something so classic about the original "Ghostbusters"....

I have to open up a thread on this. I just feel it's necessary.

I've been thinking to myself for some time that Ghostbusters is the greatest movie of all time. I always meant it half-jokingly and with the important distinction that I mean "movie," not "film" and despite the fact that these two words are used synonymously, there is usually a subtly understoo diffeerencce. BHere, the film in question is a light-hearted enterprise and is structually very formulaic and it'r primary goal is to just entertain as many people as possible. Maybe that's why is more of a "movie" to me as a film.

I always liked how the film sets up the evil the heroes must fight is developed throughtout the movie as a steadily increasing threat that we are always aware is building in the background. Even in films today, it's rare to get it to build credible like that.. and let's not forget that this is a comedy.

I also like how (in this essay) it can be said that the film follows the formula of the superhero origin story quite well, but it eschews any angst that comes with pretty much all superhero films (should I or shouldn't I put on the costume) while exchanging superpowers for the tools and knowledge of science.

But there are other things about what made this film work so well, things that were difficult to articulate. This leads me to why I opened this thread...

Becaus the video below really does a good job of expressing some of these things.. and why Ghostbusters works even better than anyone inteded This video is definitely worthy of a thread all it's own, and it's the kind of analyiss that YouTube has made possible.

Check it:

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPoILjs6BYI[/yt]

 

I just skipped to near the end of that video.
"The damn silly thing holds up. Ghostbusters holds up. Ghostbusters is as good as you remember."


I don't need to watch a 37 minute long video to tell me that. And I don't really need to "remember" it, I have watched it a few times since the 80s believe it or not. Also calling it "damn silly" I find it a bit insulting actually; movie snobbery.



Not having a go at you for posting it at all, just saying it's already considered a classic movie really with fans all over the world. That's just me; if I like something... I like it. I don't need some guy on youtube with too much time on his hands to inform me of that.

 

Watch the video.. especially the part where he talks about why kids ate it up. There's actually not as much physical comedy that kids would latch onto, many of the problems (like government regulations and starting a business not to mention dating) are too real world for kids, and there aren't that many laser beams as there seems to b.. and his reason as to why kids liked it is something that is pretty interesting to consider...among other things.

 

I think I've seen this video before and yes, it has always been that good. I've watched Ghostbusters countless times and I know people who were born in the 90s who love it just as much as people who were kids in the 80s. It's an excellent movie and after watching this video, I'm still convinced I don't want a reboot or sheboot or whatever. I want Ghostbusters to be left alone. I'm thoroughly convinced that they are going to fuck it up or at the very least, not meet the very high standard that is the original Ghostbusters. I do have more faith in the sheboot considering I don't like Chanum Tatum, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

The problem these days is that while a lot of movies are sophisticated and a lot of great movies are still being made, they just don't make movies like they used to in the 80s. Some may argue that's a good thing and in some respects it may be. But movies like BTTF, Ghostbusters, Indiana Jones and so on were able to give us great movies with iconic characters without all the angst and the idea that they were chosen for this task.

I'm also kind of sick of the reluctant hero type as well. I think most of the Marvel movies and DC movies have handled this well. Man of Steel comes to mind in particular. Clark starts of wondering why he's different and slowly realizes that his powers can be used for good. Thankfully he was raised by the Kents. Then he leaves Smallville not really sure what to do, but preforms small "miracles" along the way until Jor-El explains to him his origins and points him in the right direction. He wants to be a hero, but he doesn't know how and slowly over the course of the movie, he becomes one. Now I know with Spider-man it is part of origin that he doesn't initially want to do good and I'm fine with that. I'm mostly talking about non comic book movies that either focus on the chosen one aspect or the reluctant hero or a mix of both. I kind of want to get back to the days of our heroes that are just kind of thrust into a situation and are forced to be heroic like Ripley or even Indy.

Anyway, Ghostbusters is great, but I don't think it needs a reboot. I'll hold out judgement for now, but they got some pretty big shoes to fill.

