时间:2025-04-26 20:29:25 来源:网络整理编辑:休閑
With Disney+'slaunch earlier this month and the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, there's never been a
With Disney+'s launch earlier this month and the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, there's never been a better time to binge old favorites. This week, we're looking back at Disney hits and catching up on movies we missed the first time. Join us for a walk down memory lane.
Add Flight of the Navigator to your Disney+ watch list. Go on, do it. You won't be disappointed.
I'll admit, I was worried going in. Flight of the Navigator, released in 1986, is one of those movies I remember seeing as a small child. It's a movie I loved a lot way back when, and the title has stuck with me ever since even as memories of the story and characters have faded with time.
One quick warning: It's hard to give you the rundown of this story without getting into spoilers, mostly because of the way the movie is paced. Spoiler culture is just different now than it used to be, but if you really don't want to know anything then you'll just have to trust me when I say "go watch."
There's your spoiler warning.
Flight of the Navigatoris a space fantasy about a young boy and his alien robot friend. David Freeman (Joey Cramer) is a 12-year-old kid from Florida who falls down a hill in the woods one evening in 1972 and gets knocked out. When David wakes up, it's suddenly eight years later even though he himself is still 12.
Right around the time David wakes up, NASA discovers a crashed flying saucer and ferries it to a secure facility for further research. It soon becomes clear that David is somehow connected to the ship and its lone occupant, an alien artificial intelligence named Max (voiced by Paul "Pee Wee Herman" Reubens).
Flight of the Navigatorwas one of the many boy-meets-alien movies to surface in the years after E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. This one charts a unique path, however. On one hand, it's a script-flip of E.T.'s basic premise, with the alien here trying to help the young boy get back home. But the story also forces us to consider what "home" really means for a kid who fell off the face of the Earth and didn't age at all as eight years passed.
Max is the character kids remember, but Flight of the Navigatorisn't really aboutthe alien robot. We don't even meet Max until we're halfway through the 90-minute runtime. This is David's story, and none of the fun flying saucer stuff works without setting up why it's important in the first place.
I imagine that I was probably bored as a kid, sitting through those first 45 minutes before Pee Wee Herman pops up in the guise of an unblinking robot eye that looks like a Star Wars outtake. But watching it again, my adult self was riveted. Flight of the Navigatorspends a lot of time dwelling on the impact of David being separated from his family, then reunited after eight years. And it's a stronger story as a result.
The human drama on the ground stays interesting thanks to a few contributions. Cramer himself captures the right range of emotion to make for a believable performance. His family – Cliff DeYoung, Veronica Cartwright, and Matt Adler as dad, mom, and little brother, respectively – also help to sell it.
The story also works because NASA, the movie's most antagonistic presence, is never really cast as a villain. Dr. Louis Faraday (Howard Hesseman), who leads the team looking into the flying saucer and David's connection to it, is a scientist first. He wants answers, but not in a way that would explicitly cause harm to anyone who might have those answers.
That Flight of the Navigatorkeeps up a sense of narrative tension without an overt villain is one of its great strengths. This is as wholesome as Disney movies get, favoring a low-stakes push-and-pull between David/Max and NASA against the high-stakes concern over how David will ever get his life back,
The whole back half of the movie is also a testament to the value of practical effects. Flight of the Navigatormakes very light use of computer animation for some of the elements involving the ship. But Max and the various other alien creatures we come across are physical puppets.
SEE ALSO:10 Disney Channel Original Movies we’re streaming immediately on Disney+Also, the ship's gleaming chrome interior looks exactly how I remember it. It's as dazzling now as it was back then, with its transforming floors and wall. A modern remake would no doubt lean heavily on CG for the ship interior, but the practical design of the original remains convincing.
One final detail that's worth pointing out: A very young Sarah Jessica Parker appears in this movie. I wish she had more to do, but seeing her cast as a rebellious young adult raised on '80s glam rock is a welcome surprise.
That's it, that's my case. Flight of the Navigatoris classic from the Disney Vault that manages to hold up. Add it to your Disney+ playlist with confidence.
TopicsDisneyDisney+
Singapore gets world's first driverless taxis2025-04-26 20:14
【波盈世界杯】 格拉利什 :盧克肖說他一眼就能認出曼城球員,因為我們總帶著足球 ( 球員,帶著 )2025-04-26 19:56
【波盈世界杯】 一心執白?六台記者:貝林厄姆已告知曼城 ,他將首先聽取皇馬報價 ( 皇馬,中場 )2025-04-26 19:49
【波盈世界杯】 斯通斯 :英格蘭和曼城有福登這種球員很幸運,很開心和他成為隊友 ( 斯通,足球世界杯 )2025-04-26 19:28
More than half of women in advertising have faced sexual harassment, report says2025-04-26 19:25
【波盈世界杯】 格拉利什 :盧克肖說他一眼就能認出曼城球員 ,因為我們總帶著足球 ( 球員,帶著 )2025-04-26 19:21
【波盈世界杯】 格拉利什:盧克肖說他一眼就能認出曼城球員 ,因為我們總帶著足球 ( 球員,帶著 )2025-04-26 19:03
【波盈世界杯】 曼城社媒曬小蜘蛛與梅西照,球迷 :你隻是想發梅西照片 ,簽下他吧 ( 世界杯,什麽時候開始 )2025-04-26 18:53
The Weeknd teases new music in Instagram post2025-04-26 17:52
【波盈足球】 C羅砸老東家鍋!被開除前發圖惡心曼聯 ,圖案內容紮心 ,他夠狠 ( 曼聯,世界杯 )2025-04-26 17:49
Uber's $100M settlement over drivers as contractors may not be enough2025-04-26 20:27
【波盈世界杯】 2014年之後,亨德森成首位在世界杯為英格蘭破門的利物浦球員 ( 世界杯,英格蘭 )2025-04-26 20:26
【波盈世界杯】 送烏龍助攻,C羅做錯誤選擇 ,梅西回應太凶猛,自薦切爾西或無望 ( 梅西,葡萄牙 )2025-04-26 20:11
【波盈世界杯】 TA獨家:瓜迪奧拉同意與曼城續約 ,雙方新合同將至2025年 ( 足球世界杯,迪奧 )2025-04-26 20:09
Xiaomi accused of copying again, this time by Jawbone2025-04-26 19:55
【波盈世界杯】 阿圭羅稱讚阿爾瓦雷斯 :能快速適應曼城 ,達到球隊的要求不容易 ( 曼城,自己的 )2025-04-26 18:55
【波盈世界杯】 絕了,不歡迎C羅加盟!切爾西核心采訪發飆,他理解B費的無奈了 ( 切爾西,世界杯 )2025-04-26 18:32
【波盈世界杯】 絕了,不歡迎C羅加盟!切爾西核心采訪發飆 ,他理解B費的無奈了 ( 切爾西,世界杯 )2025-04-26 18:27
Chinese gymnastics team horrifies crowd with human jump rope2025-04-26 18:22
【波盈世界杯】 羅馬諾:熱蘇斯受傷可能改變阿森納冬窗計劃 ,將視球員傷情而定 ( 阿森,羅馬 )2025-04-26 18:08