I’d bank that down the road, if there’s enough road, Murray will speak out against this movie, it’s depiction of Harold and lack of comedy.
Also imagine how much the first act would’ve been improved if Callie was a single mum, totally happy and bossing it. The friction with Phoebe added nothing and didn’t especially make sense beyond “Boo hoo my dad chose science”. The whole movie suffers from these broad strokes.
I was about to type the exact same thing. He has the Revelations 6:12 tattoo yet all of a sudden Egon is a lunatic? This whole Ray telephone thing felt like it was shot as an emergency backup or even a reshoot. Tonally it was so different to what we saw before.
Reading all your reviews and comments I had another thought. As a direct sequel to GB1 and 2, I think the video game story is superior. It ties up loose ends. As a legacy 10-20 to now 30 years later, what we got with Afterlife is the right way.
One more thing: the ecto goggles. Podcast wears them all the time, but it’s never explained where they come from all of a sudden and what they actually do.
And the book he reads, which apparently explains everything about Gozer and its minions. WTF? Who wrote that? Just too convenient…
I really only had one issue with it and that was Ray’s fallout with Egon and not believing him. Ray is a true believer and exactly the kind of person who would listen to any crazy story.
It was pretty good. If you walked in expecting to see a comedy film with some of the 80’s biggest comedy stars firing on all cylinders than you will be disapointed. 2016 tired to remake the first film and it didnt work. At least this one tried a different formula and I think it worked great.
Egon not being subtle was great and a breath of fresh air. It was like “no, I really am here. No mystery here. Now follow me.” And Phoebe gets it.
Did anyone catch the maid sign in his lab?
Podcast was truly annoying.
Lucky was an absolute non-character. More like a filler. I wouldn’t have minded Trevor as much had they picked someone else to play him.
The soundtrack was pretty bad.
But I really loved the movie. It just feels so weird how different it feels from Ghostbusters II. Just like entirely different sequels.
I have a feeling Lucky was supposed to find out her father was a Gozer worshipper, since she admits she is 4th generation trash/■■■■/forgot the right word, and that’s also why she is doing nothing with her life so far, as her father expects things to end soon.
Could even be that her father is in the house holding the GB hostage and she saves them to get that proton pack she is suddenly holding, with the older taking longer to suit up, but I’m just fan fixing things here.
i liked the movie a lot…but it had some weakpoints and things i didnt understand…
Who killed Egon and how? Zuul, Keymaster, Gozer (in form of a Terrordog)…and how? Maybe fear? i don’t know.
Why and how was Ivo Shandor still alive in some form? Why didn’t egon did anything during the 20 Years he lived in Summerville?
the hole possession hookup plot between zuul & Keymaster was badly scripted. This plot was a little bit irrelevant.
where was the Sentinel Terrordog?
I wonder if it’ll be possible to fan-fix / edit the originals from the climax outside of Egon’s ghost…
2)He did do a lot in the 20 years. He was building the traps and the machines needed to stop the 2021 ghost outbreak, locate the place, etc. He knew he was getting old and that’s probably why he decided to sacrifice himself if his original plan failed. He hid the trap when the plan to capture both terror dogs failed and thought out a plan b on the spot, he had to get the help of his family.
yeah I agree, but at least it led to an awesome looking skeletal Gozer.
Don’t know, could be the Sheriff in disguise, which perhaps got cut for time? Total fan fiction though.
I loved it. I know it was shameless fan service and far from a perfect script, but I think it was exactly what I’ve been waiting on for the last 30+ years. I really feel like Sony tried to do it the “right” way to be true to the fans.
Since the first time I saw the movie in the 80s I’ve loved everything about the franchise. The moment I walked out of Ghostbusters 2 I asked my dad “when will Ghostbusters 3 come out?” I can’t put into words how deeply happy it made me to see this film. I have a laundry list of easter eggs, cannon inconsistencies, and tweaks, but I decided to not leave that here and instead just express how grateful I am to this community, to the actors and artists involved, and to Sony for finally making a dream come true.
Ok, after seeing the movie yesterday and thinking about it till now, my mind is an absolute mess.
Overall I liked the movie, the actors were great, especially McKenna. The overall way the movie was crafted really spoke to me, very well made.
The Problems that I have with it are all plot/writing based.
Maybe some things went over my head, maybe I am not seeing some things connecting so please help me out if you have an answer or explanations for my questions:
What was that sentinel terror dog about?
Why would Egon just sit in that chair knowing this thing would come inside?
Why did the grid fail when Egon tried to activate it? He never made any mistakes in his calculations, why now ?
How did he manage to catch the terror dog when it was inside the well (and it immediately returned there after release)?
When the terror dog gets released from the trap, why does it have the horns upward like the sentinel terror dog?
Why and how is Ivo Shandor alive and who put him there ? Did Egon not care about him when he installed the proton packs in the mine ?
who put the coming years onto the wall and where was that knowledge gathered ?
Who stopped the other crossrips/Gozer comings in the past from 1984 downward?
why is there no explosion when the streams are being crossed automatically in the mine on a constant basis? Egon himself said every molecule in your body explodes at the speed of light if the streams are crossed. in the first movie the explosion is so big that it even splatters the marshmallow man
How come Phoebe doesn’t believe in ghosts and then suddenly does without an explanation?
Why is Muncher there in the factory (or whatever it is) when there hasn’t been a ghost sighting in 30 years and no ghosts can escape out of the well because of the mounted stream crossing?
Why do they have to keep driving once the stream has gotten a hold of Muncher ? Should that not stop him from moving forward?
