A Pile Of Shit
We’re not off to a great start on the Inferno. So, I’m going to talk about something else! It’s a well-known piece of trivia that the Inferno, One-Eyed Willy’s ship, was life-size. All the interior shots on the ship were actually done on the ship and that is extremely cool. Unfortunately, when it came time to dismantle the sets, nobody wanted to claim the ship. And so, it was destroyed, which is a damn shame.
Now, many sites say that the ship’s materials were recycled down south of Burbank, at Disneyland, for use with the ships in Pirates of the Caribbean. I don't believe this to be true.
The sites that report this give no sourcing of this information. But in the official Souvenir Magazine, it says the following:
Our biggest challenge came with the actual rigging. The Bounty was in Los Angeles Harbor and the rigger came up and spent some time educating us. At the same time, the people at Disneyland decided to do new rigging on their Pirates of the Caribbean ship, the Columbia. So we were able to get a lot of rigging off their ship to use on ours.
 |
| I managed to sneak something about Disney park history into this. A present from me to myself! |
Those familiar with the Disney theme parks may find this story… puzzling. The Columbia, full name Sailing Ship Columbia, is not a ship in Pirates of the Caribbean - that would be the Wicked Wench (usually erroneously referred to as the Black Pearl following the 2006 POTC movie refurbishment). The Sailing Ship Columbia is an attraction that is a physical ship that sails around the Rivers of America. And because it is an actual working ship (that sails on a track, of course), this would require real, true sailing materials over the static, not moving on a track Wicked Wench.
Because of this, and because an official source misnames the Wicked Wench as the “Columbia”, we can safely assume and say that the materials were graciously given by Disney to help build the ship, all materials intended for the Sailing Ship Columbia. It’s easy to assume that a movie like The Goonies would have had their Disneyland connection through Pirates of the Caribbean, but it’s actually not!
Okay, okay. I suppose we’re here to talk about The Goonies, huh?
Anyways. Differences in the script. Instead of Data falling through the floor of the Inferno, he gets stuck in a ventilator. When everyone tries to help him out, they instead pull the whole thing out. I don’t suppose it’s even worth giving an opinion on this since it’s such a small detail that doesn’t really matter (but I prefer the final over the script).
A more major change comes with everyone exploring the lower levels of the ship. Here, not much really happens before our ragtag heroes discover the hidden passage. There’s no argument about “where’s the gold, Mikey?”, there’s no last booby trap that even reveals the way.
The flow of the plot in the script is so vastly different from in the movie. In the movie, there are hitches along the way, points in time where our characters step back and think “is this treasure even real?” There’s not much of it in the script; many times, the Goonies will quickly solve a puzzle and continue on like it’s nothing.
I’ve mentioned it before, but the final movie has this strange groundedness to it. Part of the reason I think I enjoy the movie so much is that, even though this is a fake story, it almost feels believable. Lots of stuff about the booby traps and whatnot makes it feel like those stories on the news every handful of months about a little girl pulling a sword out of a local lake. Pirate ship left untouched for centuries, still intact, never to be found because of the wild story that left it to be marooned in a cave? Highly unlikely… and yet. Maybe possible.
Something also interesting with this bit is that we finally know what the gold writing on the planks guarding the way into the treasure room says:
This might only be interesting to me though because, for the longest time, I could have sworn syndicated showings of the movie had a part with reading the gold writing. From a lot of my research into it, though, this apparently was never a part of the movie. I guess that’s just my own Mandela Effect of this movie. Instead of “hey wait wasn’t there an octopus scene”, it’s “hey wait don’t they read the gold text”. Priorities.
Mikey climbs up into the room containing Willy and his treasure. Now, in the movie, he gets a little moment to himself, which is nice, considering the obsession with Willy is his and his alone. Having that little minute or two to have him finally “meet” One-Eyed Willy is special to watch, the weight of the scene is very… well, Spielberg. Perhaps he directed this scene.
