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Counterpoint: Venkman pushed Peck into action by being an rear end in a top hat to him, the Ghostbusters' technology is dangerously unregulated, and it's pretty obvious that having all of the psychokinetic energy in NYC concentrated in a single place made Gozer's job a lot easier.
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Jul 31, 2018 16:39
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Peck pretty much handled the situation as badly as possible though; both considering the Ghostbusters dangerous AND not taking them seriously led to him making the worst possible decision. Like, if these guys are frauds, why would they even bother screwing around with high-intensity, expensive technology when hallucinogenics and stage tricks will do? I agree with you completely - Peck is the worst type of rear end in a top hat bureaucrat through and through. My point is that you could see the scene going much differently if Ray or Egon is there to talk to him instead of Peter. Venkman is pretty much the worst possible person to deal with Peck, and Peck is the worst possible person to deal with Venkman. People who hold the movie up as a screed for unfettered free-market capitalism tend to gloss over what a poorly-run enterprise Ghostbusters is. They operate a skeleton crew despite the demand clearly calling for more manpower. They expose the public to dangerous, untested nuclear equipment. They store exceedingly hazardous materials in a heavily populated area. They're openly antagonistic toward regulatory bodies. They pay their employees garbage (the average salary in 1984 was $15k, but Winston quips about making "eleven-five a year"). Any competition at all would sink them. That's all fine - this is a comedy. Well-managed business plans and regulatory compliance are not funny. But it undercuts the idea that "Ghostbusters" should be read as a rallying cry for the free market.
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Aug 1, 2018 15:04
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The remake is okay, but it suffers from that loose, sloppy feeling that so many comedies have today. That wouldn't be as much of an issue if it wasn't a movie that depended so heavily on the concept and the special effects. So much of the comedy in Ghostbusters 2016 comes from situations that have almost nothing to do with the supernatural elements, which leads to the ghost stuff feeling tacked on. It's at odds with itself. That's not to mention that they had a ready-made peg to hang the whole movie on in the form of Wiig and McCarthy's relationship and they did nothing with it. Feig had a chance to make a movie with a real emotional core - setting it apart from the original - and he biffed it. It's why the pushback against the misogyny from him and the studio rang so hollow to me. Yeah, it's great that they made a big-budget, four-quadrant franchise movie centered around four women, but it was played so safe and by-the-numbers that there was no compelling reason for the movie to exist other than extending the brand.
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Aug 1, 2018 18:53
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OctoberCountry posted:Yeah but closer to the later seasons when Dave Coulier was voicing Venkman Complaining about cartoons is Peak Goon, I know, but the jump from Lorenzo Music's deadpan to Coulier just doing 75% Carl from "Caddyshack" was jarring.
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Aug 7, 2018 21:27
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Ghostbusters 2 works when you're a kid because it's pretty much still everything that appealed to kids about the first one, minus the stuff that makes the original a classic. You come for the special effects and Dan Ackroyd's mugging, but you stay for the writing and the character interactions. The sequel delivers on those first two things but phones it in when it comes to the other two.
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Dec 11, 2018 17:38
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ONE YEAR LATER posted:I really need to watch some long plays of the Ghostbusters game, apparently it's real good and essentially is what Ghostbuster 3 would have been if it was made in the early 90s? What I remember of the game was that it was fun in bursts, but overall kind of repetitive. The story also didn't do much for me, rehashing Gozer again. It has the same problem as the other two follow-ups to the original movie - it very much feels like "Well, I guess we need to make another one!"
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Dec 11, 2018 17:48
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The_Doctor posted:He requested that Winston get equal screen time because Ernie Hudson has typically got the shaft in the past, which is surprisingly decent of him. Allegedly a lot of Winston's lines in the original movie were only there because Murray insisted he be given something to say. Hudson has said that his character was trimmed down significantly between drafts because Columbia wanted more Murray in the picture, so maybe that was Murray's way of trying to make it up to him.
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Dec 13, 2018 22:08
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God drat it, I am buying Ghostbusters again. I distinctly remember that Oprah show and Aykroyd complaining that they made him "the fat one" on the cartoon.
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Apr 5, 2019 18:59
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Snowglobe of Doom posted:They've obviously gone back to the original version of the car for HYPER NOSTALGIA reasons but is there an in-universe reason they're using Ecto-1 and not Ecto-1A? The trend with franchise reboots is to pretend only the original movie happened.
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Dec 7, 2019 03:56
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I have to say I like the idea of Venkman being the kids’ father. Just lean into the idea of what a dirtbag he is.
