His corpse is referred to, but not found in the game. His skull however is a haunted collectible, and is found in the Central Park Cemetery.
[/quote]
This cna be solved saying this is not his “Real” Skull, just a Token or a Skull that has his course or essence so he cna still be attached to our world if he dies. Maybe thats the token that allows him to return from the gateway to his body and that’s why his body never ages.
Yeah…Haunted collectables are more of a trophy. Like some of them and where they’re found is purely gameplay as opposed to story. There’s a Ghostbuster DVD found in Shandor Castle so…
I mean as mentioned if people want the game to be in their head cannon they can, if not then there’s ways to do either.
He didn’t age because his body was dead, a presered corpse.
IDW did some thing similar in haunted America storyline wth Marie Laveau who was implied to be dead, yet walking around, appearing to be alive. Shandor however obviously needed gozer’s power to animate.
Crossposting this because it seems more relevant here:
Doesn’t Shandor Island alone mess with the canon of Afterlife? In the game, it’s owned by the Shandors for centuries until Ivo dies and it sinks in the river and disappears from this realm.
You would think he wanted to buried there instead of near the mine, as it descended right into the spirit world, and you know is his ancestral home in the videogame.
There are lots of ways you could explain away the Shandor inconsistencies if you wanted both TVG and Afterlife to be canon.
For me, some elements of TVG were essentially GB3 and I don’t feel Afterlife alone brings enough new, quality ideas to the table to supercede TVG. Future films may change that.
If they’d gone with a different villain then TVG could’ve remained canon - another downside of bringing Gozer back.
Maybe his followers disobeyed orders. Or maybe he wanted his body away from New York as a back up plan.
Oh, I am loving this topic. Okay everyone here is making some incredible points. From both sides ie those that say the game is not canon and those that believe that it is. Both have great evidence to back their points too. I am one the the people to consider the game to be canon.
The only way I can make it work in my head canon is to take liberties, because I can’t ignore what Kingpin brought up with Shandor’s skull. In order to make the game canon is that the skull actually belongs to one of Shandor’s followers and not really Ivo’s. I mean when they find the artifact they could be wrong about who’s skull it is.
As a matter of fact the Astec Death Whistle that Egon has in his place reminds me of the artifacts that you pick up in the game LOL!
Like someone else here said there is enough evidence on both sides where people could cherry pick off stuff to make the events of the game canon or not canon. For me there is that funny line in the game when the Ghostbusters are on Shandor Island Egon starts admiring the machinary on the island and Winston says, “Stay in the light Egon.” Then Egon says, “Trying Winston.” Funny line, but I can see Egon getting a little obsessed after the events of the game. After stopping Ivo Shandor and getting rid of what remained of the ghostly minions of the Gozarian Cult, I can even understand Ray not believing Egon. 
The exact quote I believe was “when the last Shandor living on the island died” then Ghost World claimed the island. So there’s confirmation the “last Shandor” was Ivo. There’s no mention of it being an ancestral home, just the Shandor family owned it for generations and in 1860, a castle was built on it, then Ivo mainly used it as a “refuge, lab, and temple for the Cult to worship Gozer.” To me, it sounded like the island was their Martha’s Vineyard.
I still say the Ghostbusters survived the 90s and went defunct sometime in the 2000s, although you can debate how early or how late, maybe 2008 is a bit late, I’m liking 2001 as the year to be honest.
The easiest way to explain this away is to just say it’s a forgery, it doesn’t even have a beard, so it could easily just be some random skull claimed to be the skull of Ivo, maybe to intentionally throw anyone off the trail of the real location of his body.
There’s a legend that the secret society Skull & Bones has the skull of Geronimo, but I believe the family of Geronimo says that’s not the case, so they probably have a skull that they claim is the skull of Geronimo, it’s easy to claim a skull is a skull of anyone unless someone is able to analyze dental records or whatever.
So Shandors skull is a forgery, that also happens to have spectral energy, which was miscategorized by mistake?
