YMMV / Flight of the Navigator

• Alternative Character Interpretation: The Phaelonians. They seem to be exploring the galaxy by sending out drone ships to pick up indigenous life forms, bring them back to study, and then return them at the moment they were taken through time travel. Why "explore" in this way, unless the Phaelonians themselves, like humans, are not capable of traveling safely through time? They can't explore without going through massive amounts of time dilation, so they explore and learn this way.
• Awesome Music: If you like '80s electronica, Alan Silvestri's score is made just for you. For a sample, here's the main theme and the Finale. It's a great example of the capabilities of the Synclavier, an early digital music system.
• Broken Base: The reception of the second half of the film is divisive. As other tropes below show many were disappointed by the sudden shift in tone, but nevertheless a large number of fans still enjoy this second half and some outright prefer its lighter tone.
• Designated Villain: Dr. Faraday fills the only real antagonistic role in the film, but isn't necessarily a bad guy so much as a beleaguered bureaucrat who's trying to juggle a very awkward workload. Even though NASA is essentially holding David against his will while they study him, the Doctor still makes some effort to ensure David is kept content while he's in their custody (though not enough effort, obviously) and does show concern for his safety once the boy ends up commandeering the drone ship. Even his "mooks" are a bunch of pleasant chaps who settle in with the Freemans to watch The Price is Right while staking out their house.
  • When Max shuts down to teach David a lesson, the ship starts falling out of the sky. Dr. Faraday immediately asks, "Did somebody *shoot* him down??" He is concerned for David's welfare. But as every child knows, being concerned for the child's welfare is different from having their best interests at heart.
• Fridge Horror:
  • Do you really think whoever coordinates the Trimaxion Drone Ships (The Trimaxions, maybe) will be perfectly fine with one of their dispassionate, calm Drone Ships acting like a twelve-year-old human child after it scanned one? To them, TDS #5334 is simply dangerously malfunctioning and and will need to be restored to factory defaults.
    • This assumes the Trimaxions are cold and dispassionate themselves, and treat their drone ships like nothing but hardware. Why assume that? It's just as likely they'll be highly amused by the ship's new personality. Or at least decide "Hey, the ship is now mentally a lot like one of these 'humans'. We can learn a lot about them from Max!"
    • The Trimaxions may all be Mechanical Lifeforms like Max. Besides which, if they place so much importance on benignly studying biological lifeforms, they may also find the memories and experiences of other sentient species to be worthy of study.
  • Also consider Carolyn McAdams and her likely future. It's pretty evident when David escapes that the higher-ups believed she helped him escape. At best, she likely underwent quite a bit of uncomfortable interrogation from various Three Letter Agencies. At worst, she was likely thrown into a cell for the rest of her life (at least up until time gets reset by David going back).
  • Depending on how time-travel works in the setting, the timeline where he disappeared and never came back could still exist. His parents and brother saw him briefly, then he left to go back to "his own time" and entered another timeline, so they never saw him again.
  • Pukmaren stowing away in David's backpack at the end. It's an alien-creature with unknown biology. What does it even eat? We can't assume that all aliens can eat hats like the other one aboard the ship. For all we know, the poor little thing could be dead within a week! That said, hopefully David learns about his diet from Max, so he'd know what to feed him if Earth food shares the same vitamins and nutrients as Pukmaren's diet. When he first appears, it looked like it eats berries.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Max's ship is shaped a lot like Samus's gunship.
  • When David asks for a Coke, Carolyn asks if he wants "New Coke, Classic Coke, Cherry Coke, Diet Coke, or Caffeine-free Coke?" David blanks. But in retrospect, none of those would satisfy David. New Coke and Cherry Coke aside, 1978 Coca-Cola was made with cane sugar, while 1986 Diet Coke used an artificial sweetener and 1986 Classic Coke and the caffeine-free version were made with high-fructose corn syrup. Absolutely none of the 5 options would have tasted "right" to David.
• Retroactive Recognition: Sarah Jessica Parker played Carolyn, a NASA intern who befriends and helps David.^note  She has expressed indifference toward the film in interviews, saying it was just another job to her.
• Squick: The "very unpleasant little creature".
• Tear Jerker:
  • The fate of the Puckmaren's homeworld.
    Max: He's angry because I won't take him home. He doesn't know his planet was destroyed by a comet.
  • David and Max's goodbye.
  • David's heartbreakingly realistic reaction to coming home and realizing it suddenly isn't his home anymore:
    David: [crying] Please... Where's my Mom and Dad?
  • David's goodbye to his family when he decides to return to his time.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: After Max gets his data back, along with a good helping of David's personality, he makes continuous pop culture references and becomes a robotic Pee-Wee Herman.^note For good reason; he was voiced by Paul Reubens. Many preferred the original Spock Speaking Max.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: It's not to say the film is a waste, as it were, but the initial premise of a child locked out of time for eight years and reuniting with his family could easily support its own movie.
• Ugly Cute: Puckmaren.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: The Trimaxion Drone Ship looks nearly as amazing◊ today as it did in 1986, thanks to the use of practical and cutting edge (for 1985) CGI.

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