This is my entry in the Classic Literature on Film Blogathon hosted by Silver Screen Classics.
The
science fiction world would be a lot smaller without the classic trope
of alien invasions. I am not sure what qualifies as the very first
example of "alien invasion" in literature, but wikipedia lists a couple
that pre-date the H. G. Wells classic The War of the Worlds.
Neither is one I had ever heard of, however. The most intriguing of these antecedents is one titled The Germ Growers by Robert Potter, which I didn't have time to read prior to this post, but the link above looks to have the text. I will give it a go when I have time. The gist seems to be that aliens, who are able to look like humans, are busy trying to grow a fungus that will eliminate the Earth of that pesky infestation of humans so they can take over the planet.
The one that the majority
of you will have ever come into contact with, however, is the Wells book.
Written in 1898, it involves an invasion of Martians on Earth who are seeking better living conditions. As Wells states in his first chapter, Mars has gradually become inhospitable due to the fact that it is a dying planet; "the light and heat it receives from the
sun is barely half of that received by this world", he says, and "we know now that even in its equatorial region the midday temperature
barely approaches that of our coldest winter."
So, with greedy eyes cast sun-ward to their nearest neighbor, they see a planet that has a better climate and is more conducive to life that they really want. And since the Martians are far more technologically advanced than their neighbors, they have the means necessary to take the planet by force. (Some analysts of the Wells novel think that War of the Worlds is a critical comment on the idea of imperialism; that the higher technologically advanced race has a sort of "God given" right to dominate over a lesser race.)
The first half of the novel involves the coming of the Martians and their unprovoked attack on Earthlings. Being far more superior in firepower it is fairly easy for them to wreak havoc on the natives. It later becomes apparent that the Martians are not going to be satisfied with the elimination of humans; they are also going to harvest them for sustenance.
Eventually, spoiler alert!, the Martians are defeated, not by humans, but by the one thing that the Martians did not count on... common bacteria to which the humans are mostly immune... the common cold!
The problem, when it came to trying to put the classic novel to film, was that technology advanced to a point where, except for being able to traverse the vastness of space in reasonable swiftness, much of the Martian technology that Wells envisioned for his Martians eventually became a reality. For instance, the "death ray" in the novel is not entirely dissimilar to laser technology we have today. And the mechanical tripods that the aliens were able to employ against a "horse and carriage" are like child's play today in a society that now has tanks and jet airplanes, etc.
The first movie to try to make the novel come to life solved the problem by transposing the events from early 1900's to mid 1950's. (It was made in 1953). This is the classic story, more or less, except that, in addition to updating the Earth's technological capabilities and the still more advanced alien technology, the setting is transposed from England to California. While there are plenty of references to the novel, including an introduction that basically echoes the opening of Wells' story, the changes tend to date the movie just as much as the original novel.
That's pretty much the downfall, in my opinion, of any of the subsequent attempts. It's still a little early, I admit, to say that the Spielberg version from 2005, starring Tom Cruise, is dated at this point in history, but I feel sure if humanity survives for another 50 years it will look as quaint as the 1953 version does to us today.
Note: as often happens, there was a direct-to-video knockoff that came out the same year starring C. Thomas Howell. And, as much as I loathe Tom Cruise as an actor, I have to admit that the big screen theatrical version is miles ahead, not only in story, but also in special effects. (Those Martian machines in the Howell version just made me "howl" {pun intended})
The thing is, if you film a classic novel in it's original milieu you are much more likely to get a thumbs up from me. As I have stated before, my favorite Sherlock Holmes films are ones that have Holmes firmly entrenched in his gaslight and hansom cab Victorian era setting (the BBC Sherlock is an exception to that feeling). So, it was attractive to me when I came across a British made film that purported to stay true to the original novel. Coincidentally (or maybe not), this version also appeared at the same time as the Spielberg film.
