New Ghostbusters movie in OG movie universe Jason Reitman directing 2020

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Leo656

I think I was on both mailing lists, actually. I think my handle was "Axl4Ever71" back then. We go back a long way, you and I!

****, that sounds hella familiar. You know that all of NTML is archived, right?

Slight gear shift, but I know I, Andrew and Wildcat all like Ghostbusters II more than most people. Let's talk about that. Andrew, I've seen you say that you never knew you were "supposed" to hate GBII until the internet said so, and that was my experience as well. I'd love to hear more about your own experience with that movie, and then I'll share my own a little bit. Because when I was a kid, every GB fan was all about it. I was baffled when I found out most people give it low marks.

Eh, OK. So I would have been 8. Which sounds right, since I vividly remember watching Aliens in the theater when I had to have been 6.

I know I'd seen Ghostbusters 1 on HBO or Cinemax or something already, and definitely was big into the cartoon and toys, since I definitely remember pitting them against my TMNT toys in the bathtub and on the carpet in my room. But anyway.

Looking back on it all with a distorted lens... it seems like half as painful as watching TMNT III in 1993. Like, I really enjoyed Ghostbusters 2 as a kid. I walked out of it without even one complaint. Now, I can poke some holes (not huge ones)... but then? Not at all. Conversely, watching TMNT III in 1993, I remember leaving the theater not being excited about TMNT at all anymore... even at 12. Luckily -- literally -- there was a bookstore next to the theater. And it had, I think it was "BOOK III" of the collected Mirage black and white stuff. And it wasn't even the good stuff, but it was enough to stroke my young adult mind that had already outgrown the McTMNT™ stuff.

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by Wildcat

Oh I love My Little Pony FIM. I’ve only sampled some older generations but the current one is great. Bridge to Terabithia was pretty good.

As for Ghostbusters 2. It’s only real issue is it reverts the team to having no business and thought of as frauds. Hundreds of people saw Stay Puft Marshmallow Man walking down the street. It had to be on the news too.

That I personally did not like they added more stuff on top of the car. It’s purpose is never explained in the first place.

Aaaaaand just like that we have MUCH to discuss. See? This is how we do it, folks.

FYI, Rainbow Dash is my co-pilot.

I never had a problem with GBII's opening half, simply because Rocky already established that kind of formula as being the basic template for most sequels in that time period. "Back to the status quo, climb the mountain again." A little redundant, sure, but it was fun seeing them re-establish themselves.

I just figured someone very high up in power wanted the whole Stay-Puft thing dismissed as a "publicity stunt" or something. Fairly easy to do. I liked that it was kept vague, in any case. I'm glad they didn't spend a half hour explaining WHY they had to start over.

Ecto-1A is a very rare case of me submitting to "It just looks cooler that way". I generally DON'T do that, but I'm only human. CAUTION TAPE! LED SCREENS! They have a SATELLITE DISH, for some reason! I love it, I'unno.

True story: As a kid, we had a "junker" car in the yard, which I constantly did my best to adorn with "Ecto-1A" decorations, for when me and my buddies would play "Ghostbusters". Fun times. Sad day when they scrapped it.

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

****, that sounds hella familiar. You know that all of NTML is archived, right?



Eh, OK. So I would have been 8. Which sounds right, since I vividly remember watching Aliens in the theater when I had to have been 6.

I know I'd seen Ghostbusters 1 on HBO or Cinemax or something already, and definitely was big into the cartoon and toys, since I definitely remember pitting them against my TMNT toys in the bathtub and on the carpet in my room. But anyway.

Looking back on it all with a distorted lens... it seems like half as painful as watching TMNT III in 1993. Like, I really enjoyed Ghostbusters 2 as a kid. I walked out of it without even one complaint. Now, I can poke some holes (not huge ones)... but then? Not at all. Conversely, watching TMNT III in 1993, I remember leaving the theater not being excited about TMNT at all anymore... even at 12. Luckily -- literally -- there was a bookstore next to the theater. And it had, I think it was "BOOK III" of the collected Mirage black and white stuff. And it wasn't even the good stuff, but it was enough to stroke my young adult mind that had already outgrown the McTMNT™ stuff.

