New Ghostbusters movie in OG movie universe Jason Reitman directing 2020

[ssjup81]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

But to me and most... the theatrical experience is largely the communal experience. I've never had a better time watching a great or even dumb and funny movie as when I've watched it in a packed theater with people laughing and crying out at certain moments. If it is just me watching it at home alone on my big screen TV... there would be far less of an experience. It wouldn't even really be one.

*stands up and applauds* Preach brother! This is why I like going to the theater.

[Andrew NDB]

Possible spoilers:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ghostbuster...lers_on_4chan/

Some parts read legit. Not sure about

Spoiler:

there being a total of 4 Terror Dogs, though. And Janine married to Winston?

[oldmanwinters]

Really wish we could have had some GB-licensed Twinkies and Hi-C Ecto Cooler this year.

[Leo656]

Seeing a lot of good reviews but some of the stuff I'm hearing seems kind of... eh.

- Allegedly, this movie follows the currently popular trend of "Only the movie(s) which were unanimously praised are what counts," therefore Ghostbusters II essentially did not happen. This is annoying.

I get the "why" of it; for this movie's plot to work, the whole "Gozer Incident" and the Ghostbusters saving New York needs to be an isolated incident which has become lost to history. If they'd saved NYC TWICE in very public fashion and had a long-running successful business, it would be a lot harder for this new movie to be all like "Once upon a time there were some guys called Ghostbusters, nobody remembers them and everyone thinks they were a fraud."

Ever since they announced this movie, a lot of folks have been asking "So if the Ghostbusters are an urban legend, how will they explain that time the Statue of Liberty marched through Times Square and everyone saw it?" Easy: They're just gonna pretend that whole movie never happened.

From what I gather, it's not as explicit as they outright say Part II never happened, but more like, it's never mentioned at all and you're supposed to just not acknowledge it. You can if you want to but if you do then it sort of breaks THIS movie's story.

I know that the internet has been insisting for 20 years that Ghostbusters II is bad and nobody liked it. But both of those things are lies. I had a feeling that they'd just ignore Part II because it's just easier that way, but I was really HOPING that they'd at least put some work into making it fit, not just handwave it. Ah well.

- Lots of talk about how this movie is all about "wiping the slate clean and setting up the future of the franchise, specifically parts II and III of a trilogy". Allegedly, several plot points go nowhere at all and are clearly only there as sequel bait; this is a bit annoying as well as presumptuous. Pretty much EVERY time a movie does this sort of thing, their prospective "franchise" self-destructs on the launching pad. And we already know this movie will lose money because of the theater situation, so even if it's "successful" by whatever the current metric is, it could very well be another 5+ years before we even get a sequel, just because of the logistics of it. It might be longer than that, even. Or they just might never get made. It still remains to be proven that this franchise is still "popular" in 2021.

- Some of the ways in which the "slate" is to be "cleaned" have been called "emotionally manipulative" and "openly designed to tug on the heartstrings of longtime fans". I would not be shocked if at least one of the original Ghostbusters gets killed off. When I hear terms like "clearing the slate for the future", I do not envision a series of films where the originals and the new kids co-exist and go on adventures together; that's not what "clearing the slate" means. "Clearing the slate" means "get the old guys out of the way so the kids can completely take the lead." Which implies that some of those characters won't be on the table anymore after this movie.

I think maybe Ray will stick around as like the team's mentor but I wouldn't be shocked if Peter, specifically, bites the dust, especially since Murray's been begging for that to happen for decades. Remember how for decades Harrison Ford said he was done with Star Wars, and would only come back if he was to be killed off, and then sure enough he agrees to come back and gets killed off immediately? I'm not going to be shocked if that's what happens here. I can totally see Reitman's kid caving to Murray's demands just for the sake of getting him involved.

- Supposedly, the movie is sort of like "The Force Awakens", in that the filmmakers were so desperate to wash the bad taste of the most recent film(s) out of peoples' mouths that they play things SUPER safe, to the point where huge chunks of this movie are dedicated to, essentially, remake and call back to scenes from the first movie. Doesn't mean that will be a bad thing, specifically, but it's a thing people have complained about before in other series so I can see it being an issue here as well.
-----------------

I don't know. Sounds pretty good, and definitely heartfelt if nothing else. But I can already tell there's at least a few things I'm going to sigh about. But I guess that was unavoidable.

