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- They came to SpaceCamp with the dream of becoming astronauts. Suddenly... Without warning... Before they were ready... They were launched into space.
Summary Capsule
- Darn you, Mr. Tagline, for doing my job for me!
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Justin's Rating: 01001010010010010100111001011000
Justin's Review: SpaceCamp. SpaceCamp! SPACECAMP!!!!!! C’mon… it’s SpaceCamp!
Don’t know why, but I just had to do that.
Depending on your generational bracket, SpaceCamp might mean something quite different to you. If you were a kid growing up in the 80’s, this was one of those defining, unforgettable films that reflected how much we (both kids and society back then) were fascinated and in love with NASA’s space program. No matter how nerdy NASA might’ve appeared before or after, SpaceCamp made it look positively cool. Me and my friends were united in dream and purpose after seeing this flick, to go to SpaceCamp and ride in the space shuttle. It’s in the brochure: they have to send you up to at least the moon, or your money back!
Of course, if you’re not from that particular generation, SpaceCamp will be more of a movie that captures your attention by the interesting casting — including many young actors and actresses that would grow up to be semi-famous — and the psychotic robots that NASA employed in the 80’s. Check it out: you have Kate Crapshaw (Indy Jones and the Temple of Doom) as one of the astronaut SpaceCamp instructors, Lea Thompson (Back to the Future, "Caroline in the City") as the overachieving control freak, Kelly Preston (Battlefield Earth) as the rebellious chick, and — get this — Joaquin Phoenix (Signs, Gladiator) as the rejected little runt Max.
Taking a break from this review, I noticed that the Tootsie Roll company calls their candy "Bite Sized Midgees". Midgee? Candy companies think they can just reinvent the English language. I do not approve.
Back to SpaceCamp! Any way you approach it, this is a one-of-a-kind flick that is firmly entrenched in 80’s logic. How so? Well, it’s not every film that a bunch of screwballs end up in charge of a space shuttle accidentally launched into orbit with the assistance of a robot’s deranged love of a heartbroken boy. It doesn’t happen that often. It just doesn’t.
SpaceCamp follows around a group of teens, coached by a disillusioned astronaut (She’s not going up on the next shuttle mission, boo hoo, but watch out for Mr. Irony! He’s in town today, for one day only!), trying to prove their worth as a team and not breaking down and resorting to tribal cannibalism. Honestly, the setting and set-up are enough as it is to fulfill most every like-minded teen flick, but SpaceCamp kicks it up a notch (bam!) with the accidental launching of mixed nuts group and instructor during a routine engine burn test. Suddenly, NASA’s gone and got themselves an apoplexy, and we have Ms. Johnson’s 8th grade homeroom in charge of a multi-billion dollar spacecraft. Yippee!
So what’s the deal with the robot, you ask? It’s quite simple, actually. The robot in question, a sphere with gears named Jinx, was programmed by NASA to both fix complicated shuttle parts in space orbit and to seek out small Star Wars-deluded kids in SpaceCamp and befriend them using a Loser Array Subroutine. Then, when Max makes the offhand comment that he wants to be in space — because Max has a death wish and wants his veins to boil and his skin to literally explode — that accesses Jinx’s Genie Program, which gives one free wish of any kind to the variable CHUMP, unfettered by any safety protocols whatsoever. Thus, when Jinx purposefully tampers with highly classified and guarded NASA computer databanks, there’s nothing to stop a BallBot from causing a near-disaster while the SpaceCamp team is in the shuttle, betting on the slim chance that NASA would rather launch a bunch of kids into space, probably killing them, than kill them on the ground, where there’s all that messy clean-up. See? Simple.
What really hit me about re-watching SpaceCamp after so many, many years is the general atmosphere to it. I wish I could easily explain how certain movies from my childhood were able to bottle up precious samples of the feel of the time for us, but you’d have to get in my head, and it’s already too crowded for that, with Fred, Killer Dan, and myself in there. If you were a kid in that era, the clunky techno-look of SpaceCamp, Return of the Jedi and Back to the Future were the foundation of a geek’s growing love of sci-fi that felt like our society was on the edge of achieving. No time machines yet, but we did get the internet and thousands of born-again furries, so it’s progress, just in a very different direction.
It’s a mixed, oddity of a movie that’s half summer camp, and half blind, slavish worship of NASA. For every bad thing (Lea Thompson nearly collapsing from hormonal overload anytime she starts to talk about space) there’s a unique tidbit (such as Crapshaw’s nonstop voice-over highlighting some cool NASA training technology) and then something enjoyable (such as the panicked shuttle launch). The whole idea for the film is kinda interesting, but since it’s angled more toward the smaller people’s market (no, not talking about midgees), a hundred nit-pickable details that would’ve been taken care of in a more serious film are glossed over here. But hey, it’s space in the 80’s, so you get what you pay for: one summer of SpaceCamp, plus near death by lift-off!
