Explorers
(1985)
Looking at Explorers in the cold light of nearly 30 years hence, it’s hard to
fathom that it was ever seen as a potential hit. This is a movie that
deliberately undercuts the unabashed awe at the universal unknowns found in Spielberg’s
mass audience-pleasing Close Encounters
of the Third Kind and E.T. The
Extra-Terrestrial. A young protagonist whose science fiction-fuelled
imaginings receive a deflating reality check when he finally encounters alien
life; it’s the antithesis of the ‘berg’s life-affirming fantasties. The aliens are no more than a green-skinned
reflection of kids the world over; shallow, pop culture-obsessed and borrowing their
father’s car for a joy ride. Paramount no doubt hoped Joe Dante’s irreverent
streak, which had translated into box office gold with Gremlins, would attract the same audience. But, further muddling
the tonal mix, the director treats his trio of juveniles with complete
sincerity.
Paramount gave Joe Dante the chance to do
what he wanted with Explorers; Gremlins had just become a huge hit for
Warner Bros (his previous film, The
Howling, also did decent business), so this Spielberg “protégée” was surely
a sure thing? Well, no. As Dante’s career has repeatedly proved, he is just
that bit too offbeat for mainstream
audiences. Gremlins was that elusive alchemy
of his anarchic, live-action cartoon sensibilities and dark, grisly material
(much more so in Chris Columbus’ original script). Paramount would have been
better to bank on fellow Spielberg endorsee Robert Zemeckis, whose Back to the Future cleaned up the same
summer that Explorers floundered.
It seems that Eric Luke’s script had been
knocking about Hollywood for a number of years before Dante picked it up. Wolfgang
Peterson intended to direct at one point, but his desire to shoot in Germany
put the kibosh on that plan (presumably, this explains the name of River
Phoenix’s character). Reputedly, Spielberg lifted E.T.’s flying bicycles from Luke’s first draft (so it was reworked
to include the junkyard spaceship). Dante commented that it was a solid script
until the third act, which fizzled. Once the kids got into space they “go and play baseball and go home”. Given
the reaction of audiences (those who bothered to investigate it in the first
place) to the pop culture angle the director developed with Luke, maybe the
original would have been more palatable. Dante notes that he thought it was
funny but the public didn’t. Arguably, there’s an issue here in respect of
consistency of tone; perhaps it was foolhardy to embrace a radically different
“reveal” of alien contact.
How the whacked-out third act would have
fitted with the spiritual themes the director also wished to explore is probably
another strike against it. Dante said that, far more prevalent to his original
vision, was the idea of the “world mind” (this is tentatively explored in the
shared consciousness the dreaming kids and Dick Miller’s remembrances of
childhood dreams). Dante wanted something more cerebral, and notes that the
last five minutes in particular bear the bruises of an attempt to fix the
“message” into something approximating his intentions.
The issues that came with rewriting the
script whilst the movie was in production were exacerbated when the studio
changed hands. Suddenly the release date was brought forward, with the result
that the filming schedule needed to accelerate. Then, at a certain point in the
editing, the edict came just to stop and put the thing out. As a result, Dante
refers to the picture as a rough cut. At one point he had a three-hour
assembly, and he never had the chance to hone it as he would have liked. He
refers to the result as a movie he likes but not the movie he wanted to make.
The ramshackle fortunes of the production may go some way to explaining the
different cuts of the film (the DVD features two deleted scenes that were in
the cinema release, and the (lucid) dream ending with Ben finding their
spaceship Thunder Road in his classroom was added). Dante has said several
times that there is little chance of a preferred cut of the film materialising;
the extant footage appears to have been lost.
There’s a definite sense that, when the
film is no longer earthbound, Dante embraces something closer to the spirit of Gremlins 2 than the optimistic childhood
fantasy of what has gone before. The force that has entered the dreams of Ben
(Ethan Hawke) and made his meditations of alien worlds seem like a reality, proves
a massive disappointment in the flesh. The film opens with Ben flying over a
circuit board landscape. When he sketches it for science geek pal Wolfgang
(River Phoenix), the whizz feeds maps it out in his 128k Apple computer. Which
then starts programming itself and summoning into existence a small globe (the
proportions of which can be altered, such that it becomes the outer shell of
their spacecraft in due course).
