Ever wonder about the Goonies?
I am kind of slammed this week and don’t have time to work on the new Star Trek post, but over the weekend was working on inventory and came across this movie t shirt and it got me thinking about the Goonies again. I saw it for like the 10th time a few months ago, and every time I see it or something like this shirt there is a question that constantly bugs me.
Here it is. One Eyed Willie, the pirate captain who’s treasure the kids are going after, looked to have been one of the most successful pirates of all time based on the massive pile if “rich stuff” he had on his ship. If so, why would he not go off and actually spend some of the money on rum and wenches? Why, instead, did he spend the last 30 years of his life or so building death traps to keep inquisitive kids from getting to his massive pile of gold? And then, in the all time greatest move dedicated to proving a worthless point, he uses his own corpse to build his final self destruct trap? I mean, really. Does he not have any life besides building death traps? And with all that money, couldn’t he have bought material for traps more elaborate than rocks, vines, and sticks? How about some iron hinges?
It actually gets you thinking about buried pirate treasure in general. Why would a pirate with a huge chest of gold bury it and then leave it where any random idiot could potentially stumble upon. How about taking some of that treasure, using it to buy an island, build a castle on it, and buy the most impenetrable safe the 18th century can produce? Hire a bunch of scurvy sea dogs and turn them into land dogs to watch your treasure.
Actually, that kind of makes me think about Scrooge McDuck. He has a massive money bin where he rolls around in his dough instead of spending it on things he might enjoy in life. For that matter, how does a huge pile of cash in a vault actually keep him rich? Has he never heard of a bank? Some of them actually pay you money for keeping your money in them. It’s called interest. For that matter, you could potentially invest your money and make even more money, although these days a big pile of cash in a vault doesn’t sound like the dumbest plan ever. That reminds me of a Richie Rich comic I read where the family had a problem of too much cash and not enough room to store it all. Even as a kid of appropriate age for Richie Rich I understood the concept of banks. Just kind of annoying, really.
Back to the Goonies. Remeber at the end of the movie when One Eyed Willies ship sailed off uncrewed into the sunset, leaving the kids with some gems they lifted? No one in that shanty town owned a power boat? If reports got out of a boat floating in the ocean loaded with “rich stuff” there would be about 100,000 guys in rowboats looking for the damned thing.
Sorry for the weird tangential rant, but these are the kinds of questions that keep me up at night. I really gotta run. Post here if you have any answers to these questions, and follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Movie stuff next time, I promise. Talk to you soon
Dave
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