Discuss Ghostbusters: Afterlife, released on November 19, 2021 and directed by Jason Reitman.
#4971159
Dr.D wrote: July 5th, 2022, 2:59 pm Can I pitch the retcon of all retcons?

What if, somehow within the narrative of the next movie, we find out that there is a supernatural reason people seem to forget the apocalyptic events of the first two movies? Maybe there is something connected to a rise in psychokinetic energy that can overload a part of the human brain related to memory? Sorta like how they always try to explain away one Doctor Who meeting another Doctor Who, for one sci-fi reason or another.

Dunno if it's needed but it might be kinda nice to throw in and TRY to explain how a giant Marshmallow walking through one of the biggest cities in the world was seemingly glossed over by the rest of the world.
Love it!

I think retcon is too big a word. It means "adjust, ignore, supplement, or contradict" a prior work.

In this case "flesh out" would be a better description. It would have to be done carefully and with nuance. Remember how Alien Covenant basically ended the Aliens franchise by saying that the mysterious alien creature Xenomorph was basically created by an angry man made robot? It killed all interest in the mysterious creature and movie goers had enough of seeing -yet another- group of people on a spaceship get eaten.

Same here. Introducing -yet another- cut out evil character who threatens the world who needs to be taken care of by the GB's is "been there done that" territory.

The best way would be to link back to the main premise of GB1 somehow and make the entire GB universe bigger.
#4971164
The conclusion that I sort of settled on was 2 near apocalypses in a span of 5 years was suspicious enough for Egon to start looking hard into end of the world myths. He took another pass at the research he conducted in 1984 on Gozer and Shandor and eventually found more about the latter then dovetailed into his obsession with Summerville.
#4971165
mrmichaelt wrote: July 5th, 2022, 5:47 pm The conclusion that I sort of settled on was 2 near apocalypses in a span of 5 years was suspicious enough for Egon to start looking hard into end of the world myths. He took another pass at the research he conducted in 1984 on Gozer and Shandor and eventually found more about the latter then dovetailed into his obsession with Summerville.
That's not enough for me. It's too constricted. Whatever research Egon would have done, Ray would have shadowed the data. They were a team. Any data Egon would find he would cross reference with Ray. Whatever Egon saw in the data, if it was objective, Ray would have seen it too. Unless some outside source was interfering with Egon's mind.

One reason the Sumerian God may have appeared (in GB1) was that humankind was too close to messing with the established order of nature. "Imagine the molecules in your body exploding at the speed of light". May have been too much for it to take in terms of human progression.

This could segway into a rival Sumerian God (not Gozer) insisting that humans be allowed to follow science no matter the outcome. Like Prometheus gifting fire to man.

A kind of battle between Gozer and another (actual) Sumerian God. A touching point seeing as Ghostbusters is about "Grooberson: science is pure, an absolute, and an answer to all the madness" which is also a social comment on the state of the current world.
Last edited by One time on July 5th, 2022, 6:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
#4971166
One time wrote:Whatever research Egon would have done, Ray would have shadowed the data. They were a team. Any data Egon would find he would cross reference with Ray. Whatever Egon saw in the data, if it was objective, Ray would have seen it too.
Then the data started to become subjective and Ray started to disagree then what Kingpin said earlier.
Kingpin liked this
#4971167
Oh maybe not even subjective, but maybe Egon was making connections that Ray couldn't keep up with. No offence to Ray at all, but Egon always did seem levels ahead of him. Maybe Egon was getting so out there with the threads he was following that what seemed obvious to him seemed like complete insanity to the others. Couple that with a failing business and it's a perfect storm. Honestly, I'd love to see that dark comedy movie where Egon slowly goes kinda mad and steals Ecto-1.
mrmichaelt, Kingpin liked this
#4971169
One time wrote: July 5th, 2022, 3:13 pm
Dr.D wrote: July 5th, 2022, 2:59 pm Can I pitch the retcon of all retcons?

What if, somehow within the narrative of the next movie, we find out that there is a supernatural reason people seem to forget the apocalyptic events of the first two movies? Maybe there is something connected to a rise in psychokinetic energy that can overload a part of the human brain related to memory? Sorta like how they always try to explain away one Doctor Who meeting another Doctor Who, for one sci-fi reason or another.

Dunno if it's needed but it might be kinda nice to throw in and TRY to explain how a giant Marshmallow walking through one of the biggest cities in the world was seemingly glossed over by the rest of the world.
Love it!