This kind of vision quest isn’t a million
miles from the strange fascinations thrilling Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters. Ben has an expectation
of wonderment fulfilled. So he cannot disguise his disappointment when a couple
of cartoonish aliens are revealed as the culprits behind the
psychic/subconscious messages he has received. The aliens are even more
exaggerated versions of the comic cliché of the green-skinned monster we see in
The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
(both TV and film versions). But Adams’ work showed its cards as a comedy from
the outset. Ben’s disappointment mirrors that of many viewers; Dante goofs off,
and the magic ebbs away. It’s what he did with The New Batch, where those expecting the dramatic core of the first
movie were left wanting.
It’s a curious experience to be told to be disappointed (effectively,
if we are empathising with Ben). Even as Picardo larks about in his alien suit,
Ben can express only halfhearted enthusiasm for his antics. So, even if you’re
on board with Dante’s gear change, there’s a hesitancy involved in fully
embracing it.
One might suggest that the intentional
nature of Ben’s disappointment exempts the film from criticisms of failing to
engage with the audience. And I can see that argument. But, if you’re watching
a murder mystery only to discover that the victim committed suicide two-thirds
of the way through, you’re likely to feel a little short-changed. I don’t feel
cheated by Explorers, I hasten to add.
I think that, if there’s a problem, it’s that Dante hasn’t sufficiently
reverse-engineered the structure so that the first two acts are more coherent
with the third.
In
spite of its allusions to hope and magic at the end, Explorers is basically saying there isn’t much wonder out there.
It’s all the same the universe over. Kids are kids, parents are parents and the
imagination is just that. Ben’s view of the world is filtered through his love
of science fiction, so he expects the aliens to be amazing. In turn, the aliens
expect everyone from Earth to be whacky and crazy and to hate aliens because of
their diet of film and TV transmissions (including The Day the Earth Stood Still). Thematically, it works, but tonally
it is at odds with a child’s expectation of stupefaction and astonishment.
Darren: How’d you get into this
stuff?
Notably, it’s the diffident, not wholly
engaged Darren (Jason Presson) who becomes the de facto face of how best to
integrate these conflicting impulses. Earlier in the film he shows faint boredom
with the fancy globe tech but, faced with stand-up comedian aliens, he is
entertained. His character is the one with the troubled home life (“Guess he didn’t get that job”, he notes
of his father), the street-smart kid who never dreams and who defends his nerdy
friends from school bullies (there’s little that’s original in the
characterisations, although the performances of the young cast are never less
than engaging). He has no desire to spend after school time with Ben until he
hears his father arguing at home. His attitude to the alien technology is not
unlike Corey Feldman’s waning interest in Gizmo in Gremlins. Even allowing for low boredom thresholds, I’m not
completely convinced by their numbness to the fantastic. Darren seems like an
ideal role for Feldman (and perhaps Dante wanted him; most likely he was
working on The Goonies at the time).
The set up of the film wouldn’t be out of
place in a Spielberg movie, which is likely why he was (supposedly) circling it
at one point. Nostalgic dreams of childhood (with a token gesture to reality
with bullying and troubled domestics) are the director’s bread and butter. And
it starts out looking similar to numerous ‘80s kids’ movies; the ensemble
brackets it with the likes of The Goonies,
Stand By Me and The Lost Boys. The first part of section of the film is amiable but,
like the film as a whole, it has no fire in its belly. There is little sense of
threat or conflict; even the investigation by pilot Charlie Drake (Dick Miller)
is benign. This further testifies as to why the film didn’t catch on. It’s not
a thrill ride, it’s a quirky, difficult to categorise adventure fantasy and the
failures of those are ten-a-penny. I certainly don’t buy the excuse that
opening against Live Aid damaged it; audiences just weren’t interested.
