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, although it did better in video rentals and DVD sales. It has gained a cult following among fans of Dante's work, as well as science fiction fans and those who feel it is an overall family friendly movie.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

This film blends some elements of E.T. 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. The dreams include flying about a giant version of the circuit board. They quickly discover that, by creating a sealed bubble that can be remote-control steered and can force open the ground, it allows space travel.

The first bubble is made in their workshop, and is about 3 inches diameter, and makes holes in anything that it goes through.

Their next experiment is away from town. The bubble was about 5 feet diameter and formed around one of the boys and gave him a scary unexpected flight.

The three build a home-made spacecraft out of an amusement ride seat (a "Tilt-A-Whirl"), with windows from washing machines and televisions. Darren names it the Thunder Road, after the Bruce Springsteen song. Their first flight results in property damage and a close call with the police, and a UFO report in a newspaper. They do not 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.

Their next flight was better prepared, and included three breathing apparatuses: air or oxygen cylinder(s) (which were not seen), supplying through (with two of them) a thin transparent hose to a small medical mouth-and-nose transparent oxygen mask, and (with the other) a wider single corrugated black hose to a scuba diving full face mask of the type with two flat eye windows and an inner mouth-and-nose mask.

They embarked on an adventure deep into outer space. An alien spaceship shows up and scoops up the boys' spaceship. In it the boys encounter some oddball but friendly aliens (Robert Picardo and Leslie Rickert) who are enamored with TV and radio signals they can pick up.

A bigger spaceship shows up and scoops up the aliens' ship. The boys fear that it is space pirates, but it proves to be carrying the aliens' father and that the previous aliens were children. One of the aliens gives the boys a flat round device about 4 inches diameter which they can use to bring back memories of there they have been. The father alien reprimands the alien children and sends the three Earth children home.

At the end the boys' spaceship lands in a harbor and sinks, but the boys swim to land safely.

[edit] Trivia

The film includes several 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.
Writer Eric Luke has a cameo as a schoolteacher.
Although Robert Picardo received the actor credit for the father alien, his voice was actually provided by Frank Welker.
The main 'human' characters in the film attend Charles M Jones Junior High School. This is the full name of Chuck Jones, a famous figure in the annals of animation's golden age. Dante has referenced or alluded to classic Warner Bros' cartoons in many of his films. Jones made a cameo appearance in the same director's Gremlins (1984).
During the first season of the TV show Sliders, the Fox network used Jerry Goldsmith's theme for this movie during its promos at the end of the program ("Next week on Sliders...").
Some of the aliens resemble Vogons from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
In one scene, a copy of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe can be seen on Ben's desk.