The last great film from a bankrupt studio

[00:00:00]Well, I got to get back to work. Okay.

[00:00:10]You know, you're cute.

[00:00:14]Did a girl ever tell you that before?

[00:00:18]>> Nobody but my mom. But I don't think she counts.

[00:00:26]>> Yep. I remember why I loved this movie as a kid.

[00:00:33]I'd like to take you back to the year 1986.

[00:00:38]Hands across America, Chernobyl, The Super Bowl Shuffle.

[00:00:43]A 9-year-old Jay has just paid 99 cents at his local movie theater to see a movie with a group of his cousins.

[00:00:51]He doesn't know it yet, but that movie is going to change his life.

[00:00:55]>> Hello, computer.

[00:00:57]Okay, that might be a little bit overdramatic. It may not change his life, but it will be with him forever.

[00:01:06]I said, I I want the knife.

[00:01:10]>> That's one of the magical parts about cinema. The way that certain films just weave themselves into the very fabric of our being.

[00:01:17]>> No disassemble.

[00:01:19]But today, we're here to talk about the summer of 1986 when along with every other kid in the theater, I absolutely lost it when the voice of Pee-Wee Herman suddenly erupted from an alien spaceship.

[00:01:33]>> Wow, this can't be happening. I think I've gotten some stuff out of your head that has nothing to do WITH NAVIGATING THIS SHIP.

[00:01:39]>> YOU SOUND just like a human.

[00:01:41]>> Up to that point in the film, it had sounded nothing like him, and we had no idea he was in it. It wasn't advertised.

[00:01:48]Not on the poster, not in the trailers, which featured a completely different voice altogether.

[00:01:54]>> Your brain contains data necessary to get me and my friends home.

[00:01:58]>> I'm just a kid.

[00:01:59]>> And that was exactly what Paul Rubin wanted. He thought it would be a fun surprise for everyone watching when that robotic voice that had been all business up to that point was suddenly Pee-Wee.

[00:02:12]>> See you later, alligator.

[00:02:14]If you weren't an 80s kid, it's hard to express just how big Peewee Herman was at the time. His television show Pee-Wee's Playhouse was a huge hit. And just a year earlier, he had starred in Tim Burton's feature film debut, Pee-Wee's Big Adventure.

[00:02:29]>> Today is my birthday, and my father said, "I can have anything I want."

[00:02:33]>> Good for you and your father.

[00:02:35]>> And it wasn't just the kids. teenagers, college students, and adults all tuned in on Saturday morning just to see what zany antics peewee would get up to, and also to see how big that giant ball of foil would get.

[00:02:52]>> But before we blast off 20 miles in any given direction, >> compliance, >> my name is Jay.

[00:02:59]>> What are you doing?

[00:03:02]>> And this is Flight of the Navigator.

[00:03:08]Okay, there are two things we need to talk about first. The first of which being despite what you might think, this is not a Disney movie.

[00:03:17]>> Holy it's an alien.

[00:03:19]>> Flight of the Navigator was the final film produced by the motion picture company producer sales organization before they were forced to file for bankruptcy. And I was sorry to learn this because they not only produced several of my childhood favorites, but also films that would get me removed from the room if my parents caught me paying attention.

[00:03:40]Of course, Disney distributing a film that they didn't produce is certainly nothing new. For quite a while, they had several secondary labels that were used just for this purpose. But in the case of Flight of the Navigator, their distribution rights only covered North America and the UK. So, outside of those regions, you wouldn't even know Disney was involved with the film.

[00:04:01]>> Oh, and another thing, they locked me in my room.

[00:04:05]>> Uh, the locks are there for David's protection.

[00:04:09]>> Don't take any David.

[00:04:11]>> Now, don't forget your promise, doctor.

[00:04:12]>> Things got even more confusing with the home video release, as it appears to have just been a free-for-all.

[00:04:19]The second thing I want to touch on briefly is the sad turn Joey Kramer's life took after the film's young star left the industry a few years later. I had multiple people recommend the 2020 documentary Life After the Navigator, which takes a deeper look not only at the film's creation, but also the hard times that befell Kramer later in his life. The documentary is available to watch for free here on YouTube, and I think fans of the film will certainly enjoy it, even if it is a little bit heartbreaking.

