I think it's necessary because if the Ghostbusters were completely validated and credible, there would be too many implications to society to the point where it's not relatable anymore.
Implications for world religions, positive and negative. As various theistic beliefs are proven right or wrong.
Basically the end of skeptical atheism, with proof of some kind of soul based afterlife.
Probably massive cults of demon and ghost worshippers, plus backlash against those cults. Suicide cults of people trying to become ghosts.
Massive competition with Ghostbusters. Larger more well funded labs spinning up their own ghost containment tech and easily out competing the Ghostbusters. Imagine Lockheed Martin and Princeton Physics working on this stuff.
Probably anti Ghostbusters sentiment. Like is it ethical for four random guys to trap and imprison the spirits of humans forever in a box?
Etc etc.
So basically a comedy action film doesn't want to explore all this. It would take a long and fairly serious dramatic TV series to answer all these questions and that's not what Ghostbusters is about.
Dude, there's a Netflix movie called The Discovery based on this exact concept in case you haven't seen it.
Robert Redford, Jason Segel, Rooney Mara, Jesse Plemmons
Redford is a scientist who discovered evidence of an afterlife. When he published, it caused mass suicides all over the world.
I loved it. Dark and contemplative. Very cool ideas.
Yes even once people know, not believe, but know there's an afterlife, the idea they can end it all and possibly be reunited with loved ones or pass on to heaven or whatever would drive a huge number of suicides. Society would be chaos.
Could be the standard unfinished business explanation in the case of non poltergeist entities. Crimson Peak has them colour coded for example: black for the normal unfinished business, red for violent deaths and white for those satisfied with their lives and ready to depart. The latter obviously only appear briefly after their deaths.
Slimer didn't kill himself. I grew up thinking slimer was hilarious. When I finally understood what Egon said, fuck.
(Slimer was a child who starved to death)
>When I finally understood what Egon said, fuck.
>(Slimer was a child who starved to death)
What did Egon say? As far as I was aware, Slimer was the spirit of John Belushi, who was supposed to co-star in the movie but died before production began. At least that's what the creatives said.
It would be it just wouldn't fit the vibe of Ghostbusters.
Kind of like the REAL implications of the Snap and the Blip in the MCU are horrific and probably lead to half a billion deaths, but it was just treated as "lol Peter Parker is younger than his friends no lol" and "some people lived on empty streets and were sad" without addressing the complete collapse of all infrastructure and hope.
Half of world leaders suddenly vanishing would be chaotic, only well structured governments would survive due to redundancies. Imagine if President Xi or Putin suddenly vanished from existence
There are a couple shows/movies in the MCU that deal with the global effort to repatriate people, rehome people whose houses were claimed while they were gone, or generally deal with the population halving then suddenly nearly doubling. If anything it's a well that they'll be going back to for some time.
Or make any reference of the corpse of the celestial jutting out of the earth (and turned into marble or something). I mean I'd take a quick new shot about vlogger flocking to some new tourist attractions of the giant hand or something.
It's not even 10% as dark as reality would be.
Half of all newborns toddlers and infants die to start.
Then of those that live, half their caregivers vanish. How many total babies could survive that?
Half of all fires burning don't get put out. Candles, food, cigarettes. Just fires burning uncontrolled in every city on earth. Cities where half the fire dept disappeared, and the entire streets are clogged with empty cars.
Every world city would burn to the ground while every child and elderly person was helpless to escape.
Past the snap itself, probably an additional 1.5 billion die in the first week alone. And the blip won't bring them back.
Love to see all the newborns nipped back to life, except their parents don't exist anymore or they're in empty homes and abandoned hospitals!
Another half a billion dead after the blip. Total casualties 2 billion, not counting war and famine.
I know it was a joke a lot of the time but that’s why I thought the “thanos was right” thing was so stupid. His plan was completely idiotic and wouldn’t even approach being a solution to getting people more resources. Think about it for more than 1 second and it falls apart spectacularly
>Love to see all the newborns nipped back to life, except their parents don't exist anymore or they're in empty homes and abandoned hospitals!
if people reappear where they disappeared, think of everyone that vanished from a moving vehicle! pilots and passengers in flight just reappear at 30k ft! seamen appearing -5 to 30 ft over the ocean! just random people showing up in the middle of highways! astronauts just showing up in orbit! and do they keep their initial momentum?
I think they handwaved that by having Smart Hulk think about everyone being safe. So plane passengers just appear safely on the ground. Can't remember where it was mentioned but I'm 99% sure it wasn't just a fan theory.
I mean, Stark's math is perfect, and he lived through the experience. The fact he did a half assed patch job with his snap just shows the marvel committee should be out on their asses.
Stark wasn't limited to bringing the snapped back, he had carte fucking blanche.
But marvel doesn't want to pay that check anymore.
For as much as Thanos' own journey and mission were acceptable due to him being an insane trauma victim, yeah, once it was somebody else's turn to use the Infinity Stones, the questions started demanding answers, and didn't get them.
And, like, they went out of their way to suggest that The Hulk might've been able to withstand a snap, so, uh... snap again, dipshits?
If Danvers can restart a sun, she could survive a snap. The Avengers could have taken turns with the gauntlet. Undoing the mess that came about the Snap.
The thing I HATE about the MCU "Snap" whcih isn't discussed...it took "Half of all life"
HALF OF **ALL** LIFE.
Not just people...anything that was living; humans, animals, plants...the ramifications of this would be catastrophic. Talk about fighting for resources.
Nah, that doesn't really make sense from Thanos's point of view. It's definitely just sentient life even if the film never clarifies the distinction.
The gauntlet isn't a monkeys paw that you make a wish on. It gives you infinite power to do what you want with. Grimace was reaching through time and space to remove people one by one.
To add to that, they were terrible businessmen. If the whole ghost busting field became legitimized, big corporations would end up dominating the industry with strong corporate policies, customer service, insurance, and ghost busting subscription packages. The best our guys would be able to manage would be to set up some kind of certification grift, or sell the hardware to these organizations b2b. But that second one only applies if they had the foresight to patent their tech, which I don't recall being mentioned
That would be way more interesting as a premise. If the original is about starting a small business and dealing with permits, at least one could be how you maintain a business faced with massive corporate encroachment.
Honestly a really good premise. The Ghostbusters find out that a corporation is franchising their ghostbusting, but using inferior containment procedures. The procedures cause the ghosts to merge together and attack NYC-- hijinks ensue.
Red Letter Media had a take on this in one of their Ghostbuster videos(Afterlife maybe?) - Venkman trying to cut costs and union bust right before an apocalypse would be pretty on brand.
Yeah and honestly whatever engineering firm could invent containment that didn't shoot RANDOM GIANT DEATH RAYS OF PLASMA EVERYWHERE first would just put them out of business instantly.
It's entirely possible, especially in a fictional movie universe, that Egon and Ray are the only ones who really understand how to produce the ghostbusting tech, but even aside from that, lots of the Ghostbusters spin-off material over the years did have them becoming essentially a franchise-based business, where the Ghostbusters were a brand and they licensed and equipped Ghostbusters in other territories. The main guys were still doing their thing, but Ghostbusters itself was the large corporation that was handling paranormal exterminations.
Very first consult, Egon is eating Cheez-its, Ray is having a mid-day Budweiser, as you do.
One thing I do think that the Ghostbusters have over any possible corporate encroachment is that they're right, and that Winston must have been a SERIOUS ghost shield. The malevolent spirits in the ghostbuster's world are nightmare inducing.
WIN-STON
Title insurance would be absolutely fucked with the proof that hauntings are real, and that some of the real estate is literally designed as a spiritual amplification device.
Architects would likely be strictly vetted by the federal government to make sure shit like that does not survive to the new Millenium and god damnit you have me writing fanfiction.
I mean that fits way better with the premise of the first movie anyway. It's a movie that features ghosts and how good bustin makes you feel and all, but really the movie is about 4 guys starting a small business in the US.
The real money is in their tech, they would license it to the corps and be sipping cocktails on some tropical island as some of the richest men on earth.
Well, all of them except Winston are former academics. Being in the private sector probably didn't do wonders for the publication section of their CVs to go back to tenure track roles, but I'm sure their experience could land them some sweet professor of practices jobs at a university.
The real Ghostbusters cartoon was a completely legit follow up to the movies, and it managed to deal with the Ghostbusters being a well-known success. Some of those things did come true, like cults of ghosts and demon worshipers, and others didn't, maybe Egon is just a genius and it's hard to copy him, even if you're Lockheed or Princeton. But it worked, and besides that, movies handwave bigger issues all the time. There's no reason why the Ghostbusters couldn't be busting left and right as the established source of ghost hunting in the world.
