For a movie that features a horribly deformed manchild, a frozen corpse, a pipe organ made of human remains, prepubescent fat-shaming, and jokes about sexual torture devices, The Goonies remains one of the most charming adventure comedies of the past 30 years.
Sure, it’s painfully formulaic, filled with cringe-inducing racial stereotypes, and posits that asthma is really only a state of mind. But the 1985 flick also is a genre masterpiece.
Much of that obviously is due to the maestro of '80s adventure movies: Steven Spielberg. He wrote The Goonies and, by 1985, had all but perfected his nostalgic superpowers and adventure algorithms. While he left the directing to Richard Donner (of Superman and Lethal Weapon fame), the movie has Spielberg's wistful fingerprints all over it—the bike fetish, the trademark reflection shots, the whole "action-movie-as-amusement-park-ride" template he established with Raiders.
In a review for the New York Times, Janet Maslin noted "there isn't a child in America who won't want to see The Goonies this summer." She was right. The movie raked in $61,389,680, making it one of 1985's top 10 grossing films.
But for many kids who ended up seeing The Goonies that summer, it was more than a great adventure flick. It was the beginning of a new obsession—one that would lead to weekly RadioShack trips and the awesome realization that, with a little creativity, technology could be bent to your will ... sometimes. If WarGames introduced a generation to computers and hacker culture, The Goonies was a template for future gadget tinkerers and DIYers.
No character personified the qualities of inventiveness more than "bootytrap"-setter Ricky Wang (aka Data). Played by Jonathan Ke Quan of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom fame, he’s a walking bundle of awesome gadgets. In fact, one of the things you notice most when re-watching The Goonies as an adult (aside from all the awkward stereotyping) is how every member of the Goon Squad would be dead were it not for Data. Despite their tendency to malfunction, Data's fantastic array of hacked together gadgets repeatedly saves them all from the murderous Fratelli family.
Now, like many cherished '80s films, The Goonies seems to be getting a sequel. And while we’d gladly do the Truffle Shuffle all day to prevent this from happening, maybe it’s more fruitful to revisit Data's awesome inventions and the other pieces of '80s tech that helped introduce us to the wonders of gadgetry.