 

I completely agree, especially with this point:

There was some elegance to how those stories were told.. not that elegance has been replaced by too many characters and subplots that make even simple stories seem more complex.

(Rant: by the way, it saddens me that Groot's sacrifice is starting to have the same weight that Spock's sacrifice in TWOK did. End rant). I know we aren't talking about GOTG but we are talking about how muddled and convoluted formula films are now.. and there is no better example.

BTW: the video (Ghostbusters: really that good) is very new.

 

It saddens me that you're still complaining about Guardians of the Galaxy nearly a year after it's release.

 

Fair enough.
Sorry.
I was just venting from a thread in another forum about people saying it should be a "classic" already. Seriously. It's not meant for this thread.. save for the fact that as a kid I knew that Ghostbusters was a great film, but I also knew it was just a fun comedy and would never think it was a classic. Only now after 30 years ago, and after it's held up very well and people are looking at what it did do that we can step back and accept it as something that least can be in the conversation of classic films.. it has had time to marinate.

 

Ghostbusters is a classic film that is still enjoyable no matter how many times you have watched it.
I did not watch the 37 minute video to tell me the reasons for this, quite frankly I an weary of YouTube experts sharing their incredible wisdom.
The sequel did not have that same magic- IMO just about any of the animated cartoons in that series would have been a better film. The reboot with the gender stunt casting does not interest me much either- it could be a good movie, but relying on a gimmick is not a good sign.

I am going to get out my copy of Ghostbusters tonight and watch it again tonight...

 

This is a good recent little article in defence of Ghostbusters II

I agree it's definitely underrated. Yeah, it's not as good as the first one, get over it. It's still a really fun movie.

 

GB II gets waaaay too much disrespect. It was good. Yeah, the first was one of the best movies and this wasn't quite in that league but it was still good and it didn't do one of the things a lot of sequels did then: undue almost everything the first movie did.

 

I like GB II *now*, but I definitely remember what was wrong with it in my mind back then - and I still feel that way, somewhat. Ghostbusters ended with an event that should have left no doubt about our heroes in the minds of New Yorkers, and probably even beyond New York. It *seemed* like they should be riding high off of that for quite a while - respected for what they do, and even if defeating Gozer meant that the number of calls for their services went way down, there still should have been talk show gigs, possibly even a show of their own, and maybe even (as has happened in the real world) groups of ghost hunters and such all over the world wanting in on enfranchisement. Not to mention that the government would have been ALL OVER finding out what they knew and how their equipment worked.

But instead, they're a novelty act for children's birthday parties, for kids who don't even seem all that enthused that they're there.

I understand why. They were trying to recapture the wacky underdog us-against-the-world vibe of the first film. But the overwhelming sadness of the idea that this would be where they would be in life after the events of the first film just creates a joy deficit from the get-go that the film has to actively work to overcome to pull off comedy.

Ghostbusters is, without a doubt, a classic. GB II is a film that gets off a few good jokes, and otherwise suffers from sequel syndrome big time.

 

I too thought it was kind of weird that they got sued, but then again, look at all of the people who bitched about all the destruction in MoS. Would they be okay with Superman being sued? Furthermore are the okay with the Ghostbusters getting sued?

 

This is a great point and one I thought about at the time as well. One of the biggest disappoints of sequels for many years was that they undermined the success of our protagonists in the previous movie in order to basically retell the same story. The greatest sequels of the seventies and eighties went against the formula and told new and interesting tales: Superman II, The Godfather II (and III), Aliens, BTTF2 and 3, etc.

Then look at the Airport movies, Jaws, Friday 13th series, Beverly Hills Cop II and III, etc. for many examples of crappy sequels like GBII.

I watched five minutes of that video and if I hadn't seen GB about fifty times over the years it might have told me something I didn't already know--but it is probably good for the younger viewers out there who need some context.