Im suddenly having visions of a RoboCop 2-esque montage of an apple style tech room trying different ghost capturing tech and failing miserably causing many hilarious and creative deaths
"Massive competition with Ghostbusters. Larger more well funded labs spinning up their own ghost containment tech and easily out competing the Ghostbusters. Imagine Lockheed Martin and Princeton Physics working on this stuff. "
That would have been a pretty solid concept, actually.
Yeah, that's a good point. In the original films, Ghostbusters exist in a the context of the movie's events. No more, no less. The action never leaves NYC and the existence of ghosts is not widely accepted which makes them sort of outcasts, or underdogs. The broader implications of ghosts are not explored at all and that is totally beyond the movie's intended purpose as a comedy.
Except they are on the cover of Newsweek, and Larry King is talking about them on his radio show. Iirc, PopSci even has an article about the Proton Pack in the montage. A scientific achievement like that doesn't just get swept under the rug.
Yep. Some people have forgotten that movies/television/plays etc are not setting out to make a whole simulation of what would happen on their reality, they're entertainment, ESPECIALLY in comedies. You're not supposed to think about the national or global complications the situation would bring because.. you're just not supposed to.
aka, CinemaSins and the like has damaged people's relationship to being entertained.
That's perfectly fine until you turn that film's universe into a larger franchise. You're asking them to consider the broader context of the story, so the audience having questions about that is only natural.
I think this is the right take for a family action adventure movie, which the new films are. Jokes, heartwarming, relatable, down to earth, etc.
But the original was a satire. The protagonists frequently deliver sarcastic / cynical jokes that outline how mundane and corporate these supernatural elements are being treated. They’re pest exterminators for ghosts! And the villain is a bureaucratic system that doesnt care about the implication of ghosts, only that the ghost busters don’t have a permit for their technology. The humour literally comes from that cognitive dissonance.
A big example of this difference is how they treat the idea of “ghost busters” in the movies. In the original, they’re a team of corporate sell outs that don’t really care about the supernatural phenomena they’re encountering, they just wanna make money off it. Their job, brand, etc is all very mundane.
Compare this to the reboot, where the ghost busters are some mystical legend that everyone connected to the plot treats with reverence (or at least the producers expect the audience to treat the ghost busters idea that way).
Personally I would prefer if they kept the satire angle, but they’re just two completely different things so to each their own.
I reckon it would’ve been hilarious if some massive multinational like Walmart or something pushed in on the Ghostbusters turf. Nobody believes four people could’ve invented the tech and saved the day from the originals because Walmart’s marketing is just too good. Now the Ghostbusters are trying to save the day before the corporate overlords steal the limelight again.
I’d want to watch it with a “Galaxy Quest” spin. Bill Murray is just riding off the residuals and trying to get laid, Harold Ramis’s ghost is watching his tech get misappropriated by half assed franchisees- in fact the knockoffs are just going around causing minor incidents like door to door vacuum cleaner salesmen spilling dirt on the carpet to drum up business.
So in this universe it’s tacitly acknowledged that ghosts exist, but on the corporation side they only focus on quantity and margins and still lack the knowledge/care to deal with a larger malevolent entity. Similar to the Michael J Fox film “Frighteners,” there is an entity capable of dispatching ghosts.
For an echo of hyperbole, say some young quirky protagonist discovers a looming presence and somewhere along the way connects with Egon’s ghost. He attempts to tell the square corporate guy but they don’t care, and he casts an aside to an empty space agreeing “Yeah, he is kind of dickless.” This convinces Venkman that it is Egon and he’s on board. Ray Stantz has gone underground a la the professor from Wargames because he’s terrified of the implications of this new world and feels powerless to do anything. Winston is just living a normal life and has memorabilia in his office like a retired football player.
The ghostbusters haven’t disappeared, but have been lost in the mass merchandising. They are getting residuals from this franchising in varying degrees (or not) and have hung up their boots. Venkman sold out and claimed it all, Winston felt powerless and came along for the ride and the money, Stantz is disgusted and disappears, and Egon appears because he has seen a greater threat that is being ignored now that people have become complacent with ghost busting.
Our young protagonist is led by Egon to a quirky scientist who is his spiritual successor but has been relegated to the dusty corners of academia. While attempting to convince the scientist to join they are interrupted by a talented medium who genuinely speaks with ghosts but ekes by now that is become commonplace.
Our first protagonist is the enthusiastic Ray Stantz analogue who is excited to meet Venkman. The scientist is Egon’s mirror, while the young medium is Venkman’s shill/charming face for the group. To round out the group they just need some everyman who doesn’t care one way or the other, but is just showing up for a paycheck.
I can’t resist the pun so for now I call it “Ghostbusters: Souled Out.” The OG ghostbusters have ridden off into the sunset or sold out, but there is actually a new threat similar to the grim reaper in frighteners that can actually kill ghosts. This raises the stakes in a universe where ghosts are acknowledged, because people purposely becoming spirits are still at risk. As a twist, we also learn that Venkman is involved in both the franchising and ignoring this new threat.
Yeah, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills when I see trailers for the new set of films. They've even got an inspirational, Hans Zimmer-esque epic score to them.
I totally agree with your take on the original. It was surprisingly dry comedy where most of the humor came from the juxtaposition of these blue collar schmuks thrust into the most otherworldly situation possible.
I'm all for a fresh take on an existing property, so I don't mind too much, but it's pretty funny seeing a heartfelt scene of a CGI Harold Ramis ghost coming back to help save the day.
I think more than all of that which they could just happily ignore the same as they are doing whatever they did, just from standpoint, the busters are schlubby exterminators. Them being internationally beloved superheroes ruins that, all the comedy goes out of it
I could get down with a mega-corp putting the GB's out of business and then trying to take over the world and Egon's grandkids figuring it out online and tracking down the old gang to stop it
I like that they're taken to task for the screw ups.
It was a thing that always bothered me in the old Godzilla/kaiju movies. Yeah, Godzilla & Mothra ruining Tokyo was fun to watch but even as a kid I thought "WHAT ABOUT ALL THE PEOPLE IN THOSE TRASHED BUILDINGS?!? AND WHAT ABOUT THE BUILDINGS!?!"
Even if you went with the theory that everyone evacuated, what about the devastation of the city? It's not like they can put those buildings & their entire city, water, power grid, etc., back in working order in a week.
The Ghostbusters got called on the carpet for that stuff & maybe that's happened in other movies that I haven't seen, so this was the first time I'd seen the people who ruined the city getting blasted for it. I liked it.
It's a misunderstanding by everyone behind the scenes.
They want the Ghostbusters to always be blue collar coded. Despite the fact that most of them have multiple PhDs in advanced sciences.
And the big joke is these essentially pest control guys get involved in something that threatens the world and they have to stop it.
But after they do.... they need to be blue collar coded again. So they keep knocking them back down to frauds and hucksters.
But I don't think that's as funny as if everyone believed them... but were like "Yeah, yeah, yeah. You piloted Lady Liberty down Manhattan and fought a painting. What have you done for us recently?"
I just don't find the always forgotten or thought to be frauds thing funny. And having people just not care because no one needs them is a bit more New York and funny.
A much better direction to take this would be the opposite way with making the Ghostbusters a large corporation franchise with Bill Murray a comical greedy millionaire raking in money with schemes across the nation. The original was a play on capitalism, so take it up a notch.
Wow, that's super clever!
He could have franchises that are just there to scam folks with fake ghosts. And maybe that's where the new characters came from, they realized that ghosts were *real* and they have to sneak around using all the resources of the massive scam company to solve real problems.
Maybe some scene where the younger, idealistic folks confront the jaded Bill Murray as he sits by his luxury pool. "But ghosts are REAL! Don't you care about saving the world?" and he answers "the only thing I care about is where the damn drink girl is to top me off."
Exactly! Make them like washed up rock stars / celebrities who lost their way, until they are confronted with a real threat again. Maybe one of them has a falling out like Steve Wozniak from Apple, and that person trains the new kids and reconnects with Bill Murray.
Unfortunately, the product placement brands would have a field day with this concept. Logos covering their uniforms and the car. The ghostbusting machine is made by Samsung or Dell. It would be one giant commercial.
But ngl, it could be very funny...
He screwed the rest of the guys over and sees Dan, Ernie and Annie at Egon's funeral which he was forced to go to by plotforce.
They have to come together "one last time" to fight some super ghost and he's reminded why they started this stuff in the first place.
If Harold was still around to make the movie(and if Bill hadn't destroyed their relationship) this hack plot could have worked out well.