[Wildcat]

I’m not reading possible spoilers but I think Ray’s bookstore itself acknowledges GB2 happened. That’s not really “count it if you want”. He didn’t have til part 2.

I would be very surprised if they killed off one of the original members. Egon is already missing and a proper third movie has taken so long. The characters going on with their lives is fine if only one or none want to be recurring.

It definitely will not do as well as usual with the virus/theater situation. I agree with that. It sucks that it just had to have one more issue surrounding it. I mean it’s history of getting made. I’m sure it’ll do fine but still.

To be fair I guess I cannot blame Bill Murray for the entire hiatus unless it really was his whole rights thing but whatever there should have been GB5 by now. I’m happy to hear it’s intended to continue.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Wildcat

I’m not reading possible spoilers but I think Ray’s bookstore itself acknowledges GB2 happened. That’s not really “count it if you want”. He didn’t have til part 2.

I'm sure there is Ghostbusters II references for those that can spot them. Ray's store was ONLY seen in Ghostbusters II, for example. And Jason Reitman himself was IN the movie, so it's not there's no love for it.

Little stuff, too. Like Paul Rudd saying "The 80s were like the Walking Dead!" He said the 80s. He didn't just say, "1984." That implies at least more than one incident. But the real reason not to mention any GB2 stuff is because this is a Gozer/Shandor plot has nothing to do with anything that happened in GB2.

To be fair I guess I cannot blame Bill Murray for the entire hiatus unless it really was his whole rights thing but whatever there should have been GB5 by now. I’m happy to hear it’s intended to continue.

Well, it really was Bill Murray saying "no" over and over again throughout the years. That doesn't mean he was wrong. Some of those GB3 scripts sounded very stupid.

[Leo656]

The bookstore is a fair point, but I also won't be shocked if that's literally the only reference to Part II.

So many of the reviews have made mention of how "the movie essentially asks you to pretend Part II didn't happen" that I have to think that was a deliberate choice. Most of them don't say, "There's little mention of Part II but it might've happened," they say, "The movie basically acts like it didn't happen and asks you to do the same."

That's a subtle but important distinction.

And even if the plot of Part II was only tangentially connected to the whole Shandor business that the first movie dealt with and this one revisits, they still could very easily have finagled something to make it relevant. Various video games and comic books since then have done exactly that; it's my thinking that basically, it just would have been too hard so they didn't bother. "Just easier to ignore Part II."

I'unno, not like a deal-breaking thing or anything it's just a Present-Day trend in movies that I just plain hate, the whole "Sequels that completely ignore huge chunks of a franchise's lore because writers don't wanna write around it" trend. I mean, sometimes it's necessary. I think "Superman Returns" was the very first time this had ever happened - someone feel free to correct me - and it was necessary if they wanted to keep the movies in that universe, since III and IV were awful. Little did we know that by opening that door just a crack, it would become Standard Operating Procedure for pretty much every series going forward. Especially because when "Superman Returns" did it, that whole idea of "How can you ask us to just ignore movies we all clearly watched?" was widely mocked. Now it happens in movies and even TV all the time. Like literally always. To the point where it's just kind of aggravating.

I'm at the point now where whenever I watch a movie anymore, I'm like "Yeah, in 10-20 years they're gonna do another one and ask me to pretend I never saw this one." Kinda over it. Sometimes it's necessary but I'd argue this wasn't one of those times. Chickbusters, yeah, ignore that. Bad movie, and also not in the same universe as this one or the originals anyway. But Ghostbusters II? Eh, that shouldn't be so radioactive.

[Andrew NDB]

I mean... eh, look at something like the Dirty Harry movie series. There aren't any references to "Magnum Force" in "The Enforcer." You don't hear anybody debating if that means "Magnum Force" is removed from Dirty Harry canon.

[Leo656]

I get what you're trying to say, but we both know that wasn't the thinking behind the decision to minimize the relevance of Part II.

