The Ghostbusters Franchise

Let's concede that all "spiritual energy", regardless of the source, comes from the same core physical laws, and that's why the Ghostbusters can read it with PKE meters and such. That still allows for a wide variety of "ghostly" beings: everything from psychic echoes to poltergeists to conscious spirits to undead wizards to demon lords to full-on gods.

All of this is fine and dandy. But if it can all go in the same ghost trap, and some of it is conscious and sapient, then whoops! We've suddenly got a moral quandary on our hands that doesn't fit the established tone of the franchise.

Edited by Fighteer on Apr 10th 2024 at 5:07:08 AM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Random question.

Slimer was never actually named in the original movie, was he?

Like, I think the name either came from Venkman describing what he did to him (he slimed me) or from The Real Ghostbusters.

One Strip! One Strip!

The name is from the cartoon, though they probably get the idea for it from the movie.

You and I remember Budapest very differently

All they call him in the movie is "Class 5 Full Roaming Vapor". Though the name Slimer is likely a reference to the "He slimed me" bit.

The ghost classification systems were more or less extrapolated outward from that one statement. Systems plural because the cartoon used a different system than the films and EU materials did.

The cartoon system basically worked like DBZ power levels, while the film system was more for cataloguing types of entities. But both were extrapolated from the Class 5 Full Roaming Vapor.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Apr 10th 2024 at 5:19:30 AM

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If I remember right, on set, the ghost was referred to as "Onionhead" because the model used for reference smelled like onions.

With all the memes about women choosing a bear over a man, Hollywood might wanna get on an 'East of the Sun and West of the Moon' adaptation

Watched Frozen Empire as soon as it arrived in my country on Thursday, and it certainly had fun moments. Still felt the need to write here, specially as I read this topic and the YMMV page and saw more people mention my biggest takeaway, that the promotion sold the movie on only the last minutes where NYC is frozen. Much of the fault is on how the script brought back everyone from the previous movie and still had to introduce more characters, so it certainly felt like things were dragging - the 2016 movie did show in the trailers scenes of the third act where ghosts overrun the city, but I wasn't watching thinking "how long until it gets to that part?" like with the new one. It must also fit what was mentioned that the Ghostbusters are now treated as superheroes rather than exterminators, so the weird events would not be as eye-catching as the climactic setpiece.

So, you guys know that commercial from the second movie when the team goes back into business?

Well, I just found out, there's a full version of it. As in one, where they aren't being cut off by other people's reactions.

Egon getting smacked in the face by the ghost prop is gold. You can also see him mouthing the other's lines so he knows when his cue is.

One Strip! One Strip!

Yeah. I think that they definitely went for a more family-friendly arrangement with this movie. That's demonstrated with how other than the book scene giving us his backstory, Garraka's villainy's only really displayed in both the beginning and the ending.

Just realized this was kind of a slightly better version of the Five Nights at Freddy's movie. Right down to Garraka being Afton and Melody being Golden Freddy. Haha.

Edited by futuremoviewriter on Apr 16th 2024 at 3:35:23 AM

Aside from the original movie, my favourite incarnation is The Real Ghost Busters, when it was penned by Straczynski. I especially like the episodes that are Lovecraft Lite and reminiscent of horror-films. I wonder how something like that would work in live-action, because I feel that Ghostbusters as a concept functions really well when serialized into standalone-episodes with a Monster of the Week.

Oh yeah, definitely. Ghostbusters is practically made to be episodic. The "Big Event" setup of cinema works against the series because it's not really made for "This ONE TIME a big thing happened and it was so wild and then it was done AND THEN EVERYTHING WAS FINE FOREVER" type storytelling.

Film is for the earthshattering moments where everything is different now and nothing will ever be the same again. The first Ghostbusters worked as a movie because the earthshattering transformation was the formation of the Ghostbusters as a status quo. But every movie can't be about the formation of the Ghostbusters as a status quo.

