While Ryan Gosling blasts into space this weekend in Project Hail Mary, a group of 80s kids went interstellar in the 1986 movie SpaceCamp, which you can watch in the latest Everything Action Theater. Featuring an ensemble cast that included Kate Capshaw, Kelly Preston, Larry B. Scott, Lea Thompson, Tate Donovan, Tom Skerritt, and Joaquin Phoenix, the movie is set at Space Camp in Huntsville, AL, where a group of campers attends for three weeks to learn about NASA and experience a version of astronaut training. When the group is aboard the space shuttle Atlantis during a routine engine test, the camp’s robot, Jinx (Frank Welker), takes camper Max’s (Phoenix) wish to be in space literally and causes the shuttle to launch. The group needs to put their camp training to the ultimate test and figure out how to get back to Earth. The movie ran into major marketing issues when it came out five months after the Challenger disaster, and some thought it was trying to capitalize on the tragedy (the movie was finished before the disaster). The movie received mixed reviews when it came out, but it has become something of a cult classic, and the cast has said in interviews that they’ve heard of many fans who were inspired by the film to enter scientific fields because of it. Disney announced a remake for Disney+ in January 2020, but there have not been any updates since.