The story itself is, to be honest, quite close to the novel. It does take place in the Victorian era. There are several instances where some minor details are changed, but none that really detract from it for a purist point of view. There are several points that do make this a less than stellar output. For one thing, often the special effects look like they were done on a miniscule budget. The aliens in particular, although looking quite a bit like I would envision them by the description that Wells gives them, don't particularly look all that well made.
And occasionally one or more of the actors seem like they were just cast because they "looked" the part, without having the necessary acting chops to pull it off. (In particular, I think Jack Clay, who played "Oglivy" was pretty laughable. His IMDb page seems to play that out... this is his only film. Was he he friend of the director or something? To his credit he was an acting teacher... maybe his career as an actor was limited to the stage).
Recently Amazon Prime released a new version starring Ice Cube. Unfortunately I have not been able to watch it, but it has garnered a slew of disparaging reviews. One reviewer called it "truly morally icky", which you know is enough of an incentive for me to give it it a try someday... It almost completely swept the Razzies for 2025, winning in all the categories for which it was nominated except one. (Ice Cube and his camera lost the Worst Screen Couple award to the seven dwarves in Snow White).
If you are looking for great special effects, my opinion is go with the Spielberg version (which had a bigger budget to work with than the 1953 version). If you are looking for great acting. then stick to the 1953 version. I'll take Gene Barry over Tom Cruise any day... But if you'd like to see a version that sticks to it's source material, you can't go wrong with the British version.
Above all, however, if you have never read the source novel, what are you waiting for? It's a classic.
Well, time to fire up the old Plymouth and head home. If there is still a home to go to. I just saw something flash in the sky over to my East...
Or are you one of those people who will accept as "truth" anything the government tells you because "why would the government lie to me", and thus dismiss the idea of extraterrestrial visitations outright? Maybe you are an incredulous denialist who refuses to accept anything that would fly in the face of a cherished belief or worldview.
Today is World UFO Day, a day that was established to focus on efforts to "raise awareness about the undoubted existence of UFO’s and with that intelligent beings from outer space." Any open-minded investigation into the phenomenon would bring questions, such as just what are people seeing out there. It's surely true that much of it could be explained away with such things as weather balloons or "swamp gas", but occasionally those simplified explanations have to be manipulated to make them work.
This has led to a variety of ever more stronger (and stranger) efforts to discredit the idea that alien life forms are making frequent visits to our planet. One of the ones that intrigue me the most is the idea, proposed by fundamentalist Christian writers, that these "aliens" are actually a vanguard of demons under the auspices of Satan, with the goal to deceive humans. See UFOs and the Alien Agenda by Bob Larson (a guy whom I consider to be nothing more than an overrated "witch hunter". Larson got his start by demonizing rock and roll, but be that as it may. Truth be told, he kind of looks like an alien to me anyway...)
As I have previously stated else where on this blog, the July 2 date for World UFO Day was established to commemorate the famous UFO crash in Roswell, NM. That incident was the inspiration behind the 1980 film Hangar 18, as well as the focal point for one of my favorite episodes of the TV series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, both of which are appearing today on the blog.
The TV series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was the third live action iteration of the classic space series, and is probably my favorite of the franchise. (There was an animated series that appeared between the cancellation of the original series and The Next Generation series, so technically ST:DS9 would be the fourth series, historically). As far as it's staying power, it lasted 7 seasons, as did Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager. With 174 total episodes it only ranks second in number of episodes, behind ST:TNG (at 176 episodes), and was very popular during it's run. (ST:V had 172 episodes).
The main reason, BTW, that I prefer ST:DS9 over ST:TNG was the rarity of the appearance of a Betazoid on ST:DS9. I don't shy away from stating that I absolutely hated the Counselor Troi character on ST:TNG. Although not the actress... I just hated the concept of an empath race... "I sense pain...intense pain". She must've been reading MY mind.