I think retcon is too big a word. It means "adjust, ignore, supplement, or contradict" a prior work.

In this case "flesh out" would be a better description. It would have to be done carefully and with nuance. Remember how Alien Covenant basically ended the Aliens franchise by saying that the mysterious alien creature Xenomorph was basically created by an angry man made robot? It killed all interest in the mysterious creature and movie goers had enough of seeing -yet another- group of people on a spaceship get eaten.

Same here. Introducing -yet another- cut out evil character who threatens the world who needs to be taken care of by the GB's is "been there done that" territory.

The best way would be to link back to the main premise of GB1 somehow and make the entire GB universe bigger.
There doesn’t need to be any retconning. I have never, ever understood this idea that people don’t recognize what happened in GB1.

For years in GB2 I’ve read people going on about “oh well how come no one believes them after the first movie” and I just don’t get where these people get the idea from. How many people say they don’t believe in ghosts in the entire movie? 2? 3 including the kid?

It’s always been a criticism that’s made no sense. So a judge doesn’t believe in ghosts, that’s *exactly* what would happen in real life. Some would believe, some wouldn’t.


Look at our society now. There’s a huge movement of people that believe the earth is flat. That we lied about going to the moon. Seriously.

If there was shaky footage of a Stay Puft Marshmallow man walking….ask yourself how many people would believe it?

There’s some amazing UFO footage. amazing witness testimony. How many people truly believe?

And if you do want a retcon for why not everyone believes here’s an easy one: Ghosts don’t show up on camera. You can invent some technobabble reason about shutter speed, film exposure, nitrate film…

That’s why the GBs had to run Vigo’s pix through a special machine. Once they did that, boom. You saw his true self.
mrmichaelt, Sav C liked this
#4971173
Selenium attracts ghosts, and Big Selenium is afraid that if people believe in ghosts, they won’t be able to sell selenium anymore, and their mines won’t be profitable. They send “experts” (probably Walter Peck) on Fox News to claim that the ghostbusters are frauds, and blam, 40% of the public believes that the ghostbusters are hacks.
Kingpin liked this
#4971174
Sav C wrote: July 5th, 2022, 10:21 pm Selenium attracts ghosts, and Big Selenium is afraid that if people believe in ghosts, they won’t be able to sell selenium anymore, and their mines won’t be profitable. They send “experts” (probably Walter Peck) on Fox News to claim that the ghostbusters are frauds, and blam, 40% of the public believes that the ghostbusters are hacks.
I legit “lol’d” at “Big Selenium”.
Kingpin, Sav C liked this
#4971175
Gozer is never mentioned during the phone call. Not even when he calls 10 years later. Ray just says Egon started warning everyone about the end of the world. So at first maybe Egon was not sure and became difficult to get along with.

However 10 years later you’d think he figured it out with the temple there but still does not specify it’s Gozer to Ray I guess. Just a rising storm. At this point I thought Ray could just go over to see what he was up to with all the equipment. Even out of pure curiosity.

He says he wanted to believe him but he was freaking him out. So it was mostly Egon’s behavior that caused him stay away and not get involved.

Ray not believing him was my only complaint but I do feel kind of better after rewatching it a few times. I still think they could have come up with a better reason altogether but explaining both sides a little more would help.

Egon continuing research on Gozer makes sense. They did not actually defeat/catch her in the first one. Just closed the doorway...but again it seems Egon did not figure out it was Gozer until he was in Summerville. We just need to know why he acted irate.

I also had the idea that he was threatened by a ghost or something but it would have to be another Gozer minion story wise. Not sure that’d work very well since this “new” minion would never appear. Introducing a Gozer rival just for the sake of explaining this is too complex and confusing. Especially when there should be a whole new villain by now.
Kingpin liked this
#4971176
One time wrote: July 5th, 2022, 1:58 pmWhy didn't Ray check up on him? Or try to establish what happened?
That's assuming Ray and the guys knew where Egon went, or had the phone number before he called them.
One time wrote: July 5th, 2022, 1:58 pm(and GBTVG)
I wouldn't expect any call-backs to the game. To do so would risk confusion over something that really isn't compatible anymore.
Dr.D wrote: July 5th, 2022, 2:59 pm Sorta like how they always try to explain away one Doctor Who meeting another Doctor Who, for one sci-fi reason or another.
*Eye twitch*
Dr.D, mrmichaelt liked this

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