Apparently the first act was originally
much expanded. There were more scenes with Ben’s mum (Mary Kay Place, looking
like she’s just stepped out of The Big
Chill – which, near enough, she had) and scenes with his brother. Judging
by the “finished” film, these excisions were wise, as the movie desperately
needs any narrative drive it can get. Ben is the central of the trio; you can
tell, as he’s given the love interest (Lori, played by Amanda Peterson). Dante
delivers a peeping tom scene with none of sleazy undercurrents seen when George
McFly spies on Lorraine in Back to the Future. When Ben, ensconced in his
bubble, stares at Lori through her bedroom window, it’s supposed to be rather
sweet. Neverthless, it’s Wolfgang’s family who are serviced with the most
screen time out of the supporting humans (“It’s
not his fault, his parents won’t let him change it” notes Ben of his
Christian name).
Heinlein: I… want… my… cheese.
The reasons are easy to see. James Cromwell
and (a hilarious) Dana Ivey play Wolfgang’s parents, presiding over a household
that this isn’t so far from the invention-laded Peltzer home in Gremlins. Dante’s distinctions between
the kids are clear; the mundane (Ben), the disturbed (Darren) and the eccentric
(Wolfgang). Dante has stuffed the Müllers’ basement with science fiction comics
and novels, but the most striking feature is the mouse Heinlein (name after author
Robert, no doubt)
Heinlein: Go… to… hell.
Heinlein can speak by placing his feet on
the keys of a Casio organ; we hear him requesting food, or uttering oaths, in a
voice owing much to the commissioners of the Earth in Douglas Adams’ books. You
can see that the director would be quite happy spending hours doodling about in
this abode.
Dante is never happier than extolling the
weirdness behind the veneer of suburbia; he’s a jovial, Looney Tunes satirist
who makes his insight into the flipside of Americana no less distinctive than
the more celebrated David Lynch. This domestic milieu is usually a safe one
(only The Hole breaks with this); decent
but uncomprehending adults who lack the vitality and insight of their
offspring. The threats usually come from without. In this case it is limited to
classmates, but in other Dante fare we see the atomic bomb (Matinee), subversive gifts (Gremlins, Small Soldiers), all man of creepies and crazies (Eerie, Indiana) and even just dodgy new
(foreign) neighbours (The ‘burbs). Where
the danger is pre-existing (Darren), Dante does not intrude on it and make us
uncomfortable.
The hill above the town gives a bird’s eye
view, and it is no less cosy and welcoming from that vantage point. Dante would
give his affection for the suburbs full vent in the TV series Eerie, Indiana, but the closest he gets
to the spookier side of kid’s fantasies here is the shafts of smoky sunlight
gaping through trees as the kid’s take a shortcut home (Dante’s DP, John Hora,
first worked with him on The Howling
and they regularly collaborated up until Matinee).
Ben: It feels like a dream,
doesn’t it? It’s all so perfect.
As mentioned, it’s the utter sincerity with
which he depicts kids that distinguishes them from his pictures with adult
protagonists. Explorers shares this
with Matinee, Small Soldiers and The Hole.
Ben is blessed with an unaffected naivety, such that it seems almost cruel when
the director pulls the rug from under him.
Ben: If this is all a dream, then
what happens when we wake up?
Wolfgang: I don’t know, but I can’t
wait to find out.
The conclusion seems to backtrack on this.
With the Thunder Road submerged and the aliens grounded it seems that the
adventure is over. Then we see them lucid dreaming again, this time joined by
Lori. They are joyous, flying among the clouds. But haven’t they done this
before? Isn’t the reality of what happens when they wake up a disappointing
encounter with TV-obsessed aliens? The spiritual theme is shown to be empty and
the soaring soul is punctured.
Dante didn’t discuss further how he would have
liked to express his ideas but, as it stands onscreen, the kids’ enthusiasm for
further forays into space seems more like the longing for a junk food fix
(hanging out with joy riding teenage aliens) than a prelude to mind expansion. Pierre
Teilhard de Chardin’s noosphere, or World Mind, which Dante intended to
expound, asserts, “no evolutionary future awaits anyone except in association with
everyone else”;
evolution leads to psychic connection between all humanity, and ascent towards
consciousness and God. It’s an attractive theory, but one that is undercut by
Dante’s third act choices.
Ben: That was the most important
thing that ever happened. Can you feel it? That feeling way inside? What do you
think? We should trust the dream, right?
