Spoilers Ghostbusters: Afterlife grade and discussion thread

[Reverend]

In a lot of ways, 'Ghostbusters' did a lot of the same things as Star Wars.
It took what was at that time a relic of yesteryear (Abbot & Costello/Bob Hope faux spooky comedies vs. old Flash Gordon serials) and executed it in a fresh original (yet oddly timeless) way for modern sensibilities, and grounded the whole thing with a grungy, lived in aesthetic. Both could have easily been terrible, and both turned out to be all time classics.

Indeed I feel like the production design on Ghostbusters doesn't get enough credit. When it comes to the equipment; everything looks "real" (partially because a lot of them are based on found-object prop-making.) Compare the originals to the '16 effort (since it's the only real point of comparison) and there's just no contest. The latter looks like a bunch of props (competently) designed to look flashy and made into toys. There's no clear aesthetic or unifying design language there beyond an over-abundance of LEDs and warning stripes.

 

[jaime]

Speaking of Candy and big German accents, here's his turn as Karl Bildenhausen:

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That's why SCTV/Second City training is good and amazing.



Exactly why the movie won over a lot of people and grossed a lot of money.



Please don't mention Stripes and Ghostbusters in the same sentence; Stripes is about a fuckup (Bill Murray as Winger) who joins the U.S. Army but can't really do shit (and is a 'sad sack' of shit [plus he's as fucked up as the comic strip/book character who was named after the phrase in question]); there's no way he could've completed his basic training as shown in the movie during the graduation ceremony.

Spoiler

As well, the 'mission' with the MacGuffin vehicle Winger and company were supposed to guard, should've had him and the rest of the 'platoon' either jailed, then dishonorably discharged, not rewarded with the honors shown at the end of it.

At least in Ghostbusters, Murray as Venkman was in his element somewhat, since the basic concept of the movie (ghost exterminators) although old, was still new to 1984 audiences.

That’s the thing, back in the day I would read th movie magazines, and stripes was *always* mentioned as a pre-cursor to ghostbusters. I watched it for the first time 8 years ago, and it’s only redeeming feature is I like some of the cast. Particularly Sean Young.
Police Academy did a way better version of the same or similar concept, and Private Benjamin is the better marching comedy.
Had heart, like GB.

That John Candy clip just makes me happier Rick took the job.

 

[Reverend]

I still haven't seen 'Stripes' yet, though I keep meaning to (or 'Meatballs' for that matter.) I think I'm a little wary of watching any 80's comedy that I didn't personally grow up with on the vague theory that if I don't remember it, then it probably hasn't aged well (and I DID grow up with the Police Academy movies, and 'Private Benjamin'.)

 

[JD]

I've seen Stripes and the first Police Academy, but never seen Private Benjamin.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

As expected, more Adam Savage!

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I love how Adam nerded out with Marie Massolin about fonts...and her style of handwriting!

I've always known this was the case, but I'm continuously in awe of the level of detail and work art departments work on the smallest of things, even if they're on screen for just a few seconds. Whether it's a logo in the background or the continuity of dust on Ecto-1!

 

[F. King Daniel]

Just saw this. It was pure Memberberries, but they were delicious.

 

[Saul]

Finally got to watch it tonight.

I feel like there is something wrong with me because I thought this movie was just OK. I enjoyed it and everything but I definitely didn't get what the majority of you got out of it. Many nostalgia moments rehashed from the 84 movie. I didn't buy Egon ditching his family and friends to go live alone by himself for a few decades until 2021 arrived. The big money shot at the end was just a money shot. I more than anyone wanted to see these characters again but they just show up, they don't really serve any purpose in this movie.

I'm glad the rest of you loved it. I just liked it. I will definitely be back in theaters for the sequel.

 

[theenglish]

That was pretty much the way I felt.

 

[Reverend]

I didn't buy Egon ditching his family and friends to go live alone by himself for a few decades until 2021 arrived.

We're talking about a guy that once tried to drill a hole through his head and was still salty that Peter stopped him. That straightened a slinky as a child. That wanted to see what would happen when they took away the puppy. Who's first thought after his friend got run over by a spectral locomotive, was to ask was whether they'd caught the number of the train. He doesn't think and act the way most people do.

