Trivia / Explorers

• Acting for Two: Well, five. The film is basically one huge showcase for Robert Picardo's comedic talents^note he played Starkiller, Wak and served as the suit performer for his and Neek's father.
  • The Cast Showoff: Robert Picardo. He just cuts loose with his impersonations and comic beats.
• California Doubling: Ben's jacket clearly states that his address is in Maryland, but the movie was filmed in California. The vegetation is a giveaway.
• Executive Meddling: The film had a later release date when the studio changed hands and decided to release it earlier, when editing wasn't really finished. That's why the helicopter pilot and Lori Swan plotlines are spotty and don't quite fit. The guy on a date at the drive-in is supposed to be Ben's older brother - the one Ben says entered his "Jerk phase" as they walked to the top of the hill.
• Production Posse: It wouldn't be a Joe Dante film without Dick Miller being cast in a significant role. Additionally, this makes Dante regular Robert Picardo's second film after The Howling, and is Jerry Goldsmith's third movie score for Dante after Twilight Zone: The Movie and Gremlins.
• Troubled Production: The film's production was thrown into turmoil when three top executives at Paramount Pictures left to join other studios — Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenburg for Disney, and Barry Diller for 20th Century Fox. As a result, Joe Dante — who had already been working on a time crunch by joining the project in late 1984 with a projected August 1985 release date — was told by Paramount that the release had been pushed up to early July and that the cast and crew were to just stop working; whatever they had managed to finish would be what they would put in theaters as the final cut. Not surprisingly, Explorers would be criticized for its patchy story and underwhelming climax. It also had the misfortune of being both released on the same weekend as Live Aid and the weekend after the release of megahit Back to the Future, sealing its fate as a Box Office Bomb.
• What Could Have Been: The film was originally going to be directed by Wolfgang Petersen, but disagreements with the studio caused him to bow out (specifically, he wanted to film it in Germany to avert the above mentioned California Doubling).