The Untold Truth Of Flight Of The Navigator

Mark H. Baker was a UCLA film student who came up with the initial story of what eventually became "Flight of the Navigator." The idea for his very first screenplay came from a dream, and was originally entitled "Vanished." In the 2020 documentary "Life After the Navigator," Baker explained the project's origin story. "It was [originally] more of a serious film. In my story, they build the ship from his memory, so they're experimenting with technology that they don't understand but David does, and it gets to a point where he realizes they're never going to let him go."

At one point, Brian de Palma had interest in directing it; John Avildsen of "Rocky" and "Karate Kid" fame later became attached as the helmer, before "Grease" and "Blue Lagoon" lenser Randal Kleiser got the call.

The film's theme, tone and script ended up a tug-of-war between the two companies involved in its production — Mark Damon's Producer Sales Organization and Disney. "There were two companies that made it, Producer Sales Organization and Disney," director Kleiser recalled in 2020. "Producer Sales Organization was an action movie place, they wanted to have governments trying to shoot down the spaceship and chases and things like that and Disney wanted to concentrate on the family story, so guess who won!"

In the end, Kleiser would say, "the compromises [between PSO and Disney] made the movie better."

Writer Baker reflected: "Most of the elements that I had in my film were in the final film, but it's the changes that really make it different." 

Two additions did come from Kleiser himself, who dropped in references to a pair of pop culture classics he had worked on: "Starsky and Hutch," and "Grease" (via "You're The One That I Want," which can be heard on a radio).

A majority of the film takes place and was shot in sunny Florida, but due to "blocked funds" from one of the Producer Sales Organization financiers, they were obligated to shoot a portion of the film in ... Norway.

The only parts that made sense to shoot in Norway were the interiors of the spaceship. So, in February of 1986, the cast and crew packed up and arrived in 30 degrees below zero Oslo wearing shorts and t-shirts ("Navigator" puppeteer Tony Urbano noted the difficulty of the sudden shift thusly: "Have you ever tried to buy a parka in Fort Lauderdale, Florida?"). Working in a warehouse all day also ensured that the film's team would literally never see the light of day.

To make matters worse, they hired a Norwegian child who didn't speak a word of English to shoot scenes of Joey flying the ship, from an over-the-shoulders perspective behind him. The movements of the stand-in (or sit-in, if you will) had to be precise, matching how Cramer had previously moved in front of the camera, but Kleiser's directions kept getting lost in translation, making it "very, very complicated trying to work out telling the kid which way to move."

Kleiser later heard a rumor that the so-called "block funds" never materialized anyway. If that's true, he says, "we flew the crew from Florida to Norway for no reason!"

David may be the navigator of the Trimaxion Drone Ship, but Max is the wired brains of the identified flying object, putting everything in motion. The filmmakers had a hard time trying to find Max's "voice," even, as Kleiser said, using "those machines that people use who have lost their voices." While filming, puppeteer Tony Urbano provided a "scratch track" for Max, as they searched for a "kid-like and fun" set of vocal cords. Cramer's co-star and "younger" brother Matt Adler was given the chance, but thinks his bad rendition of "I Get Around" by The Beach Boys "sunk" his chances.

Kleiser caught an episode of "Pee-wee's Playhouse," and having known Paul Reubens from the LA scene approached him about playing Max. "He didn't want any credit. He didn't want his name on it. I guess he just is a quirky guy and didn't want to have his real name so he used Paul Mall [like the cigarettes] as his name. But everybody knew it was him, I mean, the moment he did his laugh you knew!" Kleiser recalled. 

Cramer and Reubens never got to work together during filming, as his voiceover work was added in post production. The two did briefly meet when Cramer came to see a taping of "Pee-wee's Playhouse," which he fondly remembered being "so cool!"

Reubens tapped Randal to direct and help realize his vision for his "Big Adventure" follow-up, 1988's "Big Top Pee-wee." The two also worked with Michael Jackson's giraffe for the film.

When looking back after all these years, Joey Cramer speaks fondly of the cast and crew. In particular, on the "funny" and "thoughtful" scenes he shared with the actress who played the sympathetic NASA tech, and huge Twisted Sister fan, Carolyn McAdams. He said, "Those are the closest memories that come to me about the film was spending time with Sarah Jessica Parker, who just knocked me out as a human being."

Apparently the feeling is not mutual. Even though she once said "I've always just sort of done work that I wanted to do," that does not apply to playing Carolyn. In a 2018 interview with A.V. Club, Parker had a rather blunt assessment of her time with "the Navigator."

"It was a part. Like, literally, I just got a part. I went and did it," she explained. "That's what I did for most of my career. Nothing drew me to it. I can't — it was a job. That's exactly a paycheck. That's exactly what drew me to it. I can't even tell you what it was about or who I played. You know, all you want is a job. You're auditioning, you want to have as much experience as possible."

Perhaps the folks behind the remake might not want to bother making that phone call for a cameo. 

In order to make their spaceship believable, and like nothing that had come before it, Kleiser needed a cutting edge special effects artist in a time when computer-generated imagery was in its infancy. The director didn't have to look far, having already worked with a very skilled one on his "Blue Lagoon," as well as Disney's "TRON" — his brother, Jeff.

Jeff wowed Randal by showing him a Tide commercial he had worked on where the detergent bottle "changed shape, smoothly morphing into a map of the United States." Coupled with another novel technique Jeff was working on, reflectance mapping, "which is taking the background and wrapping it onto a wireframe computer model and turning it into a mirrored surface," they knew they were at the cusp of creating something new and special.

Easier said than done. The computer Jeff and his effects team employed would crash "five or so times a day," and since it had very little disk space to begin with, it meant they "had no way of reshooting a scene other than re-rendering it from scratch each time." Some corners were cut using movie magic and practical magic (see the next segment), but the end results speak for themselves, and hold up to this day.

Their pioneering work helped usher in a new era of visual effects, and influenced other filmmakers as well. Jeff later talked with James Cameron, who admitted the "Navigator" spaceship "was his inspiration for the chrome terminator," the iconic T-1000 from "Terminator 2: Judgement Day."

Cursing is not something you typically associate with movies by the Walt Disney Company. Sure, there have been subliminal messages and innuendo hidden in their animation, but usually the dialogue stays clean cut. "Flight of the Navigator" marked only the third time a Disney film permitted, or let slip, a dirty word. "Navigator" let the word sh** fly twice, once by David's brother Jeff when he told him to not take any from NASA, and another time when a scientist's mind was blown and made it holy. When asked about it recently, Kleiser said, "I don't remember the profanity in "Flight of The Navigator."

The first two Disney films with profanity were Robert Altman's 1980 musical "Popeye" and 1985's Academy Award nominated "The Journey of Natty Gann." When fighting Bluto, Robin Williams as the sailor man cursed like one by letting the "s" word slip in the film, co-produced by Paramount Pictures. Ms. Gann was a little naughtier, dropping several "s" bombs and even the "b" word.

Walt must have been spinning in his grave.