Fourth Draft script deconstruction - Escape, Finale, and Final Thoughts

Enter Sloth and Chunk

I can do this. I can make it through the rest of this essay. I can do this.

As mentioned prior, we now have an explanation as to why Chunk and Sloth show up with pirate hats and swords.

For whatever reason, it’s here that Data uses his Pinchers of Peril against the Fratellis, rather than during his anger-induced retaliation. Makes more sense for it to be during that, so makes sense why they moved it to there. Sorry, my writing isn’t very on point right now, I think my brain is still broken from… before.

Something also missing here is Stef punching Mama Fratelli. It’s wholly absent, and I suppose that took the spot of Data’s Pinchers of Peril in the final product.

Truly the greatest punch in cinematic history. It’s so natural and not at all telegraphed…

Jake and Francis’ arguing is something not in the script, mostly because their entire character dynamic came from how Joe Pantoliano and Robert Davi acted together on set! Donner’s entire thing with this whole movie was doing things on the fly and letting actors suggest things, and it’s been reported that Donner let Joey Pants and Davi go hog wild with their on-screen interactions.

The Goonies escape, Sloth dunks his mom overboard, and the Fratellis go to loot the ship. Here is a more descriptive version of the booby trap that sets off the collapse of the entire cavern and eventually releases the Inferno:

Willy sending himself up to posthumously pilot the ship is honestly a really cute touch. He set himself to live on forever, to sail the seas one last time, as long as someone came along to trigger the trap. I’m kind of disappointed we didn’t get this in the final product, cause it would have been really fun to watch everything slide into place. Maybe they didn’t have the time/budget to fit it in.

Compared to the movie, the script is flip-flopped on the dynamite/Sloth scenario. In The Goonies, a sole stick of dynamite clears up the rubble blocking the Goonies’ way to freedom, unfortunately resulting in a bigger rock sliding down to block the way. Sloth comes over and lifts it to let the kids escape.

In the script, Sloth’s self-sacrifice comes first. He lifts up a crumbling opening in the wall and Chunk has to sadly leave him behind. Then we have the convenient mistake of dynamite for a flare, and they blow a hole through the wall and crawl out to the beach, but not without Brand having another panic attack about being stuck in a cramped space.

Switching the two around for the final sets us up to actually feel bad that they need to leave Sloth behind. Having him leave the party before defeats the purpose of an emotional beat. Can’t really say “Sloth Love Chunk” and then have the Goonies run around and do some additional stuff, because then you immediately forget Sloth stayed behind in the first place. Good choices here on the director’s part.

The Morning Fog

Nice easter egg, Columbus. (The working title for The Goonies at one point was The Goon Kids.)

Anyway, we’re in the final stretch here. No stopping now!

Here, we have our reunion with the Goonies and their parents. For sake of just having something to call this place, I will be referring to this location as Cauldron Point, The Fictional Landmark In Ecola State Park. Just keep that in mind, considering the entire setting of the script is Cauldron Point. It’s easier for my bird brain to keep a track of, since that’s what I’m more familiar with.

We’ll be doing a little bit of jumping around here, since there’s a lot going on.

Chunk is brought hot dogs instead of Domino's Pizza during this scene. Pizza seems like it’s much easier to carry around in a location like this. If his mom pulled out a big thing of hot dogs, it would have been really weird for some reason? Maybe I’m the one being weird about this, who knows.

Here’s Stef and Mouth’s little heart-to-heart. I kind of prefer the final cut’s version, since it’s a lot more tongue-in-cheek and bantery, than this… mixed bag in the script. Plus, they both laugh about it and hug, and it feels much more amicable in general.

This isn’t really that important, just some additional dialogue between Brand and Andy, but it’s just really funny to imagine her saying that.

The arrival of Sloth and his family is… really overlooked in the script. In the movie, we get this amazing shot of product placement:

Domino’s is bulletproof! Order from us today!

In the script, they just kind of… show up. Chunk feeds Sloth a hot dog and he burps loudly cause haha burping. The rest of the Fratellis are arrested. There’s no space for anyone to really react to them coming up the coast, to the cops’ reaction to a guy like Sloth. The entire arrest takes place in a single line: “Mama and the Boys are HANDCUFFED, then put into the back of a POLICE VAN.” To have such a big part of the movie handwaved away by the end like this is… so odd. Props to the director for being like “hey uh, maybe we should give these characters a proper end”.

I regret to say this but… our favorite characters are back during the signing of the Goon Docks over to Mr. Perkins. As Irving Walsh is struggling to pen down his John Hancock, this… well… this happens…

If you just heard anyone go Super Saiyan 3 in the distance, don’t worry, that was me.

This… this is the culmination of our z-plot with the gorillas. They show up, just to fuck with the Perkins, and that’s it. The gorillas exist in the Fourth Draft script universe of The Goonies and nobody bats a fucking eye at them. Hell, everyone starts “cherring [sic], applause, and laughter”. Like, in any other scenario, gorillas on the loose would have caused mass panic!
Have I mentioned that this may have been filmed? Here, let me go grab the pictures again…

I still yearn for death!

