The Goonies 25th Anniversary - Sean Aston, Corey Feldman, Rochard Donner and Joe Pantoliano

You only have to look at the name of this very site to see what The Goonies means to us. To Dave and I it was cinematic shorthand for a sense of magic and wonder experienced at a young age, a feeling we’ve not shaken and one which is compounded with each trip to the movies. HeyUGuys was one of a number of suggested names we had (you must remember at the time we had no idea of what would happen) but it has become something more than a quote from a movie we love. Be it a greeting on the red carpet or in the introductions at a junket interview HeyUGuys is a recognisable thing, a call back to a different time, and the Damoclesean sword of nostalgia hangs heavy over the notion that a Goonies sequel might possibly be happening.

The announcement yesterday that Richard Donner was hoping to start work on another Goonies film spread across the movie-going world like wildfire, sparking strong opinions everywhere. That Donner hasn’t made a film since 2006’s forgettable 16 Blocks (and arguably not made a good film for a while before that) should tell you that unless there’s a kickstarter page being updated right now there’s only a slim chance this will get made as things stand; remember that this was Donner talking to photographers and not a press releases from Amblin. The original cast have been reunited over the past few years and the sequel question seems never too far away. But is there anything more than nostalgia driving this? Wasn’t the end of Donner’s film a perfect conclusion, and a sign that life for those plucky Goon Dock bandits would go back to normal? In giving the rosetints what they think they want aren’t we running the risk of Phantom Menacing the whole shebang?

Contrary to popular belief we’re not in a golden age of sequels, prequels, reboots and remakes; there are many, many fantastic and terrible original films out each week. What gets the press, however, are the familiar names, the ones you know already and certainly studios are pilfering any and every known property and throwing money at it. You only have to look at the outsized hoopla a morsel of Star Wars news gets every time – the prequels are long forgotten and excitement reigns. We are four decades from the time when the first bubbles of the blockbuster era began to break the surface, we are knee deep in nostalgia; easy targets for marketeers, so of course this makes perfect sense. It doesn’t have to be a full-blown film either – stick Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd in an advert for astroturf or a new brand of mushroom risotto and a warm fuzzy glow comes as standard; if there’s a name we know, there’s a buck to be made. Heck – even the tragic death of Harold Ramis couldn’t stop the Ghostbusters 3 train from rolling.

“People who loved it back then will have their own kids now!”, “It could be a passing of the torch, with the original character’s kids off on an adventure!”, “Mouth could be in jail! Chunk could be thin! Andy and Brand could still be on/off…” and so on and and so on until we fall into a maelstrom of fanciful fanfiction and bittersweet remembrance of an afternoon three decades ago at the local Odeon. So, here’s the point: We’re a year away from the thirtieth anniversary of The Goonies, and until we stand in the glow of a green light there’s nothing to talk about, except the potential and nothing, no film, no script, is going to live up to the potential of what the sequel could be. It’s personal, we all have our own sequels playing in our heads and, mostly, that’s good enough for us Goonies.

As a concept a Goonies sequel might be great, in practice how could it not fail to disappoint? So let’s enjoy it for what it is: a whimsical notion that the characters we spent a couple of hours with thirty years ago could still be out there making their own way in the world. With their jobs, kids, everyday troubles and triumphs, stopping every now and again, for no reason at all, to recall the fading memory of the Inferno sailing gloriously over the horizon. That’s ok – that was their time, and it’s gone – and that’s ok.

 

 We’ve seen a lot of opinions on Facebook and Twitter about this news – what do you think?