EXPLORERS - The Wolfgang Petersen Version!

[AndyDursin]

Just watching the Shout Blu-Ray of this -- I had no idea (or at least had forgotten that) Wolfgang Petersen was going to direct this at one point. The Paramount guys and the writer toured the German studios where they were going to make it -- then they saw the work in progress screening of THE NEVERENDING STORY and felt it was going to be all wrong and "not American enough".

Good move. I have no idea what that movie may have been like, but a film grounded in American domestic life being shot in Germany -- especially given how "off kilter" THE NEVERENDING STORY felt -- would've been patently odd.

The disc is very worthwhile. Very problematic movie as we've talked about. Dante was a "director for hire" on this but it's worth noting the ending that didn't work was his idea. The original script had a ridiculous sounding ending also -- kids go to Mars and help the "good aliens" fight "bad aliens" -- or might have worked in a totally different film, one that WASN'T about the kids' journey. That's why the film is so frustrating, since the 2/3 that are about THAT work so well. Then it falls apart.

[Eric W.]

Agreed. The movie is great right up until the aliens show up. Goldsmith's score is a top one for me.

[Monterey Jack]

Am I the only one who isn't bothered by the last third of Explorers? I think it's a charming shaggy-dog joke of an idea, this trio of adolescent humans fumbling through their first encounter with an extraterrestrial intelligence, filled with almost-religious excitement at the prospect of meeting aliens...only to find out they're kids taking their dad's spaceship for a joyride! It deflates the audiences' expectations is a way that's more prankishly amusing than infuriating (at least for me), and Rob Bottin's tip-top makeup effects -- coupled with Robert Picardo's terrific performance(s) -- have always appealed to me. It would have been nice to have a bit more of a satisfying post-meeting denouement back on Earth (especially Ethan Hawke's crush on Amanda Peterson, an aspect of the film that's clearly half-formed and not satisfactorily resolved), but I find the movie entertaining throughout.

[AndyDursin]

I don't have an issue with the message of it -- Ethan Hawke sums up the appeal of the film very well in the main documentary -- it's the execution for me that fails so miserably. The tone shifts from something Spielbergian, optimistic and inspiring to really something that plays to the worst of Dante's Looney Tunes excessiveness. The aliens look plastic, unappealing and totally unconvincing. Like something you'd pass on a ride at EPCOT. Their comedy shtick is not funny in any regard. It becomes an obnoxious cartoon that was not at all worth the build up. Had the aliens been appealing, had the material clicked, it might've worked -- but I disagree with you, I don't think they were some of Rob Bottin's best work (at all). Which is a shame when the build-up was so good.

As you can see from the interviews on the disc, basically everyone involved hated it, from Dante to the Paramount executives, down to test audiences who signaled the movie was going to tank. This isn't a case where the audience "just didn't get it" -- there's a real sense of "we f----d this up" in the disc's interviews on the part of everyone involved.

I think the documentary is one of Shout's best in some time and nails it. Dante blames himself for how the film turned out -- and probably deservedly. He was a director for hire but he also had a 3rd act that was totally trashed, that needed reshaping from the get-go and the studio left it up to him to figure out. (I'm trying to figure out who WROTE that stuff). That was the biggest mistake. That he couldn't do it because he ran out of time and had no chance to fix it -- I mean you can really sense the disappointment in him in this documentary, which isn't something you typically see from him in other settings. He wanted to quit the film and leave it before it was finished!

The Paramount executives were also short-sighted to go into production knowing the 3rd act was a mess and even David Kirkpatrick, who was running things at the time, admits he was "intimidated" by Dante coming off his GREMLINS success. The inference is that Dante needed someone watching over him, and instead they gave him and Rob Bottin carte blanche -- and we saw how it turned out.

Very obviously had there had been more time and not a regime change at Paramount, that whole third act would've been jettisoned and reshot. Plenty of blame to go around, but the bottom line is that there were ways to get the movie's message across in a manner that didn't annoy and disappoint nearly everyone who watched it.

[Paul MacLean]

I'm not sure any director could have saved that script -- but I think a Petersen-directed Explorers would certainly have been more interesting. I find the film very mundane -- the whole "something amazing comes to boring suburbia" was a worn-out idea by 1985, and a Spielberg protege was not the best choice to "breathe new life" into a Spielbergian knock-off (shot on the same old back lots and San Fernando Valley locales).

Plus if Petersen had done this instead of Enemy Mine, it probably would have been scored by Maurice Jarre -- and that I would love to have heard. Goldsmith's score is solid and likable, but he was kind of falling back on a bag of tricks (Star Trek / Supergirl-esque fanfares, Legend's synth sounds, etc.)

[Eric W.]

Am I the only one who isn't bothered by the last third of Explorers? I think it's a charming shaggy-dog joke of an idea, this trio of adolescent humans fumbling through their first encounter with an extraterrestrial intelligence, filled with almost-religious excitement at the prospect of meeting aliens...only to find out they're kids taking their dad's spaceship for a joyride! It deflates the audiences' expectations is a way that's more prankishly amusing than infuriating (at least for me), and Rob Bottin's tip-top makeup effects -- coupled with Robert Picardo's terrific performance(s) -- have always appealed to me. It would have been nice to have a bit more of a satisfying post-meeting denouement back on Earth (especially Ethan Hawke's crush on Amanda Peterson, an aspect of the film that's clearly half-formed and not satisfactorily resolved), but I find the movie entertaining throughout.

I liked it...I just liked the setup more than the payoff overall. I remember I read the movie novelization a number of years ago and there was quite a bit more in that that I wish could have made to the screen.

[AndyDursin]

There's a silly strawman argument from people who like EXPLORERS that it's the movie's message that audiences "couldn't accept." I disagree. It's not the message that's the problem. What audiences couldn't accept was an hour of terrific build-up and emotional investment that was flushed down the toilet with unattractively designed plastic aliens that looked like they wandered in out of a bad amusement park ride. It wasn't inspiring or moving or funny -- it outright sucked.

Tonally there's a problem there also because the first half is played very straight but once they launch into outer space it becomes a "Joe Dante movie." Since the first half of it isn't, it creates a major contrast that also doesn't mesh together.

Everyone wanted to reshoot it. Nobody was happy with it -- not Dante, not the producers, seemingly no one. I mean the producer's wife came up to the Paramount head of production and told him "this is gonna bomb" after she took her kids to a test screening and felt the same as everyone did.

It says a lot there's no defense made in this documentary that it worked either -- just an excuse that LIVE AID happened on the same day so "nobody went to see it".