In the script, the rest of the Goonies follow him up instantly, rid of anything that made the scene special in the final cut.
 |
| “Hey Mikey, why the fuck are you talking to that skeleton like it’s real? HOLY SHIT LOOK AT ALL THIS TREASURE, WHO CARES IF THAT’S WILLY, LET’S TAKE THIS AND GO!” |
A curious detail omitted from the movie is this:
Willy was asthmatic too. Honestly, I wish this was in the final cut, because it just ties him to Mikey even more. What were the odds that they shared this in common? One-Eyed Willy is a Goonie because he’s missing an eye, but this connection honestly makes it feel even more special. Perhaps they thought it was too contrived to have them both be asthmatics?
A curious piece of dialogue in The Goonies makes me think that this was left on the cutting room floor: a floating “We have a lot in common, huh Willy?” over a shot of One-Eyed Willy’s skull. The way the edit cuts away on that dialogue with no explanation is curious. There’s also a prop Mikey picks up as the other approach to look at all the Rich Stuff… but I can’t quite make out what this is meant to be. It almost looks like a knife… but… perhaps this could be the old inhaler intended to link the old pirate captain with the leader of the Goonies.
 |
| You can sort of see it here, it’s the silvery looking thin in his arms, under the balance. |
I suppose this is a mystery we’ll never know (unless someone who worked on the movie wants to hit me up and shed some light on this, hint hint).
Last thing of note: the marble bag is specifically brought up. There’s nothing about this to be said… yet. We will be returning to this in a bit, so just keep this in mind.
Showdown on the Inferno
It’s odd with the changes from script to film. Nearly none of the original product placement makes it way through rewrites (most likely to sponsorships not being struck with the brands in question), and many lines have been workshopped or cut out by the final product. But here, we can see the Hardy Boys reference was intended to be in here all this time. Nothing much to say about this, I just thought it was a neat thing.
Previously mentioned are Data’s various inventions that weren’t in the movie. One that wasn’t mentioned before was the “Intimidator”, which is shown off here. The gadget is meant to make his jacket and clothes puff up through a series of bladders in them; his shoes lift a few inches off the floor; the whole thing makes him grow in size, to, well, intimidate his enemies. Of course, this doesn’t go anywhere as planned.
This bit was actually filmed, as documented in the Souvenir Magazine, including a little anecdote on how J. Michael Riva achieved these effects and some production stills of it in action. The reason for its replacement with the simple Pinchers of Peril and the suction cup belt blaster tool are unknown, of course. Perhaps it was replaced to help the movie feel grounded and less cartoonish. (Doesn’t explain the sound effects with punching out the Fratelli brothers, though…)
Also mentioned in the script is his “optional bully buster”, which just seems to be everything in his arsenal used at once. So, less lost invention and more last-resort mode.
Last thing to touch on is a little detail: originally, Mama Fratelli drops her pistol after the suction cup thing electrocutes her and Data, rather than a simple “oops we’ve bumped into each other” situation.
The kiss between Brand and Andy comes right after her plunge overboard in the script. In the movie, it comes after Chunk and Sloth’s arrival, after Sloth takes down his brothers, after everyone’s jumped overboard to get away. Either way, the situation about Andy kissing Mikey is much more comical here, rather than handwaved away by her to kiss Brand.
You might think this is some sort of complaint, but uh, the kiss is really weird. Kerri Green didn’t even much like the idea in the first place, as she (18) wasn’t happy to be kissing a young Sean Astin (13). It’s weird! We overlook this a lot but it’s really weird! Sure, Andy maybe 16 and not 18, but it’s… weird. It’s just weird!
Something left on the cutting room floor is also in this script: while Stef and Mouth are pushed up to the edge of the plank, she offers to share her breath with him, as she’s “Champion of that underwater stuff”. This was filmed, as there exists production stills of the very short scene. It’s also referenced at the end of the movie, as Mouth thanks her for offering to save his life - if you’ve ever wondered what that was meant to refer to, well, there you go!
 |
| A smaller version of this is in the Souvenir Magazine. |
End me. Literally end me. Just put my head to the pedestal, take out that big fancy axe of yours, and do me in. Just decapitate me in one fell swoop--wait why are you running? Fuck, what’s that noise? Oh my god is that a dragon?
 |
| Take Photoshop away from me. Please. |
No comments:
Post a Comment