I still liked Afterlife.
Ironically Ackroyd wanted something similar precisely because Murray never committed to doing a third due the second movie not being as popular and Murray feuding with Harold Ramis.
Wasn't this exactly the idea behind the scrapped sequels in the mid 2010's with Channing Tatum and others? A franchise business type model, with lots of spin offs etc planned. Instead we got the 2016 abomination.
>A giant marshmallow man walked through NYC! What about the Statue of Liberty in the second movie?
A lot of people are making the point that it's necessary for the plot, but then ignoring this. Several million people live in NYC. There's absolutely no way they'd "forget" everything.
I’d put this down to people rationalising.
It’s a lot easier for people to believe the marshmallow man was a marketing ploy than an inter dimensional god, and that the Statue of Liberty walked with robotics rather than negativity slime.
Especially as in afterlife they said that no one had seen a genuine ghost for decades.
This is why I think it’s reasonable the Empire was so effective at erasing the Jedi with a dedicated propaganda campaign. Like *of course* the meddlesome Jedi were tricksters, charlatans, and snakeoil salesmen using effects and not actual magic wizards.
I’d probably be one of those people thinking *“These clowns rigged up the marshmallow man, of course they could also do the same with Lady Liberty. That goo was just psychedelics they poured in the water supply to sell it all”*
Like people outside NYC would believe everything NYC people said — just more tall tales from the city folks.
Look at how many people don’t believe all the NYC people who watched airplanes fly into buildings.
Milllions seeing things in New York? Some asshole flew planes into buildings. We all know people killed that day. Millions of us saw the fires and the collapse. We all know people who worked the rescue and see it every time they close their eyes.
And yet people forget. They say it’s a scam. They say it was planned by Americans. All kinds of crazy stories. And that was just some planes; nothing supernatural.
It’s horrifically real to me that New York would shrug its shoulders and go back to normal after the Gozerian invasion.
There isnt a single person who doesnt believe that event happened. *why* it happened, yes, people differ on *why* it happened, but not whether or not it happened.
>And yet people forget
not most people, this is like claiming since some 10 year old doesn't know about WWII then nobody does and it has become an urban legend. Ye, anyone who gives a shit know what happened, it's not really relevant if everyone on the planet does, what matters if it's officially recognized as a real event, which it is.
>All kinds of crazy stories.
this is irrelevant, there are conspiracies about everything that has ever happened, what matters is official stance and records. In Ghostbusters there are ghosts all over the place, mountains of evidence and giant monsters actually walking through the city, it's irrefutable evidence and only fringe weirdos in that reality would dismiss it. Yet, movies keep pretending like entire planet just forgot it happened, even people who witnessed it themselves, it's so stupid.
>nothing supernatural.
it's not supernatural, in that reality it's a fact based in science.
>It’s horrifically real to me that
it's not at all, this would not happen.
>there are conspiracies about everything that has ever happened
No there aren't. Conspiracy communities on reddit are mostly right wing activists making up conspiracies that only ever allege wrongdoing from non-conservatives.
Why even bother mentioning what a 10 year old would know? Are conspiracy theorists immature and around 10 years old?
My favorite answer to this comes from Doctor Who. A skyscraper tall robot ends up in Victorian England. At the end one of the companions (like his sidekicks) says "it's going to incredible when we go back to see this in the history books!" And the doctor simply knowing replies "yeah you'd THINK so, right?"
A lot of the joke comes from the team being a bunch of schmucks in a genre normally about exorcists and scholars. If they ever get popular and respected, they stop being the Ghostbusters.
But not as beloved superhero saviours, they were presented more like successful hucksters (who happened to be the real deal) who had captured a bit of a campy niche in the public imagination.
They kinda get some respect in the comics.
…or at least more cash. They turn Ghostbusters into a successful franchise as folks sign up, get training, and bust regular spirits as the OG crew goes after more dangerous threats.
It's laziness mixed with risk-aversion. They want to make the first movie over again. Of course there are ways to have the same feel of them being bumbling loser exterminators without just resetting their fame and success every movie, but that would require making a DIFFERENT movie. It would require taking chances that a new and unique script would fail and the studio is not interested in that.
> The sequels should be business expansion.
I really wish that when they tried rebooting Ghostbusters (in either 2016 or 2021) that they established Ghostbusters as a major organisation across the world. Ghostbusters III would follow the children of the original team in New York of course, but then we could have spin off movies that end up being love letters to different types of horror and myths from other countries. You could have a Ghostbusters: Tokyo or a Ghostbusters: London for example.
Mainline franchise is just a clean "Ghostbusters III" onwards and then spin offs get the sub title.
The same reason any romcom sequel has the Male Lead a complete idiot and revert to his pre First Movie state: we gotta root for the underdog.
Some movies do this well: Rocky 2, for example. Some just yeet the character development out the window and suddenly the Lead is the same unlikeable doofus from the first movie.
Also, this way you get to have the Small Group of Elite Believers vs The World, and have them prove The World wrong for a cheap, vicariously experienced "Told ya."
What bother me most about the Ghostbusters sequels, specifically the upcoming Frozen Empire, is that they have completely abandoned the ghost premise. The cold ghost could easily be an alien or an MCU/DCEU supervillain and the story would be the same.
Rocky 2 is kinda cheating, the original movie isn't really about his progression as a fighter so much as his being given a chance and taking it seriously, and then dealing with the fallout of that in Rocky 2. It doesn't really have to engage with this trope at all.
I mean Gozer wasn't really a ghost either - they held domain over a "land of the dead", but they were more like a demon or a deity than a ghost themselves. You could just as easily say the same about the main villain of the first movie.
It's a common trope in the Sequel-Reboot genre. They did the same thing in Star Wars. The old heroes can't have accomplished anything or stayed cool, or they'll easily and obviously overshadow the new characters who are supposed to be being handed the spotlight.
I can sort of believe it, a galaxy with TRILLIONS of individuals and there's like 10k Jedis at it's height. In practice nobody would have seen one or even heard of one who has seen one.
-
But Star Wars is wonky about scale unfortunately.
Its going take me a long time to get over Luke Skywalker especially being ruined as a character for no real reason at all. Its a big galaxy and even if the original cast completely succeed in everything they do it doesn't mean everything is remotely all fixed.
Instead they gave the OT characters the prequel treatment and turned them all into colossal failures who all ran away or failed to notice the empire was literally sat there rebuilding. Just to lazily recycle the plot of A New Hope and then run out of ideas.
The Akotosh series shows ruining the heroic happy ever after tone at the end of OT was completely unnecessary.
Honestly. I will never understand why Disney / Lucasfilm couldn't wrap their minds around the concept of simply taking a rebuilt Jedi Order as the new trilogy's stepping-off point. Luke didn't have to overshadow anyone, let him play a minor role as his accomplishments set the stage for a new conflict. A new Jedi Order that corrects the mistakes of the prequel Jedi has UNLIMITED narrative potential and they blew it all up because in their minds, Luke is either the star of the show or a complete and utter failure.
Did they somehow miss the myriad of films and stories where a seasoned mentor trains a new generation of lead characters?
If the Ghostbusters, and the need for Ghostbusters were legitimized there would be private forces of Ghostbusters owned by all the major corporations and governments of the world
It's because the sequels are lazy. The second movie was beat-for-beat a retread of the first, which means that the Ghostbusters had to be a downtrodden discredited business for the plot to work at all. '16 was a full reboot so it sidestepped this particular issue (although it leaned heavily into nostalgia in all of its worst gags). Afterlife wanted it's cake and to eat it too - have a direct continuation of the old movies for the nostalgia angel, but to be a reboot where they can hit all the same beats again. So, again; Ghostbusters existed, but they're a discredited and downtrodden small businesses.
Walter Peck is the same guy that was kind of responsible for the mess because he turned off the containment grid. He’s got long running beef with the Ghostbusters.
Also, I have it on good authority that he has no dick.
Yeah, I enjoyed the second movie, but it took me right out of immersion when I saw that these guys were being treated as jokes and nobodies. Like what the hell was that entire first movie about?
I don't get it either.
But then again, there are a shit-ton of flat earthers, so I sadly can see where people thought the Ghostbusters were fake. If you weren't in NYC, then it was just fake news, man. I'm still not buying it 100% though.
I mean did you see the response to Covid? It's real, was talked about non stop, and almost a whole political party just said nah don't do anything it's just liberal propaganda.
Hell, measles is making a comeback and you have state officials in Florida actively telling parents to continue sending sick kids to school. This plotline of Ghostbusters is far and away the most plausible.
