Back in the 90's Jonny Quest had a minor comeback with a new animated series. I was the right age and right on board. I had the toys, comic books, the Pizza Hut promotional giveaways and more. The new animated series was kinda weird to me even back then. But proving that I've been the same guy I am now as I was back when I was 10 what I really liked was the original series that I got on VHS for Christmas that year. I've always been two or three steps in the past. It helps that the 1964 series is one of the most perfect, pulpy, fun animated shows ever made with flawless design and over-the-top adventures. I'm a life-long fan of the character, design and world.
Fred Dekker made two of my favorite monster movies, "Night of the Creeps" and "Monster Squad." He's one of those filmmakers who should have a much bigger career. Stupid "Robocop 3." When I found out a few years ago that Dekker had written a screenplay for a "Jonny Quest" movie in the 90's for Richard Donner I immediately winced at the loss to the world that this movie didn't actually exist. It's gold! The director of "Superman" and "The Goonies," teaming up with Dekker to make a big, adventurous Quest movie set in 1964, c'mon! I would have bought two. Sadly, Hollywood is about as fair as a barroom knife fight.
Well, I stumbled onto the script and poured over it. As a guy who writes screenplays, (not like, professionally so don't get impressed) they can be a little dry to read since you're really just reading the backbone of what a movie COULD be, not what it would/should be and they're not for everyone's reading enjoyment. That being said Dekker delivers a lively script, not only in terms of the action of the movie but in the actual writing. A few little jokes here and there to keep a reader interested goes a long way in screenwriting.
"Jonny Quest" is an origin tale for our core group of heroes (and villains) it starts off with a bang with spy-fi shenanigans with Race Bannon and Jezabel Jade before Race gets his post guarding the Quests. After that the ball is in play for the rest of the script, barley slowing down for anything. It really would have made a helluva picture. Robot spies, monsters, crazy vehicles, spies, mercenaries, Nazi's, jet packs, death traps, lost cities, a big MacGuffin, sunken U-boats, jungle treks, daring escapes and most importantly HIGH ADVENTURE!
One of the best aspects of the script is Dekker's handling of Jonny himself, he comes across very real, still a kid but also an adult and flawed. It's not surprising considering how well Dekker captured being a kid in "Monster Squad." Jonny's not a squeaky-clean sitcom kids but one who swear, like girls, danger and has Ultraman action figures. There's some nice character stuff with Dr. Quest and Jonny as they both try and figure out how to be together after the death of Jonny's mom which help make the rather stuffy Dr. Quest have some growth. Plus, Jonny and Race's buddy dynamic is well (and quickly) fleshed out. Obviously, they have to go to India at some point and pick up Hadji who steals a lot of the scenes he's in. Oh, and yeah Bandit is a rascal. Not to mention the slippery Jade and the perfectly evil Dr. Zin plus Nazi's to round things out. The script pulls some of the best bits from the original series, smooshes them together and amps up the wiseacre-ness.
This is post "Raiders of the Lost Ark" pure 90's-style movie writing. It barrels along from action-set-piece to action-set-piece, but this was before CGI overwhelmed the industry. You can't just have a computer-generated swarm of nasty baddies appear at in the end in a beam of light piercing the sky and call it good. Richard Donner would have been perfect for this picture. It's got a bit of the earnestness of "Superman," some edge like "Lethal Weapon," wrapped up in "Goonies" blanket. All at once it would have been a perfect 90's update and yet still very true to the 60's incarnation of the series. If it was made today, I doubt it would have the soul and care behind it that this script did. Which is clear on the final page where it was dedicated to Doug Wildey, the genius who started it all.
Damn. What could have been.
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