfgang (River Phoenix), local boy genius. There's also Ben's crush Lori (Amanda Peterson) and local punk with a heart of gold Darren (Jason Presson). Wolfgang builds the microchip and with Darren's know how, they end up building a ship out of a carnival ride and dub it Thunder Road.
Because if you're going to make a star ship, why not name it with some style?
With their ship complete, the kids soon blast off to explore outer space, because that's why. They've just broken free from Earth's atmosphere when the ship is taking over and delivered to alien twins Wak and Neek (Robert Picardo). What are the kids to do?
Not a whole lot. Seriously, this is about thirty minutes of plot stretched out to feature length. It would have made a fine pilot or episode of Amazing Stories or the new Twilight Zone but there's no twist, no real lesson. The kids essential take a car out for a joy ride then go home. There's whimsy and 80's kids going on adventures, yeah but those other films had spectacle, sport, and at least some danger.
Disappointing all around and from most accounts it didn't end filming so much as stop and they edited together what they had already shot. Might explain a few things.
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