 | MOVIE #1,880 • 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 • 08.13.24 Another, less heralded film that I've still inexplicably never seen. This Gremlins follow-up features child actors Ethan Hawke and River Phoenix (in their first film roles!) plus another kid, who build a spaceship out of a tilt-a-whirl based on a design that they collectively dream up. It’s an uneven film until the final, spectacular act which makes the whole viewing worthwhile. I find it fascinating that Dante never wrote a single screenplay yet all of his films, despite their varying genres and tones, all seem to feature some thematic/meta connection related to media saturation and/or a self-referential ‘movie about the movie’ angle. You can see this going all the way back to his experimental cut-up The Movie Orgy, through (at least) his first ten features. There’s always something that aligns with this thread and the alien encounter in the third act here is as big and as bold of a nod yet… |
This idea of media as a living, breathing entity that gets inside you is perfectly displayed here in what at first glance is a really silly (but amazing looking) martian doing goofs. (Check out the IMDb Connections page to see just how many references there.) The entire design, look and feel of the outer space sequence is fantastic. I can definitely see how/why this has earned cult film status, even if it’s overall imperfect and one that Dante himself has called “not the movie I wanted to make.”
CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ MOVIE #1,879 - (YOU ARE HERE) - MOVIE #1,881 ⫸
⫷ MOVIE #1,879 - (YOU ARE HERE) - MOVIE #1,881 ⫸
Explorers is a 1985 American science fantasy film written by Eric Luke and directed by Joe Dante. The film stars Ethan Hawke and River Phoenix, both in their film debuts, and Jason Presson as young teenage boys who build a spacecraft to explore outer space. The special effects were produced by Industrial Light & Magic, with make-up effects by Rob Bottin. It was released on July 12, 1985.
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