Star Trek Deep Space Nine "Little Green Men" (airdate Nov. 4, 1995):
Ever the suspicious and distrusting sort, Quark has the shuttle checked out by Rom. Somewhere along the way of the series Rom, who was originally just an employee in Quark's bar, gained some extensive technical knowledge of spaceships. By this episode I guess he was fairly competent enough that Quark trusted him to give the shuttle a good going over. Rom declares the ship in perfect condition. So Quark volunteers to use the shuttle to take Nog to Starfleet Academy on Earth.
Hitting the road
But Quark isn't doing this because he has a heart of gold. Rather he has decided to use the opportunity to make a little money on the side. He is smuggling a batch of illegal kemacite, which he intends to sell at a substantial profit. (See? Quark's heart is in the right place after all, as any good capitalist...)
A problem occurs when, while trying to bring the shuttle out of warp, there is a malfunction. Or sabotage, as Quark concludes, since he and his cousin are not exactly buddy-buddy in the first place. Rom figures out if they use some process involving part of their illegal contraband they can manage to pull the shuttle out of its warp. The problem is that they end up traveling through a time warp and end up in 1947... On July 2, specifically... Near Roswell, NM... (You can see where this is going, can't you?)
Communicating with the aliens
The rest of the episode plays out like a comedy of errors. The 1947 military figures on hand try to figure out how to communicate with the aliens, as do our Ferengi visitors. The aliens, coming from a time when advanced technology has given them tools that are not a part of the current timeline, have what are called "universal translators", but they are malfunctioning, so neither can understand each other. But Rom is able to fix the problem.
Problem solving
Side note: The universal translator as depicted in the Star Trek franchise is one of those things that come off as "it works: we don't have to explain it:.. it just works". Thus, instead of having to have the 1947 Americans have their own universal translators, the device makes whatever the Ferengi say in their own language come out as English to the Americans. Quite a bit of the technology of Star Trek was just a device "invented" to overcome a plot problem or even a TV budget problem. Such as the "invention" of the transporter. That was just implemented because the budget for the TV show wouldn't allow for frequent shuttle craft landings on planets. If you are curious about the physics of Star Trek, I recommend an excellent book: The Physics of Star Trek by Lawrence M. Krauss.
Eventually these suspicious (and obviously overly wary "Red Scare" adherents) are convinced that these aliens are going to go over to the other side (a.k.a. the Russians). Of course, the clueless Quark is not helpful, by threatening to deal with the Russians if these Australians ("Americans!" "Whatever...") don't want to play ball... Which leads to the military to use tactics that are not Geneva Convention approved to get the aliens to conform to their own way of thinking.
Can we try waterboarding instead?
Fortunately for the Ferengi, Odo (Rene Auberjonois) has smuggled himself onboard the Quark shuttle. See, as head of security on Deep Space Nine, Odo doesn't trust the motives of Quark. The two are not exactly good friends in other words. (Truth be told, I'm not sure Quark has any "good friends"...) So Odo hid on board the shuttle and is now in the same predicament of being stuck in the past.
Odo and Quark
Odo, by the way, is a shapeshifter race of aliens, which means he can become whatever the hell he wants to be to blend in. On Earth he starts out by shifting into the form of a dog. Not sure what form he took to conceal himself on Quark's shuttle, unless he hid out as some kemacite in the ship's hold.
Nice Odo! Down, boy!
With his help, and the help of a couple of sympathetic non-military humans, Professor Carlson (Conor O'Farrell) and Nurse Garland (Megan Gallagher), they are able to escape and use the now repaired ship.
Carlson and Garland
Unfortunately for Quark and his greedy ambition, they have to use the remaining contraband to open another rift in time to get back to their present day. There is still another connection to the actual events in the historical Roswell incident: When one of his subordinates asks what they are going to do, the general in charge, General Denning (Charles Napier) replies "About what, Captain? All we ever found was a crashed weather balloon..."
General Denning
As I have stated on numerous occasions, I really like when a serious dramatic TV show strays into comedy. Star Trek The Original Series and ST:DS9 both did this with the Tribbles episodes. The humor for this one relies on being able to accept that aliens did really crash at Roswell, but I doubt that without the efforts of Shimerman, who really was a pretty funny guy in the episodes he appeared in on DS9, that this could have been quite as funny.
