Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire News Thread (Potential Afterlife Spoilers)

Ghostbusters Discussion Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024)
21

I think the idea of a possesed William Atherton would be the more ideal villain. Even more perfect if he’s running a succesful Ghost busting business after making a career of trying to shut them down. Yes, it’s going into the well again but it isn’t bringing actors back from the dead. (Vigo.)

Or just have him be his usual Peckish self without being possessed and maybe throw in the Ghostmaster being the one pulling his strings.

You could have two teams dealing with their own ghosts and the Jr’s dealing with their own investigations. If the Ghostsmasher boss is being possessed they would have to realize their equipment hasn’t been working and the ghosts have been playing them. They have to put aside their problems with Ghostbusters to stop the new big bad.

22

Lets think logically about this.

The last one was called Afterlife.

It dealt with the death of the real Ghostbuster Egon Spengler and was about his family, Phoebe, etc. It was a Spengler story.

No Spengler based story can be as good as Afterlife. It was the most beautiful tribute to Egon we could have had. That can’t be improved.

They should let the Spengler story rest. We’ve had the best version of that we could have.

What we DID NOT have was a proper OG Ghostbusters team story. What happened to Stantz, Zeddemore, and Venkman. They just sort of showed up in Afterlife.

We really need that story.

Team Phoebe up with Oscar, or something. We really need the “what happened to the OG Ghostbusters” story.

1 Like
23

Maybe Vigo still has some kind of strange sway or hold over Oscar from their close contact…would be interesting way to bring Oscar back into the story.

1 Like
24

Except we were told what happened. Egon got scary, no one believed him, he drove off with Ecto-1, his proton pack, and every trap they had. Peter went into teaching advertising, Winston started his own company, and Ray went back to his bookstore. That doesn’t sound too compelling for a movie called “Ghostbusters” and I don’t think having a CGI Egon for a full movie will fly.

25

Careful, the word Oscar is a trigger around these parts. I kid, I kid.

We don’t need a full movie covering the gap between Ghostbusters II, the video game, and Afterlife. I’m sure at some point IDW will aproach this or not. Lets close the CGI Egon for good. If he has to return I don’t mind him possessing objects or electronics like he had before.

If he comes back to warn Phoebe of something, or a ghost like the Boogieman uses his likeness to take advantage of her I could see that being used in small doses to move a story. There has to be a reason to bring Egon back again, not just to have an OG.

26

All that stuff could have happened months before afterlife or in 1993. If we assume it’s recent, they could go anywhere with GB4.

It’s hard to believe people want a Ghostbusters 4 with just Phoebe, Trevor and Lucky and not what happened to the original Ghostbusters.

27

The OG’s are done. Jason isn’t going to go into that well again when it could be in animated form, or done by IDW. The only OG’s we will get for certain are either Dan, or Ernie and that’s not a hundred percent guranteed.

Most of us would love to see a whole movie centered around the original cast but it’s just not in the cards. They are more then senior citizens now. They won’t be bustin a move, they’ll be bustin a hip if you get my meaning. Ernie seems to be the only OG that’s in good shape for his age.

(Again i’m not saying anything bad about the OG’s, it’s just a fact of life.)

Jason passed the torch without killing anyone off and litteraly brought back the dead. I’m glad we have them as support for the new cast.

1 Like
28

[quote=timeware post_id=4962084 time=1638239559 user_id=5230] The OG’s are done. Jason isn’t going to go into that well again when it could be in animated form, or done by IDW. The only OG’s we will get for certain are either Dan, or Ernie and that’s not a hundred percent guranteed.

Most of us would love to see a whole movie centered around the original cast but it’s just not in the cards. They are more then senior citizens now. They won’t be bustin a move, they’ll be bustin a hip if you get my meaning. Ernie seems to be the only OG that’s in good shape for his age.

(Again i’m not saying anything bad about the OG’s, it’s just a fact of life.)

Jason passed the torch without killing anyone off and litteraly brought back the dead. I’m glad we have them as support for the new cast.

[/quote]

I have to agree. Afterlife may not be perfect in some ways, but it really brought closure for the OGB’s; especially for Egon along with a proper send off for both the character and the late Harold. Now that the OGB arcs have ended and that the torch has been passed, it’s time to begin a new chapter for the franchise in this new era and make the best of what we got from Afterlife.

29

I dont believe the OGs are done for good. With the deals that seem to be brewing right now..you need the iconic faces to be there.

If winston is re-opening the firehouse. At least him and Ray need to be around to guide the next staff.

That ending was a beautiful cap off though..its hard to imagine how to top that or even build off from it.

30

Murray has to be done now, surely. It was a perfect final scene for him; a funny call back to his very first scene. Y’know, he’s with Dana, he’s back in Academia slouching along, he’s learned some lessons it appears - the character line for Venkman is finished. Ray and Winston make sense being around, but I think we should all finally let Bill Murray off the hook and let him never have to worry about Ghostbusters again. Everyone wins!

EDIT 26/06/23: Well, this aged well!

31

I’m sure Jason did the best anyone could with their limited availability, but let’s move past the OGB’s and focus on world-building with new characters.

