directed by Harry Winer
screenplay by W.W. Wicket (pseud. for Clifford Green) and Casey T. Mitchell
after a story by Patrick Bailey and Larry B. Williams

When SpaceCamp came out in 1986, my mother suggested that we go see it, but I refused. Later, when it was available on video, she suggested that we rent it, but I again refused. I remember telling her why: because I already knew what was going to happen. Kids were going to accidentally get sent into space and then come back. I didn’t need to see that. Her response was that maybe it would be exciting to see how they managed to get back. But I knew that it wouldn’t.

I was correct. It is now 19 years later and I have seen SpaceCamp and can report to the world that it is indeed not worth seeing.

Beth has a story about SpaceCamp that I have been given permission to tell here. She really liked SpaceCamp, as a kid, and rented the video repeatedly. One day she saw that the local newspaper’s TV schedule listed SpaceCamp as a two-star movie. Disturbed, she asked her mother how it was possible that the newspaper only gave it two stars. Her mother replied that it was probably because newspapers cared about things like lighting and sound quality. Good answer.

The laziness of the screenplay is severe. No thought seems to have been given to the question of making the characters appealing rather than annoying. Nor does any of the attempted character interest (or humor) make any sense; it’s all just copied out of the mid-80s “a-bunch-of-kids” playbook. Kate Capshaw’s character, ostensibly the authority figure, follows exactly the same cues, which is an actual error in hack-work. Frequent and extended references to Star Wars are, as with Kevin Smith, a good indicator of complete creative bankruptcy.

That one of the screenwriters chose to duck out under a pseudonym suggests that either a) It wasn’t this bad the way he wrote it, or b) he was only getting a paycheck – the story-writers had already doomed this to trash. Frankly, it’s hard for me to imagine that the fault is actually the director’s (or the actors’) – though it is indeed poorly directed and acted. And edited.

I wish I had known in advance that Leaf Phoenix and Joaquin Phoenix are the same person.

The movie is both a Happy-Meal-cutout version of NASA (staffed by clueless technicians and a crazy talking robot!) and a thoroughly branded advertisement for the real NASA, which doesn’t sit well. I assume that the crucial negligence and rocket booster malfunction were even less delightful to audiences in 1986. The movie plays like one of those embarrassing promotional or instructional videos that add “Hey, Joe, what’s that you’ve got there?” characters and dialogue to what would otherwise be dry content… except that the movie consists only of those characters, and the real NASA has been driven entirely offscreen. But the movie maintains that same sense of having been created by enthusiastic businessmen who possess only a distracted amateur’s understanding of what will be entertaining. Occasional footage of the real shuttle, taken from different film stock and poorly integrated, serves to remind us of the extremely remote connection to reality that is nonetheless the only reason that the movie exists.

The movie does contain, however, a sequence in which a kid floats off helplessly into the void. It’s not very well written or shot, but it doesn’t matter – that’s a death that kids actually fantasize nervously about, and there it is being played out on the screen. I’m not going to say it redeemed the movie, but it was certainly a high point.

Music was once again by Mr. John Williams, in his trademark 80s-patriotism mode. It was no “NBC News Theme,” but it was certainly professional, which put it so far beyond the rest of the production that I was almost embarrassed for it. “Don’t get so heroic!” I wanted to tell the music, “that’s obviously a model and nobody cares anyway!”

This is actually a real mistake made by a lot of movie music – wherein the music attains a level of sweep and impact to which the movie cannot rise. I think a lot of directors, and perhaps composers, think that they can redeem weak-blooded filmmaking with strong music, but it never works that way. At least not for me. Music’s best bet is to match the level of the visual and thereby endorse it, rather than be caught leaving it in the dust as it goes on to greater things; that looks bad for everyone. I think John Williams frequently makes the mistake of thinking that he can save movies from themselves – when there is a dramatic gap in the movie, he tries to fill it. I recently listened to some of his Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone music independent of the film, and was surprised to find that I thought it was pretty apt and well done – because during the movie, I had thought it was noisy and uninspired. I think that I was actually responding to the movie’s being unbearably flat and dead – and so was he, by writing a lot of music meant to convey things that the image didn’t (like fun and excitement, for example). Unfortunately, in the context of a movie, that generally doesn’t work, and the independent value of the music gets lost – it just sounds like it’s watching some other movie or is insensitive to this one. The image always precedes, no matter how crappy.

On the other hand, in this case, the composer’s characteristically awkward comments about the film on the score LP suggest that he was indeed watching some other movie. Maybe John Williams’ problem is that he genuinely isn’t sensitive enough to movie-quality:

In the creation of SpaceCamp, Director Harry Winer and Executive Producer Leonard Goldberg have given us a marvelous movie! The film succeeds as pure entertainment while simultaneously succeeding on several other levels… I feel honored to have been asked to compose this score, and I feel particularly proud of my association with SpaceCamp and its creators.

The ellipsis elides some patriotic effusions about the space program. How embarrassing!

I think I’ve used the word “embarrassing” five or six times in talking about this movie.* I have no regrets there.

* Depending on how you count: two, three, or four times.