Some of the other actors are pretty standard cardboard characters, however. I cringe at the interplay between O'Farrell and Gallagher, who are engaged to be married. I realize it is meant, in retrospect, as a parody of a trope that was common in the 40's and 50's movies, but it comes off a bit stale. A funnier pairing of a married couple could be found in The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, a 2001 parody of classic 50's sci-fi movies.
Get a room for crying out loud!
Charles Napier, however, is a treat, no matter what kind of character he plays. Here he is also doing a parody of a standard gun-ho "America first" military man, but I like his character and his performance. And he could do comic and serious roles both with equal panache. In The Blues Brothers he was a hoot as the leader of the country western band that is one of the title characters' nemeses. And in Rambo: First Blood Part II, he was sufficiently despicable as the military big wig who sends Rambo into Vietnam to look for missing prisoners of war. This was Napier's second appearance in the Star Trek Universe. Previously he had played Adam, referred to in reviews as a "space hippie", in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "The Way to Eden".
The "space hippie"
There is that underlying subplot that drives the story of "Little Green Men". Quark, being the essence of an unscrupulous capitalist, sees latinum (the monetary form used in the Star Trek Universe) out the wazoo and possibly even ruling the planet because of the lack of advanced technology on 1940's Earth. (The Man Who Would Be King, anyone?) But Quark is due for a lesson in the "my country, for better or worse" mentality of the 1940's military.
As an avowed fan of Quark, who gets way too much hate from some sectors of the fan base (kind of like those people who dislike Wil Wheaton's Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation), I enjoy episodes where he is featured. And probably for the same reason that that fan base dislikes them: i.e. the Ferengi were used often for comedic relief. Admittedly I sympathize with one objection. There does seem to be a tinge of antisemitism with the portrayal of the characters. But that leads to a question... if the Ferengi characters are antisemitic caricatures, then why were most of the actors who played them Jewish? It doesn't seem to me that they would if they felt the characters were such.
As far as where "Little Green Men" ranks in lists of best episodes of the series, it is ranked fairly well, considering the number to choose from. Den of Geek is probably the most generous, ranking it #20, and Bjorn Munson ranks it #42. Most of the other lists I looked at had it at least in the top 50, so maybe there are more comic relief fans in the Star Trek Universe than there are haters.
The year of 1980 was my transition year in terms of theater experience. I turned 18 late in 1979 and, after I graduated high school in 1980, I gained an independence. No longer did I have to have my parents permission to go to the movies. I missed out on anything that came out before the summer of 1980 since I was still in high school and still under the parental thumb. But beginning in about May of 1980 I was in a theater pretty much at least once every two weeks.
Unfortunately, I was limited to only what was showing locally, since Dallas-Ft. Worth theaters were a minimum of 75 miles away.. We had only one multiplex, with only four screens, and two drive-ins, each of which had two screens. That meant at the maximum I only had 8 potential movies to choose from at any time. Of course, if it was a big draw, sometimes the multiplex had two screens dedicated to the same film. I remember specifically that The Empire Strikes Back occupied two theater screens at the multiplex during it's initial run.
The upshot was that a lot of movies never made it to the "boondocks" that I called home. Being a rabid science fiction fan at the time, I have no doubt that I would have gone to Hangar 18 if it had appeared in a theater near me, but it didn't. I don't even recall seeing a trailer for it.
I have always wanted to see it, however. Apparently it wasn't seen by a whole lot of people at that. Rotten Tomatoes ratings, for instance, are based on contemporary ratings of critics at the time. Their rating of 40% Fresh is a result of only 5 contemporary critic reviews. If so few critics even saw, how wide spead was it's distribution in the first place?
Just last month I was browsing the stacks of used DVDs at the local Half Price Books and happened upon a copy of the film, so I snagged it, thus giving me the opportunity to have it play at The Midnite Drive-In. As for whether it was worth the 45 year wait... read on.