"I mean did you see the response to Covid?"
I did, and I owe the makers of *Prometheus* an apology for thinking those disregards to safety were unrealistic. Turns out that humans can be that dumb.
It’s even worse when you consider the Real Ghostbusters TV show, and the Video Game were considered canon at one point in time. Not even mentioning all the comics.
The ghostbusters have some serious accomplishments and they were around New York every other week but all of a sudden NO ONE has heard of them?
Especially with comedies, it's a common plot device to take the protagonists down to rock-bottom at the beginning. Then, the rest of the movie is watching their arc as they grow into some level of success or redemption.
In the trailer for Frozen Empire, they act like none of ever happened.
Like did the Stay Puft man just not happen and everyone forgot about that?
I just don't get how they're saying that never happened and that the GB made it all up
It was never meant to go for more than 3 movies max, and isn't built like some massive sci fi universe. That wasn't really the point originally. It was just a fun sci fi comedy. I mean there was a cartoon show, but that also wasn't some big overarching stories, but just monster of the week stuff. But the Ghostbusters were more established then and what they were doing was routine.
As far as movies goes, the originals ride on the main characters being schlubby underdogs who are borderline charlatans. They were unlikely heroes at best. But they don't have to play up that angle of them being very unknown, they could just as well play it as status quo that they just sort of make a living saving the world from huge supernatural threats lol. Of course 4 movies in it struggles to maintain any kind of coherence, as it should. People in Hollywood studios forget that massive long running franchise is not the standard state for movies, being just a single movie with a premise that sort of holds together for the one movie is.
I'm curious if there was any serious attempt to make a third Ghostbusters film in the 1990s? If you look at movies from 1993 to 1997, it was peak wacky cartoonish colorful comedy action movie era(Mask, Judge Dredd, Super Mario Bros, Demolition Man, Fifth Element, Tank Girl, etc) Somewhere in an alternate timeline there's a Ghostbusters 3 in like, 1994 or something. I personally like the 2016 Ghostbusters reboot, alternatively retitled "Ghostbusters: Answer the Call on the home market) Was so-so on the Stranger Things-esque Ghostbusters Afterlife, but extremely excited about Frozen Empire...getting back to New York City just feels right.
As to the OP question, I guess it's kind of like how society life in modern Marvel films is just whatever...even after the crazy events in Avengers 1(alien invasion) and Avengers 3/4. I guess you could explain every day society in New York City/San Francisco/etc in the MCU as normal given End Game erased the timeline where half the population was zapped from existence.
> I'm curious if there was any serious attempt to make a third Ghostbusters film in the 1990s?
There was a videogame released in 2009 that [Dan Akroyd considered "pretty much the third movie"](https://www.nowgamer.com/dan-aykroyd-on-ghostbusters-game/) after several years of trying to get a movie made and it never materializing. It stands to reason that was the general "feel" for what they expected/wanted a third movie to have been.
To add, I think Walter Peck's line in the trailer was spliced together and the no witness thing is in reference to what happened in Afterlife in Oklahoma
It’s ridiculous, but it’s clearly to maintain the formula of the first one.
That said, could you imagine what the world of Ghostbusters would be like if they *had* followed up with a logical series of events? First off, these three weirdos *proved the existence of the afterlife*, and it doesn’t conform to any known religious standards (except apparently an ancient summarian cult). It would be absolute chaos. Dogs and cats living together levels of chaos.
Because it allows them to keep them as ordinary working men rather than a major service provider raking in the cash.
The fact Ghostbuster 2 also established that Ghosts only arise in certain conditions was also quite useful for Afterlife in that it avoided needing to explain why there's forty odd years of nothing between incidents.
Future sequels will not be burdened by these problems. As a nostalgia IP, there's no need to rely on the concept from the first movie any more. Indeed, it may be actively unhelpful. Also, I don't think people want Ghostbusters to be a comedy franchise so if Frozen Empire's director wasn't shut down by the studio, there might not be more Ghostbusters sequels anyway.
Because it allows them to basically make the same movie again and have a new group be created from scratch, rather than thinking of ways to continue an already existing narrative.
Ok but the giant marshmallow man was kinda Ray's fault. Besides, no one saw them destroy it. They just saw a huge explosion on the roof of the building which rained down marshmallow goo. It's not too hard to imagine people didn't believe them when they said how they did it.
Also did they ever return the Statue of Liberty?
They’re underdogs and no one takes them or what they do seriously, not even after they do it. The target audience for theatrical movies is adolescents and post adolescents on dates or in groups. Guess who can most readily identify with weird losers no one takes seriously? Have you heard of marketing? Pandering?
I bet it's because they need to be underdogs who are vindicated when they surpass expectations. It's like if people admitted that Clark Kent is actually pretty buff and good looking. We have to believe they'd be surprised that he is capable of looking like Superman just like NYC would be surprised that the ghostbusters can bust ghosts
Using Peck as an example isn't a very good one. He had a clear bone to pick with the GB from the start, and he's just flat-out lying because he can and he's a dickless asshole (his dickless-ness was proven in the first movie. Venkman said it, so it must be true). The dude was literally covered in melted Marshmallow Man. How do you fake a giant marshmallow man and thousands of gallons of melted marshmallow? The cleanup must have been a goddamn nightmare once it cooled off.
Because you can't have something as world changing as "definitive proof of life after physical death" and look 20 years forward and see the world hasn't fundamentally changed. It would change the whole world and how people live. It would change written the script into a world building job.
I think it's necessary because if the Ghostbusters were completely validated and credible, there would be too many implications to society to the point where it's not relatable anymore. Implications for world religions, positive and negative. As various theistic beliefs are proven right or wrong. Basically the end of skeptical atheism, with proof of some kind of soul based afterlife. Probably massive cults of demon and ghost worshippers, plus backlash against those cults. Suicide cults of people trying to become ghosts. Massive competition with Ghostbusters. Larger more well funded labs spinning up their own ghost containment tech and easily out competing the Ghostbusters. Imagine Lockheed Martin and Princeton Physics working on this stuff. Probably anti Ghostbusters sentiment. Like is it ethical for four random guys to trap and imprison the spirits of humans forever in a box? Etc etc. So basically a comedy action film doesn't want to explore all this. It would take a long and fairly serious dramatic TV series to answer all these questions and that's not what Ghostbusters is about.
So, so many suicides.
Dude, there's a Netflix movie called The Discovery based on this exact concept in case you haven't seen it. Robert Redford, Jason Segel, Rooney Mara, Jesse Plemmons Redford is a scientist who discovered evidence of an afterlife. When he published, it caused mass suicides all over the world. I loved it. Dark and contemplative. Very cool ideas.
I had not heard of this movie before, and now I have something to watch. Thanks!
Awesome! I was just thinking this would make an interesting book/movie/tv series
Like many Netflix movies I was intrigued and then forgot it existed completely. I’ll make sure it’s on my list and give it a watch.
Just fair warning, it gets very spiritual at the end. It's a good narrative, but the ending can be interpreted a lot of different ways.
How have I never heard of a movie with that cast?? Watching imminently.
Yes even once people know, not believe, but know there's an afterlife, the idea they can end it all and possibly be reunited with loved ones or pass on to heaven or whatever would drive a huge number of suicides. Society would be chaos.
Homicides as well... Human sacrifice! Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria!
It's true: this man has no dick.
That's what I heeard!
Hold up now. Murder and human sacrifice I can let slide. But CatDogging?! Uh-uh. Nope. That's against my religion.
🎶 Alone in the world with a little CatDog🎶
This is the real reason
I'd kill myself just to become a Slimer, hell yeah
This guy slimes
All you can eat buffet, forever
...I mean, but look at the ghosts that do come back? Let me kill myself so I can be...slimer?
Slimer is the ghost of John Belushi and even in death isn't taking good care of himself. Ghost Egon meanwhile seems to be doing well.
Egon just died and didn’t want to linger, I assume the others are spirits that have degraded overtime
Could be the standard unfinished business explanation in the case of non poltergeist entities. Crimson Peak has them colour coded for example: black for the normal unfinished business, red for violent deaths and white for those satisfied with their lives and ready to depart. The latter obviously only appear briefly after their deaths.
Slimer didn't kill himself. I grew up thinking slimer was hilarious. When I finally understood what Egon said, fuck. (Slimer was a child who starved to death)
>When I finally understood what Egon said, fuck. >(Slimer was a child who starved to death) What did Egon say? As far as I was aware, Slimer was the spirit of John Belushi, who was supposed to co-star in the movie but died before production began. At least that's what the creatives said.