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Dec 11, 2019 16:53
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Ghost Leviathan posted:The helicopter is Ecto-3! IMDb credits Ernie Hudson as “Dr. Winston Zeddmore.”
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Dec 12, 2019 15:11
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I distinctly remember seeing that Oprah GB2 special as a kid. She brings up the cartoon and Aykroyd immediately starts complaining about how they “made me the fat one.”
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Jan 20, 2020 15:48
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Winston is definitely too smart to let Louis Tully decide his fate.
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Jul 13, 2020 19:33
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“Some moron brought a cougar to a party and it went berserk” is low-key one of my favorite lines.
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Jul 24, 2020 17:53
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The_Doctor posted:All the loving scalper nerds snatched it up when they rereleased it for 2016, so no-one else got any. I managed to find some back then and used it to create a cocktail I called the Total Protonic Reversal. Then my wife said all I had done was invent a cosmo that used Hi-C instead of cranberry juice lol.
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Jan 21, 2021 22:39
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Iron Crowned posted:As evidenced by the fact that they watch Ghostbusters in the theater, The Real Ghostbusters was the story of the real Ghostbusters. The movie Ghostbusters is therefore a cinematic adaptation of their high profile fight against Zuul. I always appreciated that Venkman said “That guy doesn’t look anything like me.”
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Apr 8, 2021 14:30
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TL posted:One of my favorite gags in GB1 is Venkman telling the mayor how, if he's right, he'll have saved the lives of millions of registered voters, and the mayor looks over to the Cardinal, who gives him a knowing smirk/nod. It's one of many bits I never picked up on as a kid but now I laugh every time I see it. It’s interesting to me just how much the movie is driven by Venkman’s need to hustle people. Practically every plot point is a direct result of Venkman trying to get one over on someone. The one guy who takes nothing seriously is the driving force of everything that happens.
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Aug 6, 2021 20:29
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TL posted:That's a very good point I've never really thought of. There's really no reason for Venkman to be such a dick to Peck when he first appears, but Venkman has to be Venkman. Venkman sees an opportunity to turn the tables on a Dean Yeager type with the tiny scrap of authority he has.
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Aug 7, 2021 00:12
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Egon notes while they’re looking at the firehouse that it’s “totally inadequate for our power needs.” But at least the pole still worked.
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Aug 8, 2021 21:37
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Tom Guycot posted:I always thought that was Egon and Peter just trying to get the price down from the real estate agent before Ray comes and blows it all by going off on how great and awesome it is. Oh, that makes a lot of sense, yeah.
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Aug 9, 2021 00:16
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Au Revoir Shosanna posted:I'd watch Rian Johnson's The Last Ghostbuster. Dan Aykroyd guzzling a thermos full of ectoplasm straight from Slimer's teat.
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Oct 15, 2021 14:54
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I just saw Afterlife, and aside from the fact that it didn’t need to exist, the only gripe I had was about how it says Egon ended up where he was. You’re telling me Egon found out the apocalypse was coming and RAY refused to believe him? Ray believed he saw a sponge migrating!
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Feb 23, 2022 20:53
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Basebf555 posted:Yea that one was noticed by a lot of fans. The main three guys are such well defined characters(sorry Winston) that fans are definitely gonna notice when you build your movie around a premise that doesn't fit at all with the characters as we have known them up to this point. I had a feeling there was some griping about that in the last 50+ pages of the thread, just wanted to get it off my chest. Also Egon’s first impulse is to…panic and move to Oklahoma in the middle of the night? What made this apocalypse worse than the one he’d already stopped in 1984? The one that involved the exact same Sumerian deity? There was never any attempt to explain why this time was supposed to be that much worse.
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Feb 23, 2022 21:16
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Basebf555 posted:I think they explain it as Egon just couldn't get through to the guys and he knew he needed the equipment so he just took it and left. Also Egon saw the writing on the walls of the temple that showed the year of Gozer's next return, so he was preparing for that and he thought he had a plan to put Gozer away for good so I guess that's why he became obsessed with it. This makes me picture Egon attempting to use different Hostess products to make his case and failing because the others only see things in terms of Twinkies.
