Fourth Draft script deconstruction - The Caverns to My Ego Death

The Caverns

The plumbing setpiece had an extended gag in the Fourth Draft script. If you can recall back to the film, there’s the scene with the men in the shower. The knobs recede into the wall and they peer down the holes that creates… which never had much of a payoff. In the script, we can see what was the intended gag:

The cut from the shower back to the cave is so abrupt that it makes me wonder if they actually did film this bit and it was taken out during editing to save a few seconds in time. I can’t say I’m disappointed this was cut, though, cause it’s just kind of unpleasantly gross and feels out of place if you’ve already removed a lot of the more cartoonish, over-the-top jokes from the final. Yeah, sure, Troy gets shot off of a toilet by the “REVERSE PRESSURE!!!”, but it’s pretty clean compared to… this.

Another oddity about this part is that it’s Brand’s idea to bang on the pipes rather than Mouth. Since Mouth is meant to be the son of a plumber, and the fact that he still points out the different pipes and whatnot lines earlier, it’s odd to have Brand say this instead of Mouth. Maybe this is a personal preference, but I feel the dialogue flows better to have the guy who’s familiar with this come up with the game plan instead.

The final thing to point out in here is that the scene sort of just… stops. After all of that nonsense with the pipes, the aforementioned “REVERSE PRESSURE!!!”, the gags with the country club members, this is our payoff:

In the final version, there’s a bigger point to the whole plumbing sequence: the water that sprays out uncovers a path through to the next place the Goonies need to get. It’s a scene that has some funny moments, that has some tension at the end, and gets us from Point A to Point B in a fashion that’s entertaining to watch. This defeated hike away is just… pretty awful.

This isn’t much a case of cutting out content, which has been most of what we’ve seen so far, as it is adding to the scene. Since it’s entirely new, I’m curious as to who thought to add this in.

Chunk’s Interrogation

Most differences here are simple dialogue changes, but I just want to highlight this one part:

That’s all.

Chester Copperpot

Andy’s panicked spiel is here, mostly intact, just one line removed in return for her giving us this iconic(?) bit:

After the discovery of the ex-explorer, Andy just sort of… phases out of existence for a second. Everyone sticks together, she doesn’t run off, Stef doesn’t go to comfort her or anything. Splitting up the group like in the final version creates tension when it comes to the booby trap being set off. Not to mention, it’s just more interesting to the scene to have characters in the back while others are checking something out. Having a big group around one focal point isn’t a very entertaining scene.

As previously mentioned, Stef is the one coerced into picking up his wallet, instead of adventurous Mikey. We continue down this path of Stef getting the short straw, having to do the odd things for the sake of the movie. For someone who always had an interest in her as a child (hmm, I wonder why...), it’s so disheartening and scary that this is what we could have gotten if not for changes to the script on the fly.

The Lou Gherig card is a little detail added in probably as they filmed, and it’s something I’ve always felt also contributed to how grounded a movie about pirate treasure is. The smallest things can help reel in the audience, back from the clouds, down to the earth, to allow them to believe that maybe, just maybe, this could happen to them too.

In Andy’s section, I mentioned how she’s originally the one who set off this falling boulders booby trap. Changing this to Mikey adds to his adventurous personality, the curiosity in him becoming too much when he discovers the lead in the dirt. In fact, Mikey is the one to set off the first two booby traps they come across. Andy indeed does get two booby traps of her own: the entire Bone Organ puzzle trap, which is less her fault and more where she succeeds, and the final one in the Inferno that is entirely harmless and opens the path to the treasure room.

This all frankly ties into the way the original script treated her, as a screaming girl that needed to be saved by Brand or Mikey, take your pick. Final movie Andy is a much stronger character because she’s given more strengths than she was in the script. Does she still scream? Yeah - Stef goes to console her in this very scene - but it’s less for comic effect in the movie.

Last thing of note here: with Brand moving the boulder out of the way, it’s played up for laughs as he specifically tries to show off to Andy by removing his shirt and flexing. Look, I know teenage boys will take any chance they can get to take off their shirt and show off, but considering this is immediately after a life-and-death scenario… it’s just kind of dumb.

Just The Worst (eye strain warning)

Can we pretend that I talked about this part and move on?

