As the latest Star Wars TV show, Skeleton Crew, comes to an end, you might be feeling nostalgic for the 1980s. The series takes a lot of inspiration from movies from this decade and re-purposes them to fit into the galaxy far, far away. Skeleton Crew is about a bunch of misfit kids who find something strange in the woods and go on the adventure of a lifetime. It's a classic '80s story. If there had been a Star Wars live-action TV show around the time of the original trilogy, it may well have looked like this.
If you're looking for more of the same after Skeleton Crew, then you're in luck, as there's a huge number of movies available to plug the gap left by this show. They'll get you feeling nostalgic over bike rides, summer holidays, and amazing adventures with friends.
1. The Goonies (1985)
Let's get this one out of the way first, because it's the most obvious; right from the very first minute, Skeleton Crew has been described as "Goonies in space." The Goonies is the ultimate '80s kids movie, a film that captures everything about the decade that people look back on nostalgically. It's also a great watch.
The movie tells the story of a bunch of kids knows as the Goonies, whose neighborhood is about to be developed. To try and save it, they go in search of the famed treasure of pirate captain One-Eyed Willie, battling gangsters who are also looking for the treasure and coming out on top to win the day and save their homes.
If you've read any Skeleton Crew reviews, you've probably seen the word "fun" repeated again and again, and it's the same here. The Goonies is non-stop fun from start to finish. All the young actors are excellent, and director Richard Donner comes together with Steven Spielberg, who came up with the story, to create something truly memorable.
2. Flight of the Navigator (1986)
While it's not the most well-known kids movie from the '80s, Flight of the Navigator is one that deserves to have a bigger audience. It comes from Disney, and probably suffers from being overshadowed by their more famous animated movies and not having any big names attached to it. But there's still a lot of fun to be had in Flight of the Navigator.
The movie follows David, a young boy who wanders into the woods and gets abducted by an alien spacecraft which takes him away to be studied and then brings him back eight years into Earth's future, although he hasn't aged a day. Both David and the spaceship are taken by NASA. To escape, he has to take control and pilot the ship across America to get back home.
To be completely honest, the movie doesn't have the magic of The Goonies. The story won't surprise you much, but it does give you that hit of nostalgia and is dripping with '80s-ness. It's definitely more aimed at a younger audience, but who cares, it's a lot of fun and has a big heart at its center as David tries to reunite with his family.
3. Super 8 (2011)
This movie differs from the others on this list, as it wasn't actually made back in the day. It's set in 1979 but was released in 2011. Super 8 was directed by J.J. Abrams, with Steven Spielberg serving as as executive producer. You can clearly see that the latter was heavily involved, and the movie delights in packing in as many tropes and callbacks to classic movies from the period.
The movie is (unsurprisingly) about a group of misfit kids. This time, they're trying to shoot an amateur movie for a competition when they witness and record a real train crash. It turns out this was actually a military train, and it was carrying a mysterious creature that begins to terrorize their small town, as the local sheriff battles with the army to discover what's really going on.
It's a great movie with great characters, and after watching it you wouldn't have been surprised if you were told it was actually made in 1979. Super 8 has all the usual tropes you'd expect from these films, but it doesn't feel like a gimmick or too self-aware, as a lot of nostalgic movies do today. Spielberg's influence can be felt throughout, as alongside the monsters and kids riding bikes, there's a real story about complex characters. And in the end, it comes back to that most important thing: family.
4. Explorers (1985)
While Skeleton Crew references The Goonies a ton, this lesser-known movie actually has a lot more in common with it, including a similar plot revolving around space travel and aliens.
Three young boys (misfits, of course) encounter a singularity that they can control from their computer. It creates an impenetrable bubble that is outside of space and allows them to build a spaceship out of scrap and travel safely across the galaxy, where they come face to face with other lifeforms.
The first two acts of the movie are pure joy, with stand-out performances from young River Phoenix and Ethan Hawke. Seeing their characters develop as they put their skills to the test to build a spacecraft really sets the movie up for a great ending, which sadly never comes. The third act is a big disappointment and doesn't really go anywhere. You can see that the script wasn't finished before shooting began, and despite his best efforts, director Joe Dante can't save things. Even so, the first two thirds are great fun.
5. E.T. (1982)
It wouldn't be right to make this list without including a movie directed by Steven Spielberg himself, the premiere filmmaker of the 1980s. E.T. features aliens, small town suburbia, and iconic shots of kids riding bikes.
The story of E.T. is well-known; it's about a small alien that visits Earth and is accidentally left behind by his people. He befriends a small boy named Elliot, who takes him home and keeps him hidden while he tries to find a way for the alien to "phone home."
This isn't just a funny or entertaining movie, it's a beautiful one about friendship and the innocence of children, as Elliot has to evade the government who want to imprison E.T. It's Spielberg at his very best, both in terms of the story and the visuals, with everything you'd expect from a movie of this era executed perfectly. It truly deserves the title of classic.
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