Discuss all things Ghostbusters here, unless they would be better suited in one of the few forums below.
#4978571
d_osborn wrote: February 7th, 2023, 8:06 am
mrmichaelt wrote: February 5th, 2023, 5:36 pm The flying coffins were an idea in GB1, too?! Is that true?
To my knowledge, no. Unless it's in the July 83 draft and I'm forgetting about it. Maybe Richard is thinking of concept art from TVG?

mrmichaelt wrote: February 5th, 2023, 5:36 pm Totally agree, the Anti-Ghostbusters idea sounded really cool. Cat-and-mouse in Hell with their doppelgangers? Wonder if that stuck in the early drafts or if that was expunged right after the treatment.
Treatment only.

Sorry to be a Peck earlier. :love:
No I’m not thinking of anything from the video game. It’s a piece of concept art. Maybe it was from GB2 but I seem to associate it with GB1 for some reason. It has Coffins shooting up like rockets. But you’d know best so I’ll defer to your expertise. Perhaps I’m mixing it up with the image of Mr. Stay Puft shooting/tossing flaming marshmallows out over the NYC skyline like flaming comets made of marshmallow.

Also…did you edit this post? Earlier I could’ve sworn there was something you wrote about the uselessness of PDF protection and Hellbent script and I remember I was going to reply to that but didn’t have the time. But now it’s gone. Or maybe that was somewhere else? Usually edited posts are marked but I don’t see one here.
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#4978582
RichardLess wrote: Perhaps I’m mixing it up with the image of Mr. Stay Puft shooting/tossing flaming marshmallows out over the NYC skyline like flaming comets made of marshmallow.
Maybe? That's one of the John Daveikis illustrations that Danny used in his pitch material. I have an original print of that piece that Ivan gave to Thom Enriquez as concept art reference. It might be one of my fav collection pieces.

I could be misremembering, but nothing is coming to mind on GB2. I'll look around, though. :love:
RichardLess wrote: Also…did you edit this post? Earlier I could’ve sworn there was something you wrote about the uselessness of PDF protection and Hellbent script and I remember I was going to reply to that but didn’t have the time. But now it’s gone. Or maybe that was somewhere else? Usually edited posts are marked but I don’t see one here.
I did. I didn't like my negative vibe. I was also in a bad mood. I noticed the dull ache of message board drama and remembered why I started to avoid it a long time ago.
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#4978617
d_osborn wrote: February 8th, 2023, 9:53 am
RichardLess wrote: Perhaps I’m mixing it up with the image of Mr. Stay Puft shooting/tossing flaming marshmallows out over the NYC skyline like flaming comets made of marshmallow.
Maybe? That's one of the John Daveikis illustrations that Danny used in his pitch material. I have an original print of that piece that Ivan gave to Thom Enriquez as concept art reference. It might be one of my fav collection pieces.

I could be misremembering, but nothing is coming to mind on GB2. I'll look around, though. :love:
RichardLess wrote: Also…did you edit this post? Earlier I could’ve sworn there was something you wrote about the uselessness of PDF protection and Hellbent script and I remember I was going to reply to that but didn’t have the time. But now it’s gone. Or maybe that was somewhere else? Usually edited posts are marked but I don’t see one here.
I did. I didn't like my negative vibe. I was also in a bad mood. I noticed the dull ache of message board drama and remembered why I started to avoid it a long time ago.
Yeah I’ve done a quick cursory search for this concept art. I would’ve bet money on this that’s how sure I was. I can see it in my head clear as day. Tombstones taking off like fireworks. I’m sure I’ve seen this concept art somewhere. But I can’t find it.

Man usually I’m the one telling people what they experienced is wrong and could be the Mandela effect but this has got me annoyed more than anything. Ah well.
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#4979667
So far I'm 74 pages into the spec script...wow. I ended up flipping through the whole thing (and the treatment) to see how much of it Venkman was in. So, in the treatment he sends a postcard, and in the spec he's dead, but God appears in the form of Venkman. God says he chose to appear Venkman so that he could better explain complicated things and then doesn't really explain anything. And there's not enough material for Bill to improvise with. Not to mention, Venkman's sleaze factor is turned up to the max: "Peter Venkman was the chairman of this company. He called the shots on what we were to research. He was obsessed with developing his foolproof love potion and it cost him his life. We were all merely instruments in his hands." There are a lot of things that I could fault Bill for, but blocking this script is not one of them...