Before we reach space, Dante meanders
unhurriedly with his storytelling. The trio investigates the properties of the
sphere; first in the basement lab as it shoots holes through Wolfgang’s
collection of paperbacks; then, up on the hill, Wolfgang is transported through
the air in a larger version; greater still, they finally take flight in their
botched together “spacecraft” on a night flight over their town.
It’s during this sequence that they
encounter a helicopter piloted by Miller’s Charlie Drake. Miller’s a likable
constant in Dante’s movies, although I feel he may be a little miscast here. He
doesn’t fully deliver the pathos of lost dreams that Drake is about (maybe it’s
a consequence of the cutting of scenes featuring him; Dante says that much of
Miller always ends up excised). Still, when he witnesses the craft set off for
space his “Nice going, kid” contains
the wistful recognition of what he was never able to experience.
It’s surely Dante’s intention (muffled) to
inform us that the kids only make this (evolutionary) leap because they do it
as one. Following their test flight, and brush with Drake, Wolfgang and Darren
are somewhat disaffected. The quest might end there (as I said, I’m not
completely convinced by this; it would be like the kids in Chronicle not bothering to use their special powers any more). It’s
only because they too take to the
skies in a joint lucid dream that their determination is renewed; the nascent
noosphere is expanding among them. Drake was willing to make such a leap, but
he was ahead of his time. With no one to take the journey with him, his
potential went untapped.
Ben: I’ve waited all my life to
say this. We come in peace.
Even before they meet the goofball aliens,
the spaceship environment suggests something less than exotic. Darren notes, “It smells in here” (he made the same
comment of Wolfgang’s basement). There’s no sense of grandeur (indeed, the
swirling dry ice nestling around metallic objects seems like an oblique visual
reference to the rather awesome crashed ship in Alien). Ben still hopes against hope, even when confronted by an
alien.
Ben: It’s probably not English.
It’s probably just an alien language that sounds like English.
Dante regular Robert Picardo, who also
plays Starkiller in the earlier Drive-In movie sequence, plays Wak. As with
Gizmo and the rabbit in The Twilight Zone
movie, Wak, his sister Neek (Leslie Rickert) and their father (Frank Welker,
who supplied Dante with Mogwai and Gremlin voices the year before) are cartoons
made flesh (or prosthetic). They’re hyper-stylised versions of ‘50s bug-eyed
monster, shoved through a Chuck Jones machine.
Wolfgang: They know all about us, from
watching this stuff.
As Wolfgang says, they get all their
information about the world from TV shows. It’s a cackling riff on the
omniscient alien force, wise beyond human potential.
Ben: But this is just the movies.
This isn’t the way we really are.
Wak and Neek also think humans hate aliens,
on the reasonable evidence of The Day the
Earth Stood Still. Indeed, James Cameron would double back and present a
very serious-minded (does he have any other mode?) version of Explorers with The Abyss Special Edition. Here, Ed Harris is shown the suffering
and devastation inflicted by humanity as the aliens enact a Day-style conflagration of poised
tsunamis across the planet.
Ben: Your people have been
visiting our planet since ancient times, and now you’re checking up on us.
Right?
Every assumption that Ben, and science
fiction novels generally, have of aliens is mercilessly poked by Dante. These
aliens haven’t even visited Earth because of the germs (a nod to the deus ex
machina ending of War of the Worlds,
of which Dante shows clips).
Wak: Germs. Germs. They can cause
colds, bad breath, diarrhoea. Germs that flourish in your family bathroom.
Wak’s only interested in showing off to the
kids he’s just met, while his sister is predictably obsessed with boys
(Wolfgang comments, “She’s incredibly
intelligent. Besides, she kind of likes me”). And, before you know it,
dad’s arrived to send the kids home (Ben:
You stole your dad’s car?). He’s a
giant semi-silhouetted figure with hands for ears shouting and raving (Darren: Boy, and I thought my dad was tough), “Wolfgang? Wolfgang? Who the hell is Wolfgang?”
Wak: We didn’t even get to tell
you the secrets of the Universe.
