History WMG / Ghostbusters

Ghostbusters 2 indicates that Egon had an unusual upbringing that had a hand in making him the man is today. He mentions to Ray that his parents didn't believe in toys and he's introduced running tests on the effects of negative behavior by causing a man and woman to argue with each other, and by taking a puppy away from a little girl. So perhaps Egon's parents were emotionally distant and/or manipulative because they wanted to groom him to be a Gozer worshipper like they were (and likely their ancestors, since Shandor was alive during WW1)

In Ghostbusters Egon mentions that Shandor was a doctor who performed a lot of "unnecessary surgeries" and that he was alive during WW1. Therefore, perhaps, the unnecessary surgeries he (and possibly other Gozer worshipers) performed on people resulted in them and/or or their direct descendants having psychic abilities. This includes the male student from the beginning of the first film (identified as Bob Douglas in the IDW comics), Milton Angland from Ghostbusters 2, Ray, Egon, Venkman and Janine (among many others)

[[WMG: Walter Peck is a distant relation of the [[Film/BackToTheFuture Strickland family of Hill Valley]]]]

** The slime wasn't in the sewers, it was in the long-abandoned Beach Pneumatic Transit tunnels that run under Broadway. No poop in those.

* Gozer requires humans to choose the Destructor because it wants to pick an especially devious form. Not so much "what are you afraid of?" but "what's the most grotesque thing you can think of?" Maybe it plays a little mix-n-match with different people's thoughts: someone thinks of [[GrotesqueGallery molluscs and other deep-sea nasties]], while someone else thinks of scorpions or something, and the result is some kind of unspeakable...''whatever''. Now, someone's going to ask, "Well, in that case, why did it go with the form of Mr. Stay Puft?" Answer: Gozer looked at "Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man" and went, "Well, ''there's'' something I haven't tried before!"

[[WMG: The family from the first Afterlife trailer is Ray's.]]
Ray and Egon are the most likely candidates to be the teammate who's daughter is the mother of the family in the trailer. The beginning of the first movie did mention that Ray had to mortgage his family's house to get the startup money for the team, so are we looking at that house in the trailer? Figures Ray would be packrat enough about the many toys and such they had from the busting days.

[[WMG: The family from the first Afterlife trailer is Egon's, but are not his biological descendants.]]
Egon always seemed rather asexual in the movies, uninterested in relationships, but the series is rather heavily hinting at them being his family. It's possible that he did settle down and have a family, but it's also possible he decided to adopt as a single dad. The similarities between the grandchild and him are more the mother's doing, wanting a lover that resembled her dad, but said lover failed to be a proper father figure (assuming he didn't die).

[[WMG The movie version of Venkman had an absentee father.]]

In GB1 Egon says that the apartment is made with materials used by NASA in telemetry equipment used to detect dead pulsars in outer space. It's also said in the same scene that the apartment was made so that it could suck in and maintain "spiritual turbulence". In addition, ghosts are routinely described and detected using scientific equipment and one of those is a Gegier Counter, as seen in GB2.

In Ghostbusters Egon mentions that Shandor was a doctor who performed a lot of "unnecessary surgeries" and that he was alive during WW1. Therefore, perhaps, the unnecessary surgeries he (and possibly other Gozer worshippers) performed on people resulted in them and/or or their direct descendants having psychic abilities. This includes the male student from the beginning of the first film (identified as Bob Douglas in the IDW comics), Milton Angland from Ghostbusters 2, Ray, Egon, Venkman and Janine (among many others)

Egon was abused or otherwise traumatized in a way that resulted in him being emotionally closed off and caused him to escape into the intellectual fields and sciences. Ray was affected in a way that resulted in him retreating into childlike wonder and optimism as a coping mechanism. Venkman was affected in a way that resulted in him being afraid to be genuine about his feelings to have an unhealthy fixation on trying to persue shallow relationships with women.

[[The movie version of Venkman had an absentee father.]]

In Ghostbusters Egon mentions that Shandor was a doctor who performed a lot of "unnecessary experiments" and that he was alive during WW1. Therefore, perhaps, the unnecessary surgeries he (and possibly other Gozer worshippers) performed on people resulted in them and/or or their direct descendants having psychic abilities. This includes the male student from the beginning of the first film (identified as Bob Douglas in the IDW comics), Milton Angland from Ghostbusters 2, Ray, Egon, Venkman and Janine (among many others)

* The first part is confirmed as of IDW's Ghostbusters: Year One issue #2. "Male student" (now identified as Bob Douglas) was interviewed for a book about the Ghostbusters (shortly after the events of the first film) and said he's been having nightmares about a haunted painting and something about a baby, meaning he's got a precognitive vision of the future. He claims this was the result of the electric shocks, no doubt because he had no way of knowing he guessed the symbol on the card correctly. Milton Angland from Ghostbusters 2 also seems to have the gift; he predicts the world will end on New Years Eve of that year, which it almost does due to Vigo.

* Jossed as of the IDW comic Ghostbusters: Year One #2 - Bob Douglas was interviewed for a book about the Ghostbusters, complained about the electric shocks, and claimed they were responsible about bad dreams he's been having about a haunted painting and a baby.

[[WMG: Egon Spangler has a patent on the pokeball.]]

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!!Film-specific

[[AC:Franchise/{{Ghostbusters}}]]