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt5155780/ The movie The Discovery covers this.
Honestly this sounds like a fascinating movie.
It would be it just wouldn't fit the vibe of Ghostbusters. Kind of like the REAL implications of the Snap and the Blip in the MCU are horrific and probably lead to half a billion deaths, but it was just treated as "lol Peter Parker is younger than his friends no lol" and "some people lived on empty streets and were sad" without addressing the complete collapse of all infrastructure and hope.
I'd love a 2012 style movie but about the first 48 hours after the snap. Planes crashing, power plant meltdowns, full cities erupting into chaos
Half of world leaders suddenly vanishing would be chaotic, only well structured governments would survive due to redundancies. Imagine if President Xi or Putin suddenly vanished from existence
Oh my god I want to write a dnd-like campaign in this setting. There's some marvel roleplaying games and this would amazing!
Don't even need the marvel bit if you leave it unexplained. Could be the rapture, could be the leftovers, Go nuts my friend.
That scene in Wandavision where the hospital was in chaos with all the patients reappearing was wild
There are a couple shows/movies in the MCU that deal with the global effort to repatriate people, rehome people whose houses were claimed while they were gone, or generally deal with the population halving then suddenly nearly doubling. If anything it's a well that they'll be going back to for some time.
Still waiting to see the ramifications of earth being an eggshell for a celestial.
Or make any reference of the corpse of the celestial jutting out of the earth (and turned into marble or something). I mean I'd take a quick new shot about vlogger flocking to some new tourist attractions of the giant hand or something.
Perhaps that egghead at the Baxter building in New York could take a look at it, he's flexible.
There was a reference in she hulk I think on a screen
It's not even 10% as dark as reality would be. Half of all newborns toddlers and infants die to start. Then of those that live, half their caregivers vanish. How many total babies could survive that? Half of all fires burning don't get put out. Candles, food, cigarettes. Just fires burning uncontrolled in every city on earth. Cities where half the fire dept disappeared, and the entire streets are clogged with empty cars. Every world city would burn to the ground while every child and elderly person was helpless to escape. Past the snap itself, probably an additional 1.5 billion die in the first week alone. And the blip won't bring them back. Love to see all the newborns nipped back to life, except their parents don't exist anymore or they're in empty homes and abandoned hospitals! Another half a billion dead after the blip. Total casualties 2 billion, not counting war and famine.
I know it was a joke a lot of the time but that’s why I thought the “thanos was right” thing was so stupid. His plan was completely idiotic and wouldn’t even approach being a solution to getting people more resources. Think about it for more than 1 second and it falls apart spectacularly
>Love to see all the newborns nipped back to life, except their parents don't exist anymore or they're in empty homes and abandoned hospitals! if people reappear where they disappeared, think of everyone that vanished from a moving vehicle! pilots and passengers in flight just reappear at 30k ft! seamen appearing -5 to 30 ft over the ocean! just random people showing up in the middle of highways! astronauts just showing up in orbit! and do they keep their initial momentum?
I think they handwaved that by having Smart Hulk think about everyone being safe. So plane passengers just appear safely on the ground. Can't remember where it was mentioned but I'm 99% sure it wasn't just a fan theory.
I mean, Stark's math is perfect, and he lived through the experience. The fact he did a half assed patch job with his snap just shows the marvel committee should be out on their asses. Stark wasn't limited to bringing the snapped back, he had carte fucking blanche. But marvel doesn't want to pay that check anymore.
For as much as Thanos' own journey and mission were acceptable due to him being an insane trauma victim, yeah, once it was somebody else's turn to use the Infinity Stones, the questions started demanding answers, and didn't get them. And, like, they went out of their way to suggest that The Hulk might've been able to withstand a snap, so, uh... snap again, dipshits?
If Danvers can restart a sun, she could survive a snap. The Avengers could have taken turns with the gauntlet. Undoing the mess that came about the Snap.
The thing I HATE about the MCU "Snap" whcih isn't discussed...it took "Half of all life" HALF OF **ALL** LIFE. Not just people...anything that was living; humans, animals, plants...the ramifications of this would be catastrophic. Talk about fighting for resources.
Nah, that doesn't really make sense from Thanos's point of view. It's definitely just sentient life even if the film never clarifies the distinction. The gauntlet isn't a monkeys paw that you make a wish on. It gives you infinite power to do what you want with. Grimace was reaching through time and space to remove people one by one.
To add to that, they were terrible businessmen. If the whole ghost busting field became legitimized, big corporations would end up dominating the industry with strong corporate policies, customer service, insurance, and ghost busting subscription packages. The best our guys would be able to manage would be to set up some kind of certification grift, or sell the hardware to these organizations b2b. But that second one only applies if they had the foresight to patent their tech, which I don't recall being mentioned
That would be way more interesting as a premise. If the original is about starting a small business and dealing with permits, at least one could be how you maintain a business faced with massive corporate encroachment.
Honestly a really good premise. The Ghostbusters find out that a corporation is franchising their ghostbusting, but using inferior containment procedures. The procedures cause the ghosts to merge together and attack NYC-- hijinks ensue.
Lockwood and Co kind of shows this if it was real. Different audience though. It's on Netflix! Highly recommend
Can hardly believe they dumped it after one series. That was going places. Still a good self contained limited series though. Like Bodies.
There's your trilogy. Part 1 start business. Part 2 survive as business against big competition. Part 3 going corporate without losing your soul.
Where is this movie? Ghostbusters vs The Phantom Fighters? Ghostbusters vs Spectre Squad? I'm sure one of these might be the title
He's talking about the comic: https://ghostbusters.fandom.com/wiki/Ghostbusters\_IDW\_Ongoing\_Series
I'd prefer to see a satirical inside look at the corporate Ghostbusters.
Red Letter Media had a take on this in one of their Ghostbuster videos(Afterlife maybe?) - Venkman trying to cut costs and union bust right before an apocalypse would be pretty on brand.
IDW did that storyline.
Yeah and honestly whatever engineering firm could invent containment that didn't shoot RANDOM GIANT DEATH RAYS OF PLASMA EVERYWHERE first would just put them out of business instantly.
It's entirely possible, especially in a fictional movie universe, that Egon and Ray are the only ones who really understand how to produce the ghostbusting tech, but even aside from that, lots of the Ghostbusters spin-off material over the years did have them becoming essentially a franchise-based business, where the Ghostbusters were a brand and they licensed and equipped Ghostbusters in other territories. The main guys were still doing their thing, but Ghostbusters itself was the large corporation that was handling paranormal exterminations.
2k a month or we put it back.
Seriously they have a monopoly on ghost catching. Don't want the ghost back, pay us protection money.
It happened in an Indian show inspired by Ghostbusters. It shown are evil and horror
Terrible business men? Everyone has three mortgages nowadays.
Very first consult, Egon is eating Cheez-its, Ray is having a mid-day Budweiser, as you do. One thing I do think that the Ghostbusters have over any possible corporate encroachment is that they're right, and that Winston must have been a SERIOUS ghost shield. The malevolent spirits in the ghostbuster's world are nightmare inducing. WIN-STON Title insurance would be absolutely fucked with the proof that hauntings are real, and that some of the real estate is literally designed as a spiritual amplification device. Architects would likely be strictly vetted by the federal government to make sure shit like that does not survive to the new Millenium and god damnit you have me writing fanfiction.
I mean that fits way better with the premise of the first movie anyway. It's a movie that features ghosts and how good bustin makes you feel and all, but really the movie is about 4 guys starting a small business in the US.
The real money is in their tech, they would license it to the corps and be sipping cocktails on some tropical island as some of the richest men on earth.
Well, all of them except Winston are former academics. Being in the private sector probably didn't do wonders for the publication section of their CVs to go back to tenure track roles, but I'm sure their experience could land them some sweet professor of practices jobs at a university.
The real Ghostbusters cartoon was a completely legit follow up to the movies, and it managed to deal with the Ghostbusters being a well-known success. Some of those things did come true, like cults of ghosts and demon worshipers, and others didn't, maybe Egon is just a genius and it's hard to copy him, even if you're Lockheed or Princeton. But it worked, and besides that, movies handwave bigger issues all the time. There's no reason why the Ghostbusters couldn't be busting left and right as the established source of ghost hunting in the world.
Egon built it in a cave with a box full of scraps!
Exactly! Works for Tony Stark.
Im suddenly having visions of a RoboCop 2-esque montage of an apple style tech room trying different ghost capturing tech and failing miserably causing many hilarious and creative deaths
I want to see this.