So it seemed perfectly in character to me that when everyone around him refused to believe him, that'd he'd make the logical move and try to deal with it himself.

 

[Saul]

But why wouldn't they believe him when he has been right before about the end of the world? Why would they not at least see for themselves? Like hey, here is this underground cave with Ivo Shandor (yes! that Ivo Shandor) in it and numbers on the wall with the next appearance of Gozer being 2021. The kids pretty much figured that out with the help of Ghost Egon, surely there was ample evidence already to be believed. And if 2021 is the date of Gozer's next appearance then why spend all those years alone (with possibly some visits from Janine, whatever that was)?

 

[Reverend]

But why wouldn't they believe him when he has been right before about the end of the world?

Lack of evidence mostly.

From what Ray said, he seemed outwardly irrational. Just looking at what was in Egon's house he was drawing on all kinds of weird, random, seemingly unrelated ephemera, so it's not surprising even Ray didn't buy into it. And what would they have seen? An old mine used by Shandor? Some creepy carvings left over by his long dead cult? So what? They already dealt with the building, and at that time the pit would have been inert; meaning zero PKE readings. No hauntings, no evidence of psychic turbulence. Nothing to act on. Just a lot of dusty old crap in the middle of nowhere, and Egon's word that something is going to happen *in 35 years*. Remember the quakes only started a few years prior to Egon's death, decades after he split.

This could have gone on for YEARS for all we know! Maybe in the beginning they heard him out, but nothing came of it. Then he wouldn't stop, but they continued to humour him. But as it went on and on they all just lost all patience with it. Plus, ghost sightings were down to next to nothing, the business was failing, the mortgage was overdue, Peter had a wife and an Oscar to concern himself with, Ray was just keeping his head above water with the book shop, Winston had to go find other work, and instead of helping, Egon was off in his own world, acting "spooky", rambling, obsessive and off character enough that even Ray was freaked out, despite wanting to believe.

Then after Egon up and ran off with most of their assets, that was that. No more Ghostbusters, no reason to go chasing after someone who even at the best of times was only borderline comprehensible, but now had seemingly crossed the line from genius to madness, then stabbed them in the back as the debt collectors were kicking the proverbial door in.

 

[JD]

It's a shame IDW appears to have lost the comics license, I would have loved to have gotten a prequel comic series that used what we heard about in the movie.
All of the Ghostbusters comics have been pulled off the digital stores, so I'm assuming IDW lost the license and there are no comics coming from anyone else any time soon.

 

[Unicron]

I've heard they're also losing the Transformers license, so it might be both. Not sure who would pick up those respective licenses.

 

[Timby]

I've heard they're also losing the Transformers license, so it might be both. Not sure who would pick up those respective licenses.

The money is on Skybound--Robert Kirkman's outfit--picking up the Transformers license; IDW already confirmed that they were losing it last month and their license expires at the end of 2022. They haven't done anything with the Ghostbusters license, near as I can tell, since the Year One miniseries that was re-published as a trade paperback nearly two years ago and the Men in Black crossover tabletop game that came out about a year and a half ago. Considering all of their GB comics were de-listed from the major services like Comixology and Apple, I imagine negotiations are ongoing with publishers to establish a new license. GB is still a niche property when it comes to the comics--as far as I know, they have never sold particularly well--so I don't think whomever purchases the rights is going to have to fork out a huge sum to Ghost Corps.

Finally got to watch it tonight.

I feel like there is something wrong with me because I thought this movie was just OK. I enjoyed it and everything but I definitely didn't get what the majority of you got out of it. Many nostalgia moments rehashed from the 84 movie. I didn't buy Egon ditching his family and friends to go live alone by himself for a few decades until 2021 arrived. The big money shot at the end was just a money shot. I more than anyone wanted to see these characters again but they just show up, they don't really serve any purpose in this movie.

I'm glad the rest of you loved it. I just liked it. I will definitely be back in theaters for the sequel.

