"AYE-AYEAYEAYEAYEAYEAYE..."
Despite being a relatively harmless family film, Flight of the Navigator has some scary moments in it.- The leitmotif used throughout the film, particularly in the first half of the film is very unnerving. Added to by the sudden flairs of the theme during certain moments during scenes of suspense (i.e., the forest scene, all the early scenes with the spaceship, when David is given a copy of his missing persons poster). It becomes more adventurous and wonderous as the film progresses.
- The premise of the film - David is your average, everyday preteen who is sent by his parents to meet his little brother Jeff from a friend's house. While walking in the woods, he falls down a ravine and falls unconscious. He wakes up seemingly moments later, only to slowly discover eight years have passed since he fell down the ravine, everyone and everything he knows has changed and aged, and he hasn't aged a day. An old couple now live in his childhood home, he was declared missing, and then legally dead. It's a Bad Future for David, and feels like a nightmare to him for most of the film. And all of this misery was caused by a species of ambiguous mechanical aliens who abducted him to see if they could cram the unused parts of his mind with star charts For Science!, who dumped him eight years in the future because time travel was too risky for his "inferior brain".
- The scene where David returns to his house really stands out to young viewers. It's very easy for kids to see themselves in David's place here, and the idea that everyone and everything you know and love could suddenly just disappear with no explanation takes that terrifying, helpless feeling a child gets from being lost in a public place and magnifies it 1000% by transferring it to the one place where any kid should feel the safest: their home. No wonder David breaks down almost immediately.
- The spaceship's first appearance and its build up. The music helps a lot too.
- Max's incoherent mechanical cries for help. The first time you hear it, it sounds like heavy breathing. Even more creepy is that he keeps calling to David, until you can actually understand him where he speaks in a deep, slow voice ("Are you coming?") Yeah, he's voiced by Paul Reubens, but it is still disturbing.
- The fact that he's voiced by Paul Reubens makes it WORSE.
- The well-intentioned but extreme methods of NASA, who keep David in maximum security containment for two days to study what's going on with his brain. Upon discovering the alien data, they quietly extend his imprisonment for possibly forever. Without consulting his parents. And later on, Dr. Faraway intends on isolating him for likely the rest of his life.
- The scene where the NASA scientists hook David up to a computer to examine his unusual brain waves and discover the star charts.NASA Scientist: David, where have you been for the last eight years?David: I already told you, I don't know.*on computer screen* "In analysis mode on Phaelon."
- The Extreme Omnivore alien on Max's spaceship that eats David's hat. Max mentions David's head could have been chewed off.
- Doubles as a Funny Moment as it then belches.
- The hyperspace dimension Max flies through in order to go back in time. It's just an endless field of dark cloud banks, lightning, and plasma bursts. The tense music doesn't help either. It's terrifying to watch when you're a kid, especially after Max explains that David may not survive the trip.
- And especially when Max is all quiet and the liquid inside his eye starts spinning.
- The creatures begin to freak out as well.