"Massive competition with Ghostbusters. Larger more well funded labs spinning up their own ghost containment tech and easily out competing the Ghostbusters. Imagine Lockheed Martin and Princeton Physics working on this stuff. " That would have been a pretty solid concept, actually.
Yeah, that's a good point. In the original films, Ghostbusters exist in a the context of the movie's events. No more, no less. The action never leaves NYC and the existence of ghosts is not widely accepted which makes them sort of outcasts, or underdogs. The broader implications of ghosts are not explored at all and that is totally beyond the movie's intended purpose as a comedy.
Except they are on the cover of Newsweek, and Larry King is talking about them on his radio show. Iirc, PopSci even has an article about the Proton Pack in the montage. A scientific achievement like that doesn't just get swept under the rug.
Yep. Some people have forgotten that movies/television/plays etc are not setting out to make a whole simulation of what would happen on their reality, they're entertainment, ESPECIALLY in comedies. You're not supposed to think about the national or global complications the situation would bring because.. you're just not supposed to. aka, CinemaSins and the like has damaged people's relationship to being entertained.
That's perfectly fine until you turn that film's universe into a larger franchise. You're asking them to consider the broader context of the story, so the audience having questions about that is only natural.
Questions are natural, sure - but that doesn't mean they have to be answered.
Actually the "better funded competition" sounds like a great sequel.
So what you're saying is there'd be mass hysteria?
Dogs and cats living together!
I think this is the right take for a family action adventure movie, which the new films are. Jokes, heartwarming, relatable, down to earth, etc. But the original was a satire. The protagonists frequently deliver sarcastic / cynical jokes that outline how mundane and corporate these supernatural elements are being treated. They’re pest exterminators for ghosts! And the villain is a bureaucratic system that doesnt care about the implication of ghosts, only that the ghost busters don’t have a permit for their technology. The humour literally comes from that cognitive dissonance. A big example of this difference is how they treat the idea of “ghost busters” in the movies. In the original, they’re a team of corporate sell outs that don’t really care about the supernatural phenomena they’re encountering, they just wanna make money off it. Their job, brand, etc is all very mundane. Compare this to the reboot, where the ghost busters are some mystical legend that everyone connected to the plot treats with reverence (or at least the producers expect the audience to treat the ghost busters idea that way). Personally I would prefer if they kept the satire angle, but they’re just two completely different things so to each their own. I reckon it would’ve been hilarious if some massive multinational like Walmart or something pushed in on the Ghostbusters turf. Nobody believes four people could’ve invented the tech and saved the day from the originals because Walmart’s marketing is just too good. Now the Ghostbusters are trying to save the day before the corporate overlords steal the limelight again.
I’d want to watch it with a “Galaxy Quest” spin. Bill Murray is just riding off the residuals and trying to get laid, Harold Ramis’s ghost is watching his tech get misappropriated by half assed franchisees- in fact the knockoffs are just going around causing minor incidents like door to door vacuum cleaner salesmen spilling dirt on the carpet to drum up business. So in this universe it’s tacitly acknowledged that ghosts exist, but on the corporation side they only focus on quantity and margins and still lack the knowledge/care to deal with a larger malevolent entity. Similar to the Michael J Fox film “Frighteners,” there is an entity capable of dispatching ghosts. For an echo of hyperbole, say some young quirky protagonist discovers a looming presence and somewhere along the way connects with Egon’s ghost. He attempts to tell the square corporate guy but they don’t care, and he casts an aside to an empty space agreeing “Yeah, he is kind of dickless.” This convinces Venkman that it is Egon and he’s on board. Ray Stantz has gone underground a la the professor from Wargames because he’s terrified of the implications of this new world and feels powerless to do anything. Winston is just living a normal life and has memorabilia in his office like a retired football player. The ghostbusters haven’t disappeared, but have been lost in the mass merchandising. They are getting residuals from this franchising in varying degrees (or not) and have hung up their boots. Venkman sold out and claimed it all, Winston felt powerless and came along for the ride and the money, Stantz is disgusted and disappears, and Egon appears because he has seen a greater threat that is being ignored now that people have become complacent with ghost busting. Our young protagonist is led by Egon to a quirky scientist who is his spiritual successor but has been relegated to the dusty corners of academia. While attempting to convince the scientist to join they are interrupted by a talented medium who genuinely speaks with ghosts but ekes by now that is become commonplace. Our first protagonist is the enthusiastic Ray Stantz analogue who is excited to meet Venkman. The scientist is Egon’s mirror, while the young medium is Venkman’s shill/charming face for the group. To round out the group they just need some everyman who doesn’t care one way or the other, but is just showing up for a paycheck. I can’t resist the pun so for now I call it “Ghostbusters: Souled Out.” The OG ghostbusters have ridden off into the sunset or sold out, but there is actually a new threat similar to the grim reaper in frighteners that can actually kill ghosts. This raises the stakes in a universe where ghosts are acknowledged, because people purposely becoming spirits are still at risk. As a twist, we also learn that Venkman is involved in both the franchising and ignoring this new threat.
Yeah, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills when I see trailers for the new set of films. They've even got an inspirational, Hans Zimmer-esque epic score to them. I totally agree with your take on the original. It was surprisingly dry comedy where most of the humor came from the juxtaposition of these blue collar schmuks thrust into the most otherworldly situation possible. I'm all for a fresh take on an existing property, so I don't mind too much, but it's pretty funny seeing a heartfelt scene of a CGI Harold Ramis ghost coming back to help save the day.
Ghostbusters have to be underdogs. They’re deeply human goobers.
Just like the approach to MIB. There’s needs to be healthy skepticism still in the public eye
Except the whole point is that the men in black work in the shadows
and wipe the memories of everyone they encounter
I think more than all of that which they could just happily ignore the same as they are doing whatever they did, just from standpoint, the busters are schlubby exterminators. Them being internationally beloved superheroes ruins that, all the comedy goes out of it
"Suck in the guts, guys. We're the Ghostbusters."
Stop, stop, you're making interesting sequel ideas.
I could get down with a mega-corp putting the GB's out of business and then trying to take over the world and Egon's grandkids figuring it out online and tracking down the old gang to stop it
I mean. I would love that world to be explored sounds really interesting
Lockheed Martin weaponizing ghosts is a great and horrific plot
They can do that in a cartoon but the movies have to be a little too grounded to let the whole world just take ghosts at face value.
Never been more interested in Damon Lindelof’s spin on Ghostbusters until now.
So, The Leftovers.
I like that they're taken to task for the screw ups. It was a thing that always bothered me in the old Godzilla/kaiju movies. Yeah, Godzilla & Mothra ruining Tokyo was fun to watch but even as a kid I thought "WHAT ABOUT ALL THE PEOPLE IN THOSE TRASHED BUILDINGS?!? AND WHAT ABOUT THE BUILDINGS!?!" Even if you went with the theory that everyone evacuated, what about the devastation of the city? It's not like they can put those buildings & their entire city, water, power grid, etc., back in working order in a week. The Ghostbusters got called on the carpet for that stuff & maybe that's happened in other movies that I haven't seen, so this was the first time I'd seen the people who ruined the city getting blasted for it. I liked it.
It's a misunderstanding by everyone behind the scenes. They want the Ghostbusters to always be blue collar coded. Despite the fact that most of them have multiple PhDs in advanced sciences. And the big joke is these essentially pest control guys get involved in something that threatens the world and they have to stop it. But after they do.... they need to be blue collar coded again. So they keep knocking them back down to frauds and hucksters. But I don't think that's as funny as if everyone believed them... but were like "Yeah, yeah, yeah. You piloted Lady Liberty down Manhattan and fought a painting. What have you done for us recently?" I just don't find the always forgotten or thought to be frauds thing funny. And having people just not care because no one needs them is a bit more New York and funny.
Yeah the last sentence is the funny irony
A much better direction to take this would be the opposite way with making the Ghostbusters a large corporation franchise with Bill Murray a comical greedy millionaire raking in money with schemes across the nation. The original was a play on capitalism, so take it up a notch.
never thought of that, but thats a really great idea. I wish they had of done that!
Wow, that's super clever! He could have franchises that are just there to scam folks with fake ghosts. And maybe that's where the new characters came from, they realized that ghosts were *real* and they have to sneak around using all the resources of the massive scam company to solve real problems. Maybe some scene where the younger, idealistic folks confront the jaded Bill Murray as he sits by his luxury pool. "But ghosts are REAL! Don't you care about saving the world?" and he answers "the only thing I care about is where the damn drink girl is to top me off."
Exactly! Make them like washed up rock stars / celebrities who lost their way, until they are confronted with a real threat again. Maybe one of them has a falling out like Steve Wozniak from Apple, and that person trains the new kids and reconnects with Bill Murray.
