40 Years Later, Tom Skerritt's Hidden Sci-Fi Gem Is Impossible To Stream

Tom Skerritt may be best remembered for his roles in Alien, Steel Magnolias, and M*A*S*H*, but he’s one of those prolific actors with a resumé that spans decades. He was in westerns in the ‘60s, Harold and Maude in the ‘70s, and played Rebecca’s corporate boss Evan Drake in Cheers in the ‘80s. He’s a veteran of the New Hollywood movement, so he saw movies change from crowd-pleasers to art pieces to blockbusters.

In 1986, he played a key role in a rollicking sci-fi adventure movie with a performance that should have gone down in movie history, but unfortunately the movie was doomed by the one thing nobody can control: tragic coincidence.

SpaceCamp is pretty undeniably one of those movies that was conceived as a way to capitalize on the success of Star Wars. But instead of copying the story itself, it focused on the real-world effects of Star Wars: kids getting really into space travel. The movie follows a group of kids who all attend NASA Space Camp to go through mock astronaut training: Kevin (Tate Donovan), Kathryn (Lea Thompson), Rudy (Larry B. Scott), Tish (Kelly Preston), and 12-year-old Max (Joaquin Phoenix, using the name “Leaf”). Working with their camp instructor, Andie (Kate Capshaw), they get accidentally sent into space after a robot hears Max wish to go and must work together to get back.

Skerritt plays camp director Zach Bergstrom, who also happens to be Andie’s husband. Much like his flight instructor role in Top Gun, which premiered only a month previously, he is the mentor for the young hotshots the story focuses on, but he also has an interesting place as both the supervisor and husband. It’s a difficult needle to thread, but he balances the authority of a proven astronaut and the panic of a man who just wants his wife back on solid ground.

Unfortunately, SpaceCamp is partly famous for its bad timing: it premiered less than five months after the disastrous Challenger explosion, which was witnessed by many children as it was positioned as an educational event. Suddenly, a movie that was supposed to be about how space is scary but teamwork is stronger had much higher stakes than anyone expected. “The time is not right for a comedy thriller about a bunch of kids who are accidentally shot into orbit with their female teacher,” Roger Ebert wrote in his review, “It may never be right again.”

Tom Skerritt’s performance may have been overshadowed by this tragedy, but four decades later, this movie — and his role — can finally be appreciated with the distance it deserves.

Can you stream SpaceCamp?

Although SpaceCamp is a fascinating cult classic, it’s also very, very hard to watch, at least not without a DVD or Blu-ray player. While the Roku Channel lists it as available to stream, what’s there is only a roughly two-minute-long trailer for the film. If you want to watch the movie online, you basically can’t. Instead, you’ll have to track down a Blu-ray, DVD, or VHS copy if you want to get the full effect.