Souvenir Mug

***Post contains spoilers***

There are certain 80s movies that have always given me the feeling that I’ve missed out on something. Ever since I started watching those I Love the 80s marathons on VH1 at a formative age, I’ve always had a fascination with the pop culture of the era. Perhaps being born days before the end of the decade has also piqued my curiosity. All I knew was that around the age of 12, I discovered that there was this awesome kids’ movie from the 80s that everyone in North America had supposedly already seen and fallen in love with except for me. Every time I asked an adult or older person in my life about the film, it would elicit an endearing, “Oh yeah, I remember that,” followed by a string of cryptic references I wanted so badly to understand.

It had made me feel as though I had been living in Kissimmee my whole life and just learned that Disney World was 10 minutes away. How did it slip past my radar? I was already feeling the weird, nostalgic pang of not having the chance to experience it during its first theatrical run. But the fact that it had taken me until my last year before teenhood to come across this apparently pivotal childhood film seemed like I had been cheated out of a canon event, and I was owed.

Eventually, however, I was able to finally get my hands on a DVD copy of The Goonies. I sat down in my parents’ newly-finished basement and watched as the “Truffle Shuffle” and “Heeeey you GUYS” started to actually mean something. Just as I had expected, I fell in love with the movie after my first watch. Like finding a missing piece to an appliance you hadn’t realized was lost, The Goonies seemed to have everything I had been wanting to include in all the stories I had spent countless hours writing and dreaming up in my head. Most of these stories would involve a main character – usually my age or older – embarking on some sort of adventure, Indiana Jones-style. So it’s really no wonder The Goonies had such an impact on me, even as a pre-teen.

However, after joining the millions of humans who have seen the Spielberg-produced classic, I realized that the film – to this day – still leaves me with a prevailing sense of cinematic FOMO. Am I simply longing to live in a cozy craftsman in the heart of rainy Astoria, Oregon? Do I have a sudden desire to explore the damp caverns that supposedly sprawl underneath? Is it the fact that I never got the chance to see it in theatres 40 years ago? What exactly do I feel like I’m missing out on, and why does The Goonies – of all movies – inspire this feeling?

Curious, I gave the film a rewatch to find out. 

To recap, The Goonies is an adventure-comedy following a group of kids and teenagers on a treasure hunt in hopes of saving their homes from foreclosure. Meanwhile, they also must race against the armed and dangerous Fratelli family, who are after the same fortune.

The story kicks in after the eponymous Goonies Mikey (Sean Astin), smart-talking Mouth (Corey Feldman), wunderkind inventor Data (Ke Huy Quan), and compulsive liar/glutton Chunk (Jeff Cohen), discover a treasure map in Mikey’s attic. The map supposedly guides seekers to the lost treasure of legendary pirate One-Eyed Willy. Determined to have one last adventure before a greedy country club owner buys out their homes, the Goonies decide to follow the map in hopes of coming across unimaginable riches. 

After tying up Mikey’s cynical older brother Brand (Josh Brolin), the kiddos escape the house on their bikes. The map leads them to an abandoned restaurant, which now serves as a clandestine hideout for the dangerous Fratellis. Eventually, however, Brand breaks free and catches up to the younger kids, along with his love interest Andi (Kerri Green) and her friend Stef (Martha Plimpton). They then discover that the dilapidated restaurant is built above an underground system of tunnels that will take them to the purported treasure. Chunk, however, is caught and held prisoner by the Fratellis, who throw him in a windowless room with their “gentle giant” brother Sloth (John Matuszak). 

What immediately stood out to me as an adult was all of the content that no studio would dare put in a family film today. For a kids’ movie, there is a considerable amount of swearing, morbidity, and sexual innuendos. While the language doesn’t really get any more transgressive than “Shit” or “Damn”, it still induces a bemused chuckle from me as a modern-day viewer. 