This is completely different from what I expected, though. I always thought Venkman had a sizable role in the early drafts, and that it was cut down after he refused to return. It seems it was limited from the get-go, though.
Last edited by Sav C on March 7th, 2023, 10:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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#4979668
Sav C wrote: March 7th, 2023, 8:33 pm There are a lot of things that I could fault Bill for, but blocking this script is not one of them...
Agreed. I get that from script to screen there can be enough changes to make or break a movie...but after reading it over twice now I gotta say this movie would have been awful no matter what.
#4979691
Thanks for alerting me, I didn't know this was up yet.

Some non-spoilery thoughts upon first reading it.

New recruits are not well delineated. As with the original script Aykroyd wrote for himself, Belushi and Eddie, they're interchangeable. There are four characters who could just as easily have been two. Instead of two male and two female, just have one of each and maybe they'd have enough screen time to develop distinct personalities. As it is, one of the otherworldly beings they meet is far more fleshed out and interesting than any of the new heroes.

This script is like an alternate timeline now that Afterlife came out, but it does contain a few intriguing concepts on what Ghostbusters would have been like if they'd stayed operational for decades and had multiple crews, larger facilities, a fleet of ambulances, etc.

Overall, this is very sci-fi, epic, grand sweeping CGI vista stuff. Not the reality-grounded stories we've seen thus far in live action. Almost more like a big budget live action RGB episode. Some interesting concepts but the visuals in my brain are more like RIPD.

It's not an intimate Ivan Reitman-tempered GB story, but it IS a pure Aykroydian one. If it weren't for Nothing But Trouble's box office failure, I could see this being something he'd have tried to direct himself when Ivan inevitably passed on the project.

There's some subtle social commentary in this as well, drawing a parallel of everyday annoyances in a metropolitan city to the same albeit slightly amplified events occurring in 'Hell' (though as the characters say at one point, "if you want to call it that").

I was a little offput by one scene where a young 'buster administered a sedative to someone, as it didn't seem germane to the moment at hand... but this might have been setting up a payoff after the story's climax which was the closest I came to an audible chuckle while reading it.

Which reminds me, I think the cameo scene for Bill Murray was written in a way to appeal to his ego, lol.

Was this story different from the films that went before? Absolutely. Which could have been both its blessing and its curse. It broke a LOT of new ground, almost too much for one film. But then again, what was the biggest complaint leveled against GBII? The fact that it was too similar to the original film. That's also a criticism I've seen about Answer the Call (same story structure) and Afterlife (same villain).

I personally would welcome a story like this which vastly expands the horizons of the basic concept.

Your mileage may vary.

Alex
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#4980188
Alex Newborn wrote: March 8th, 2023, 9:43 am This script is like an alternate timeline now that Afterlife came out, but it does contain a few intriguing concepts on what Ghostbusters would have been like if they'd stayed operational for decades and had multiple crews, larger facilities, a fleet of ambulances, etc.
...
Was this story different from the films that went before? Absolutely. Which could have been both its blessing and its curse. It broke a LOT of new ground, almost too much for one film. But then again, what was the biggest complaint leveled against GBII? The fact that it was too similar to the original film. That's also a criticism I've seen about Answer the Call (same story structure) and Afterlife (same villain).

I personally would welcome a story like this which vastly expands the horizons of the basic concept.

Your mileage may vary.

Alex
I've been curious what you thought about it! Agreed on the variation of formula. You can't fault Aykroyd for doing something wildly different.