[00:04:49]I am happy to say that after everything Joey Kramer went through, he was eventually able to get his life back on track. But as for this video, I'm not going to dig any deeper into it. The documentary already did a great job of telling that story. So if you want to learn more, I'll put a link in the description below. And with that being said, let's prepare to travel back in time.

[00:05:11]Flight of the Navigator started life in 1983 when producer Dimmitri Valard optioned a screenplay titled Vanished written by UCLA film student Mark Baker.

[00:05:22]In Baker's original script, a young boy goes missing for years only to suddenly reappear without having aged a single day since his disappearance. When government scientists run a series of experiments, they discover an intricate blueprint for an interstellar spacecraft hidden in his subconscious memories. And if you're getting contact vibes here, you're certainly not alone. Realizing the boy holds the key to building the craft, NASA locks him away in a highsecurity containment facility, forcing him to unlock the secrets of his mind to find a way back home. Baker said the idea came to him in a dream with his original script more of a dark science fiction thriller. But after undergoing a series of significant rewrites in order to add more adventure and humor to the story, it was presented to Disney in 1984 and they turned it down.

[00:06:13]>> You wouldn't happen to know all the way to Fort Lauderdale, would you?

[00:06:16]>> Try to make your directions clear because we get lost easy.

[00:06:19]>> What? Hey, >> which is surprising because it sounds like the sort of thing that would have been right up Ron Miller's alley. It was at this point that PSO Productions stepped in to champion the project, helping to secure the film's $9 million budget. This included bringing in the Norwegian company Viking Film to co-produce.

[00:06:38]And so, in a rather bizarre twist, almost all of the film is shot on location in southern Florida, except for the interior shots of the ship, which were filmed in an abandoned biscuit factory in Norway in the middle of the winter. Greece director Randall Klyer was brought in to helm the film. And in a fun nod to the director, you can hear the song, You're the One That I Want, playing on the radio as the family pulls up to their house.

[00:07:06]By 1986, the film was mostly complete, but the independent studio was running out of money and desperately needed a major partner to get the movie into theaters. It just so happened that the new leadership team at Disney, led by Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg, were also aggressively hunting for finished, family-friendly live-action content to help revitalize the studios sparse summer lineup. And so, one of the first distribution deals that Eisner signed off on for Disney was Flight of the Navigator. This did lead to some back and forth between PSO and Disney as the film moved towards its completion.

[00:07:42]PSO wanted a big action-packed finale with governments chasing and trying to shoot down the spaceship while Disney wanted to concentrate more on the family story. Since standard production had already wrapped, this meant re-shoots.

[00:07:56]There was just one little problem.

[00:07:59]Thinking his part in the film had been completed, Joey Kramer had cut his hair short and dyed it blonde. And while it's handled pretty well, there are still some moments where you can spot the wig that he was forced to wear for those re-shoots. In the end, director Randall Kiser said that Disney probably got most of the changes that they asked for, but also conceded that those compromises made the movie better. Shot primarily in Fort Lauderdale, where David's 1978 home was located. Other locations included Hollywood, Florida for David's 1986 home, as well as Miami, where we got our NASA shots, The Scene in the Woods, which was actually shot during the day, and the Frisbee Dog Championship.

[00:08:44]One of my favorite stops, though, is Al's Gator City, which was shot on Bert Reynolds Horse Ranch in Jupiter, Florida.

[00:08:51]>> This must be Florida, Max.

[00:08:53]>> And that must be Big Al.

[00:08:56]As for the Phalon ship itself, the majority of the shots in the film featured practical effects rather than computer graphics. This was due to the immense amount of time and money it took to produce the computerenerated images.

[00:09:09]Essentially, any shot you see the ship physically transform on screen or looks like it's been dipped in chrome, that was done within the computer. Most everything else is done with miniatures or with the ship that they fully fabricated for the film. The only scene that was rendered entirely within a computer comes at the very end when David is traveling back in time, and it almost didn't make it into the movie.

[00:09:34]Because of the lengthy render times, the VFX team knew they wouldn't be able to complete the shot on their own equipment. So, they sent one of their guys down to San Diego to use a Cray supercomput to render the sequence, which sounds like a premise pulled right from an 80s movie.

[00:09:50]>> Shall we play a game?