Oh, goodness, I was much more insufferable back then.

That's a nice story. I like the comparison to TMNT III. I generally give that movie more credit than most, but I'll agree it ain't great. Although, as a kid, it was one of those "rewind and watch again" movies. The shine quickly wore off, however. I think there's a germ of an idea in there that would have done well with entirely different execution, though.

But yeah, I walked out of GBII as a bigger fan than ever. Me and my buddies went NUTS on Ghostbusters for at least the following year, and we were already huuuuuge fans. Like, walking around the house in-character, "Only answering to Venkman and Spengler" fans. Insufferable little brats!

We actually had a nice scam going, in which we'd plant toy "ghosts" all over our houses and extort our parents into paying us to "bust" them. You may laugh, but I discovered at a very young age that parents will pay damn near ANY price for peace and quiet.

Small jobs were $5. But we had a stuffed Stay-Puft and a recreation of Vigo's painting; if the "Containment Unit" broke and those bastards got out, that's a $20 job, EASY.

Never underestimate how much parents will pay you to shut up and go away for an hour or so. We used to clean up, man. That was a straight hustle.

[Wildcat]

I thought the satellite dish and extra row of lights (not the scrolling screen) looked ugly. The caution tape was ok. I prefer a cleaner look and I wanna why the cars needs that stuff.

I still don’t know about the “back to status quo” thing. It’s not just Stay Puft. There were ghosts taking over the city after the containment unit busted.

They could have just written it a different way...like no paranormal activity in awhile or they needed to renovate the building. Anything would have fit.

Busting ghosts around your house sounded fun. I had some of the toys and the GB2 soundtrack.

Now I have 2 Matticollector RGB figures, the Lego ecto1, Stay Puft and Slimer plushies and the small Hot Wheels of the original and reboot.

[Andrew NDB]

Oh! I have one story. When the local radio station (93.3) would play "On Our Own" from the Ghostbusters 2 soundtrack from Bobbi Brown, I spent like 2 weeks finding a good way to cassette tape record it properly and in full. I finally did and played it to death.



I remember it pumping me up for the movie before and afterward.

[Leo656]

Wildcat: I think I'm gonna settle for the ones that came out at Wal-Mart like two years ago. They're acceptable on eBay. I adore everything MattyCollector does but I need both my kidneys.

Also, caution tape made it go faster. I promise.

Oh, it was fun. A blast! $20 to point styrofoam "proton beams" at a stuffed Marshmallow man. Money which immediately went into buying more Ghostbusters toys. To be fair, in my 7-year old brain, it was more "honest" than just asking my parents to buy me stuff. "I'm providing a public service! Look, YOU want the ghosts outta here, and WE need upgrades for the new Slime-Blower Tech. It just so HAPPENS that this job is gonna cost you exactly what the Slime-Blower costs, so the quicker we get this over with, the sooner we can all be happy."

I kinda think my parents admired that I was trying to spin it as legit "work".

My friends and I put a lot of work into it, though. We had binders with detailed dossiers on all the ghosts, we each had a custom-made "Containment Unit" in our respective basements... at one point we were collaborating on putting together our own version of "Tobin's Spirit Guide", but we abandoned it.

Those were the days, though. "Huge fans" doesn't describe.

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

Oh! I have one story. When the local radio station (93.3) would play "On Our Own" from the Ghostbusters 2 soundtrack from Bobbi Brown, I spent like 2 weeks finding a good way to cassette tape record it properly and in full. I finally did and played it to death.



I remember it pumping me up for the movie before and afterward.

Yeah, I love both films' soundtracks quite a bit. Neither me nor my best buddy were very into rap, but the GBII soundtrack had some universal appeal. PLUS, Oingo Boingo! We wore those cassette tapes out. The CD version was tricky to find for a while, but I think it's very common now.

