The Goonies: Fourth Draft script deconstruction - Introduction

Welcome to my personal hell. I fell head over heels with The Goonies a few months ago for no particular reason whatsoever and it’s since become one of my more focused interests in anything ever, maybe my favorite movie, period. And while there have been fansites (that have come and gone, unfortunately), I’ve noticed that nobody has come to pick up the slack and discuss the movie.

My digging for information on the movie has led me from official sources, such as the Souvenir Magazine, to DVD extras, to interviews, to deeper looks behind the scenes, to piecing the mystery behind this movie’s existence together myself. Sources online are nearly nothing with the old Goonies fan forum down, so here I am today. I’m even working on getting the FANDOM wiki up and running! (It’s a work in process…)

But today, as I said, is my personal hell. Months ago, in an attempt to find a script for the movie for a personal project of mine, I ended up discovering a PDF of what appeared to be the movie’s script (hosted by TheGoonies.com, may it rest in peace, also hey please where did all of you fans all go it’s so lonely out here). With my growing interest in the film, I was surprised to find that this was an alternate, early, official script that had been scanned and posted online.

However. However… this was not the movie I dearly loved.

Today we’re going to discuss the differences between The Goonies and the “Fourth Draft script” of The Goonies, of which is named for it being the “Fourth Draft Revised” version.

Something to keep in mind is that principal photography began on October 22, and that the movie was “mostly” shot in order, by director Richard Donner’s own words. When we talk about the differences of the film and the script, please consider how much has changed between this and the final product, because boy is it scary how tight the window was.

Also, we need to acknowledge that Donner’s directing style for the whole movie, perhaps even other movies, is to keep it snappy and quick, and to make things up on the fly. A lot of the memorable bits from the movie are or may be a result of the slapdash edits to the script made on the fly. Not only that, but he says in the DVD commentary that it was pretty much rewritten every night. So, reading this script isn’t the same as watching the movie, but we’re here to compare and deconstruct.

I’d like to take a moment here, after having written a good chunk of this and watching some extra materials, to say that I love this movie… which is why I need to deconstruct and roast this thing to pieces. It is honestly a wonder this movie worked out in the end, considering everything through the production, as it is held together lovingly by a few stray pieces of duct tape.

Believe me, the last thing I want to do is insult anyone who worked on this movie. I have critiques, I have questions, but… in the end, The Goonies is something that’s really special to me and to a lot of people.

I will be leaving a link to the PDF of the script at the end of my series of posts on this subject.

That being said… let us begin.