[00:09:53]The cast is solid, but doesn't really inspire the same amount of cross referencing I've done in some of my past videos. But let's still hit on some of the highlights. At the time, Joey Kramer was seen in Hollywood as a potential next big thing, having secured the role of David over some 300 other young boys who had auditioned. This included the likes of Chris O'Donnell and Waqen Phoenix, who would go on to star in Space Camp instead. Kramer had already shared screen time with strange robotic vehicles in his first ever film, 1984's Runaway, starring Tom Celich.

[00:10:27]>> Are you scared?

[00:10:27]>> 45.

[00:10:28]>> You bet I was scared.

[00:10:29]>> Which is exactly 1 hour and 45 minutes past your bedtime.

[00:10:33]>> Oh, Lois.

[00:10:36]>> Get away.

[00:10:38]>> He also appeared in the 1986 Disney made for TV movie I Man with Scott Bula.

[00:10:44]But Joey never really considered a career in acting. And in 1987, he left the industry.

[00:10:51]While this wasn't her first film, it was definitely the first thing that I ever saw Sarah Jessica Parker in. I also completely forgot she was in this, so that was a fun surprise.

[00:11:01]>> Hi, I'm Carolyn McAdams. You got to be real hungry after your trip, right?

[00:11:07]>> She would find her way back to Disney 7 years later, running a muck as Sarah Sanderson in Hocus Pocus.

[00:11:17]And I'm just now realizing that we got Hocus Pocus and The Nightmare Before Christmas in the same year. What a time.

[00:11:26]Speaking of that other non-D Disney film, the character Lock from the trio of mischievous trick-or-treaters was voiced by Paul Rubin.

[00:11:34]>> Let's pop him in a boiling pot and when he's done, we'll butter him up.

[00:11:38]>> But Reuben's big claim to Disney fame came just 6 months after the release of Navigator. when in January of 1987 he debuted as the voice of RX24, more affectionately known as Rex in the Disneyland attraction Star Tours.

[00:11:54]>> R2 Light Speed to Endor.

[00:11:59]>> Disney was actually struggling to find the right voice for the anxious droid until Imagineer Tom Fitzgerald attended a pre-release screening of Flight of the Navigator. When he heard Reuben's performances, Max, he immediately realized that his manic energy was exactly what they needed for the ride's BUMBLING PILOT.

[00:12:16]>> I PITY THE POOR FOOL. DON'T EAT MY CEREAL.

[00:12:20]>> Fitzgerald approached Reuben shortly thereafter and he agreed to join the project.

[00:12:25]>> I meant to do that little shortcut.

[00:12:28]>> And since we're on the subject of talented voice artists, there is one more character from Navigator I'd like to direct your attention to. Ralph.

[00:12:37]>> Part of me is coming through.

[00:12:39]>> Believe it or not, you are well acquainted with the actor who voiced the delivery bot who sprung David from his room. I won't go into Cory Burton's entire IMDb catalog, but let me just touch on a few of my favorites. He was the voice of Dale from Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers.

[00:12:55]>> Hey, that for my favorite band. It was too loud to think. It's heavy metal music. You're not supposed to think.

[00:13:00]>> Ludvig von Drake from the new Mickey Mouse cartoons. Hello there and welcome aboard the doctorless.

[00:13:06]>> Prince Akmed in Aladdin.

[00:13:08]>> Good luck marrying her off.

[00:13:10]>> This guard from the hunchback of Notraam. The Titans from Hercules.

[00:13:16]>> Dies here.

[00:13:20]>> One of the ancestors from Mulan. Captain Hook in Return to Neverland. Molier from Atlantis.

[00:13:28]>> You said there would be.

[00:13:29]>> Go away, Mole. And he gave us Judge Doom's ultra high voice in Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

[00:13:36]>> WHEN I KILLED YOUR BROTHER, I TALKED just >> Seriously, go check out his IMDb page.

[00:13:47]Now, the music for Flight of the Navigator falls into a really unique time period for its composer, Alan Sylvestri. Despite scoring Back to the Future in 1985, which featured a 90piece orchestra, most everything else he was composing around this time relied heavily on synthesizers. The music he composed for films like Cats Eye, Clan of the Cave Bear, which incidentally also starred Joey Kramer, The Delta Force, and No Mercy, were all 100% synthesized. And the same would go for Flight of the Navigator.

