After seeing Joe Dante's Explorers, I lowered my expectations a bit for re-watching Flight of the Navigator for the first time in decades. I had merged the two movies in my mind as one, and after seeing it again, I can see why.
You can't necessarily call them hack jobs. They are both obviously riding on the coattails of E.T. in pretty opportunistic/formulaic ways. But, they're both iconic movies in their own right.
I could easily imagine Joe Dante directing Ethan Hawke like, "You're a kid, you're stupid, and you love slop. ACTION." And, there were obviously studio guys telling them they needed the aliens to be REALLY zany. No sad pud aliens in hypobaric chambers. We need Pee Wee Herman and rock and roll.
That said, Flight of the Navigator was shot like a much more expensive movie, that Real Genius Panavision-sunset style. And it feels more like a really dreamy, super-long episode of the X-Files than a kids movie, or Gremlins.
I was surprised that it was just as dreamlike as I remembered it. This was a movie that I would watch dozens of times and then fall asleep and watch it again in my sleep. I loved this movie. But I remember it much more as a dream I had than a movie.
It is strange that I identified so much with a kid who disappeared into outer space and never aged, and then became that person.
I feel like it is because Flight of the Navigator is a sequel to Explorers which is a sequel to E.T., it can get away with not explaining itself too much and just focusing on vibes. Explorers is more of a self-aware parody of a kids movie, while Navigator definitely believes it. It's a little more pretentious. So, better.
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