Why would (out of all beings in the GB universe) Ray be the one to not believe or help out Egon when he talked about another crossrip ?! And why would someone like Egon leave everyone behind, steal the equipment and go out on his own after everything that happened?!
If Egon took all the equipment when he left, how can the OGs be in full gear when they show up? Are those the packs from the mine ? If so, how did they get it or knew they were there ? Why and how do they even show up out of the blue and arrive just in time?
When Gozer shows up she does absolutely nothing but sit there on the throne ? Whats the agenda? Doesn’t the traveller show up in one of the pre chosen forms as the destructor? Whatever happened to that ? What are the rules for this?
Why do the OGs just casually try to cross the streams on Gozer ? In the first movie they did it to reverse the particle flow through the gate and therefore close it. Here they just want to blow everything up or what?
The whole Gozer Showdown situation comes off as too comical, too Real Ghostbusters like to me. In the first two movies the villain was always presented as a real threat to the guys and to the world. I did not have that feeling here at all.
To me the movie left a lot to be desired. I wanted to like it, I wanted to love it, I wanted it to be perfect. And it isn’t. I just wrote myself into a rant here, I am sad about me not being able to like the movie as much as I would have wanted to.
If anybody can explain at least some of these points away, I’d be very happy.
I don’t want to be that negative about everything.
On one hand I am totally happy that we got the movie and that it is not a bad movie. On the other hand I’m totally thrown off by the points I just mentioned.
I will give this another few viewings and hope that it will grow on me.
I was happy with the film. I was extremely surprised at how well the actors were for Phoebe and Podcast.
The prologue was badass as hell. The fact that they essentially made Egon the equivalent of a star wars force ghost worked better than I expected.
I agree that the movie felt pretty heavily edited, especially in the last act and I’d love there to be a directors cut set for a home release but even if not, I’m happy with where they’re taking the franchise. I hope it does well enough to continue the story.
GhostbustersZorge sums it up well.
I keep thinking back and it only raises more questions.
In a film this long, with so much cut, why did we even need the eviction scene at the beginning? It added nothing. Should’ve cut straight to the kids in the car.
I’m still very much gathering my thoughts so it’ll probably take some time before I can fully articulate them.
What I will say though, is that it’s a beautiful piece of filmmaking which moved me profoundly in ways I was not prepared for.
I saw it on Wednesday after we watched the first two films, and listened to the GBII soundtrack on the drive to the theater.
What a tremendous film! There were some very minor issues I had, but like all good films, they didn’t matter in the end because the acting carried the suspension of disbelief.
The only things I didn’t like were…
-The score was great by itself, but there were too many instances of literally carbon-copying the Bernstein score for the exact same beats. The Venkman piano theme and the trap-closing music would’ve been more than enough.
-there weren’t enough ghosts in general, especially during the ghost montage
-I’m assuming the idea for the post-credit scene came after filming was completed, because Ray said the firehouse was turned into a Starbucks.
-the lack of any real connectivity to GBII, while unnecessary, was annoying, considering they referenced a Kenner toy from 1987 and ran out of ways to reference the first film by the end. The first film is obviously very important, but it felt treated like it was severely underrated, which it’s not.
-The first 30 minutes or so felt super awkward, but I almost feel like it was intentional since they’re trying to re-establish a universe for the first time since 1989. I’ll need to re-watch it to re-assess how I feel.
-Finn Wolfhard was the weakest/least interesting character in this film. Maybe that’s a good thing for the “Stranger Things clone” clamoring people.
Overall it’s a really great film, and I can’t wait to watch it over and over again for free as an AMC employee.
That is so cool about the Gigameter. Did anyone see the toaster from GBII or hear the 60’s version of the theme song? I completely didn’t.
Ok, thank you that explains it.
Also i think i wrapped my head around the sentinel terror dog problem. There simply is no sentinel terror dog. What we saw in the beginning behind the chair and also what came out of the trap were simply the spiritual versions of Zuul and Vinz. From the toys i thought the sentinel terror dog was a new entity. Guess that made me missunderstand those scenes because they looked so different from their physical forms combined with the wrong knowledge about a “new” kind of terror dog.
The spoiler thread is locked, so I’ll post this here: promising start! 'Ghostbusters: Afterlife' Calls Up $4.5M On Thursday Night
There was a trailer breakdown with Jason Reitman and he said the Sentinel Terror Dog was the form that the Terror Dogs take just before they possess someone. So that whispy look we saw just before Zuul attacked Egon is a Sentinel Terror Dog. The whispy look of Vinz Clortho when he escapes the trap is a Sentinel Terror Dog. The only issues I have with this, are A) the Toy makes it seem like a whole new entity; and B) Why is this even necessary?
As for the HQ being a Starbucks - I think the post credits scene was an afterthought, and they didn’t have time to reshoot Aykroyd’s phone call with Phoebe. I think the easiest explanation is that the HQ was owned by Stantz and Starbucks bought the HQ from him. Winston, then turned around and bought the HQ from Starbucks. Ray was none the wiser, and maybe didn’t go to that section of town because the memories were too painful.
[quote=JonXCTrack post_id=4960509 time=1637339533 user_id=20770]…The only issues I have with this, are A) the Toy makes it seem like a whole new entity; and B) Why is this even necessary?..
[/quote]
Exactly this.
Curious on everyone’s thoughts on this - but now that we’ve seen Afterlife, and knowing what we know about “Alive Again” and the kind of sequel Ivan was really pushing for prior to 2016, do you think Afterlife was the way to go?
While it’s hard to compare a finished movie with something that only existed on paper, I found Phoebe and the overall family angle to be much more endearing than seeing a new group of 20/30 year old comedy stars subbing in for the OGs.