[00:14:21]It was this extensive experience with electronic sound that would then help him to create incredible hybrid scores for films like Predator and The Abyss and continued to be a driving force in the work he would eventually do for Captain America and The Avengers. His score for Navigator bounces back and forth between pure8s synth pop and otherworldly tones that would feel right at home in Tomorrowland or inventions.

[00:14:59]Despite still being a fairly groundbreaking collection of music, no commercial soundtrack was ever released for the film, fans had to wait until 1995 when an apparent bootleg of the film's music was finally released on compact disc. The album's producers would later confirm that it was fully licensed, though, and that Sylvestri himself provided the original master tapes for the recording. And while the CD is fairly hard to come by, you can download the album for free from the internet archive. and I will put a link in the description below.

[00:15:31]Now, when it came time for Flight of the Navigator to finally hit theaters, it almost didn't happen. 2 weeks before the scheduled theatrical release, PSO Productions officially collapsed into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

[00:15:45]Looking to recoup some of their losses, creditors attempted to freeze the entire release. But Disney stepped in with its legal team to ensure that the film reels actually reached the theaters for its July 30th premiere. The movie debuted at number eight at the box office, trailing behind other new releases such as Friday the 13th, part 6 and Howard the Duck.

[00:16:08]Navigator would make a modest $18.5 million in its theatrical run, meaning it pretty much broke even on its original budget. But with the burgeoning home video market, not to mention regular screenings on network television and on the Disney Channel, the film would develop quite a following.

[00:16:26]In 2009, it was reported that Disney was working on a script for a remake of the film. That never happened. Then in 2017, Disney and Lionsgate announced they were rebooting the film together, which also never happened.

[00:16:41]And then in 2021, plans for a remake were announced by Disney once again.

[00:16:47]This time with Bryce Dallas Howard set to direct. And you guessed it, it never happened. Poor Bryce. She was also supposed to direct a reboot of Escape to Witch Mountain, and that one got cancelled, too. It was interesting coming back to this childhood favorite after not watching it for the better part of, I'm not even sure, 20 or 30 years, maybe.

[00:17:10]Despite it being such a big hit with me when I saw it in theaters, it never found its way into the home viewing rotation. With so much time having passed, I kind of expected the magic to have worn off, but I was surprised at how well the film still holds up. On the flip side, there were a few things that younger me definitely glossed over. I actually paused the movie when David's older, younger brother, played by Matt Adler, first appeared on screen. I turned to my wife and asked, "How long was David supposed to be gone for?"

[00:17:43]Because his 8-year-old brother now appears to be 20.

[00:17:46]>> It's 1986, man. 8 years since that night.

[00:17:50]>> Yeah, this kid is definitely not 16. Let me just look something up quick. Matt Adler, born in 1966. So, yep, 20 years old in 1986.

[00:18:04]Nothing against Matt, but could they not have cast a kid that at least looked like he could pass for 16? Honestly, he could be studying for his doctorate here.

[00:18:15]The other obvious knock on this film is that it's a blatant ET ripoff, and I don't think it even tries to hide from that fact.

[00:18:23]>> Son of a gun. He just said he wanted to phone home.

[00:18:28]>> This is something that is pretty common.

[00:18:30]a movie becomes a surprise hit and then every studio rushes to get their own version of that movie produced.

[00:18:37]Oftentimes, these movies were pretty bad. But in some cases, we actually got a pretty decent film that overd delivered on its copycat premise.

[00:18:47]I think Flight of the Navigator was one of those movies.

[00:18:51]While by no means perfect, the performances of Joy Kramer and Paul Rubin, as well as the ship design, groundbreaking computer imagery, and fantastic puppet work, elevate this film above being just another quick cash grab. If you've never seen it, or like me, it's been quite a while, now just might be the time to check out this overlooked mid80s gem.

[00:19:14]>> Come on, let's get out of here.

[00:19:19]compliance navigator.

[00:19:24]>> So until next time, >> good luck.

[00:19:26]>> My name is Jay.

[00:19:28]Thanks for watching.

[00:19:44]>> All right, come on, guys. Back in line.

[00:19:50]What's the matter? Are you wise or something?

[00:19:53]>> Go ahead, Beefy. Mobilize him.

[00:19:57]>> Bey, never mind the mobilizing. Get back in line. Come on, all of you.