Did you notice...?

1. At the beginning, right after the Paramount mountain logo shot, there are a series of shots in the mountains with Paramount-like mountain peaks in view. It may be a loose version of the device used in the Indiana Jones movies, melding the Paramount logo mountain into the opening scene.

2. Daryl was a de facto fashion model in this movie, wearing a different outfit for every episodic scene. He only repeated an outfit once, the school, outfit, which seemed to be especially neat and stylish, and worthy of an encore.Very often boys are dressed kind of grubby, with jeans and a team jersey or windbreaker throughout.

3. Both boys were fast runners. Those scenes are risky. If one of them fell doing a take, it could be costly.

4. There were practically no overweight people in this movie. In fact, there were only several chubbies in the whole film, with dozens of extras collectively--in the school, ballgames, and command room scenes. No one was really obese, like we see today.

5. Shouldn't the sign (@ 44:56) have read "Entering __________", instead of "Leaving Barkenton"?

6. Many 1980 movies like this were filmed at 1.85, like Flight of the Navigator, Cloak & Dagger, Explorers. However this was filmed at 2.35 .It's not an epic, so my guess is that there were scenes best served by wide-screen: the car chases, the air field scene, the Blackbird scenes, the science building, the command room. Plus there were many two shots with Daryl interacting with one or more persons, in close up.
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The story is king.