I just felt like Afterlife was a soulless remake of the first movie, even moreso than Ghostbusters II was an empty remake of the original movie (and that's an impressive bar to clear). It, once again, hits almost all of the same story beats, and the last 40 minutes or so, starting with the Terror Dogs, really started screaming "OH SHIT YEAH WE'RE DOING GOZER TEMPLE SHIT YET AGAIN AND WE'RE GOING TO REPEAT JUST ABOUT EVERY LAST BIT OUTSIDE OF A MARSHMALLOW BEAST, WHERE IS YOUR NOSTALGIA GOD NOW, MOTHERFUCKERS?!" The appearance by the original guys was incredibly perfunctory and I audibly groaned in the theater when CGI Egon showed up (I knew Jason Reitman wasn't going to be able to resist, especially because he had said so many times in interviews that Egon was his favorite Ghostbuster when he was a kid). The music was so incredibly lazy and they went back to the well of one piece of Elmer Bernstein's score so, so, so many goddamn times. Ray saying "Egon Spengler can burn in hell" was incredibly out of character.

The movie's own internal logic doesn't even make sense. Ray tells Phoebe that Egon took the Ecto-1 and all their proton packs when he fucked off and left to Oklahoma. If he took all the packs, how did Ray, Peter and Winston have their packs when they showed up out of nowhere at the end?

And, ultimately, the biggest sin for a Ghostbusters movie? It really wasn't very funny, at all. Ultimately, it was just so horribly anchored down by its nostalgia that it forgot to be its own thing.

 

[jaime]

The money is on Skybound--Robert Kirkman's outfit--picking up the Transformers license; IDW already confirmed that they were losing it last month and their license expires at the end of 2022. They haven't done anything with the Ghostbusters license, near as I can tell, since the Year One miniseries that was re-published as a trade paperback nearly two years ago and the Men in Black crossover tabletop game that came out about a year and a half ago. Considering all of their GB comics were de-listed from the major services like Comixology and Apple, I imagine negotiations are ongoing with publishers to establish a new license. GB is still a niche property when it comes to the comics--as far as I know, they have never sold particularly well--so I don't think whomever purchases the rights is going to have to fork out a huge sum to Ghost Corps.



I just felt like Afterlife was a soulless remake of the first movie, even moreso than Ghostbusters II was an empty remake of the original movie (and that's an impressive bar to clear). It, once again, hits almost all of the same story beats, and the last 40 minutes or so, starting with the Terror Dogs, really started screaming "OH SHIT YEAH WE'RE DOING GOZER TEMPLE SHIT YET AGAIN AND WE'RE GOING TO REPEAT JUST ABOUT EVERY LAST BIT OUTSIDE OF A MARSHMALLOW BEAST, WHERE IS YOUR NOSTALGIA GOD NOW, MOTHERFUCKERS?!" The appearance by the original guys was incredibly perfunctory and I audibly groaned in the theater when CGI Egon showed up (I knew Jason Reitman wasn't going to be able to resist, especially because he had said so many times in interviews that Egon was his favorite Ghostbuster when he was a kid). The music was so incredibly lazy and they went back to the well of one piece of Elmer Bernstein's score so, so, so many goddamn times. Ray saying "Egon Spengler can burn in hell" was incredibly out of character.

The movie's own internal logic doesn't even make sense. Ray tells Phoebe that Egon took the Ecto-1 and all their proton packs when he fucked off and left to Oklahoma. If he took all the packs, how did Ray, Peter and Winston have their packs when they showed up out of nowhere at the end?

And, ultimately, the biggest sin for a Ghostbusters movie? It really wasn't very funny, at all. Ultimately, it was just so horribly anchored down by its nostalgia that it forgot to be its own thing.

It’s absolutely hilarious. Every time a review/opinion that goes through the re-hash argument comes along (and I am not denying the film repeats elements, but maybe it’s worth thinking *why*) there’s one thing I now wait for, because…. Oh there it is. ‘Egon nicked all the Proton Packs’
No he didn’t. If you didn’t pick up on that, and why it’s important to other aspects of the story, then it kind of undermines the other criticisms.

It also ignores all the aspects of the film that are different.
It’s the same problem that reviews of GBII calling it the same as the first film has… it patently isn’t, and requires ignoring many of the most interesting bits of the story.

