For anyone who may be interested, before the movie 'Explorers' was released in the UK many years ago, I managed to obtain the 'Explorers storybook'. The book contained scenes (including pictures) from the film which I later discovered weren't actually in the film. Some years later I got hold of the paperback book of the film, which also contained the missing scenes within the story. I own both the UK and US video releases of the film, and although there are slight differences between the two, neither has the key missing scenes that were pictured in the storybook. In case you're wondering what the missing scenes are, there were three of them:
1. The three Boys go to Lori Swensons party, where Ben kisses Lori. She pushes him away and tells him she doesn't like him in that way. On the way home the Boys argue and then seperate. 2. Just before their final flight in the Thunder road, they find Wolfgangs Brother in the ship, they tell him the truth about what it is, and he says he wants to go too, but they won't let him. 3. The morning after they return home, the boys are in the school yard when Steve Jackson starts bullying them. He takes Wolfgangs gift from Neek and drops it. It causes his clothes to dissolve, and he runs screaming from school (remember Wolfgangs dream at the start of the movie?).
All of these scenes are pictured in the storybook. The reason I post this now, is that I found this interview with Joe Dante floating around the net:
'Joe Dante has a few things to say in an interview...
People are always asking me about Explorers, but Explorers was never finished so I doubt that I'll be able to go back and do any kind of a reconstruction. It was the rough cut. We never finished the movie. They moved up the release date and said, "Okay, you're finished." We had never even had a preview, so it was very much a work in progress. I would do many things differently if I had the opportunity, but I have a feeling that considering its megaflop status that it's not going to be a picture they're going to want to revisit any time soon. Doesn't the loyal following warrant such a restoration? It's encouraging. I used to run into people all the time who said that they loved it which is nice because I don't know where they were on opening day. It opened the day of the Live Aid concert which was a marketing coup that has yet to be duplicated.
What would have been different? Well, just about everything. This movie started without a completed script also. There was really no third act so a lot of it was sort of improvised. We shot a lot of footage. We had probably a three hour, 15 minute rough cut and the choice of what goes in and what comes out makes one kind of a movie versus another kind of a movie. There was a lot of spiritual kind of stuff in the movie that didn't make it in at all. The ending is the ending that it is because there were no completed effects shots so we just sort of had to stop. We had to re-loop things to cover up things that didn't match anymore because it was cut short, and it's just a mess. It's just a movie that looks like it didn't have a director. There's a big scene under a tree where they talk about something completely different than what they said on the day because we looped it with all different dialogue to give the picture any kind of sense of closure at all.
That would be a fascinating DVD. It would be, but the problem is I don't think that footage exists anymore. Movies that aren't big moneymakers, the B negative and stuff tends to go south and end up under freeways and things.'
I suppose that there's always hope, but I still feel terribly sad. Posted by massiveretaliation (Member # 950) on :
The Space Channel played the Explorers and it had an extra scene where Wolfgang is beaten up by Steve Jackson. I might of missed more extra stuff and I didn't tape it either...damn! We should start a petition or something to get it released on DVD.
![[Frown]](frown.gif)