Thnks Fr Th Lrcs - James Watched Space Camp!

Hey everyone, it's James here from Thnks Fr Th Lrcs. I'm writing this at kind of a weird time because we haven't actually recorded the episode for "Homesick at Space Camp" yet, but I found the movie on YouTube and I thought I'd talk about it for a little bit.

This movie came out in 1986, only a couple of months after the Challenger disaster, so it basically tanked because people weren't ready for NASA-related danger just yet, but if you're able and willing, please do check this one out!

It has an all-star cast. Lea Thompson, Kelly Preston, Kate Capshaw, Tate Donovan, Leaf (who you might know by the name he later adopted: Joaquin) Phoenix, Tom Skerrit (still my choice for Doctor Strange), and even Terry O'Quinn!

A series of mishaps caused by a well-meaning robot cause 5 kids from Space Camp and their instructor to get launched into Actual Space (TM) and now they have to get home on their own with limited oxygen and only short-range radio.

I thought that the characters were excellent and their interactions were lovely. The plot was engaging and the suspense was fairly suspenseful! 

My favorite character was probably Tish, played by Kelly Preston. She gets pigeonholed immediately as a ditzy airhead valley girl, but she's actually brilliant, creative, and gifted with an eidetic memory. She also appears to have a copy of the Dire Straits album Brothers in Arms on cassette tape that skips straight from So Far Away to Walk of Life without touching Money For Nothing. Which is wild. Can you imagine the reality where Tish made herself a tape where she cut out that smash single. Classic Tish. It's actually kind of a badass move.

ANYways Leaf Phoenix is adorable but a little annoying with his Star Wars references, which feel weird like faddy and tacky for some reason, even though this movie came out within the 10 years all of the Original Trilogy were released. Although I guess it was sort of akin to doing an Austin Powers ref in like 2006.  Maybe SLIGHTLY different.

You can WATCH SPACE CAMP FOR FREE ON YOUTUBE  or at least you could when I wrote this post, which was on 3/13/20, but it looks pretty official so I bet it's still there. It's a fairly unproblematic and enjoyable 80's movie that was referenced, in the title at least of a Fall Out Boy song. I think I'm going to have this post on the day we're due to publish the episode, so if you haven't listened already, go over and check it out on the podcatcher of your choice and listen smugly in the warmth of the knowledge of what Space Camp is!

Okay bye!

PS. You know what's a good space word? Yaw. I'm going to look up the definition and post it here. From WIkipedia: "A yaw rotation is a movement around the yaw axis of a rigid body that changes the direction it is pointing, to the left or right of its direction of motion." So basically think of a record with an airplane drawn on it. If you scratch that record on a turntable, you're giving the plane Yaw Rotation! <the more you know wizard picture>