1985
EXPLORERS, THE MOVIE
Explorers is an American science fiction film directed by Joe Dante and released in 1985. It stars Ethan Hawke and River Phoenix, film debutants, as well as Jason Presson in the roles of a group of young boys building a spaceship . Hastily released by the studio without finalized special effects, the film was released in the United States a week after Back to the Future. It will be a commercial failure. However, Explorers will become a cult film over time, particularly when it was released on VHS.
Ben Crandall (Ethan Hawke) is a young boy passionate about extraterrestrials, living in the suburbs of Maryland. He likes to watch old science fiction movies. He has strange dreams every night. He sees a gigantic printed circuit there. With the help of his friends Wolfgang (River Phoenix) and Darren (Jason Presson), they manage to reproduce this circuit and discover that it is used to develop a force field. Using it and materials recovered from Darren's father's junkyard, they build a spaceship. They call it Thunder Road, after the Bruce Springsteen song..