Agreed on Nothing But Trouble. Had the budget been reigned in a bit, I think we would've had a wild Aykroyd directorial filmography with at least one GB project.
#4980198
d_osborn wrote: February 4th, 2023, 6:32 amMy Unorganized Thoughts—

-The treatment is way easier to read if you aren’t used to screenplays.
-The Firehouse and ECTO 1A appearances in the treatment gave this fanboy a HUGE grin.
-Typo alert— “Moira” is accidentally “Miriam” on page 27 of the full draft.
-I loved seeing Aykroyd’s vision for where the GB company went, in-universe. It’s incredibly cool to see.
-Taghanik was my fav new character. Do you trust an alcoholic lawyer in hell?
-Was older hot lady Desseter written for Donna Aykroyd?
-The opening to the treatment kills me. I'm not sure why Aykroyd cut those scenes down.
-It’s interesting to think what Harold’s visual direction for Ghostbusters would look like.
-Hellbent led me to research old physicists— namely Heissenberg and Feinman!
-The mundaneness isn’t there? I disagree.
-It isn’t Ghostbusters? It was never just about trapping Class 5s. The original Ghostbusters script is rooted in interdimensional travel, and Hellbent was another iteration of that idea. To me, it’s very much in the spirit of Ghostbusters, just not what we’ve seen on screen. They go to hell, confront Satan, then get stuck in a traffic jam on the way home from work. Roll credits.
-No love for the ghost trap on a telescoping pole?
@ *referring to bold*

That definitely sounds like Ghostbusters, to me. Regarding the interdimensional travel concept (even subtly embedded in the original 1984 film with Gozer), The Real Ghostbusters did it in some episodes; Extreme Ghostbusters did it (Ghost Apocalyptic Future and Heart of Darkness), the IDW comics definitely did it (Ghostbusters: Get Real, Ghostbusters 101 and Crossing Over) and expanded upon it much more further with dimensional designations for each single GB world/dimension that's continued to be explored.


Alex Newborn wrote:Thanks for alerting me, I didn't know this was up yet.

Some non-spoilery thoughts upon first reading it.

New recruits are not well delineated. As with the original script Aykroyd wrote for himself, Belushi and Eddie, they're interchangeable. There are four characters who could just as easily have been two. Instead of two male and two female, just have one of each and maybe they'd have enough screen time to develop distinct personalities. As it is, one of the otherworldly beings they meet is far more fleshed out and interesting than any of the new heroes.

This script is like an alternate timeline now that Afterlife came out, but it does contain a few intriguing concepts on what Ghostbusters would have been like if they'd stayed operational for decades and had multiple crews, larger facilities, a fleet of ambulances, etc.

Overall, this is very sci-fi, epic, grand sweeping CGI vista stuff. Not the reality-grounded stories we've seen thus far in live action. Almost more like a big budget live action RGB episode. Some interesting concepts but the visuals in my brain are more like RIPD.

It's not an intimate Ivan Reitman-tempered GB story, but it IS a pure Aykroydian one. If it weren't for Nothing But Trouble's box office failure, I could see this being something he'd have tried to direct himself when Ivan inevitably passed on the project.

There's some subtle social commentary in this as well, drawing a parallel of everyday annoyances in a metropolitan city to the same albeit slightly amplified events occurring in 'Hell' (though as the characters say at one point, "if you want to call it that").

I was a little offput by one scene where a young 'buster administered a sedative to someone, as it didn't seem germane to the moment at hand... but this might have been setting up a payoff after the story's climax which was the closest I came to an audible chuckle while reading it.

Which reminds me, I think the cameo scene for Bill Murray was written in a way to appeal to his ego, lol.

Was this story different from the films that went before? Absolutely. Which could have been both its blessing and its curse. It broke a LOT of new ground, almost too much for one film. But then again, what was the biggest complaint leveled against GBII? The fact that it was too similar to the original film. That's also a criticism I've seen about Answer the Call (same story structure) and Afterlife (same villain).

I personally would welcome a story like this which vastly expands the horizons of the basic concept.

Your mileage may vary.

Alex
@ *referring to bold*

A concept like this would be very much better off suited for television if it's too much for one single cinematic film; It would be like Real Ghostbusters with a Star Trek TOS/TNG flavor; and I do enjoy both Star Trek and Ghostbusters.
mrmichaelt liked this

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