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The Beach Boys, Party, 1965

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Movie of the Day: Explorers

Ah, another box office failure that's always been one of my favorite movies. I remember going to see this movie for my ninth birthday and just loving it. It was made for boys like me; I loved seeing three resourceful boys build a spaceship out of a Tilt-A-Whirl and meeting these weird Rob Bottin-designed aliens who are obsessed with American television. It's so earnest and so silly at the same time, and the tone is perfect. It's like this flight of fancy was pulled right out of my childhood fantasies. And there are numerous homages to 50s sci-fi, of course.

Part of this movie's issue is that the film was rushed by Paramount Pictures, who needed a summer movie with appeal to kids and felt the script was similar enough to ET the Extra-Terrestrial that they could cash in. The script was being rewritten during filming. According to director Joe Dante, the studio literally stopped him from finishing the edit and released it because they had "the perfect date for it." Dante regretted losing a lot of more spiritual elements because of this. An entire subplot was cut, and dialogue had to be re-dubbed to give the ending a sense of closure. And it flopped at the box office. Didn't even make half its budget back. It got buried by Back to the Future. And Hollywood still refuses to learn the lesson of just letting creators create...

I love this movie, though. It's imperfect, but the vibe is right. This was the film debuts of River Phoenix (RIP), Amanda Peterson (RIP) and Ethan Hawke. The great Dick Miller is there. It's so much fun.

Explorers was released on July 12, 1985.