How the Traps in The Goonies Really Work

The As The Goonies celebrates its 40th anniversary, we look at its most iconic (and surprisingly realistic) element…the traps!

“Ye intruders beware.

Crushing death and grief,

Soaked with blood,

Of the trespassing thief.”

With that ominous passage inscribed upon a map, the timeless adventure of The Goonies begins. And what an adventure it is! Equally influenced by golden age of Hollywood swashbuckling pirate movies like Michael Curtiz’s Captain Blood, vintage movie serials that also inspired the likes of Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Carl Barks’ classic Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge comics, The Goonies is almost a literal thrill-a-minute film. 

Packed with (sometimes literal) cliffhangers, subterranean mazes, maps, mysteries, and traps. So many traps! The kinds of traps you might associate with classic Scooby-Doo cartoons but brought to live action with stunning realism and peril all with a Rube Goldberg flair. Traps that wouldn’t be out of place in producer Spielberg’s Indiana Jones franchise, made all the more perilous because it’s a cast of kids being put in danger.

So when it came time for us to think up a concept to celebrate the (wanna feel old?) 40th anniversary of The Goonies, we had two choices: It was either the traps or how it’s possible that Cyndi Lauper could turn what could have very easily have been a mediocre soundtrack cash-in like “The Goonies ‘R’ Good Enough” into a piece of songwriting perfection…or the traps.  

We went with the traps. 

And considering how much ancient history is riddled with real life deathtraps, well…you might be surprised at what we find when we start delving in to the mechanisms of these devices. It’s not just whether they work…it’s whether they would still work hundreds of years later!

Watch the latest episode of Does it Fly? right here…if you’re good enough…

SUGGESTED VIEWING 

Seen The Goonies? Good, go watch it again. Haven’t? Go watch it twice. You can thank us later.

But also, you might want to check out a couple of other ‘80s classics that are part of this film’s DNA. The Goonies falls somewhere on the spectrum between Steven Spielberg’s (who produced this film) all-timer Raiders of the Lost Ark and Rob Reiner’s R-rated coming of age quest movie Stand By Me. You might also want to check out The Monster Squad as a film which tried to mimic this movie’s magic in a different context. 

And of course, its legacy is felt pretty keenly in Stranger Things…

FURTHER READING 

Do you want to delve a little deeper into the facts, concepts, and stories Hakeem and Tamara referenced in today’s episode? Of course you do!

There are two key ingredients to the traps as depicted in The Goonies, both of which are very rooted in real life: the legacy of Rube Goldberg and the actual security measures from ancient tombs and structures.

Rube Goldberg Machines

You might not realize it, but you know what a Rube Goldberg Machine is. If you ever saw a Looney Tunes cartoon where some absurdly complicated device with many steps performs a simple task (usually set to this distinctive music) then you’re already familiar. And while reading about Rube Goldberg and his bizarre creations is one thing (which you can do here) you really should see them to get the full effect.

“Tomb Security”

The trope that everyone is familiar with thanks to everything from Indiana Jones movies to Pirates of the Caribbean to DuckTales is…mostly true! Maybe not in terms of giant boulders being triggered to roll over you, but in lots of other ways.

Usually, these are depicted as part of some kind of “curse” that befalls would-be grave-robbers. Other times they are based in the very real discovery of what appear to be unfortunate human sacrifices. In all cases, these “security measures” are part of elaborate attempts to keep sacred sites undisturbed. And in one, there’s even an “army” standing guard…if only they moved!

WANT MORE FROM DOES IT FLY?

The allegedly final installment of the Mission: Impossible franchise is in theaters now and we examined an iconic moment from its past!

Final Destination Bloodlines is here and we went back to the very beginning to examine the central concept of the franchise. Watch it here!

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