(In fact, that's part of the problem. Four out of five Ghostbusters movies have now been about the formation of the Ghostbusters as a status quo, including the direct sequel Ghostbusters 2. The series creators have been having a hell of a time coming up with anything else to do with this concept for forty years.)

Once the Ghostbusters are formed, the intrigue isn't in seeing the status quo disrupted. It's in seeing the status quo carried out. People tune into Ghostbusters because they want to see some blue-collar workers bust ghosts. That's all they want. A ghost is here, and they're gonna bust it.

This is why the cartoons and comic books and the video game were so popular. Because that's what they offer: An episodic status quo where ghosts pop up and the GBs go to work. That first movie was good for introducing the concept but Ghostbusters can't really thrive in a cinematic "One COLOSSAL story every few years and nothing else ever happens" type of environment. It's made to have dozens of episodic small-stakes adventures and then maybe something big happens every now and then.

Ghostbusters needs to be a TV show, not a film series.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Apr 21st 2024 at 12:07:18 PM

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I guess it could work if it were all canon. Like, the Ghostbusters set up shop and we get a serial showing their blue collar ghoul arresting business in operation, then every so often a new Big Bad shows up and it's time for a feature film.

Unfortunately, everything has to exist in its own continuity lest filmgoers be annoyed at having to absorb all of the backstory/lore and show watchers be annoyed at having to leave their homes.

Edited by Fighteer on Apr 21st 2024 at 2:08:41 PM

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Personally, if/when there is a new iteration of the Ghostbusters, then I'd want to see the team already formed. Some superhero-movies have avoid doing an origins-film, with just immediately jumping into the existing status quo. I liked the way the animated Ghostbusters went Broad Strokes with the continuity, implying that some parts of the 1984 film had indeed happened as seen there, while mostly taking a lot of freedom with the source material. A hypothetical new Ghostbusters series can easily do something similar, as there isn't any particularly complex lore that needs particular fidelity when adapting.

I could see a Ghostbusters TV-show with a ten-ish amount of episodes per season, where most episodes deal with random ghosts in need of busting. Maybe there is some foreshadowing that there is unusual amounts of paranormal activity, due to the Big Bad about to appear in the season finale? Or then it's a perfectly normal amounts of ghosts, but the team stumbles upon a Lovecraftian cult about to summon Cthulhu? To make the second season feel fresh, but still follow the basic formula of the first season, they could have all episodes be about the team forced on a road trip, as they have to travel for clean-up duty. Either something escaped from the Containment Unit in the season opener, or they end up hunting an artifact that causes added supernatural activity to occur in its vicinity.

Edited by Mara999 on Apr 21st 2024 at 9:46:41 PM

Wonder if they'll try animated next? Feel that might work better and be less expensive?

"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."

I haven't seen it in years (it was definitely one of my favorites when I was a kid), but I still say that Extreme Ghostbusters is good and good for you. I'm going to watch it when the Halloween season rolls around.

I like to keep my audience riveted.

As a reminder, there is an animated movie (helmed by Jennifer Kluska and Chris Prynoski) and (unrelated?) Netflix animated series currently in the works. They were simultaneously announced with Frozen Empire in 2022, when it was under the codename "Firehouse".

The feature film is set to have another "all-new team" and a "passion project" for the late Ivan Reitman, per his son.

As for the animated series, we got an update back in March from producer Gil Kenan about its current development:

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Before the current plans of the animated film, there were scrapped ideas that featured youthful ghosts running their branch in a supernatural setting. Loosely reminds me of the "Peoplebusters" episode from The Real Ghostbusters, but this concept features the ghosts fending against their (evil) kind.

Edited by XMenMutant22 on Apr 22nd 2024 at 2:26:01 PM

Huh, so they are using the feature films as tentpoles for this new franchise? Well, I probably won't be watching any of that content, but sounds like a noble effort.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"