32

Perhaps not done for good entirely, but they would more likely become deuteragonists for the next generation.

This makes sense; especially with the remaining retired OGB’s (Ray and Winston) as deuteragonists; they would be positioned in mentorship roles like with Egon in EGB.

33

I’d like to see Janosz dealing with PTSD after his encounter with Vigo.

He has visions of the tirant giving him order from every paint he sees.

He tries to get rid of him with black magic thus opening a portal to something nastier.

Janosz finally goes to the Ghostbusters for help.

The final act is something epic: an army of demons taking over New York, and a really large team of Ghostbusters dealing with the problem from various points of the city.

34

“Now this is where the fun begins.”

35

I may be in the minority here, but I really don’t want another movie, at least, not in short order.

We waited from 1989 to 2009 to get Ghostbusters: The Video Game, which was a great spiritual successor to the original movies, and even included references to The Real Ghostbusters, Extreme Ghostbusters, and even the Return of the Ghostbusters fan movie.

We waited seven more years to get Ghostbusters: Answer the Call, which received mixed reviews at best, and generally speaking, was not well-received and stirred up way more controversy than it deserved.

We get to 2020/2021 and get Ghostbusters: Afterlife, which is clearly both a love letter to fans and brings a unique take on the original GB universe. It isn’t a perfect movie, but damn it, it pressed all the right buttons at all the right times. I will go so far as to say I like it better than GB 2, just because it isn’t a complete cookie-cutter rehash. Yes, Gozer and the terror dogs are there so some elements remain the same, but it is not a point-for-point copy of the first movie like GB 2 was.

What is the point that I am driving at here? It took 20 years to go from GB 2 to the video game. Pretending that 2016 didn’t happen, it took another 11-12 years to get a decent Ghostbusters film in theaters. Even that only happened in part because Harold Ramis died and became the lynchpin of the emotional underpinnings of the movie.

Do we really want Sony to see the success in this movie and then attempt to re-hash another story? Yes, we as fans have plenty of ideas where the franchise could go, possibly in a successful way. However, we are talking about the Sony Hollywood Machine.

My greatest fear is that Ghostbusters will just become another Jurassic World or Star Wars trilogy. What I don’t want to see is another Ghostbusters 2016, or if I am being honest, even another Ghostbusters 2.

Instead of a movie, do you know what might be a cool idea? What about something like a live-action version of The Real Ghostbusters/Extreme Ghostbusters? The Mandalorian proved that technology can be used to achieve some amazing things with live-action and visual effects. Arguably some of the best Ghostbusters villains are part of the cartoon universe. Samhein, the Boogy Man, and heck considering we are moving forward in time we could add tropes like The Slender Man and things like that. Make them one-hour episodic things on Netflix or another streaming service. Winston runs the company and works with the newer recruits, Ray and Venkman show up every now and then, and Janine returns as a hard-nosed but also the occasional voice of reason and concern character. After all, she is a bit older so, probably mellowed out a little. Maybe Slimer comes back, but wouldn’t be a central figure like the cartoon series. More like a pet, which occasionally trips up a baddie when he comes on missions.

In my opinion that would be a much better bet than trying to do another movie, just because there is so much more material, and if done right, there can be enough continuity between episodes for character growth and build-ups to occasional bigger battles. There would also be a gradual evolution in the available Ghostbusting equipment, etc.

36

A sequel that I’d like to see would be something like Dan’s original script, it took place in the future and being a Ghostbuster was a normal job, they travelled through dimensions and the ghosts looked creepier, they changed the script because it would’ve been hard to make but they could do that with better special effects right now. When they changed the script of the first movie it was supposed to be the story of how that business started, it could be a TV show like Real or Extreme Ghostbusters but in live action.

37

I think they were trying to do that with Ecto Force, that cartoon based off of Answer the Call where an aged Holtzmann was in charge of things… the president was ACTUALLY a plant… the whole concept was… bad.

38

After watching a bunch of the Marvel series like Falcon and Winter Soldier, Loki, and now Hawkeye I would love a mini series. The Marvel series I have mentioned includes characters I am not too fond of but the stories have been very interesting.

A mini series gives them time to flesh out the characters and who doesn’t want more than 2 hours of Ghostbusters.

39

I think that’s my preferred outcome as well. Afterlife’s modest success will no doubt impact what any future projects might look like. For instance while I like the Ecto returning to the firehouse under Winston’s care, I can’t see Sony spending the money on a big sequel set in the city with lots of effects work.

Perhaps a smaller series would work, they could technically set it in the city but have a bigger focus on dialogue, indoor scenes, more comedy, etc.. Or something set in Summerville with Phoebe and Podcast developing their own tech with Winston’s funding? I’m excited by the possibilities, but I don’t think there’s any going back to the scale of the first two movies. And I’d be happy to leave the movies as a trilogy.

41

I’d love to see the X-Files formula applied to a Ghostbusters TV series: overarching mystery, monster of the week, the occasional goofy episode. Do one season a year. Make a movie every 3 years. Plenty of story-telling time to follow the Zeddemore corporation, aka Ghostbusters International. Make the Vigo story a double episode. This is the golden age of high-end, big budget TV series. Let Ghostbusters have its share.