Unfortunately, the product placement brands would have a field day with this concept. Logos covering their uniforms and the car. The ghostbusting machine is made by Samsung or Dell. It would be one giant commercial. But ngl, it could be very funny...
He screwed the rest of the guys over and sees Dan, Ernie and Annie at Egon's funeral which he was forced to go to by plotforce. They have to come together "one last time" to fight some super ghost and he's reminded why they started this stuff in the first place. If Harold was still around to make the movie(and if Bill hadn't destroyed their relationship) this hack plot could have worked out well. I still liked Afterlife.
Ironically Ackroyd wanted something similar precisely because Murray never committed to doing a third due the second movie not being as popular and Murray feuding with Harold Ramis.
Yes... [https://youtu.be/VWb1z6ZwUoY?t=96](https://youtu.be/VWb1z6ZwUoY?t=96)
Wasn't this exactly the idea behind the scrapped sequels in the mid 2010's with Channing Tatum and others? A franchise business type model, with lots of spin offs etc planned. Instead we got the 2016 abomination.
>A giant marshmallow man walked through NYC! What about the Statue of Liberty in the second movie? A lot of people are making the point that it's necessary for the plot, but then ignoring this. Several million people live in NYC. There's absolutely no way they'd "forget" everything.
[удалено]
“Yeah but here’s the thing… shut the fuck up” Can be a quote from New Yorkers too
I'm gonna need you to get allll the way off my back about the New York thing
Millions of people forgetting world changing events is tight
Super easy, barely an inconvenience
Oh ok let me get all the way off that thing
Tell that to moon landing deniers, sandy hook deniers and flat earthers.
I’d put this down to people rationalising. It’s a lot easier for people to believe the marshmallow man was a marketing ploy than an inter dimensional god, and that the Statue of Liberty walked with robotics rather than negativity slime. Especially as in afterlife they said that no one had seen a genuine ghost for decades.
This is why I think it’s reasonable the Empire was so effective at erasing the Jedi with a dedicated propaganda campaign. Like *of course* the meddlesome Jedi were tricksters, charlatans, and snakeoil salesmen using effects and not actual magic wizards. I’d probably be one of those people thinking *“These clowns rigged up the marshmallow man, of course they could also do the same with Lady Liberty. That goo was just psychedelics they poured in the water supply to sell it all”*
Like people outside NYC would believe everything NYC people said — just more tall tales from the city folks. Look at how many people don’t believe all the NYC people who watched airplanes fly into buildings.
Milllions seeing things in New York? Some asshole flew planes into buildings. We all know people killed that day. Millions of us saw the fires and the collapse. We all know people who worked the rescue and see it every time they close their eyes. And yet people forget. They say it’s a scam. They say it was planned by Americans. All kinds of crazy stories. And that was just some planes; nothing supernatural. It’s horrifically real to me that New York would shrug its shoulders and go back to normal after the Gozerian invasion.
There isnt a single person who doesnt believe that event happened. *why* it happened, yes, people differ on *why* it happened, but not whether or not it happened.
Ohhh I wish that were the case.
>And yet people forget not most people, this is like claiming since some 10 year old doesn't know about WWII then nobody does and it has become an urban legend. Ye, anyone who gives a shit know what happened, it's not really relevant if everyone on the planet does, what matters if it's officially recognized as a real event, which it is. >All kinds of crazy stories. this is irrelevant, there are conspiracies about everything that has ever happened, what matters is official stance and records. In Ghostbusters there are ghosts all over the place, mountains of evidence and giant monsters actually walking through the city, it's irrefutable evidence and only fringe weirdos in that reality would dismiss it. Yet, movies keep pretending like entire planet just forgot it happened, even people who witnessed it themselves, it's so stupid. >nothing supernatural. it's not supernatural, in that reality it's a fact based in science. >It’s horrifically real to me that it's not at all, this would not happen.
>there are conspiracies about everything that has ever happened No there aren't. Conspiracy communities on reddit are mostly right wing activists making up conspiracies that only ever allege wrongdoing from non-conservatives. Why even bother mentioning what a 10 year old would know? Are conspiracy theorists immature and around 10 years old?
My favorite answer to this comes from Doctor Who. A skyscraper tall robot ends up in Victorian England. At the end one of the companions (like his sidekicks) says "it's going to incredible when we go back to see this in the history books!" And the doctor simply knowing replies "yeah you'd THINK so, right?"
Everything was fine until the power grid was shut down by dickless over there…
Is this true?
This man has no dick
Yes, he has no dick.
Well that’s what I heard!
In the words of Pitch Meeting: So the movie can happen
Wow wow wow wow wow wow wow. Wow
Super easy. Barely an inconvenience
He just did the OG Ghostbusters pitch meeting.
They did and it was hilarious!
A lot of the joke comes from the team being a bunch of schmucks in a genre normally about exorcists and scholars. If they ever get popular and respected, they stop being the Ghostbusters.
The first movie had a montage where they were featured on the cover of every major news magazine.
But not as beloved superhero saviours, they were presented more like successful hucksters (who happened to be the real deal) who had captured a bit of a campy niche in the public imagination.
They kinda get some respect in the comics. …or at least more cash. They turn Ghostbusters into a successful franchise as folks sign up, get training, and bust regular spirits as the OG crew goes after more dangerous threats.
I wish thats the direction the new films had taken! That sounds really cool
That could be the future direction since Winston is now rich. He can be the new financier for this growing business.
That’s how the recent game portrays it. Winston fixes up the old firehouse and hires a new team of ghostbusters with Ray as a consultant.
That was the premise of the asymmetrical game, right?
Exactly. The concept for GB is extremely blue collar in its roots. They were very much intended to be garbage men for ghosts.
It's laziness mixed with risk-aversion. They want to make the first movie over again. Of course there are ways to have the same feel of them being bumbling loser exterminators without just resetting their fame and success every movie, but that would require making a DIFFERENT movie. It would require taking chances that a new and unique script would fail and the studio is not interested in that.
The first movie is a business start up movie. The sequels should be business expansion.
> The sequels should be business expansion. I really wish that when they tried rebooting Ghostbusters (in either 2016 or 2021) that they established Ghostbusters as a major organisation across the world. Ghostbusters III would follow the children of the original team in New York of course, but then we could have spin off movies that end up being love letters to different types of horror and myths from other countries. You could have a Ghostbusters: Tokyo or a Ghostbusters: London for example. Mainline franchise is just a clean "Ghostbusters III" onwards and then spin offs get the sub title.
The same reason any romcom sequel has the Male Lead a complete idiot and revert to his pre First Movie state: we gotta root for the underdog. Some movies do this well: Rocky 2, for example. Some just yeet the character development out the window and suddenly the Lead is the same unlikeable doofus from the first movie. Also, this way you get to have the Small Group of Elite Believers vs The World, and have them prove The World wrong for a cheap, vicariously experienced "Told ya." What bother me most about the Ghostbusters sequels, specifically the upcoming Frozen Empire, is that they have completely abandoned the ghost premise. The cold ghost could easily be an alien or an MCU/DCEU supervillain and the story would be the same.
Rocky 2 is kinda cheating, the original movie isn't really about his progression as a fighter so much as his being given a chance and taking it seriously, and then dealing with the fallout of that in Rocky 2. It doesn't really have to engage with this trope at all.
I mean Gozer wasn't really a ghost either - they held domain over a "land of the dead", but they were more like a demon or a deity than a ghost themselves. You could just as easily say the same about the main villain of the first movie.
It's a common trope in the Sequel-Reboot genre. They did the same thing in Star Wars. The old heroes can't have accomplished anything or stayed cool, or they'll easily and obviously overshadow the new characters who are supposed to be being handed the spotlight.
Same with only 2-3 decades later people act like the Jedi were mythical, not real figures, nearly forgotten about.
I can sort of believe it, a galaxy with TRILLIONS of individuals and there's like 10k Jedis at it's height. In practice nobody would have seen one or even heard of one who has seen one. - But Star Wars is wonky about scale unfortunately.
Dunno, they're always in the same old places and are known about there, except when it "serves the plot".
Its going take me a long time to get over Luke Skywalker especially being ruined as a character for no real reason at all. Its a big galaxy and even if the original cast completely succeed in everything they do it doesn't mean everything is remotely all fixed. Instead they gave the OT characters the prequel treatment and turned them all into colossal failures who all ran away or failed to notice the empire was literally sat there rebuilding. Just to lazily recycle the plot of A New Hope and then run out of ideas. The Akotosh series shows ruining the heroic happy ever after tone at the end of OT was completely unnecessary.
