the 80 yield a number of movie about kid go on adventure and but explorer be something else . on the surface and it seem like any other movie and but the alien aren not what anyone be expect . mostly and the movie be about ben crandall ( ethan hawke ) and wolfgang muller ( river phoenix ) and darren wood ( jason presson ) and and their fantasy . and then there be director joe dante touch . dick miller whom dante always cast play a cop who discover the boys spaceship . robert picardo ( another frequent dante player ) voice one of the alien . and of course dante have many allusion to 50 b movie . maybe explorer isn not anything special and but it still pretty fascinate .