I find it just another hoop to jump through to connect the videogame to canon. And there are plenty of hoops now.
Occam’s razor feels fitting here, to be honest.
Just my fan fixing idea: Ivo Shandor was initially buried up North, but after the events of the video game, his remains were brought back to Summerville by members of the Gozerian Cult, and through dark rituals, he was restored albeit in a Semi-Corporeal, Zombified state, to be allowed to rise again if/when Gozer were to return. Gozer, remembering that Ivo took the Mandala power for himself promptly destroyed Ivo, and then set out to finish what it started in 1984.
The only question in my mind is why is there a mine all the way in Summerville when all of Ivo’s structures are in NYC? My guess is that Ivo did not build the temple in the mine. In my mind, the Gozerian Cult built it after Gozer was defeated in 1984. They harnessed the spectral energy from the sacrifices of the Shandor Mine Co. miners, hoping that it would open a gateway for Gozer to find its way back into our world.
Now that Ivo Shandor has been played by J.K. Simmons I can’t help but think of those labs as some alternate supernatural based Aperture Science.
People need to accept the game is no longer Canon, and no amount of mental gymnastics and far reaching theories is going to change that fact.
Don’t like it then don’t count it. If others do, great.
Shandors tomb says he died in 1945, in the Tobin Spirit Guide and most other works he dies in the 30’s but both birthdates were 1855. Was his skull found in NYC? Sure maybe…was there an actual Ghostbusters DVD found in Shandor Castle too?..They have a DVD of their life? I guess if your playing TRGB. Both are haunted artifacts, the game doesn’t need you to find them to tell the story however.
I like the idea that he faked a death in the 1930’s or one of his unnecessary surgery victims was swapped and that body was put in the NY tomb and his real body died a decade later and was taken to the temple in Summerville and hidden. He decayed but when the Summerville Temple became the next point Gozer could come from the spirits from that pit began to reanimate his body though Egon’s post packs stopped him from being fully awakened as the other spirits could not get free. Fun stuff to think on.
Since we see both the year “1983” as well as the word “subject” written on a note along with Callie’s photos, could we assume that she was one of Egon’s “experiments” and that there could be no partner/mother?
or maybe Egon’s epididymis line in GB2 wasn’t a throwaway joke…
In the next movie I kind of wish they’d bring Alyssa Milano back as her character from the video game. She’d be about the right age if her character was in her mid 20s in 91’. If was writing it I would have her be a historian with expertise in the paranormal, but she wouldn’t directly reference the events of the game. Winston or Ray would call her in to help research the current threat.
While I’ll say there’s ways to keep the game cannon though not officially I wouldn’t bet on Milano coming back as she is quite a bit younger then Bill and during a voice over game that’s not an issue, real life…kinda can be.
I don’t think they’d ever do it. But if they did bring her back I don’t think her age would be much of a problem. Milano would be about 50 years old and her character would be in her early 60s. Nothing some minor old age make couldn’t bridge. Keep in mind Alyssa Milano was 37 when she was voicing a 20 something.
Considering the only reason Milano was in it was because Weaver declined the game initially until she learned the original cast was in it and by then it was too late to redo things as Milano was contracted. I believe even in early scripts Dana was supposed to be the Shandor descendent. Part of why she had so many issues with the paranormal. She and Oscar were the last of the line. In the end I think the Milano story was better but I’m not thinking it’s likely they’ll bring her back.
I refuse to accept that because the game was the last time Harold Ramis played Egon and both Ramis and Aykroyd worked on the game’s script, it should absolutely be considered an important part of the canon.
It’s a shame Jason Reitman didn’t seem to see it that way, I assume he’s not a gamer, but there’s nothing a little imagination can’t fix to keep the game canon, I mean Shandor looks like he did in the game pretty much and Gozer killing him so unceremoniously does seem like a subtle reference to the game, so maybe Jason Reitman does consider it canon? It’d be cool if anyone brought this up in interviews.
