D3: The Mighty Ducks
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| D3: The Mighty Ducks | |
|---|---|
| File:D3 mighty ducks.jpg D3: The Mighty Ducks DVD cover | |
| Directed by | Robert Lieberman |
| Written by | Steven Brill Jim Burnstein Kenneth Johnson |
| Starring | Emilio Estevez Joshua Jackson Jeffrey Nordling |
| Music by | J.A.C. Redford |
| Distributed by | Buena Vista Distribution |
Release dates | October 4, 1996 |
Running time | 104 min. |
| Language | English |
D3: The Mighty Ducks also known as The Mighty Ducks 3 is the third film in The Mighty Ducks trilogy and the second theatrical sequel to The Mighty Ducks, and first to D2: The Mighty Ducks. produced by Avnet-Kerner Productions and Walt Disney Pictures, distributed by Buena Vista Distribution, and originally released to movie theatres on October 4, 1996.
While the film did not see the box office numbers that the first two movies saw, it was still considered a financial success due to its relatively low budget. However, the movie has become popular on home video and DVD. It also received the worst reviews of the trilogy, garnering only a 14% on Rottentomatoes.
Plot synopsis
With this installment, the series shifts focus from Coach Gordon Bombay (Emilio Eztevez) to his protége, Charlie Conway (Joshua Jackson). Charlie and his teammates are awarded junior varsity hockey scholarships to the Eden Hall Academy, a prestigious Minnesota prep school that Bombay once attended. Charlie is reluctant to take the leadership of a new coach and asks Bombay to stay, however Gordon accepts an offer to be in charge of player personnel for the Junior Goodwill Games. The Ducks arrival is met with hostility from the varsity team, which mainly consists of players from rich families whose younger siblings were not accepted to the academy to make room for the Ducks. The team has an icy relationship with Bombay's hand-picked successor, Ted Orion (Jeffrey Nordling), who does not share Bombay's lighthearted approach to coaching. Orion makes several changes to the team, including starting Julie Gaffney in goal over Greg Goldberg, based on Julie's superior play in tryouts, moving star player Adam Banks onto the varsity team, directing the team to play a defensive-minded system, banning the team's pregame "quack" chant, and refusing to designate Charlie as team captain.
These events, combined with Charlie's own growing pains typical of his coming adolescent years and the residual anger from what he regards as abandonment by Gordon, isolate him from his teammates and his family, as he is unwilling to accept Orion's stricter coaching methods.
After both the Ducks and Varsity team pull a series of pranks against each other, the Varsity team challenges the Ducks to an exhibition game which Charlie eagerly accepts. However,the Ducks prove to be no match for the Varsity team. After a scuffle between both teams, Orion storms onto the ice and has the Ducks take off their jerseys and declares "The Ducks are dead!"
Charlie finally becomes fed up with Orion, whom he considers a washed-up former professional player, and leaves the team with Fulton Reed. Venting to Hans, his and Gordon's mentor, Charlie becomes further upset and walks off in a huff after Hans appears to take Orion's side. The elderly Scandinavian dies later that evening.
Gordon joins the Ducks at Hans' funeral. Charlie, feeling guilty over his tantrum with Hans earlier, spots Bombay and tries to leave the cemetery quietly. Gordon shows up at his house the following day and takes Charlie back to the school, where he reveals that Orion was once a player for the Minnesota North Stars, but stayed in Minnesota when the North Stars moved to Dallas in order to take care of his paraplegic daughter. He also tells Charlie that he told Ted of Charlie's superior playing abilities and that they would learn something from each other. Touched by the fact that his former coach felt so highly of him, a tearful Charlie agrees to rejoin the team.
Charlie arrives on the bus, much to Orion's surprise. Impressed by Charlie's change in attitude, Orion welcomes him back and after Charlie demonstrates Orion's philosophy of "two-way hockey," Orion renames Charlie as team captain. Orion surprises the team by bringing back the Ducks jerseys and changes the team's name from the JV Warriors to the JV Ducks.
With Bombay's help, they stop an attempt led by the varsity team captain's father to remove the Ducks from Eden Hall, just in time for the JV-Varsity Showdown. When approached by the dean to inform him that he can start anew with a team of his choice, Orion refuses, saying he's satisfied with the team he has. The attempt almost succeeds until Bombay threatens a lawsuit against the school. The scholarships are reinstated and the Ducks are allowed to continue at Eden Hall until the end of the year.
Thanks in large part to the work of Charlie, Adam Banks' return and the last-minute arrival of Fulton Reed's "Bash Brother," Dean Portman, who had not come to Eden Hall with the rest of the Ducks, the Ducks win 1-0 on a shorthanded goal in the final seconds of the game from unlikely scorer Goldberg, who had switched positions from goalie to defenseman. Following the victory, Bombay is seen briefly by Charlie, while in an embrace with Orion. Knowing that his prodigy is in good hands at last, a satisfied Bombay leaves the arena alone.
The nickname of all the Eden Hall hockey teams is then changed from Warriors to Ducks, the result of a petition that was started by Charlie's new girlfriend, Linda (Margot Finley), and helped by Bombay's influence.
Sequel
Jordan Kerner has expressed interest in doing a fourth movie, and in an interview [citation needed] in 2007 he said that the plotline for “The Mighty Ducks 4” will have a lot to do with today’s generation preferring to stay inside and play video games or search the internet rather than get out there and play a sport. He believes there is an opportunity to take some of the characters like “Goldberg, Averman and Charlie and bring them back, and we can revisit that, if we had a fresh story to tell. And that’s what we’re working on”.