Hangar 18 (1980):
I'll start off with a tidbit of trivia. The director of Hangar 18 was also the director of the above reviewed episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. I didn't know that when I planned out this pairing, but it's a nice little bit of coincidence.
The movie was produced by Sunn Classic Pictures, the same people who gave us such classic documentaries as In Search of Noah's Ark, In Search of Historic Jesus, Beyond and Back and The Lincoln Conspiracy, all beloved films of my childhood. They were also behind the movie and subsequent TV series The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams. Mostly known for family oriented films in the 70's, it also was responsible for the production (although not the distribution) of two Stephen King movies, Cujo and The Running Man. (Just my opinion, but that transition to more adult oriented films may be what contributed to their decline. The studio only lasted for 8 years after it's first attempt at a non G-rated film, Hangar 18. By then it had been acquired by Taft Communications, which is also now defunct).
"In spite of official denials, rumors have continued to surface about what the government has been concealing from the American public at a secret Air Force hangar. But now, with the help of a few brave eyewitnesses who have stepped forward to share their knowledge of these events, the story can finally be told."
-from the opening of Hangar 18
Thus begins our story. The film is tangentially the story of the Roswell incident. There are many things that diverge from the story as it played out historically, however. Even a neophyte knows that there wasn't even a space shuttle in existence in 1947, but the movie starts out with that premise. And that's where the whole thing starts to get a little tricky (and, you might say, unbelievable...)
Shuttle
What's "unbelievable", you might ask? No, I'm not referring to the whole concept of alien life forms. I am referring to an incident that happens aboard the space shuttle. The space shuttle is about to launch a satellite, but the crew on board see a strange sight. An object that should not, theoretically, be there (in other words, a UFO). But instead of aborting the launch they go ahead with it. Surely even if the space program was in bad financial straits, the logical thing would have been to abort and call the astronauts back. Even the base notices the odd "blip" in the neighborhood back at base.
The launch goes on as planned, but the satellite crashes into that UFO. And worse, one of the astronauts (listed in the credits as Judd Gates, but called by the President as "John Gates"...), who happened to be outside the shuttle trying to make sure the launch goes off as planned, gets decapitated. The reaction of the remaining shuttle crew, Steve Bancroft (Gary Collins) and Lew Price (James Hampton) is almost like "Gee! He's dead... Oh. well. Let's go home..." And, believe it or not, they just leave the body out there to float in space for eternity.
The third astronaut loses his head
Despite the somewhat incredibly unlikely scenario of the opening 10 minutes, the film does manage to start getting better as it progresses. It gradually morphs into what we expect from a government conspiracy and coverup film.
The first thing is that somehow that satellite ends up causing enough damage to the UFO to make it crash land on Earth. It crash lands somewhere in Arizona. General Morrison (Philip Abbott) sends a key figure, Harry Forbes (Darren McGavin), to coordinate the efforts to check out the landed spacecraft. This whole thing spells trouble from the outset, because, coincidentally enough, there is an election coming up just around the corner. What's going to happen to the President's re-election campaign if this news gets out?
Harry Forbes
That becomes more clear when the General calls White House Chief of Staff Gordon Cain (Robert Vaughn) who immediately tells the General that he doesn't want to talk about over the phone and to get his ass to Washington, pronto. Meanwhile, a civilian who saw the thing land has brought a local sheriff to the scene, but all traces of it are gone.
Gordon Cain
That's because the powers that be are on the ball. They moved it to Hanger 18 on a base in Texas (yeah, I know... Area 51 is supposedly in Nevada. So basically the film is covering it's ass so they don't just disappear off the face of the Earth for exposing the "truth"...)
