D4: The Mighty Ducks Part I
Yesterday we caught up with what the Ducks have been up to in the past 20 years since the original release of D3. I’d suggest reading that post before you read the rest of this one if you haven’t already. For the majority of the Ducks, they seemed to have fallen on some hard times. Some have been leading more successful and productive lives than others, but it’s clear that none of them are as happy as they were when they were winning championship after championship with Bombay. So today, for the 20th anniversary of the final piece of the Mighty Ducks trilogy, here is part I of D4: The Mighty Ducks.
Quack, quack, quack, quack, qua–just kidding. Let’s do this though.
The movie opens up at the Bash Brothers Demolition site. As you recall, it’s the company started up by Fulton, Kenny Wu and Portman in Michigan. As per usual, Fulton is drunk at work and taking slapshots on the job while wearing headphones. Going 1-for-5, obviously. However, he’s so drunk and the music in his headphones is so loud that he doesn’t notice when a wire snaps and a steel beam comes crashing down and kills him.
For the first time in over a decade, the entire Ducks team is back together in the same place. They’re at Fulton’s funeral. They all hardly even know each other anymore. Charlie is clearly a wreck, losing one of his longtime best friends. Banks is on his phone with his agent the whole time. Connie and Guy are trying to rekindle. The rest of the team just tries not to show that they saw this coming for years. Toward the end of the service, Bombay appears. He lays Fulton’s original Ducks jersey on the casket and sees that the Ducks have all flown in separate directions since Eden Hall. He gets them all to stay for the rest of the weekend to get one last skate in together for Fulton, because Ducks Fly Together and all that happy-go-lucky Disney bullshit.
The team hits the ice for the first time together since high school. They all take their glove off and touch the ice like they did for Hans. Then Goldberg rips ass and ruins a really sweet moment. But once they’re on the ice, it’s like they haven’t missed a beat. They’re all flying around out there. Cowboy Dwayne is wrangling everybody up with his lasso. For the first time in a while, Charlie is actually enjoying life. He wants nothing more than to re-live the glory days. Then, on his way out of the rink that night, he sees a flyer for a giant pond hockey tournament next month. The reward for winning the tournament is $113,027.64. He just so happens to owe his bookie $113,027.64.
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Charlie talks most of the guys into playing in this tournament together as the Ducks. They decide that they’ll donate the winnings to the Ducks youth program in Fulton’s name. But what rest of the team doesn’t know is that if they win, Charlie going to take the reward for himself to pay off his gambling debt. A real son of a fucking bitch, that Charlie Conway is. Anyway, Goldberg offers to have everybody in Philly the week before the tournament and they can use his rink to practice.
***Flash forward to the week before the tournament***
Remember that rollerblading scene from D2 when Charlie goes around rounding up all the Ducks? Well yeah, that shit happens again. Only this time the team is in Philly staying at the Goldberg residence. So since they’re in Philly, they decide to take the same route that Rocky took. There’s plenty of puke going on during the scene but it’s actually going surprisingly well considering how out of shape most of the guys have gotten. They almost make it to the top of the Art Museum steps but then Kenny Wu–who has been taking plenty of steroids and looks like a bowling ball–falls down and takes everyone else with him…
Part II (the last part) will come tomorrow. We’ll have the rest of training in Philly and then the tournament. It’s all pretty much written already but if you have any good suggestions on how you want this thing to end, let it fly.