Both films soundtracks do a great job of showing off what was "hip" in the moment. The original is full of decent but obscure stuff.

[Voltron]

I wonder how the world would treat that as an actual event. The Gozer Manhattan incident, I mean.

I'm sure there's a lot of people out there who would claim it was a "false flag", but the scientists of the world must've been going NUTS. I'm surprised the government didn't lock up the guys in some facility and bar them from ever speaking of it.

Then again, it is a comedy, and New York is known for its callous nonchalance of bizarre occurrences.

As for the stuff on the car, I kind of liked it. But I do prefer the original, I think.

[Wildcat]

@Leo656, Don’t know if you noticed I said it was RGB. The ones based on the cartoon. The Egon and Janine and Samhain combo.

The movies ones are nice I just never got to them. Plus I’ve always really liked the cartoon designs. They’re are not cartoon-accurate but still look good. I know Diamond Select made newer ones.

As for the old toys I had the proton pack and trap and a black foam pop gun. Some figures too.

Oh and this water ring game...remember those? They were like pinball type games but filled with water. You pumped bubbles to land objects in goals. I think they made other non-gb ones too.

[Leo656]

I think the guys in black suits would have covered the whole thing up and spun it as some kind of marketing stunt gone awry. Peck's "gassing people to make them hallucinate" story could go a long way if there was enough spin behind it.

And yeah, the dudes may well have been thrown in Arkham forever just to get 'em out of the way. I can see it. That's not exactly uncommon practice, either, or at least it used to be a fairly common way of dealing with "dangerous malcontents" like them.

The only thing about the new look for the car, is that while I was all about the "II" logo at the time, it makes no sense in-universe and I think the car would look best with a mix of the newer "flair" and the original logo. I think that's what they did with the "Extreme Ghostbusters" version, if I recall?

I just can't see it without the tape and the screens, anymore.
----------------

Anybody else ever fancy the old NOW Comics "Real Ghostbusters" run? I have all of it except for like three issues. They even did a three-issue adaptation of GBII, based on the original script, so scenes like Ray being possessed and trying to crash the car with everyone inside are included.

The books did a good job of balancing the movies, the cartoon, and tying everything together, I felt. The art was hit-or-miss, but the tone was good; generally a bit more serious than the cartoon but still suitable for all ages. I had almost every single pin-up on my wall, no kiddin'.

By the by, if anybody has any issues they're looking to sell... hint hint.

[Andrew NDB]

Just re-watched that video for the first time in decades. Holy ****... Donald Trump is in that.

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by Wildcat

Don’t know if you noticed I said it was RGB. The ones based on the cartoon. The Egon and Janine and Samhain combo.

The ones based on the movies are nice I just never got to them. Plus I’ve always really liked the cartoon designs. They’re are not cartoon-accurate but still look good. I know Diamond Select made newer ones. I’d like those.

As for the old toys I had the proton pack and trap and a black foam pop gun. Some figures too.

Oh and this water ring game...remember those? They were like pinball type games but filled with water. You pumped bubbles to land objects in goals. I think they made other non-gb ones too,

Ahh, gotcha. Sorry, I misread. Yeah, I'd love some high-quality RGB merch. There's some great stuff out there right now; we're so spoiled nowadays.

YES I think I have the EXACT same water game! Holy sh*t, man. Was it orange? Those things were "hot" for five minutes back then, lots of licensed properties had one. WOW, haven't thought about that in years!

Ohhhh man, did I have toys! Both regular and role-play toys (before they were called that). I can't even get into all the action figures I had. AND the firehouse, of course! As for the others, off the top of my head I had:
- The "Proton Zapper" gun (it came out before they made the Proton Packs; it projected pictures of ghosts on the wall and made sounds)
- Proton Pack (damn PKE Meter broke the antenna)
- Ghost Trap (AWESOME Birthday present!)
- Slime Blower
- The "Grab-A-Meter" (which I guess was supposed to be a more play-functional stand-in for the second film's Giga-Meter )
- Ecto Goggles
- A different proton gun that had a wavy green foam "stream", that I always used with the Proton Pack (the "stock" straight yellow foam stream that came with the pack was too boring, for me; the other one was more "authentic", so I swapped them since I rarely used the other gun anyway)
- Some orange plastic gun that shot pink hard plastic projectiles
- The same black gun you had that shot yellow foam "darts"
- A little blue one that shot pink darts
- A pump-action water gun
- The "Holy Grail", an officially licensed Ghostbusters II uniform jumpsuit, complete with GBII logo on the arm and "Back Off Man, I'm A Ghostbuster!" written on the back.