For good or ill, the writers of this movie settled on a plot that necessitates the whole history of the Ghostbusters to be a forgotten urban legend that nobody remembers. I'm not sure they NEEDED to do that, but that's what they chose to write. I'm sure there's some "meta" reasoning behind it, too, but anyways. For that plot to work at all, Part II probably couldn't have happened. The Statue of Liberty strolling through Times Square on New Year's Eve 1989 isn't the kind of thing that could be written off as "mass hysteria"; only the four Ghostbusters (and Dana and Louis) know exactly what happened on the roof of Dana's apartment building, and sure, the giant marshmallow man could've been a publicity stunt gone wrong. You can write off the entire first movie as "mass hysteria" if you want to and are trying to deliberately bury that whole event. But if Part II happened, that complicates things.

So it's different from the movie series you're mentioning, which is a thing called "continuity by omission"; basically, how that works is "Obviously those things still happened in our canon, but they're not relevant to Right Now so we won't mention them."

That's not the case with what's going on with this movie ignoring GBII. The reason this movie ignores GBII, is because this movie's story has more holes in it if you count GBII, and the filmmakers would prefer that you look forward and not backward. With a dash of "We're all supposed to hate GBII anyway (even though most people don't)."

It's not "Continuity By Omission". It's just "Eh, we didn't wanna write around it, and it breaks our present fiction, so just kindly ignore it. Our Story works better if you ignore That Story."

Again, subtle distinctions, but distinctions of importance.

[Wildcat]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

Well, it really was Bill Murray saying "no" over and over again throughout the years. That doesn't mean he was wrong. Some of those GB3 scripts sounded very stupid.

That’s what I’ve assumed but thought maybe there was more to it. It’s such a ridiculous reason for a movie not to get made.

Besides the Hell idea I’m only aware of 1 full script that I mentioned before. This but it’s not authentic? https://www.vulture.com/2014/11/an-a...ed-online.html

As for GB2 I’m not sure they considered it too hard to write around it it’s just like Andrew said it’s a Gozer story. If the kids found news articles or footage of the Statue of Liberty how does it complicate this?

I mean they went out of business after those events. The reason must be something that happened AFTER defeating Vigo. I’m not expecting a whole flashback but a reason that places it afterwards...like “in the early 90s so and so happened and had to close”.

[ZariusTwo]

A negative review from Digitalspy...they talk a bit about 2016 at the start, so you know where their head's at here

https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a3...erlife-review/

[ssjup81]

Hey...didn't Bill Murray and Harold Remis have a falling out after Groundhog Day or somethin like that, which may also explain why Bill Murray constantly held out on wanting to do a GBIII?

Originally Posted by Leo656

I get what you're trying to say, but we both know that wasn't the thinking behind the decision to minimize the relevance of Part II.

For good or ill, the writers of this movie settled on a plot that necessitates the whole history of the Ghostbusters to be a forgotten urban legend that nobody remembers. I'm not sure they NEEDED to do that, but that's what they chose to write. I'm sure there's some "meta" reasoning behind it, too, but anyways. For that plot to work at all, Part II probably couldn't have happened. The Statue of Liberty strolling through Times Square on New Year's Eve 1989 isn't the kind of thing that could be written off as "mass hysteria"; only the four Ghostbusters (and Dana and Louis) know exactly what happened on the roof of Dana's apartment building, and sure, the giant marshmallow man could've been a publicity stunt gone wrong. You can write off the entire first movie as "mass hysteria" if you want to and are trying to deliberately bury that whole event. But if Part II happened, that complicates things.

So it's different from the movie series you're mentioning, which is a thing called "continuity by omission"; basically, how that works is "Obviously those things still happened in our canon, but they're not relevant to Right Now so we won't mention them."

That's not the case with what's going on with this movie ignoring GBII. The reason this movie ignores GBII, is because this movie's story has more holes in it if you count GBII, and the filmmakers would prefer that you look forward and not backward. With a dash of "We're all supposed to hate GBII anyway (even though most people don't)."

It's not "Continuity By Omission". It's just "Eh, we didn't wanna write around it, and it breaks our present fiction, so just kindly ignore it. Our Story works better if you ignore That Story."

Again, subtle distinctions, but distinctions of importance.

