- published: 12 Jun 2011
- views: 145100
Explorers is a 1985 American science fiction fantasy family film written by Eric Luke and directed by Joe Dante. The film stars Ethan Hawke, River Phoenix (in their film debuts), and Jason Presson as teenage schoolboys who build a spacecraft to explore outer space. The special effects were produced by Industrial Light & Magic, with make-up effects by Rob Bottin.
Rushed into production, the film was never properly finished. Dante revealed that the studio demanded that he stop editing and rush for a July release where it was overshadowed by the Live Aid concert. Despite being a box office flop upon its release, it attracted a cult following when it was later released on VHS.
Ben Crandall experiences vivid dreams about flying through clouds and over a vast, city-like circuit board...usually after falling asleep watching old sci-fi films (The War of the Worlds is a favorite). Every night, upon waking from the dream, he draws the circuit board. Ben shows the sketches to his friend, child prodigy Wolfgang Muller. At school, Ben develops a crush on Lori Swenson - but he isn't sure whether it's mutual. Both boys meet punkish-but-likable Darren Woods, with whom they share their circuit board-concepts. Wolfgang builds an actual microchip based on Ben's drawings. The chip enables the generation of an electromagnetic bubble which surrounds a pre-determined area. As the boys discover, the bubble is capable of moving at near-limitless distances and speeds without the usual ill-effects from inertia. They construct a rudimentary spacecraft out of an abandoned tilt-a-whirl seat; they name their ship the Thunder Road, after Bruce Springsteen's song of the same title. Their experiments with the Thunder Road draw attention from the US Government, which sends agents to scout the area for unidentified flying objects.
Ben Crandall, an alien-obsessed kid, dreams one night of a circuit board. Drawing out the circuit, he and his friends Wolfgang and Darren set it up, and discover they have been given the basis for a starship. Setting off in the ThunderRoad, as they name their ship, they find the aliens Ben hopes they would find... but are they what they seem?
Keywords: adolescence, adolescent-romance, alien, alien-contact, boy, boy-genius, boy-with-glasses, bully, bullying, cat
Wak: Look, I know I must look weird to you but how do you think you look to me? Listen, I watched four episodes of "Lassie" before I figured out why the little hairy kid never spoke. I mean, he rolled over, sure, he did that fine but, I don't think he deserved a series for that.
Ben Crandall: [to Steve Jackson, a school bully] Elephantitis is when something gets bloated and ugly like your ASS.
Ben Crandall: [stuttering, astounded at the violent film footage] But thi - see, this isn't real! A-a-and we don't really kill people! Well, we do, b-but n-not aliens, 'cause we haven't met any!
Ben Crandall: He's about to say something.::Wak: [in Bugs Bunny's voice] Ehhhhhhhhhhh, what's up doc?::Ben Crandall: [long pause] What?
Darren Woods: [about "beings" on other planets] Maybe it's a bunch of Amazon rainforest women that wanna breed a new race.::Wolfgang Müller: You pervert.
Ben Crandall: I've waited all my life to say this.::Darren Woods: Be my guest.::Ben Crandall: We come in peace.
Wak: Way to go, stupid!
Starkiller: Bloodshed is my life.
[last lines in the film]::Ben Crandall: If this is all a dream, what's gonna happen when we wake up?::Wolfgang Müller: I don't know, but I can't wait to find out.
Mr. Müller: [to his son's "talking" rat] "Shut up, Heinlein!"
This old mountain side
Where we used to reside
Is slowly recalling
The things we discovered inside
Oh the crystal caves
We shed both our jackets
And I hammered brackets
From old metal chairs
To the walls, a crude set of stairs
To lead us down
And you tied a rope
To the steepening slope
A jerry rigged harness
So we could descend in the dark
But the tide came in
And we found ourselves in the sea
Deep under water
We both found that we could still breathe
So we spent the day submerged
And we swam the evening away
The water was clear
Like the pure atmosphere
As we kicked and fluttered
Through caverns all cluttered with age
In the afterglow
We swim hand and hand
Over white satin sand
And you left a ribbon
To honor the pale gibbon moon
But that was years ago
And we never came up for air
Down there
We can go anywhere
The old world was dying
While we took our flying
Like peregrine falcons
Beneath the transparent blue waves
Far below the surf
And we spent the hours
With submarine flowers
I knew I'd remember
That day in November
As we
Felt alive again
Cuz we found ourselves in the sea
Deep underwater
We both found that we could still breathe
So we spent the day submerged
And we swam the evening away