Semiquincentennial Movie Project #7: Explorers

 

 

 

The Semiquincentennial  Movie Project is an ongoing celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. During the course of this project your humble blogger is choosing a movie a week to represent each of the 50 states in the Union, as well as a movie scheduled for 4th of July weekend that will represent the nation's capitol, Washington D.C. The order of the weekly entries will coincide with the order of each state's entry into the fold (although, not necessarily coinciding with the date of their entry into said fold).

 

 

 

Week #7: Maryland -

 

The state of Maryland was established on April 28, 1788

Details about Maryland:

State bird: Baltimore oriole

State flower: black-eyed Susan

State tree: white oak 

Additional historical trivia:

Francis Scott Key wrote the poem that eventually became the national anthem while observing a battle in the Revolutionary War from a ship in Baltimore harbor.

The official state sport of Maryland is jousting. (Really! Would I lie to you...?)

The state flag of Maryland (pictured above) is the only state flag based on British heraldry.

Elijah Wood, a native, created the ouija board (and thus was peripherally responsible for The Exorcist)

Famous people born in Maryland: John Wilkes Booth (assassin of Abraham Lincoln), Babe Ruth, Robert Duvall, Frank Zappa, Tom Clancy and Spiro T. Agnew (Vice-President under Richard Nixon) 

 

Explorers (1985): 

Children in sci-fi settings became a huge thing in the early 80's. Thanks (or blame, depending on your viewpoint) to Steven Spielberg and his huge E.T. the Extraterrestrial, children focused science fiction movies became a big thing in Hollywood, although to varying success. Trying to mine the gold that Spielberg found with his mother lode proved to be a difficult project. In the space of 8 years after the release of E.T we got several movies featuring pre-teens or teens in sci-fi and fantasy settings,  the likes of which included  Flight of the Navigator,  D.A.R.Y.L., Back to the Future, Wizard, The Last Starfighter,  and SpaceCamp in sci-fi settings, as well as kid-centric fantasies like Labyrinth, The Neverending Story, The Goonies and The Monster Squad.

The movie opens with Ben (Ethan Hawke) fast asleep and dreaming of flying over a circuit board that reminds me of nothing so much as the virtual world in the movie Tron. When he wakes up he hurries to his desk to sketch out a part of his dream, a diagram of the circuit board. Even though it is 3am, he calls his best friend, Wolfgang (River Phoenix), who is some sort of child prodigy... (and if you are having trouble picturing River Phoenix as a nerd, you and I are in the same boat...)

 

The next day at school Ben is getting the crap beat out of him by the school bully, Steve (Bobby Fite).  A fellow classmate, Darren (Jason Presson), jumps in to help Ben and as a result gains an initially unwanted friend. All three are sort of outcasts, and thus in terminology of the day, "nerds". Thus the three naturally develop a friendship.

 

Wolfgang has been hard at work trying to program the stuff that Ben gave him. (Firstly, let me point out what may be a nitpick. Wolfgang is working with a primitive, by today's stands, 128K computer. You have to suspend any disbelief that what he accomplishes here could even be done with that limited capacity of power, but then the whole movie does require some suspension of disbelief in order to watch, so...) Wolfgang creates a self-contained sphere, but then the computer starts working by programming itself.

 

 Eventually the three make the sphere big enough that they can crawl inside of it, but with limited oxygen, they can only stay in it a short while. But dreams to the rescue because Ben has another dream that night which solves the oxygen issue. Now they can actually use the sphere and navigate it around. To which they include making a seating arrangement by building a spaceship out of junkyard parts, which include a left over seat from a carnival Tilt-A-Whirl.

 

Thus seated in the Tilt-A-Whirl and surrounded by the sphere the three take off. among their first encounters is a jet that investigates this "U.F.O." Charlie (played by Dante film regular Dick Miller) gains a particularly strong motivation to investigate. (Charlie essentially becomes the comic relief in a movie that already had comedic elements, but...)

 

Eventually the kids make it into space and then the weird stuff starts to happen. Something takes over the computer controls and the boys are suddenly rocketed into deep space, where it appears aliens have commandeered the fledgling ship. And here's where it really gets weird... For the next 20 or 30 minutes the kids interact with the aliens, whose primary form of communication seems to be using stuff from old TV and radio shows.

 

It turns out that the aliens way of learning about Earth had been from intercepting the broadcasts of American TV and radio. (Just so you know, from a scientific standpoint, those broadcasts continue on indefinitely in a straight line after leaving Earth. But the question that comes to my mind is why only American TV? Didn't they intercept any signals from the other nations?) 

(As a side note: One of my favorite science-fiction authors, Jack L. Chalker, wrote a short story "Adrift Among the Ghosts" which had a similar theme. In that story an alien who was convicted of a crime is sentenced to a life in space collecting some of these old radio and TV signals for posterity in the alien's own society. Check out Dance Band on the Titanic which collects the entire short story output of a prolific novelist, but only rarely short story writer.)  

The comedy of this part is relentless, but at some point the boys are finally able to communicate with the aliens on some level. But you get the idea that these aliens are a couple of rocks short of a riot.

It turns out that these particular two aliens are not the ones in charge. And they aren't exactly supposed to be playing around with the controls of the spaceship they are on.

I'll leave it at that for now. 

Explorers had several unfortunate details in it's history that made it a less than stellar box office bonanza. For one thing, it was released only a week after Back to the Future and we all know what a blockbuster that one was. Secondly, it was also released just the day before the broadcast of the first Live Aid. 

The film ran into several problems during it's production. One of the excuses for it's slapdash finish was that the studio told Dante to wrap it up forthwith because they wanted to release the film much earlier than planned. A director's cut of the film was never released primarily because much of the footage that could have been used was lost or no longer available. It was not the film that the director wanted to release, so much as the movie the studio demanded on a shorter timetable, then.

The hurried release as well as the competition from movies still in the theater as well as those released shortly after (In addition to Back to the Future, Cocoon was still in the theaters, and E.T. The Extraterrestrial had been re-released) served to help sink it. It only managed to make about half of it's budget back while in theatrical release. 

Rotten Tomatoes currently holds the movie as "48% fresh". A blurb on the website claims that "Despite dazzling effects, a terrific young cast, and tons of charm, Explorers fails to soar past its '80s kiddie flick competitors." That cast, by the way, was full of first or early castings. Ethan Hawke and River Phoenix made their feature film debuts here. Both Amanda Peterson and Jason Presson had appeared in a couple of TV movies, but were also first timers in a theatrical release. Robert Picardo, who most people will recognize as The Doctor from Star Trek: Voyager got an early role here too, although you won't recognize him... he was the alien Wak and Wak's father. But he was also the character "Starkiller" in the movie playing at the drive-in when the boys fly by, so you might recognize him there...

Explorers  did not have the profound effect that people behind the scenes hoped it would have. It comes off a lot like a knock-off of a classic Spielbergian kids movie, and even the soundtrack has that feel. Jerry Goldsmith, the multi-time nominee for Oscars in the category of music, did the honors, but even that feels like something from a Spielberg movie.

Still, all in all, it's not a bad movie At least, not until they actually meet the aliens... I thought that part was a little ridiculous and a bit too long. I wish I could see the movie that Dante originally wanted to make. I have warm feelings for Gremlins and Matinee, and his segment in The Twilight Zone: The Movie ("It's A Good Life") is not at all bad. 

Well folks, until next time drive safely.

Quiggy