Corona | Coming Attractions

The summer of 1986 brought us a wealth of great popcorn movies that are considered action classics today. Top Gun. Aliens. Big Trouble in Little China. Disney's Flight of the Navigator is not among their number.

Released late in the summer of '86, the film had a cool enough idea: in 1978 a 12-year-old boy is kidnapped by a pilotless UFO. After he takes a flight at near-light speed he's returned back to Earth but eight years has passed. His parents are shocked to see him as the same age they remember him disappearing and his little brother is now physically older than his big brother. The UFO comes back, the boy goes with it and of course the government chases after it. Flight of the Navigator received a little bit more attention from the press at the time because the movie used computer generated effects to morph the UFO when it flew at extreme speed. Otherwise the movie came and left theaters without too much of a wake.

And now we come to the part of our story that you knew I would be getting to: Flight of the Navigator is getting remade. Disney is brushing off the concept and giving it another shot, which is fine since it can be better executed than it was in 1986. Brad Copeland (Wild Hogs) has been hired to write the new Navigator screenplay and David Hoberman and Todd Lieberman (Surrogates) are producing. One of the original film's executive producers, John Hyde, is also exec producing the remake.

See how much of the original film's trailer you can watch. Drinking beforehand helps.