Oh man, I forgot about that! The Statue of Liberty thing and them controlling it with a NES controller, iirc. Yeah...that would be difficult to forget. That actually scared me as a kid. I always found giant statues creepy, but them walking around...nope. lol

For the trailers, I was wondering why they didn't seem to include Ghostbusters II and stuff or references to it....and yeah, guess it would be difficult to write a script for a third film with the premise of the Ghostbusters being a legend by this point. Still looking forward to seeing it, though.

[Panda_Kahn_fan]

Okay, still looking forward to this movie, like what I'm hearing about it from a lot of places, and....

Spoiler:

Looking forward to how Phoebe, Podcast, Lucky, and Trevor perform in the future as ghostbusters. I hope IDW or somebody has this movie's team cross over with the Real Ghostbusters universe, so Phoebe can meet a living version of her grandpa, even if he is blonde, and married Janine instead of Phoebe's grandmother.

Also, most of those critics are still just angry about ghostbusters 2016.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by ssjup81

Hey...didn't Bill Murray and Harold Remis have a falling out after Groundhog Day or somethin like that, which may also explain why Bill Murray constantly held out on wanting to do a GBIII?

It's a definite possibility. That was a very real thing.

Originally Posted by Leo656

- Lots of talk about how this movie is all about "wiping the slate clean and setting up the future of the franchise, specifically parts II and III of a trilogy". Allegedly, several plot points go nowhere at all and are clearly only there as sequel bait; this is a bit annoying as well as presumptuous.

See, that would really bother me. Though if the idea is that even if the good guys win in this, there are still ghosts pouring into our world... that's not necessarily a bad thing or a "loose end." That's just avoiding the "closed book" nature of the endings of GB1 and GB2.

[ZariusTwo]

[Autbot_Benz]

Originally Posted by ZariusTwo

That's a really good trailer. I can't wait for this movie

[IMJ]

Very excited!

[Leo656]

So to apparently "settle" something from earlier. I've been poking around and "allegedly", according to people who claim to have seen it, the only reference to Ghostbusters II is Ray's bookstore. Otherwise they don't go near it at all. They don't say it didn't happen but they don't acknowledge it in any way.

So if anybody actually cared we've supposedly got the answer, for whatever that might be worth.

That's about the best way it could've been handled, I guess.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Leo656

So to apparently "settle" something from earlier. I've been poking around and "allegedly", according to people who claim to have seen it, the only reference to Ghostbusters II is Ray's bookstore. Otherwise they don't go near it at all. They don't say it didn't happen but they don't acknowledge it in any way.

Pretty much what I expected since this movie started rolling. And pretty much what I figured everyone else should be expecting as well.

At best, I was thinking maybe within all the doubtless many GB1 references here and there, they might sneak a quick comment about "Remember when they said the Titanic returned to New York?" or "remember those Statue of Liberty videos?" but that was about it. Expecting much more than that was never going to happen. And why would it, anyway, in a movie with a story that has nothing to do with the events of GB2?

If it was me, though, I'd have the kids discover the busted up, old Ecto-1A, not the Ecto-1 and that could be the big one and only GB2 connection. But that's just me. Because now it's like this weird thing, though we can kind of head canon it. When there were no more ghosts after GB1's cleanup, Egon shuttered the Ecto-1 somewhere for storage. Then when things started popping during GB2, they just made a brand new Ecto out of a new car from scratch. I mean, I guess it DID seem a lot more pristine than the Ecto-1, and not just because of a paint job or anything.

[Leo656]

It is a kind of weird discrepancy. Yours is probably the best way to rationalize it.

Going back to the plain-old Ecto-1 feels sort of like a step backwards, though, regardless of reasoning. I mean, that car's iconic. But Ecto-1A had a much greater Cool Factor. Since then, every time I see the "regular" Ecto-1, I'm like "...Oh. Yay." Still cool, BUT once upon a time we got something better, and it's weird that one didn't become the standard going forward.

Although, it kinda did for a little while, I guess. The "Ecto-1" in Extreme Ghostbusters looked more like the Ecto-1A, just with the original logo and not the II logo. But it still had some of the other "flair" from the 1A.

But I mean if Ghostbusters II DID happen, then the fact that it's Ecto-1 that these kids dig up means the Ecto-1 and Ecto-1A HAD to have been two physically different cars, and that these kids just happened upon the older, "out-of-date" model. Because once you go full-on caution tape and LED placards, you do NOT go back on that.