 

I think you should watch the video.. there are some points in the middle after he sets up things, that you might (or might not) have thought about

 

I've always had a soft spot for Ghostbusters 2 as it was the very first film I ever got to see at the cinema.

Back in the day I was a HUGE Ghostbuster fan. Loved it to bits. Which is strange in retrospect since I recall being petrified by the Library ghost to the point where I couldn't even look at a still image and vividly remember a nightmare about a terror dog coming up the stairs to get me. Something my elder brother (sadistic bastard that he still is) took full advantage of by terrorizing me by playing the Ghostbusters soundtrack full blast on his overpowered stereo system. The opening strings of the main theme were enough to send me fleeing to the relative safety behind the settee (porported to also be Dalek proof)
Note: I was only about 4 years old at the time.

I think it may have been the cartoon that actually got me into it. We had a VHS at the time, but it was second had from my nan and the only tapes I recall us owning was an ex-rental copy of 'Snoopy Come Home', everything else was recorded off the TV and renting a film was a rare treat, usually given after a sustained campaign of relentless pestering. So if I ever saw the movie, it would have probably been on the telly at Christmas (same way I first saw Star Wars.)
I think it wasn't a little after the cartoon came out that I sat and watched the film.

To this day I'm still not sure what attracted me to it, but I'm pretty sure it was a gateway drug to both the world of science fiction and the supernatural. The latter has taken a bit of a back step in my world view as age rapidly made me a boring cynic, but I still hold some affection for it. Indeed, I remember being particularly smug almost a decade later when my classmates having just seen the latest episode of X-Files, were raving about this thing called "The Roswell Incident" which was old news to me.

OK, that rambled on a bit more than I'd intended, suffice to say that Ghostbusters has always meant a great deal to me and in my personal geek pantheon is probably second only to Star Wars.

There's something about the mix of the mundane and the fantastic that to this day feels so unique. Only a true believer like Dan Aykroyd could conceive of ghosts, spectres and eldrich deities as real enough that they can be quantified and overcome through science and engineering.
Every similar IP that I can think of (Buffy, Hellboy, Supernatural etc.) uses some of that ancient magic or lore in a "fight fire with fire" approach. Only Ghostbusters fought fire with unlicensed nuclear accelerators, neutrino wands and a laser containment grid.

 

Good point.. and the video delves into that.. you didn't need magic or a talisman or even need to be special or unique to fight these powers.. Like Winston, you just needed a day of training with the right equipment.. and the video points out how empowering that was for children.

This is among the many things that makes the film so special, so bold yet it walks that fragile line of what somehow works despite the fact that it shouldn't

 

One thing which really detracts in Ghostbusters II is whenever Bill Murray is close to the baby, all action stops and we watch an endearing moment with slow piano music.
The first film was an ensemble movie, the second was a movie abour Veckman with a supporting cast.

 

That's one of the major reasons why I loved the cartoon so much. As a kid, my answer to every supernatural threat was, "Call the Ghostbusters! It's that easy!"

But the cartoon, moreso than the movie (because of time limits), made each one on the team more relatable to me as well. I loved Egon's dedication and Ray's enthusiasm. Winston's realness brought the focus back to the threat. And Peter's sarcasm and jokes (Lorenzo Music years at least, I didn't like Dave Coulier's delivery) were, of course, my favorite takeaways. They weren't Rambo-esque superheroes, they were guys who liked pizza, did the job, had the same worries anyone else had. To me as a kid, I preferred watching these usual joes more than other, ironically more fantastic cartoon heroes of the day.

 

That's pretty awesome, man. I think that cartoon was fantastic for exactly the reasons you mentioned. What even made it better was the fact that the writers, who were no doubt interested in this stuff, delved deeply into actual stories of the occult.. for Ichabod Crane to the Door to Doomsday to the final conflict between Mardok and Tiamat,. they had free reign to bring back any kind of myth or legend they wanted, while creating a few of their own for good measure, Often, the legends that they did borrow from were fairly accurate to the stories as written.

 

That's because of JMS. He's not afraid of telling stories.