From left, Kate Capshaw, Joaquin Phoenix, Lea Thompson, Tate Donovan, Larry B. Scott, and Kelly Preston in 1986’s “SpaceCamp.”Image used with permission by copyright holder
The mid-1980s was a special time for movies. The Star Wars trilogy had wrapped up. We hadtwo films with Indiana Jones.Ghostbusterswas huge.Back to the Future.Revenge of the Nerds.
The back half of the decade got decidedly darker, though, starting with theexplosion of the space shuttle Challengerin 1986. Perhaps that should have been a sign that it wasn’t the greatest idea to debut a film just a few months later about a bunch of kids at Space Camp being forced to launch aboard Atlantis, and then worry about oxygen and getting home — but it happened. Someone made a decision, andSpaceCamphit theaters on June 06, 2025.
Wait, someone made a movie called SpaceCamp?
The premise: A handful of kids at Space Camp in Huntsville, Ala. — a thing that you’re able to still go to today, actually — accidentally on purpose get launched into space and have to learn to work together to get home.
Nearly 40 years later, that’s not really most the amazing part of what wasn’t (and still isn’t) a particularly great film. The story is as predictable as it gets, and there are plenty of tells to point to the danger to come, and how to get out of it.
But for all its faults — and they are so many —SpaceCampstill manages to give you the same feeling that so many space movies manage, whether it’s (spoiler, but not really) Mark Watney getting saved at the end ofThe Martian, or the more bleak but no less human ending to Sandra Bullock’s Ryan Stone inGravity. Or, in real life, the modern marvel ofseeing a SpaceX rocket land itselfover and over again.
That’s all basic storytelling, though. What really stands out aboutSpaceCampall these years later involves the availability (or lack thereof) of the movie, the unexpectedly stacked cast, and one major musical surprise.
Good luck trying to watch SpaceCamp (legally, that is)
First, and this may be the more important, is that the movie has fallen into a digital black hole. You can’t buy it unless you want to go the optical route, and while I likeSpaceCampa lot, this isn’t a movie worth $30-plus on DVD. You can’t stream it anywhere. You can, however, find the full thing on something that rhymes with TooYoube, but that’s not really an avenue we can endorse. That’s annoying and seemingly a bit weird given thatFASTservices likeTubihave all kinds of old movies.
Then there’s the casting.SpaceCampis loaded with talent. Ridiculously so.
Start with the grown-ups — Tom Skerritt as Zach Bergstrom, an astronaut who now runs Space Camp. (We’ll withhold judgment on whether that’s a demotion or not.) Skerritt, by the way, had another movie still in theaters whenSpaceCampwas released — a little Navy action flick calledTop Gunthat came out just weeks before.
Kate Capshaw is Zach’s wife, Andie, in a sadly stereotypical role that sees her character plenty competent, but still awaiting a ride to space. Capshaw’s Texas accent comes through plenty, and she’s still recognizable despite having lost the blonde hair she sported a few projects earlier in alittle sequel calledIndiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
And that’s just the start of it. Consider:
And don’t blink or you’ll miss super-early appearances of Terry O’Quinn (Lost,The Stepfather, and so much more), Barry Primus (Cagney & Lacey), and Mitchell Anderson (Doogie Howser, M.D.,Party of Five).
That’s one hell of a cast in any year of the 1980s.
Jaws, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and…SpaceCamp?!?
And, finally, toss in some outstanding music. It’s a little wild to recall hearing three major 1980s hits in a movie too few remember or have seen at all. But, yes, that’s Eric Clapton’sForever Manteamed up with Dire Straits’So Far AwayandWalk of Life. Bangers, all — but still not the biggest musical surprise of SpaceCamp.
The score forSpaceCampwas from none other than John Williams. That’s perhaps not particularly surprising given that dude had been scoring movies and shows for 20-something years by that point, and Hollywood’s maybe not that big a town. But that also putsSpaceCampin the same conversation as the first two Indiana Jones films, the Star Wars trilogy,E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,Superman,Close Encounters of the Third Kind, both Jaws flicks,The Towering Inferno,The Sugarland Express… we could go on. (And if you haven’t spotted theSteven Spielbergthroughline by now, there it is.)
SpaceCamphad all the makings of a perfectly good-bad movie, and there were plenty back then. Maybe it really was the timing that doomed it. Losing Challenger — especially the reason why — shattered the carefree nature of the first half of the decade.
But there’s no denying the star power and the musical talent, both of which elevate the material. The story’s not great — and pretending that you can get from Space Camp in Huntsville to the space shuttle launch pad on the beach in a mere 15 minutes is damned near unforgivable — but it’s entertaining enough. (And you have to root for Jinx, the friendly self-aware robot, who’s actually the cause of everyone’s problems.)
It’s just a shame that you can’t easily (or ethically) watch it anywhere.
