Random Things You Have To Ignore In Order To Enjoy Watching 'The Goonies' (16 items)

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  (#3) The Whole Movie Is Populated Entirely By One-Note Characters

  A sure sign of lazy ensemble writing is including a bunch of one-note characters who never grow beyond their single character trait. But The Goonies is considered a classic despite being a textbook example of this. 

  Every character in the movie has one "hook" and sticks with it to the very end.

  Mikey is the quiet leader. Chunk is the clumsy fat kid obsessed with food. Brand (Josh Brolin) is the overprotective big brother. Data is the cunning Asian kid who's good at science. Mouth (Corey "Surely This Level Of Fame Will Last Forever" Feldman) is obnoxious. Sloth is a misunderstood gentle giant. And so on.

  None of this changes by the film's end. You could put some spin on it and call them archetypes, I suppose. You could also settle for a C in screenwriting class.
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  (#9) The Story Of One-Eyed Willy Makes No Sense

  Forget historical accuracy. It would have been the Spanish, not the British, who chased One-Eyed Willy in the Pacific in 1632. The folktale itself is ridiculous.

  One-Eyed Willy and his crew got trapped underground by the British and decided to spend their time and resources carving out a dungeon crawl for future D&D LARPers instead of, you know, maybe digging their way out or something? Maybe they could've just let the British believe they were dead and hid their treasure somewhere nearby.

  How dumb did story writer Steven Spielberg and screenwriter Chris Columbus think '80s kids were?

  Don't answer that.
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  (#14) Chattering Teeth Aren't That Strong, Dudes

  Let's talk about Data's gadgets - specifically, the Pinchers of Peril, a chattering teeth device he used to save himself from certain death in the spiked pit trap by shooting it like Batman's grapnel gun or Spider-Man's webs. The plastic teeth latch onto a stone outcropping, and the Slinky they're attached to slows Data's fall and stops him just short of impalement.

  No. Just, no.

  That poor kid would have gotten skewered. Wind-up chattering teeth are made out of plastic, not adamantium. Despite the presence of future-Thanos in the cast, this isn't a Marvel movie. Also, if Data really is the stereotypical Asian super-genius he's supposed to be, what's wrong with, you know, just a real grappling gun? There's no way he'd design such a useless tool as a chattering teeth gun.

  If you're going to write racist tropes, at least be as smart as they're supposed to be. Otherwise, your intrinsic bias will stand out like the huge plot holes at the end of The Goonies.
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  (#1) It's Racist Toward Asian Americans

  The '80s were a more innocent time, especially for filmmakers and audiences who enjoyed to stereotype minorities. You could barely throw a Rubik's Cube in a teen movie from the decade without hitting a broken-English-speaking Asian character who was good at math and science, sneaky in some way, a kung-fu master, and/or totally asexual.

  In The Goonies, that character is Data, played by Jonathan Ke Quan.

  Data embodies almost all of the major Asian stereotypes: he speaks English as a second language and his trouble with pronunciation is the butt of many "jokes"; he's smart and good at math (it's right there in his name!); he's an inventor of impossible gadgets he keeps hidden in his huge trenchcoat (sneaky, see?); and he is the only Goonie who shows no interest in flirting with the girls when they turn up (asexual).

  The only Asian stereotype not slapped on Data is "kung-fu master," but not to worry: Ke Quan got to do that one as Short Round in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

  The worst part here is that even though he's presented as a genius, Data isn't actually written as smart. His gadgets are unnecessarily complex and impractical, and he makes some pretty stupid decisions. Towards the end of the movie, he doesn't even know what equipment he's actually carrying.
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  (#10) Brand Survives An Attempted Murder That Should Have Killed Him

  Apparently, the town of Astoria, OR, was populated entirely by sociopaths in the '80s. What else explains how nobody ever comments on the fact that Troy (Steve Antin) attempted to murder Brand by running him off a cliff? 

  If this is what the typical residents of Astoria are like, it's no wonder the Goonies are considered the nice kids in town. At least they're not going on killing sprees (although Brand had just committed assault and theft against a little girl).

  That fall should have killed Brand, or at least caused him some pretty traumatic injuries. But moments later, he turns up at the Fratelli hideout with nary a scratch on him. Brand is invincible, it seems. But that makes sense, because he's actually Thanos, anyway.
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  (#12) How Did The Newspaper Print That Article So Quickly?

  A few short hours after the Fratellis escape custody, a local newspaper releases an article detailing the incident. That's not how anything works. There is no way the newspaper could have rounded up the necessary information, mugshots, and interviews needed to create that article in one morning, and that's not even getting into the logistics of printing!

  With that lightning-fast turnaround, it's no surprise the editors didn't catch the errant apostrophe in "Fratelli's."

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