Yes, Dante even rubs it in! As if these
unruly youngsters had anything profound to say. This is the kind of post-modern
riffing that infuses much of Dante’s work, parody suffused with
self-reflexivity. But it’s nothing new to the comedy arena; we see it in
everything from the Marx Brothers to Bob Hope. Dante can’t resist; it’s such a
rarity in a movie world where, outside of crappy spoofs, verisimilitude is the Holy
Grail. All-importantly there’s a presiding intelligence over the way Dante uses
it. In the original theatrical cut Wak broke the fourth wall during the credits,
noting that audience members were still in the cinema because he could smell
the popcorn (see also the film projector “breaking down” in Gremlins 2).
Wak: Listen, I watched four
episodes of Lassie before I figure
out why the hairy kid never spoke.
The visuals during Waz’s routine are Dante
at his delirious best, a fuzzy cascade of static and TV/film footage as Wak mimes
and struts. The bombardment of references is too effusive to list, but includes
the likes Mr. Ed, Tarzan, Bogart, W.C. Fields and Little
Richard.
Dante is at bliss in his own playground
when give a chance to vent his encyclopedic film knowledge. His movies are, at
very least, always a pleasure for their in-jokes. Ben’s instructions for the
alien device parallel Dr. Meacham’s in This
Island Earth (Ben has just received a video tape of the film). He compares
the alien’s brain booster to a device in Forbidden
Planet. One of the kids pretends his torch is a light saber. Arriving on
the spaceship we hear “They’re he-re”
(Poltergeist). The kids attend Charles M. Jones High School.
The newspaper read by Miller not only references the classic explain-away of
UFO sightings (“UFO Scare? Or Just Swamp
Gas?”) but Gremlins (“Kingston Falls “Riot” Still Unexplained”).
Intentional or otherwise, imagery also suggests
genre movies of the same era. The circuit landscape evokes the recent TRON, the Peter Pan/Superman flying
sequences also parallel Gilliam’s fantasy escape in Brazil, and the junk spaceship recalls a much more benevolent
version of alien life to The Thing.
But Dante has most fun with his Drive-In
movie, Starkiller. The director would
scratch his homage itch to even greater delight with MANT! in Matinee, but here
he nails the so-bad-it’s-a-scream crappiness of these movies. Anyone familiar
with the average reaction to a space opera will appreciate Wolfgang’s uber-geek
dismissal (“Explosions in space? It’s
impossible”) or the reaction of an audience member to the Thunder Road
flying by the screen (“That looks so fake”).
Here’s a selection of choice Robert Picardo dialogue:
Starkiller: Bloodshed is my life.
Starkiller: Now is the time for
destruction!
Starkiller: May the power be with us, if
they attack again. What they will not touch, I will conquer.
Starkiller: Burn in hell, alien maggots.
You shall not possess out women, slime-bred vermin!
And:
Starkiller: He was like my father. Do
you see what I mean?
Girlfriend: He was my father.
This was a prestigious production, with ILM
furnishing the effects. Generally they hold up, with only the occasional flight
shot selling the illusion short. The helicopter encounter is particularly
impressive. And regular Dante composer Jerry Goldsmith contributes an
expectedly good score, traversing wonder and parody depending on the scene.
Both Hawke and Phoenix make their movie
debuts. Hawke had never acted before, and wasn’t even auditioning. He brings a
nervy innocence that would be seen to more pronounced effect in Dead Poets Society. Phoenix’s geek is
atypical casting; Dante has recounted how cool kid River was akin to Clark
Kent, slipping out of his natural persona. Presson is also very good, but
appears to have given up acting in the late ‘90s. Dante regular Picardo,
possibly seen to best effect in the director’s subsequent film Innerspace, improvised many of Wak’s
lines.
Dante observed that an episode of Amazing Stories did a similar plot to Explorers in only half an hour.
Certainly, when I revisited the movie one of my thoughts was that the twist of
the third act is very similar to the sort of thing you’d expect from an
anthology series. Stretched to feature length. Yet recognising the failures of Explorers is no impediment to savouring
its successes. As ever with Dante, there’s a uniqueness of vision and joie de
vivre that are irresistible. It may have been a miserable experience for him
making Explorers, and it may be that
his big theme goes under-developed, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a movie willing to take a comparable trajectory. That a major studio picture changes direction
and tone so completely is something of a miraculous feat. You’re slightly
stunned that he was enabled to do that. It’s both Exporers’ strength and its weakness.
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