Disney's Time Travel Adventure 'Flight of the Navigator' Turns 40

The Disney movie 'Flight of the Navigator' celebrates its 40th anniversary this weekend. The film's story is about an ordinary kid named David Scott Freeman who is knocked unconscious after falling into a ditch near his Florida home on July 4, 1978. When he wakes up, eight years have passed for everyone else, and David has been declared dead.

David discovers that he was taken aboard a Trimaxion drone ship by mistake, which made the round trip to the planet Phaelon (560 light years away) in 4.4 solar hours. This caused a time slip of eight years for everyone else.

NASA scientists explain this phenomenon as 'light speed theory', where time slows down as you approach the speed of light. The film's director, Randal Kleiser, believed that kids could understand this concept and that it was not too complex for them to grasp.