I still have all of it, packed up in a specially-marked box. It's amazing how small all of it is. Worth more than gold, though, to me.

[Wildcat]

YA! The water game was orange. I think I might still have it. Those were kinda cool. Each one’s floating objects were based on its license. I think it had tiny slimers or just generic ghosts.

I still have the original Stay Puft plushie and cartoon figure. But it was years after because they were hard to get. Friends helped me get them.

I didn’t have that many weapons but monsters like those transforming humans and ghouls. Specifically a purple creature with a zip cord that made sparks fly out of his mouth. I think it was from gb.

[Leo656]

I easily had 3/4 of the toy line, especially the ghosts. I loved those "Haunted Human" figures you mentioned. Like Granny Gross. And I do believe we owned the EXACT same water game. Tiny generic ghosts, they were, if I'm indeed remembering correctly, but I believe Slimer's picture was on it. I definitely still have it, but I'd have to look. It's been at least 10 years since I looked at it, and it was in a box for about 15 before that.

The actual Ghostbusters figures, I kind of got away from when they started doing endless variants and gimmicks. They were cool but my parents weren't going to buy me every single thing, so I'd always either get a new ghost toy OR a new "weapon" rather than a third Peter or a fourth Egon. When it comes to collecting characters, I generally try to stick to a "One of each Main Character, in their most 'appropriate' or recognizable look" rule. I break it all the time when newer, better stuff comes out, but at that time, especially, I had the "basic" versions of the Ghostbusters and at least one variant of each already, so after that I went for the other stuff.

Some Trivia I forgot to mention about the NOW Comics: The main penciller, John Tobias, went on to co-create Mortal Kombat. If you look at the comics from 1988-1990, and then the original character artwork and marketing sheets for the MK characters in the first and second game, you'll see that he retained the exact same style. I got a huge kick out of that as a kid.

[Wildcat]

I just looked up the water game. There’s 2. One with a giant trap in the middle and one with 3 coffins. Both orange.

I like to get the traditional looking figures of stuff first too. More so now that high quality toys are made for everything.

Ya I’ll look up the Tobias artwork.

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by Wildcat

I like to get the traditional looking figures of stuff first too. More so now that high quality toys are made for everything.

Ain't it grand?

A little off topic, but as a kid, I had a lot of toys. Like, a LOT. But it's nothing like nowadays. One thing I wanted more than life but rarely got to have, was a simple Superman figure. I had a Super-Friends one, but it got lost in a move, and after that, they made ZERO for several years. The DC Toy Biz figures eventually came out, using the same molds, and that was great... but after that, they didn't make anymore Superman figures until like 1998 or so. Left a deep scar across my childhood, because it was just absurd that something so simple just "didn't exist" for most of that time. Back then, if it wasn't still at Toys R Us, you had to move on with your life and forget about it. Now I have like 30.

Point being, it wasn't like nowadays where whatever you want, there's piles of it, and it's easy to find (if not always cheap). But if you want something, you can get it, and most of it is awesome stuff. It's amazing. And the Ghostbusters stuff that exists is so far beyond anything I could have dreamed of as a kid, and there's SO much of it.

"Spoiled" isn't the word for what we are, but whatever, I'm glad we got here. Even aside from Ghostbusters and just "cool stuff" in general; I can't remember so much Cool Sh*t just existing at once across the entire spectrum. I don't think it ever has. The 80s were close, but the overall quality is better by leaps and bounds now.

