Hey you guys! The Goonies on way back
Remember that rainy afternoon where we found an old treasure map, followed it into some caves and had to outrun some vicious but slow-witted mobsters with the aid of their deformed but good-hearted and super strong brother?
What do you mean The Goonies was just a film? Jerk alert!
This was the movie that effectively defined childhood in the 1980s. And no other kids' film has been able to hold an exploding candle to it ever since.
The merest suggestion by the director Richard Donner, now in his 80s, that there will be a sequel with the original cast 30 years on is enough to make fans want to break into a spontaneous truffle shuffle.
Of course it won't be the entire cast. The Goonies is not going to be the same without Sloth, the deformed honorary Goonie. Actor John Matuszak died in 1989.
Even so, the thought that we might find out what happened to the inhabitants of the Goon Docks, the homes the kids were trying to save from the bulldozers by finding the buried treasure to stop the expansion of a nearby country club, is like going back into the attic and discovering a Spanish dubloon that leads the way to an idea most of us thought long forgotten.
Quite simply, The Goonies is nearly perfect. I say nearly because these days it would be cringeworthy to play up to racial stereotypes, or mercilessly abuse the fat one the way they do. And the girls are reduced to little more than a whingeing cry-baby and her sarcastic friend.
That aside, though, it is a thrilling tale of kids of all shapes and sizes, cool and geeky, banding together for an adventure as they complete a series of death-defying challenges to get to the sunken pirate ship of One-Eyed Willy.
But more than that, it states what friendship is all about.
The movie contains one of the most inspirational speeches any kid can hear, from Mikey, played by Sean Astin: "Don't you realise? 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 best of stuff for us. But right now, they got to do what's right for them. Because it's their time. Their time! Up there! Down here, it's our time. It's our time down here. That's all over the second we ride up Troy's bucket."
How Richard Donner plans to follow all this up after so many years is beyond me. Chunk has slimmed down and is now a lawyer. Josh Brolin is still making movies as is Sean Astin, but none of them are going to be believable on another quest.
So the only possibility is they'll have cameos while a new group of kids take up the mantle. This is going to be a film for our kids, even though we know it's as much for those of us who wanted to join the search for One-Eyed Willy. And we'll be obsessed all over again.
Goonies never say die.