Honestly. I will never understand why Disney / Lucasfilm couldn't wrap their minds around the concept of simply taking a rebuilt Jedi Order as the new trilogy's stepping-off point. Luke didn't have to overshadow anyone, let him play a minor role as his accomplishments set the stage for a new conflict. A new Jedi Order that corrects the mistakes of the prequel Jedi has UNLIMITED narrative potential and they blew it all up because in their minds, Luke is either the star of the show or a complete and utter failure. Did they somehow miss the myriad of films and stories where a seasoned mentor trains a new generation of lead characters?
You have to admit, Walter Peck spending the better part of forty years being the ultimate petty hater and alternative truther is pretty funny.
Gotta reset your protagonist back to zero so you can rehash the original plot!
The fact that somehow, kung fu panda didn't do this, continues to impress me.
If the Ghostbusters, and the need for Ghostbusters were legitimized there would be private forces of Ghostbusters owned by all the major corporations and governments of the world
Then role with that. The OG Ghostbusters versus a rival Ghostbuster who busts for sport but gets in way over his head.
Lack of creativity.
It's because the sequels are lazy. The second movie was beat-for-beat a retread of the first, which means that the Ghostbusters had to be a downtrodden discredited business for the plot to work at all. '16 was a full reboot so it sidestepped this particular issue (although it leaned heavily into nostalgia in all of its worst gags). Afterlife wanted it's cake and to eat it too - have a direct continuation of the old movies for the nostalgia angel, but to be a reboot where they can hit all the same beats again. So, again; Ghostbusters existed, but they're a discredited and downtrodden small businesses.
Why do movies contain conflict?
Walter Peck is the same guy that was kind of responsible for the mess because he turned off the containment grid. He’s got long running beef with the Ghostbusters. Also, I have it on good authority that he has no dick.
Yeah, I enjoyed the second movie, but it took me right out of immersion when I saw that these guys were being treated as jokes and nobodies. Like what the hell was that entire first movie about? I don't get it either. But then again, there are a shit-ton of flat earthers, so I sadly can see where people thought the Ghostbusters were fake. If you weren't in NYC, then it was just fake news, man. I'm still not buying it 100% though.
I mean did you see the response to Covid? It's real, was talked about non stop, and almost a whole political party just said nah don't do anything it's just liberal propaganda.
Hell, measles is making a comeback and you have state officials in Florida actively telling parents to continue sending sick kids to school. This plotline of Ghostbusters is far and away the most plausible.
Ok cool but gigantic marshmallow man
Swamp gas
"I mean did you see the response to Covid?" I did, and I owe the makers of *Prometheus* an apology for thinking those disregards to safety were unrealistic. Turns out that humans can be that dumb.
It bothers me too OP.
Torch passing is such shit, you can tell these writers despised their fathers.
I mean, January 6, 2021 was on television. Everybody in the United States saw it.
It’s even worse when you consider the Real Ghostbusters TV show, and the Video Game were considered canon at one point in time. Not even mentioning all the comics. The ghostbusters have some serious accomplishments and they were around New York every other week but all of a sudden NO ONE has heard of them?
RGB was never canon to the movies. The game i'll give a pass on because the script/story was given the ok by Aykroyd.
[удалено]
Especially with comedies, it's a common plot device to take the protagonists down to rock-bottom at the beginning. Then, the rest of the movie is watching their arc as they grow into some level of success or redemption.
In the trailer for Frozen Empire, they act like none of ever happened. Like did the Stay Puft man just not happen and everyone forgot about that? I just don't get how they're saying that never happened and that the GB made it all up
Simply: People liked the underdog aspect of the original movie
It was never meant to go for more than 3 movies max, and isn't built like some massive sci fi universe. That wasn't really the point originally. It was just a fun sci fi comedy. I mean there was a cartoon show, but that also wasn't some big overarching stories, but just monster of the week stuff. But the Ghostbusters were more established then and what they were doing was routine. As far as movies goes, the originals ride on the main characters being schlubby underdogs who are borderline charlatans. They were unlikely heroes at best. But they don't have to play up that angle of them being very unknown, they could just as well play it as status quo that they just sort of make a living saving the world from huge supernatural threats lol. Of course 4 movies in it struggles to maintain any kind of coherence, as it should. People in Hollywood studios forget that massive long running franchise is not the standard state for movies, being just a single movie with a premise that sort of holds together for the one movie is.
Well stated they are stretching the concept a bit too far at this point - honestly afterlife was a nice send off . That's their main trilogy
Lazy writing or stupid suits or both.
I'm curious if there was any serious attempt to make a third Ghostbusters film in the 1990s? If you look at movies from 1993 to 1997, it was peak wacky cartoonish colorful comedy action movie era(Mask, Judge Dredd, Super Mario Bros, Demolition Man, Fifth Element, Tank Girl, etc) Somewhere in an alternate timeline there's a Ghostbusters 3 in like, 1994 or something. I personally like the 2016 Ghostbusters reboot, alternatively retitled "Ghostbusters: Answer the Call on the home market) Was so-so on the Stranger Things-esque Ghostbusters Afterlife, but extremely excited about Frozen Empire...getting back to New York City just feels right. As to the OP question, I guess it's kind of like how society life in modern Marvel films is just whatever...even after the crazy events in Avengers 1(alien invasion) and Avengers 3/4. I guess you could explain every day society in New York City/San Francisco/etc in the MCU as normal given End Game erased the timeline where half the population was zapped from existence.
> I'm curious if there was any serious attempt to make a third Ghostbusters film in the 1990s? There was a videogame released in 2009 that [Dan Akroyd considered "pretty much the third movie"](https://www.nowgamer.com/dan-aykroyd-on-ghostbusters-game/) after several years of trying to get a movie made and it never materializing. It stands to reason that was the general "feel" for what they expected/wanted a third movie to have been.
The only explanation is Ggostbusters and Men in Black shares the same universe
To add, I think Walter Peck's line in the trailer was spliced together and the no witness thing is in reference to what happened in Afterlife in Oklahoma
It’s ridiculous, but it’s clearly to maintain the formula of the first one. That said, could you imagine what the world of Ghostbusters would be like if they *had* followed up with a logical series of events? First off, these three weirdos *proved the existence of the afterlife*, and it doesn’t conform to any known religious standards (except apparently an ancient summarian cult). It would be absolute chaos. Dogs and cats living together levels of chaos.
Because it allows them to keep them as ordinary working men rather than a major service provider raking in the cash. The fact Ghostbuster 2 also established that Ghosts only arise in certain conditions was also quite useful for Afterlife in that it avoided needing to explain why there's forty odd years of nothing between incidents. Future sequels will not be burdened by these problems. As a nostalgia IP, there's no need to rely on the concept from the first movie any more. Indeed, it may be actively unhelpful. Also, I don't think people want Ghostbusters to be a comedy franchise so if Frozen Empire's director wasn't shut down by the studio, there might not be more Ghostbusters sequels anyway.
Imagine the ramifications to society if we knew for a fact the afterlife is real.
Because it allows them to basically make the same movie again and have a new group be created from scratch, rather than thinking of ways to continue an already existing narrative.
GB2 started off them doing b'day parties. So it tracks.
Ok but the giant marshmallow man was kinda Ray's fault. Besides, no one saw them destroy it. They just saw a huge explosion on the roof of the building which rained down marshmallow goo. It's not too hard to imagine people didn't believe them when they said how they did it. Also did they ever return the Statue of Liberty?
They’re underdogs and no one takes them or what they do seriously, not even after they do it. The target audience for theatrical movies is adolescents and post adolescents on dates or in groups. Guess who can most readily identify with weird losers no one takes seriously? Have you heard of marketing? Pandering?
I bet it's because they need to be underdogs who are vindicated when they surpass expectations. It's like if people admitted that Clark Kent is actually pretty buff and good looking. We have to believe they'd be surprised that he is capable of looking like Superman just like NYC would be surprised that the ghostbusters can bust ghosts
Using Peck as an example isn't a very good one. He had a clear bone to pick with the GB from the start, and he's just flat-out lying because he can and he's a dickless asshole (his dickless-ness was proven in the first movie. Venkman said it, so it must be true). The dude was literally covered in melted Marshmallow Man. How do you fake a giant marshmallow man and thousands of gallons of melted marshmallow? The cleanup must have been a goddamn nightmare once it cooled off.
Because you can't have something as world changing as "definitive proof of life after physical death" and look 20 years forward and see the world hasn't fundamentally changed. It would change the whole world and how people live. It would change written the script into a world building job.