Explorers (film)

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Explorers
Directed by	Joe Dante
Produced by	David Bombyk Edward S. Feldman
Written by	Eric Luke
Starring	Ethan Hawke River Phoenix Jason Presson
Music by	Brad Gillis Jerry Goldsmith
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date(s)	12 July 1985 (USA)
Running time	109 min.
Country	USA
Language	English
IMDb profile

Explorers is a 1985 science fiction, fantasy film targeted at a family audience. It was the first feature film for both River Phoenix and Ethan Hawke. The third young actor in it was Jason Presson. The story was written by Eric Luke and the film was directed by Joe Dante.

The film received an MPAA rating of PG. It was filmed in 70mm color with 6-track sound, and runs for 109 minutes. The special effects in the movie were produced by Industrial Light and Magic.

The film did not do well at the box office, owing in large part to being released on the same weekend that the Live Aid concert occurred.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

This film blends some elements of Contact with The Goonies and classic sci-fi films, as three young friends are drawn into a space fantasy adventure. The protagonists of this film are three neighborhood kids, Ben Crandall (Hawke), Wolfgang Müller (Phoenix), and Darren Woods (Presson). Ben is obsessed with aliens, and one night he has a dream about a circuit board. He proceeds to draw out the board; with the aid of the brainy Wolfgang, the three friends assemble the device. They quickly discover that, by creating a sealed bubble that can force open the very ground, it allows space travel.

The three build a home-made spacecraft out of an amusement ride seat (a "Tilt-o-Whirl"), with windows from washing machines and televisions. Darren names it the Thunder Road, after the Bruce Springsteen song. On their first flight (which results in property damage and a close call with the police), they don't really want to finish where the circuit board is taking them, so they reverse polarity (shutting the bubble off which allows in a fresh supply of air) and return to the ground. Better prepared, they proceed to embark on an adventure deep into outer space where they encounter some oddball, but friendly, alien children(Robert Picardo and Leslie Rickert) who are enamored with TV and radio signals they can pick up. The parent aliens show up and send the three Earth children home.

[edit] Trivia

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The film includes numerous segments from the George Pál version of The War of the Worlds.

At one point, the boys are watching a movie featuring a spacefaring hero named Starkiller. In the original Star Wars treatments, Starkiller was the surname of what would become known as the Skywalker family.