Gremlins: Encyclopedia II - Gremlins - Plot summary

Gremlins - Plot summary

Inventor Randall "Rand" Peltzer (played by Hoyt Axton) of Kingston Falls goes on a trip to New York City and decides to pick up a present for his son Billy (Galligan). A young Chinese boy (played by John Louie) takes Rand to his grandfather's small shop in Chinatown where Rand takes interest in a small, cute, furry creature called a mogwai (which, in Mandarin Chinese, translates literally as "evil spirit"). Mr. Wing (the Chinese boy's grandfather and owner of the shop who is played by Keye Luke) refuses to sell the mogwai noting that owning it takes considerable responsibility, but Wing's grandson secretly sells the mogwai to Rand. Though the creature seems innocent enough, the grandson warns Rand that he must take the following precautions regarding the creature: he must not let the Mogwai near bright light (especially sunlight, which can kill the Mogwai), he must not get water on the mogwai, and, most importantly, never feed the mogwai after midnight.

Rand names the creature Gizmo and brings him home to his son. Unfortunately, although his new companion proves to be a very gentle and well behaved creature, Billy and his friends inadvertently become careless with Gizmo. They accidentally spill water on Gizmo, causing him to instantly multiply. Even worse, the new and much more anti-social mogwai (led by Stripe, who has a white mohawk-like hairstyle) that have spawned from Gizmo trick their guardians into feeding them after midnight, and transform into dark green gremlin-like monsters which wreak havoc upon Billy's town. Together with his girlfriend Kate Beringer (Cates), Billy must stop the gremlins before they can cause any more damage. Remarkably for the time and cultural context, the "original" Gizmo is not only non-participant, but even afraid of his evil offspring and helps Billy and Kate fight them.

At the end after the gremlins are eliminated, the old man returns to collect Gizmo to prevent any reoccurance of the trouble. However, while he notes while the Peltzers and western society as a whole is not ready to properly care for a mogwai, Billy shows some potential.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Plot summary", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki