Starkillers

We didn’t see Explorers (1985) because it’s a kids’ movie, and we didn’t even watch E.T. Also, I’m not sure about how it got released - the story seems to be that the studio took it away from Joe Dante before he’d finished special effects. I think he has disowned the movie, but we kind of liked it.

It stars teenaged Ethan Hawkes, who dreams he is flying over a city/circuit board. He wakes up and calls his young genius friend River Phoenix over the walkie-talkie to give him the details. At school, Hawkes is bullied, and little but tough Jason Presson draws them off. They walk home together, and when Presson hears his father, a junk hauler, fighting with his girlfriend, they decide to go see Phoenix.

Phoenix lives in a sort of crazy house, with a bohemian earth-mother mother, scientist father, out of control siblings, and a basement lab. In this lab, he has made a circuit based on Hawkes’ dreams. It generates a bubble force field that crashes around the lab. They eventually figure out that they can sit inside the bubble and go anywhere at any speed. They build a ship in a junkyard based on a Tilt-a-Whirl car and go to the drive-in to catch the flying saucer creature feature.

It’s kind of a side plot, but somewhere around here, a police copter piloted by Dick Miller and Meshach Taylor spots them. At least it gives Dante a chance to use his lucky character actor Miller.

In the last act, we find out where these dreams come from - SPOILER - aliens. Two goofy looking blue aliens who tend to talk in TV cliches. Of course, they learned English from TV broadcasts. They get along pretty well with the kids - the femme one with the kissable lips and Marilyn Monroe affectations in particular seems to be going for Phoenix. I’ll skip the twist, but give you a hint - it was used on Star Trek: TOS.

I liked the first two acts with the kids more than the aliens. They were a little too goofy and obnoxious. The subplot about Hawke and the girl who he has a crush on (Amanda Peterson) isn’t that great, but that’s kind of what you have to expect.