Always loved this Disney flick, great effects and adventurous plot that is kinda 'Back to the Future' mixed with 'Explorers' purely for kids with an extraterrestrial twist. The effects were fantastic for the time and it was the first film to use environment mapping, the CG was some of the first used in motion pictures
and in my personal opinion they still hold up very well today, I might add they also used stop motion in the mix too! truly classic workmanship.As said the effects were always the star attraction with this film, the ship looked way cool (simple design for today of course), the hydraulic alien arm thing inside was nicely designed, the ships interior was really well designed and looked almost like the interior of the 'Predator 2' ship whilst the other aliens creatures were all decent muppet style creatures which were simple fun and amusing. The whole film was so well made and showed so much vivid imagination, it was colourful and a really exciting ride for kids at the time, I loved every minute of it. The only thing I never liked was Paul Reubens voice as the alien later on in the film, that spoilt the sensible aspect of the plot and made it stupid with his 'Pee Wee Herman' voice. SJP made up for it being very very cute and one of my first kid crushes :)
February 10, 2009
