It’s time to solve puzzles and gallantly slide down the sails to save the day in LEGO Ideas 21363 The Goonies, as the design team share insights in how they brought this classic adventure to life.
21363 The Goonies is the next set in the fan-inspired theme. The 2,912 piece set, priced at £269.99 / $329.99 / €299.99, is coming to LEGO.com on November 1 and for the first few days of release you can get 40773 The Walshes’ Attic as a free bonus set.
After finding a legendary pirate’s ancient map, a group of friends called The Goonies set out on an adventure to find the long lost treasure of One-Eyed Willy. Yet it’s not an easy journey as they have to solve puzzles, dodge deadly traps and all the while outrun the Fratelli family who want the treasure for themselves. With its focus on friendship and humour, the film captivated audiences when it released in 1985 and it has endured the test of time, cementing itself as a cult classic.
One of those original fans is Vaggelis Ntezes, who built a concept for The Inferno, the 17th century pirate ship of One-Eyed Willy, containing with the series of caves that the Goonies have to traverse in order to find the treasure. He wanted to recreate his childhood favourite film as accurately as possible – and just in time for its 40th anniversary.
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“I was born in the 1980s when the movie came out and my father was a ship captain,” says Vaggelis, who also has fond memories of building classic LEGO Pirates sets around the same time. “I connected to The Goonies because I’m a huge fan of Spielberg movies and ships, so it’s the perfect combination. The hardest part for me was the front of the ship because it has a lot of diagonal elements and as I designed it digitally, it’s more difficult to achieve those off-grid angles. Everything in these programmes works with a grid and it was challenging to get the correct shape at the bow.”
“I think I would agree with that!” laughs LEGO Senior Model Designer Markus Rollbühler, agreeing that the bow proved to be one of the biggest challenges. “I spent a lot of time on the front of the ship to get that hull right. The shaping is really tricky because of the slanted angle. But then there’s the keyboard on the organ. Getting that function to work reliably every single time drove us crazy. We had to consult other team members to collaborate and get that function just right.”
The additional functions are the most significant change that the professional designers made to the original submission, as the team were determined to recreate as many of the movie scenes as possible within the set.
“We had to include the most iconic moments,” adds LEGO Senior Model Designer Marina Stampoli, who was delighted to get to work on this set as a huge Goonies fan herself. “The organ had to be there and work because it’s a vital part of the movie. The booby traps are what make the adventure so iconic. So there’s the fireplace that you can open to go down to the pipe room. And then you’ve got the boulders that can drop onto a minifigure. Then you take the skeleton key from Chester Copperpot and place it in the lock, which rotates to open the trapdoor. Finally, there’s the organ, and pushing the keys makes the floor drop, so you can go down the slide and into the lake.
“We’ve also got Sloth who can be attached to the mast, and he can slide up and down just like in the movie,” continues Marina, referring to the dramatic moment when Sloth slides down the mast with Chunk, valiantly yelling “Hey, you guys!” as he comes to the rescue.
“It felt like a very obvious thing to include. I watched the movie for the first time when I got assigned to this set because I [wasn’t the right age] when it came out. And I was really struck by how iconic that scene is, I really wanted to get it in there. I think you figured it out though,” says Markus, pointing at Marina.
“No, you figured it out!” Marina laughs, pointing right back.
“No, you did! I came back [into the office] and suddenly it was done,” insists Markus, as the two agree to settle on joint credit for this brilliant function.
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