One “blink and you’ll miss it” moment was a near throwaway line from Chunk as the boys tried to reassemble the broken David statue that Mikey’s mom (allegedly) holds dear. Of course, in what I can only describe as comedy gold for middle schoolers, the genitalia breaks off after Chunk clumsily drops it. In an attempt to fix it, Chunk glues it back on, only it’s upside down – making David look, well, you know. In response, Chunk says, “Looks fine to me.” This suggests that Chunk is already too comfortable and familiar with seeing boners in a way I do not want to think about any further.     

Although thematically and diegetically relevant, the kids are faced with death several times throughout the film. By “faced with death”, I don’t just mean they are in danger of dying suddenly – I also mean they stumble upon a lot of dead bodies. Chunk, in an unwitting pursuit of ice cream, gets stuck in the Fratelli’s freezer with a deceased FBI agent, supposedly murdered by the Fratellis. (Then again when he’s thrown in the back of their jeep.) When they finally board the treasure-loaded pirate ship, the gang finds themselves surrounded by the remains of pirates who have long since expired. There’s even a poignant moment between Mikey and the rotting skeleton of One-Eyed Willy. (Not to mention Chester Copperpot, the skeleton at the organ made of other human bones…) As annoying as the whole “which generation had it tougher” discourse is, I do have to hand it to Gen X/elder Millennials here: one of your most beloved childhood movies involved kids running into an upsettingly high number of corpses. Although, as is popularly said in the movie, “Goonies never say die”, they sure do see a lot of it. 

Overall, it’s these moments that make me think that perhaps I needed to be at least 12 to see this movie. Honestly, there’s a whole lot more I could add to the “What was problematic about a movie made several decades ago” conversation, but I don’t want to stray too far from my main point here.

Slightly problematic elements aside, there was a particular scene that I believe cut straight to the heart of the movie. Right around the “crossing the threshold” moment – to use screenwriting terms – the gang comes across the bottom of a wishing well. Troy (Steve Antin), one of Andi’s suitors and Brand’s nemesis, happens to be hanging out with his buddies by the well, above ground. Seeing an opportunity to escape, the older kids convince Troy to help lift them back to safety with the well bucket.

However, Mikey sees a different opportunity:

“Don’t you realize? The next time you see sky, it’ll be over another town. The next time you take a test, it’ll be in some other school. Our parents, they want the bestest stuff for us. But right now they gotta do what’s right for them, ‘cause it’s their time. Their time, up there. Down here it’s our time. It’s our time down here. And that’s all over the second we ride up Troy’s bucket.” 

This grand declaration of autonomy, which propels the Goonies to fully commit to the adventure, expresses something we could all relate to in our childhood and, at times, adulthood, too. Of course, many of us adults tend to quickly forget just how much we wanted to grow up when we were children. Even though it isn’t necessarily age-appropriate, kids still cuss, make dirty jokes, and perhaps leave the house without telling their parents and wind up finding priceless treasure on a pirate ship full of skeletons that’ll save their families’ houses at the last minute.

For my grown-up self, on the other hand, the reclamation of time is the part that hits home. With at least 40 hours of my week dedicated to my main source of income, I’m already struggling to squeeze in time to write this very piece. I dream of days when I can dedicate my Monday through Friday solely on writing. (I’m well aware this is very much a “Be careful what you wish for” moment, but just stay with me here.) 

Like most films in their inherently escapist nature, The Goonies captures such wish fulfillment, allowing viewers to reclaim their time for an hour and 54 minutes. Even after four decades, it also manages to maintain an edge that appeals to both a younger and adult audience simultaneously. (Rather than just the “wink-wink, nudge-nudge” in-jokes reserved for the parents watching.) With this in mind, it makes sense that the film inspires this strange longing for the expendable time demonstrated on screen through the Goonies’ adventure. Maybe that is precisely what I fear I’m missing out on, and also what adult viewers gain back temporarily when watching The Goonies. 

Or maybe I do just want to move to 1980s Oregon and spend my free time exploring damp, underground caverns for treasure with my rag-tag team of misfit friends. (Only we’d definitely name ourselves something other than the Goonies because that name certainly has not aged well either.)

But for now, I’ve become the adult in some kid’s life making references to a movie they know nothing about.

Thus, the cycle continues.