Explorers (film)

Explorers is a 1985 American science fiction fantasy family film written by Eric Luke and directed by Joe Dante. The film stars Ethan Hawke, River Phoenix in their film debuts, and Jason Presson as teenage schoolboys who build a spacecraft to explore outer space. The special effects were produced by Industrial Light amp Magic, with makeup effects by Rob Bottin.

Ben Crandall experiences vivid dreams about flying through clouds and over a vast, citylike circuit board...usually after falling asleep watching old scifi films The War of the Worlds is a favorite. Every night, upon waking from the dream, he draws the circuit board. Ben shows the sketches to his friend, child prodigy Wolfgang Muller. At school, Ben develops a crush on Lori Swenson but he isnt sure whether its mutual. Both boys meet punkishbutlikable Darren Woods, with whom they share their circuit boardconcepts. Wolfgang builds an actual microchip based on Bens drawings. The chip enables the generation of an electromagnetic bubble which surrounds a predetermined area. As the boys discover, the bubble is capable of moving at nearlimitless distances and speeds without the usual illeffects from inertia. They construct a rudimentary spacecraft out of an abandoned tiltawhirl seat they name their ship the Thunder Road, after Bruce Springsteens song of the same title. Their experiments with the Thunder Road draw attention from the US Government, which sends agents to scout the area for unidentified flying objects.After Ben receives more dreams about the circuit board, Wolfgang discovers a means of producing unlimited sustainable oxygen this means longer flights, whereas previously they were limited to whatever a typical oxygen tank could hold. They finalize their plan to explore the galaxy in search of alien life. The boys complete liftoff, despite interference from the authorities one of whom silently wishes them well. Shortly after breaking Earths orbit, something overrides the boys personal computercontrols. The Thunder Road is tractorbeamed aboard a muchlarger spaceship. The boys venture out to meet their captors Wak and Neek two greenskinned aliens whose knowledge of Earth comes almost entirely from junk culture, particularly TV reruns. The young explorers hit it off with their extraterrestrial hosts...who are suddenly intercepted by a largerstill alien vessel. Fei

Source: Wikipedia