Among the most basic of storytelling concepts is the combination of set-ups and pay-offs. It’s no exaggeration to say that every story ever written employs this concept in some form. In fact, the ending of a story is in many ways the “pay-off” that’s “set-up” by the events and characters preceding. Needless to say, the art of “setting up” and “paying off” is one of the most essential and imperative skills that a storyteller needs to learn, as failing to sufficiently do one or the other can throw the whole operation irreparably out of whack. As a case in point, I present Flight of the Navigator.

The basis of this film is simply awesome. It starts with David Freeman (Joey Cramer), a 12-year-old boy who gets lost in a forest, falls into a ravine and wakes up eight years later without having aged a day. Meanwhile, a strange walnut-shaped UFO has crash landed nearby, seemingly impenetrable and with no visible way in or out. Scientists and doctors are stumped at both events, especially when tests show some kind of mental link between the boy and the craft.

J.J. Abrams, eat your heart out!

The first half of the movie executes this premise superbly. The whole family perfectly sells the grief and confusion over what’s going on, as well as their relief to have David back home safe and sound. The NASA scientists are solid in their desire to find out what’s happening and their need to keep the whole thing under wraps, but not in a way that completely shows disregard for David’s safety or comfort.

The concept of a kid who’s somehow traveled eight years into the future is poignantly explored from every angle. Revelations about the spacecraft and David’s connection to it are very well-paced and presented in a suspenseful way. The film even goes so far as to use eerie UFO imagery to surprising effect.

But then David finally goes into the spaceship. And the movie starts to go downhill in a big way.

First of all, the second half of the film is just David flying aimlessly around the world, up until a climax that has absolutely zero tension. That’s it. I don’t know if the filmmakers ran out of budget or if they just ran out of ideas (maybe both) but the amount of potential left untapped is just staggering. This kid has a fucking alien spaceship that can travel through space and time in the blink of an eye, so why is he stuck on planet Earth?! Why couldn’t the ship have taken him to some faraway alien planet? What’s to keep the plot from forcing him into some interstellar dogfight? I mean, sure we see some aliens and they are quite impressive, but they’re all safely within the confines of the ship and none of them have any relevance to the plot.

Perhaps the most prominent example is the Puckmaren. This particular creature is the last surviving resident of its planet, but the movie makes absolutely nothing of this. David adopts it as a kind of pet, but this does not serve the story in any way. It doesn’t even act as a comedy relief. This character is completely useless! There’s also the matter of “Max,” the ship’s onboard AI. Max starts out as a good enough character — albeit a stick-in-the-mud — but my God, does he get annoying. As soon as Max inexplicably turns into Pee-Wee Herman (did I mention that he’s voiced by Paul Reubens?), he loses his capacity for intelligent conversation and what’s worse, he does not ever shut the fuck up!

Then there’s the matter of the NASA personnel. Their leader, Dr. Faraday (Howard Hesseman), went through the first half of the film as a scientist who was well-meaning, yet focused on the task at hand. But as soon as the ship took flight, he turned into the kind of bumbling idiot bad guy that you’d see in any lesser kids’ movie. A young Sarah Jessica Parker got an even lousier deal, playing a NASA intern named Carolyn McAdams. The first half of the film established her as David’s friend on the inside — the only one in NASA that he could trust. In the entire film, she accomplishes jack squat. Carolyn makes a few inconsequential appearances in the second act before being totally and inexplicably forgotten. Shameful. Speaking of which, the opening of this film features a young girl that David has a crush on. We never meet this girl, the crush is never mentioned again and the advice that David’s dad imparts on the subject has absolutely zero bearing on the rest of the movie.

Ah, but the film still has its merits, even in the second half. The set design of the ship is phenomenal and the effects bringing it to life are every bit as impressive as anything that modern CGI can accomplish. The aliens look pretty cool as well, though there are a few visible strings here and there. The score by Alan Silvestri is quite serviceable, even if parts of it were overdone and/or loaded with ’80s-era synth music. David’s dialogue seems better suited for a kid half his age and I’m not sure who to blame for Max’s shark-jumping in the second half, but the actors nonetheless do the best they can with what they have.

This is a film that came way before its time, with technology and budgets that simply couldn’t deliver the full potential of its awesome foundation. As visually amazing as the movie was and is, it still traded spectacular adventures through space and time for annoying goofiness and abandoned character arcs in a plot that went nowhere through half the running time.

In this age of recycled cinema, Flight of the Navigator practically demands a remake. After twenty years, Hollywood now has the money, manpower and machinery that can deliver the high-flying, intergalactic family film spectacular that this premise deserves. In point of fact, a remake for the film was announced back in 2009, but the project has gone dark in the years since. Come on, Disney. Come on and knock this one out of the park.