 

[JD]

Yes, this one does reuse some stuff from the first movie, but a whole hell of a lot more new stuff. I don't remember the first one having a whole arc with a dead guy's family moving into his old house, and over the course of the movie discovering all of the ghostbuster stuff he had been doing over the last couple decades. Just going back to Gozer is not enough to make it a repeat of the first movie.
And when it comes to original characters in a movie like this, the poor people making it really just can't win no matter what they do.
If it stars them, then it's pathetic that they're so desperate to recapture the past, if they are supporting characters, then they're taking time away from the new characters, if they only appear at the end, like in this, then it's a pointless cameo, and if they're not in it at all, then everybody is pissed and wants to know why they weren't in the movie.

 

[Timby]

Just going back to Gozer is not enough to make it a repeat of the first movie.

No, the last 40 minutes of the movie--down to the Gatekeeper and the Keymaster getting busy with one another and the shots at the new Gozer temple coinciding with exact replications of shots from the first movie, all the way down to the way they transform into Terror Dogs, plus the exact same music cues? That does.

 

[jaime]

No, the last 40 minutes of the movie--down to the Gatekeeper and the Keymaster getting busy with one another and the shots at the new Gozer temple coinciding with exact replications of shots from the first movie, all the way down to the way they transform into Terror Dogs, plus the exact same music cues? That does.

Is there a logical reason, both in movie, and (as the shots are indeed homage shots) oit or the movie for why they are doing this? Out of the movie, the simple answer is nostalgia, but also using the elements as something of a leitmotif, and well, in the movie, is there a narrative reason for things to be repeating in any way? Is there different things that have built to this point, changing it with context?

And after the repeating elements, is anything different?
(Personally I quite like the attention to replication that goes on with podcast and the marshmallow covering)
Why?
I put my Christmas tree up on the same day every year, with pretty much the same decorations, there’s little changes now and then, but every year I put my tree up, like most people. Even the music is, well, pretty much the same every Christmas.
Does this mean I am simply retreading the same Christmas, or do the other changes through the year mean that Christmas is different every year?

I think the fact the shots are the same tells you something — what is that?

Often sequels are ‘the same but bigger’ and it’s often a criticism. But, is that what’s happening here?
What about good sequels? What makes those different to this, and are you sure this doesn’t have those same things?

I would argue AfterLife is a lot like T2, in the sense that (a) it’s a good sequel and (b) although it contains repeated elements, it’s in the style of intentionally repeated elements for what is functionally a different story that continues the original, in an unexpected way. (If we hadn’t had leaks or worked things out from trailers, would we have seen so much of it coming?)

 

[F. King Daniel]

I got a lot of Star Trek Into Darkness/Wrath of Khan engine room vibes when history started repeating in Afterlife.

 

[jaime]

I got a lot of Star Trek Into Darkness/Wrath of Khan engine room vibes when history started repeating in Afterlife.

It is interesting seeing how a similar approach to nostalgia/homage works differently (and hits differently) when taking a slightly different approach.

In ID you are being asked to think of basically an entirely different cast of characters by having the events replayed. Which harms the film because *this* Kirk and this Spock (et al) simply do not have the history and weight of the ones you are being asked to recall. The relationships are not the same, and the conceit that allows history to repeat is a ‘paralell’ universe, so it’s almost like the movie is borrowing the clothes of the other, more loved, cultural Artifact of a film.

In Ghost Busters, you are being reminded, *but* the emotional core of the movie *is* one particular character from the film you are asked to recall. And arguably, this film changes the emotions of the scene, whilst being visually almost identical. It’s replaying an action-adventure boss fight as a more emotional tragedy. (Carrie is not playing the love interest of the hero, she is not a damsel in distress… she is the Mother of the hero(ine) and it lands differently. The ‘are you prepared to die?’ Usurps ‘are you a god’ and exemplifies the differences between what we watched then and what we see now.) We aren’t seeing anything that could be seen as overwriting the original, No ‘look we’re doing it now, isn’t it better in some way?’ Which is implicit in ID. The events are repeating not because of ‘parallel universe/quasi-remake’ but because it is a ritual — always was — and the very purpose of rituals is *to be the same* and to *remember past events* and everything after the film starts repeating *is* different to the original. Then the emotional pay off actual sticks, because it was working to that point. The clothes are being passed down — quite literally a moment in the film.

Similar approaches, but one knows what it is doing, and read the room.