I hate the cartoony version of The Goonies so, so, so much. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love cartoony humor, but it just doesn’t work with this story, especially the final product we received. Could you imagine if we still have everything in the final? The weird sexual stuff? The weird storytelling choices? The gorillas? I frankly couldn’t see this version of the movie becoming any sort of cult classic or positively-reviewed movie. I think this would have absolutely bombed. It’s a goddamn miracle this movie got out with the reception it received. It’s not perfect, of course, but… gorillas, people. We could have had gorillas. Count your blessings.

We don’t even get a chance to rest, readers. So, let’s pull that pin involving the marble bag out. We know in the final movie that the Goonies managed to smuggle out a series of gems because Mikey had his marble bag. We’ve got the three core elements in the movie: set-up, reminder, payoff. This script has set-up and reminder, but… no payoff.

Why is there no payoff, you ask?

You are indeed reading this correctly. Sloth just sort of burps up a bunch of gems, including a “HUGE, SPARKLING DIAMOND”. All that mention of the marble bag? There was no purpose for it. It was just sort of… there. Sloth keeps burping a bunch until all the gems are up out of his stomach. It’s… such a weird, unpleasant way to get the jewels to save the Goon Docks. Maybe if this was animated it would come off as being less gross, but uh, this would have needed to be filmed and, frankly, nobody would have wanted to watch this.

That aside, it’s still just so strange that, as this was written, there was this planting for the marble bag and just… it got forgotten somehow at the end? I mean, I get forgetting some things, but that’s what revisions are for and let’s not forget this is the Fourth Draft. And even then, the name is misleading, because there are seven listed redrafts on the front page of the document.

Nobody much notices Sloth spewing out precious gems, save for Chunk. It requires Rosalita to say “don’t sign” in Spanish over and over, which… look, in the final movie? She’s the one who sees the treasure. She gets so overcome with finding them she rambles and desperately tries to interject to tell Irving Walsh not to sign the document. Here? It’s just… more contrivance to put drama in the scene. Chunk or Sloth or anyone else who may have seen this happen could have spoken up about “oh, hey, we’ve got treasure to save the Goon Docks now!”

But now that everyone knows about the jewels, uh… the movie just kind of ends? Yeah. There’s no triumphant tearing up of the document - a late addition to the movie, it seems, as it’s shot the same way some of the last-minute Burbank scenes were.

The Sheriff comes over and gives Chunk a hard time until we see the Inferno sailing across the Pacific Ocean, off to god knows where.

Oh yeah, this happens too! The cartoony atmosphere of the whole script makes a lot of this feel so disingenuous. The Goonies - at least, the final version of The Goonies - is a pretty cozy thing. It’s very much the movie that you grew up with that you go to on a nice rainy day. You crawl under the blankets, turn on the movie, and chill out. I keep saying this, but I say it for a reason: The Goonies has that grounded realism that carries a special magic with it. As a kid, you feel like an adventure like this is possible, and as an adult, it gives off a nostalgic warmth.

This kind of thing would fly in an animated movie, the sudden “haha, gottem!” moment with the last shot and a fadeout. Not so much in a live action movie.

While this image exists, I can’t be certain this was ever filmed. The outfit is either one Sean Astin wore off-camera, or in another deleted scene that is not present on the script, which involves a get-together at the Walsh residence after the events of the movie. The two production stills that exist from this scene do not give a proper look at Mikey’s outfit, and while the jacket does match up, there’s no way to match them together 100%.

So, it’s possible we’ll never know if this was actually filmed or if Astin was goofing off behind the scenes.

Cut to the Inferno sailing away. Roll credits.

What to even say?

I’d say this goes without question but: the Fourth Draft script for The Goonies is… not good. It does not hold up, especially in comparison to the final cut. And perhaps that’s an unfair comparison to make. After all, this was most likely done by Chris Columbus without a whole lot of editing on the part of Dick Donner.

It’s crude and weirdly sexual, there’s lots of tone problems, there’s plot elements that get glossed over, the writing isn’t great save for a few one-liners… it’s a big mess, and it’s a big wonder that The Goonies managed to captivate audiences even to modern times. Despite the movie being very of its time with fashion and music, the story of a group of kids hunting down pirate treasure to save their home from being sold to a jackass is something that anyone can relate to. The script is so very alienating, in all of the things I’ve just listed.

The first time I found this and read it, I was more or less horrified. In a way, it’s proof that, sometimes, ignorance is bliss. After all, if I hadn’t gone searching for a script, not the official one, I wouldn’t have ended up writing this long-as-fuck essay on the subject.

And yet… I feel like I’ve learned a lot about the movie after spending my time doing this. Piecing together what was dropped, what was rewritten, and trying to figure out why, helped me understand the production of the movie just that much better.

If you’ve stuck around with me for this whole thing, I genuinely appreciate it (and apologize profusely for, now, you have to carry this knowledge with you too). These essays take forever to write, and this is the first time I’ve attempted something like this, but they’re quite fun! I hope it’s just as fun to read as it is to write.

I leave with you the Fourth Draft script. Do with this what you will. 

My next project of this caliber involves the novelization by David Kahn. This will be less a side-by-side comparison, but more an expanded, alternate look at the story and characters, which I think will be exciting! I’ve never really seen anyone discuss the novel at length and I’m willing to take a crack at it.

Unfortunately, it is based on the script! I will never escape this thing until my very last breath...