[Voltron]

Originally Posted by Wildcat

They could have just written it a different way...like no paranormal activity in awhile or they needed to renovate the building. Anything would have fit.

In the first movie, it's implied that paranormal activity is unusually rare in the modern era. The experience at the library had Ray all hot and bothered because it might be the first time they ever see real activity.

Later, Egon explains that the level of PKE in New York has been steadily rising over the past few weeks/months, and that it suggested a big event on the horizon.

That big event, of course, being the arrival of Gozer. I think Vinz Clortho (in Tully's body) mentions the freeing of minions, too.

Even Slimer had been quiet for decades.

So while it's not stated outright, it's implied that the spirits themselves were either drawing power from Gozer in some way.


There's a fan theory that Gozer and Vigo are one in the same, or at least connected. It postulates that the clean up of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man was botched, and some of the fluff was left behind and made its way into the sewers. It took time to regenerate, feeding off the negativity of New Yorkers.

I always thought that was a pretty cool idea.

[Leo656]

For all the flack it gets for being a retread, I thought that the sequel had quite a few good, or at least neat ideas. The "Mood Slime" being one of them. And having them not just arrested, but committed to a mental hospital, while reminiscent of the first still seemed like a plausible escalation of things.

I liked Vigo; even if there is no actual Gozer connection, I think it was neat to explore what a more "grounded" spectral antagonist might be like. Just a really, really, really bad dude, who's technically "immortal", now, and how that would play out. Like hypothetically, what if Hitler's Ghost came back and wanted to take over the world. Bad news, right? Made sense to me. I didn't really care that it was a "smaller" threat than Gozer; still felt like a matter of concern.

Although the way the newer video game stuck him in the basement where he just goes on cranky old man rants and jokes about George W. Bush was f*cking classic. Not a dignified end - and it doesn't actually make sense - but I'm glad they got him in there, somehow.

[Wildcat]

Ive heard of the marshmallow man/slime theory. It’s cool but if they didn’t fully get rid of the fluff I’d prefer it splits him into smaller ones. That’d be cute.

Lack of paranormal activities because they stopped Gozer makes perfect sense. Not coming off as frauds after hundreds witnessed it. Plus it’s treated like...well that happened. As if it was just a bad day. Is it supposed to be some joke about how nothing phases New Yorkers?

About the 2 logo. A friend once told me you could picture it as giving the peace sign since the movie is about getting rid of hate.

@Leo656, I felt the same way about Sonic merchandise in the 90s. There was stuff but not significant toy lines. Not til the Dreamcast.

Oh I looked up the Tobias art. I can’t really find any good comparisons to MK but Id like to have those comics. They look great.

[TMNT_1987]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

Oh! I have one story. When the local radio station (93.3) would play "On Our Own" from the Ghostbusters 2 soundtrack from Bobbi Brown, I spent like 2 weeks finding a good way to cassette tape record it properly and in full. I finally did and played it to death.



I remember it pumping me up for the movie before and afterward.

Still play it now and takes me right back to summer 89

[Leo656]

https://screenrant.com/ghostbusters-...ng-start-date/

Filming May 13.

That's pretty soon.

I'm not buying the notion that there's a really amazing, months-old script that they've just been keeping under wraps this whole time under lock and key, so... Hmm.

We'll see.

[Wildcat]

Ok I looked up what the average amount of time is to write a script. Generally it’s 10-12 weeks with time allowed for drafts and revisions. This is after you’ve already outlined and planned everything though.

It doesn’t mean you start from scratch on day 1 of 2+ months. That’d be brutal.

The rumors about having kids or at least one kid seem to be true since it’s been reported auditions have taken place under the name Rust City.

Maybe not finalized because of edits along the way but this script is done for the most part. Whether they retooled an old one or made a new one this thing was started awhile back.

Probably sometime ago if they already held auditions. There’s also locations, costumes, props etc. That could be happening right now. So it’s been in the works.

It leads me back to my assumption that Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson and Bill Murray (I guess) already agreed but can’t admit it.