So, this is a scene entirely cut from the movie, so I will have to do a bit of literal synopsis here.

I don’t want to admit this scene has one clever thing in it, because… well, look at the section title. But there is a bit of cleverness here. Aside from the Bone Organ puzzle, this is the one place Andy gets to shine. Using her +10 Cheerleading skill, she directs the Goonies to form a victory pyramid to reach to the ceiling to dig their way out, using a shovel left behind by Copperpot. That is the only good thing I have to say about this, because it’s clever and was set up in the opening credits with her quick introduction.

So, they dig. Cut to… the zoo, because, yes, it is time. The gorillas are back in town. And Chris Columbus was feeling extra cheeky the day he penned this, because Bonzo The Great and Bertha are getting ready to fuck. I’m sorry, that might have been a little scary to suddenly have to read, but there’s no easy way to tell you about this. It’s literally in the script. Here, read it yourself!

KILL ME.

I just… where to fucking begin?
The fucking? Yeah, the fucking. The gorillas are about to fuck. Chris Columbus sat down one day and said “ah, yes, what do we need in our fun romp about pirate treasure and a group of rejects and some Italian mobsters… RIGHT, GORILLAS ABOUT TO MATE. YOU’VE DONE IT AGAIN, MY FRIEND! YOU ABSOLUTE UNIT, YOU BRILLIANT GENIUS”.

All will be revealed in time. Trust in the gorillas, as they trust in you.

These fucking gorillas. They haunt me. They haunt my dreams. Every time I see a gorilla now, it’s just a damn reminder that this script exists, that this scene was once in my favorite movie, that they actually filmed the bit with Bonzo and Bertha in Troy’s Mustang.

They filmed that. Did they film this? Did they film this? Did they film this? Did they film this? Did they film this? Did they film this?

Oh, Winston Overwatch, I don’t like your game, but I think you’re a riot. Please, please make gorillas funny again. Say the funny thing. Say the funny thing! Say the fucking funny thing!

Peanut butter?

MG--they’ve--they’ve had an accident, they--they died, I couldn’t…
They--they drowned.
They… took a fall.
I don’t know, they just… they just stopped.

I mean, does it really matter what happened? Either way, done is done. And done… in this case, is particularly done. 

I know you’re not real, so there’s no use in pretending.

Soon it won’t be a pretense. It will be an absolute.

Gorillas are ground-dwelling, predominantly herbivorous apes that inhabit the forests of central Sub-Saharan Africa. The genus Gorilla is divided into two species: the eastern gorillas and the western gorillas (both critically endangered), and either four or five subspecies. They are the largest living primates. The DNA of gorillas is highly similar to that of humans, from 95 to 99% depending on what is included, and they are the next closest living relatives to humans after the chimpanzees and bonobos.

…

So, I’m not dead. Promise. This is just… normal for me now. I get reminded of gorillas and I just sort of… go a little off the deep end and make some references to games I like. This is normal. It’s fine. All in the life’s day for MossGardenWishingWell, Goonies fan. I am coping.

...gorillas. They dig into the gorilla cage or enclosure or whatever and Bonzo come tumbling down. In confused rage, he scares off the Goonies and climbs back up the hole he fell through.

I mean, is there really much else that needs to be said about this? You already know how I feel about this whole thing. It’s so fucking ridiculous, the entire gorillas subplot has no right in being in this movie. All it contributes is a longform “haha funy monky” gag. The Goonies is a story about pirate treasure, there’s absolutely no fucking reason for this to be here.

Again, I’d like to reiterate that filming began ten days after this script was penned. Could you imagine them starting to film this with it still intact? When were the gorillas removed? The movie was shot mostly in order.

On a theoretical note, I have a feeling that they filmed all of the car chase stuff first. After all, if you take a look at the production stills of them in Troy’s car, it is day out. Unless this was meant to slot into the very end, showing the car crashing into the reunion at Cauldron Point, it’s just pretty out of place.

What I’m trying to say here is that I think they filmed those car chases first, then looked back at the script, and who I’m assuming is Donner said “hey, let’s cut out all this gorilla nonsense, it’s taking up our running time”. This would also explain why usually people talk more about that octopus scene rather than the cut Bonzo and Bertha.