UFO
The weasel in the cornfield, to put it bluntly, is Cain. Cain intends to do everything he can to cover up this situation. At least until after the election. Citing the bad press that another politician got when he reported seeing a UFO, he suggests keeping it quiet. But there are still the astronauts who saw the UFO. What to do about them? Why, it's simple. Make them scapegoats. The political bigwigs have the newspapers print a story that blames Bancroft and Price for the death of Gates.
Bancroft and Price have proof of the real story, however. The tapes of the launch. Uh huh, not so fast. The bigwigs have covered their butts on that too. They altered the tapes, erasing any of the conversation about the sighting and everything else.
Price and Bancroft
At the base Harry brings Phillip Cameron (Tom Hallick), an expert to check out the spaceship along with a small crew of specialists. Meanwhile, Bancroft and Price head to a remote area where they hope to find real proof of what happened. In other words, they think that maybe, just maybe, because of it's remoteness the government may not have gotten around to altering their tapes of the event.
The film jumps back and forth between these two events. On board the space ship the investigators find the bodies of two aliens (who look a lot like rejects of an early incarnation of The Blue Man Group).
Alien
And at the remote base, with the help of a friend, George Turner (Michael Ruud), Bannister and Price find the proof that there really was something there.
Bancroft: George, can we have this tape, or a copy?
Turner: This is a Department of Defense operation. You guys couldn't get out of here with a coffee cup. If the brass even knew I let you in here, I could lose my job.
(I think "losing your job" is the least of your worries there, George...)
But they do get George to pinpoint the site of the crash and head off in that direction. Meanwhile, back in D.C. our evil government bigwig Cain learns of this. And that's not good news. At least it's not for Bannister and Price.
We are only a third of the way through this film, but now it's starting to gel into the trajectory that pretty much was part and parcel of the average conspiracy theory film. But believe me, there are some twists and turns yet to come. And not just the typical ones. You are going to drop your popcorn when you learn the past history of the aliens (if you haven't read Chariots of the Gods, at any rate...) I'm going to leave off here, because, despite how cheesy a lot of this movie is, I think that one reveal is well worth watching this movie just once. It is bound to stick with you.
Investigating the UFO
OK... just one more tantalizing bit... they find a human woman on the alien space ship, in suspended animation. She is still alive. (Now you're really intrigued... right?)
There are some parallels with this film and Capricorn One, a film that came out a couple of years earlier. In that film, in case you don't want to read the whole link above, NASA faked a Mars landing and everything went haywire, resulting in a cover up and the necessity to remove from the scene anyone who could expose the coverup. One thing that gets me: With all the people involved in the coverup, wouldn't that necessitate removing those people at some point? Kind of like the rumor/conspiracy that NASA faked the real moon landing. If it was really faked there would be a hell of a lot of people that needed to "disappear", don't you think?
Here's another thing to tantalize you. Those alien bodies that the crew found on board the spaceship... There is no credit anywhere in the websites I looked for who the actors were. Even people who were in movies that had no lines in the films can be found as "uncredited" appearances on sites like IMDb, but there is nothing, nothing anywhere that reveals who posed as the alien bodies. so, maybe they weren't human actors after all?
The reception of this movie by the critics generally dubbed it overly melodramatic and required a gullibility on the part of the viewing public. And there is a gullibility requirement, not the least of which is the idea that the only reason to cover up the landing is it might hurt the current President's chances of re-election. (That's the ONLY reason? Not that there are bigger threats to worry about than the Russians? Not that a whole foundation of religious history would be brought into question?)
Despite a somewhat lame tendency in dialogue, despite the pretty much standard B-movie plot, despite the fact that the special effects are pretty lame even for 1980 (that spaceship looks like it belongs on a sound stage for a rock opera, not as a viable interstellar Winnebago...) , this film is not all that bad. The aforementioned Capricorn One is a better movie over all, but this one was still entertaining for one watch. Not sure if I will ever watch it again, but I was entertained for the hour and a half I spent watching it.
That's all for now. Drive safely, folks. And watch out for those strange objects coming down from the sky. Or better yet, just ignore them, otherwise some guys in black suits might come looking for you...
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.