 Kids in space peril... billions of dollars at risk... yeah, I'm calling it a day.
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- SpaceCamp also features a landing strip for bi-planes
- Spit it out, Rudy
- The atrocious "Southern" accent the one girl in the girl’s dorm sports
- Little kids are able to fix $27 million robots
- Why go into space? Why, we can start over and "do things right!" Because outer space changes the human condition, fer sure.
- Jinx has remote control
- So NASA has no problems with putting a 10 year-old kid inside a space shuttle being tested? Do they offer a babysitting service?
- For an emergency launch, people in the control room look pretty relaxed about stuff
- Well, it’s KIND OF important how it happened, don’t you think?
- Max has 180 IQ… Rich is finally bested!
- While they are in space, weightlessness only seems to affect their bodies, and Tish's jewelry, but not their hair which remains hanging as if gravity is still in effect.
Is It Worth Staying Through End Credits?
No ma'am, no sir.
Unnecessary Background [some sources: The History Channel Online]
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Challenger, U.S. space shuttle. It exploded (Jan. 28, 1986) 73 seconds into its tenth flight, killing all seven crew members, including the first civilian in space, schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe. The disaster was caused by the faulty design of a gasket (the O-ring seal). As a result of the explosion, the United States did not send astronauts into space for almost three years as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration redesigned a number of features of the space shuttle.
Intermission! [some sources: IMDb]
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The movie was partially filmed at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, home to the first Space Camp program. The interior of the Space Shuttle Atlantis was filmed in the Atlantis simulator at the real Space Camp.
What was supposed to be a somewhat light hearted action/adventure movie turned into a marketing nightmare. SpaceCamp was scheduled to be released in early 1986 but on January 28 the real-life shuttle Challenger exploded. After the Challenger disaster, the release was pushed back months. When it was finally sent to theaters, it grossed less than $10 million in the U.S.. Eerily, the malfunction simulated in the film involved the solid rocket booster and was similar to the actual cause of the Challenger accident.
Groovy Quotes
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Kathryn: My mom always says that being boss and being bossy aren't the same.
Kevin: My philosophy is: sleep late, drive fast, and not take any of this s**t seriously.
Kevin: Ladies and gentlemen, please return your seats and tray-tables to their full upright positions, and extinguish all smoking material, as we're about to land in the red zone. Ahh! No survivors!
Kathryn: In space, anything is possible.
Kathryn: Why are you so hard on me?
Andie: Because someday, you're goin' up. But the only way that will happen is if you have every drill here down better than everyone else. There's no room for mistakes. Every 'i' dotted, every 't' crossed. That's the way I learned it. That's the way you'll learn it. You copy?
Kathryn: I copy.
Zach: By God... we have liftoff...
NASA #1: How the hell am I supposed to keep a lid on this? People for 500 miles know the shuttle went up.
Zach: Tell them the truth. You sent my wife and five kids up from SpaceCamp. They'll never believe it.
Kevin: Max... I am not Han Solo. You are not Luke Skywalker. There's no Empire. There's no Force and there's no Dark Side!
Andie: Name?
Rudy: [While chewing gum] Rudy Tyler, Ma'am.
Andie: Spit it out.
Rudy Tyler: RUDY TYLER, MA'AM!
Jinx: Max and Jinx... Friends... For-e-ver.
Rudy: What about the propulsion system? We could breathe the liquid oxygen from there.
Tish: The propulsion system uses nitrogen tetroxide, Rudy. We wanna breathe, not dry clean our lungs.
Rudy: You know, I once knew this guy who could hold his breath in the water for hours. Nobody could ever figure out how he did it. Maybe it wasn't hours, but it sure was a long time. That's when I was on the swim team, freshman year. He used to do it, too. Held his breath for hours. Just by thinking about eating French fries. Guess he really got off on eating French fries.
Kevin: Rudy.
Rudy: Yeah?
Kevin: You're using up oxygen, Man.
Zach: You want SpaceCamp?
Kevin: No. My father wants SpaceCamp, but I want my head examined. But it was worth it for the car, don't you think?
Soundtrack Review
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Who better to do a space theme than… John Williams! I can’t say I knew that he did the score to SpaceCamp, but how cool is that?
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This review page was last updated on 11.09.04
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