David Freeman goes into the woods on 4 July 1978 to find his brother, falls, and wakes up. He walks home and strangers are living in his house. It is 1986. His parents have aged eight years, his little brother is now older than him, and NASA wants to know why his brain is full of star charts. Flight of the Navigator is the Disney science-fiction film people remember from Saturday afternoons and cannot name, and the silver ship is why.
What Happens With The Ship
A chrome spacecraft has crashed into power lines on the same night David came back. NASA has it in a hangar. The ship, whose computer calls itself Max and is voiced by Paul Reubens, has been to a planet 560 light years away and back, which took four hours for David and eight years for Earth. Max needs David’s brain to get the star charts back. They escape together, and the last half hour is the ship flying under bridges and through Florida, learning jokes from David, and deciding whether to take him home to 1978.
Why It Looks The Way It Does
The ship was one of the first uses of reflection-mapped CGI in a feature. Max starts as a serious computer voice and turns into Pee-wee Herman after scanning David’s brain. Sarah Jessica Parker is the NASA intern who helps him. Alan Silvestri’s synth score is the other reason people remember it. A remake has been announced several times.
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