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Let me talk a bit about one of my
favorite things ever: Ghostbusters.
The original film holds a special
place in my heart as the movie I have seen the most in my life. My estimates are inexact (as most of the
times I saw it were prior to my turning 5) but I think a guess of 100+ times would
not be out of the question. I could quote whole tracts of the movie’s dialogue before I even knew what they meant. My father brings up wistfully the
numerous times I would talk to strangers at the grocery store introducing
myself as, “Hello, my name is Ray Stanz, I’m a Ghostbuster” which I pronounced “Gose-Busser”.
More
than that, I am a big fan of the cartoons.
I own the gigantic premium box set of “The Real Ghostbusters” and I feel
the biggest misstep of the marketing of “Ghostbusters (2016)” is that they have
not released “Extreme Ghostbusters” on DVD (it is the most underrated cartoon
of the 1990’s). I watched “RGB” to the
point of destroying the VHS tapes of it my grandparents had at their house.
I
owned and played with dozens of the toys, to the point where they fell apart,
with bits snapping off, pieces going missing, and paint flaking off. More than “Masters of the Universe”, more
than “Transformers”, more than “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” this was the toy
line that dominated my childhood (till Lego showed up and took over completely).
I
even liked the sister(?)… knock-off(?)… rival?
We’ll go with rival. I even liked
the rival show “Filmation’s Ghostbusters”.
Which had two guys and a gorilla fighting ghosts and monsters sent back
in time from the undead hellscape of the future. It was mostly garbage, but still entertaining,
if for no other reason than the music had a lot of get up and go.
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| The Gorilla Invented all of their equipment. This used to be a live action series. |
If
I had the resources I do now (the internet) I would have collected and read the
comics which for some reason only ever saw success in the UK. I have a collection of the first 25 (thank you IDW) and will maybe get others in the future (honestly, the stories are
freaking bananas and include an Ecto-4 which is a god damn rocket ship, and the
first adventure includes the ghost of an intelligent alien slug monster).
I
thought the sequel was fine, bit too much of a rehash of the first movie (kind
of a lazy script when you get down to it) but harmless.
The
video game was also fine and served as a good unofficial “Ghostbusters 3”, the
game play was fun, and the writing (while hampered because there are clearly
roles meant for Louis Tully and Dana Barret) is ultimately comparable to “Ghostbusters
2”.
I
plan to see the new one this weekend.
That
all being said I feel that I disagree with something that a lot of people list
as the reason they like the original movie.
A lot of people seem to think that “Ghostbusters” only works because of
Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, and Bill Murray.
That their singular chemistry allowed it all to come together.
I
disagree.
The
idea of “Funny guys fighting monsters/ghosts” has been around a while. It is a simple premise, and while the
execution of that premise varies WILDLY in both how it is done, and how well it
is done. The idea of “comedians fighting
ghosts/monsters/aliens” is too broad a concept to be fenced in to just those three actors plus
the extended cast (this is not to cast shade at Ernie Hudson, who I feel is
underrated both in the franchise and as an actor in general, but he is a
supporting character in the story).
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| Though, back in Mickey's day of fighting "Lonesome Ghosts" they didn't have proton packs. They had to make due with a shotgun and a deerstalker cap. |
The
biggest issue I have with Ghostbusters (and I say this keeping in mind all of
the positive things I have said above) is that they did not grow the
concept. The 1980’s was filled to the
brim with talented comedic actors and special effects that got better every
year. The first “Ghostbusters” was set
in New York and used several well-known comedians (and considering Eddie Murphy
and John Candy were both originally in it, they didn’t even get their original
picks), WHY THEN WAS THE SECOND ONE DOING THE SAME THING?
"Ghostbusters:
Mardi Gras", "Ghostbusters: Liberty Bell", "Ghostbusters:
Bambino's Curse". Just take a city, and throw comedians at it. Lily Tomlin, Phil Hartman, Jane Curtin, George
Carlin, Chris Rock, and anybody else. Seriously now, do you think that Bill Murray
invented being snide? There are 100
cities in America that could all have their own ghost stories. Voodoo zombie hordes, the Jersey Devil, HALF
THE STUFF THEY DO ON “SUPERNATURAL” could all have been done with John Lithgow
and Jeff Goldblum wearing proton packs.
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| A Trillion nerds on the internet and this is the only image of an alternate 80's cast. Really wish I had Adobe Suite on this computer I would have put more into this effort. |
“The
Real Ghostbusters” cartoon had 140 episodes.
And while they all had different problems (they seemed to face a Gozer
level world ending threat every episode) clearly there are stories that exist
with people fighting ghosts.
The reason
I saw fit to write this is because I have seen a lot of people online arguing
things like, “It is a big part of my childhood, they shouldn’t remake it”. And I feel that is just stupid. While I would prefer a movie in which the
Ghostbusters already existed, and did the stuff from the movies and video game
and then just had Ray and Winston showing up to hand the keys of the New York
offices off to new people… That would have been better. But, that is over with. You can’t fence off the best iteration of a
good idea. The execution was too good
not to run with in various permutations.
Just like Batman has been rebooted
10,000 times, and James Bond has looked like a half dozen people, Ghostbusters
is starting fresh and hopefully is good enough to do what I wanted the series
to do all along: GO PLACES.
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