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Feb 23, 2022 21:46
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Neo Rasa posted:It was so weird because they could have just had it been that Egon tells them what's up, Ray of course believes him. So it sucks but they agree that Egon needs to move to Oklahoma with some gear to do his thing while Ray stays in NYC in case any activity starts with the Gozer building there again while Egon is messing with this stuff. It honestly felt like “Egon Spengler can rot in hell” was a line from a much earlier draft where the breakup of the Ghostbusters was a bigger part of the story. Because Ray pretty much does a 180 on Egon in the span of that phone call after 30-plus years of hating his guts. You could see the seams between an earlier “getting the band back together” GB3 script and the “next generation” one that was filmed.
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Feb 24, 2022 05:53
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Malcolm Excellent posted:Ray didn't believe Egon because Egon didn't give a poo poo about Ray being triple bankrupted on the firehouse, losing his childhood farm, losing the business they started together. Egon was half-expecting Ray to explode when he turned on his proton pack and said nothing! But Ray was also really excited about that pole, so it’s a wash. Ray just never struck me as someone who was even capable of holding a grudge. “Hey, Dean Yeager!” That guy clearly hated all three of them and Ray’s still happy to see him.
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Feb 24, 2022 15:46
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Basebf555 posted:I don't quite understand why Aykroyd(and probably Hudson too considering he seems ready to be in a sequel) wasn't written into the script as a more consistent presence where you could give him a few meatier scenes to explain what happened with Egon and also to get to know the new characters. Like, clearly the guy loves Ghostbusters and loves being connected to it and seeing it continue on, why was he not incorporated into the movie a lot more? Sure it's fun to see Peter, Ray, and Winston show up all at the same time as a team but would that moment somehow be ruined if Ray was more featured? We all understand that Murray doesn't want to be there, but Aykroyd does so why do we have to treat them all the same and give them all the same trite 2 minute cameo? I really think they were hedging their bets that the original cast would be involved in it at all. Keeping their parts small means it would be really easy to just cut them from the script if they backed out. By most accounts, Murray single-handedly prevented Ghostbusters 3 from happening for nearly three decades, so it wouldn't be unreasonable to have a backup plan. See also: Weaver's weird superfluous appearance in the stinger. But then again, the sequel hook is built entirely around the original cast and the original settings. Once Gozer is beaten, there's nothing about what's next for the Spengler family, Paul Rudd, "Podcast," etc. It's like they were there for no other reason than to put all the old pieces back on the board. Which, I guess, was probably the point all along.
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Feb 24, 2022 17:31
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Basebf555 posted:I get all that for everyone except for Aykroyd. I find it hard to believe Aykroyd wouldn't jump at the chance to have a more prominent role in a new Ghostbusters, regardless of whether the others where involved or not. This is all worthless speculation on my part, but it may not have been up to the cast - the producers may have wanted an "all or nothing" approach to the original cast and Murray is famously difficult to corral if your name's not Wes Anderson. They might have seen Murray as the linchpin to the whole thing and wanted a failsafe if he wouldn't commit. Or the cameos from the original cast were never anything more than fanservice and they were shoehorned into the story as lazily as possible! Again, worthless speculation, but what isn't is that it could have been handled better.
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Feb 24, 2022 18:30
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WonkyBob posted:Such a shame that they can't grasp the fact that those comedians, with that script, in a New York that was still kind of scummy are what made it such a good film and not just the ghosts... The sheer number of things that had to converge for the original to turn out as good as it did is kind of staggering. The fact that the exact same people working together again just five years later couldn't recreate it should have made that clear. The recipe was so specific that deviating from it in any way just takes all the flavor out of it. They'll keep trying, of course, but there's no way they ever succeed on that level ever again.
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Feb 25, 2022 17:08
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WonkyBob posted:For all of its faults, GB2 has Egons "Let's see what happens when we take away the puppy" line and I just cant hate it due to that. The only time GB2 captures the same feeling of the first one for me is when they're digging for the slime river. "YOU TELL HIM TO STOP DIGGING?" Also the way Ray pronounces "diaper bag." And, of course: "YO."
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Mar 1, 2022 16:00
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Alan_Shore posted:How about if they made a Ghostbusters movie where the main characters of Ghostbusters were the main characters? A Ghostbusters movie where every scene features one of the Ghostbusters saying something offscreen and getting the big surprise nostalgic cameo reveal where the camera lingers on them and the Elmer Bernstein score is reprised. This happens every single time one of the Ghostbusters is in a scene even though they are the main characters and the movie is six hours long as a result.
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Apr 26, 2022 20:04
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Disco Pope posted:I can't think of a film where Bill Murray hasn't just played Bill Murray at that stage of his life. Garfield maybe? Ed Wood. Venkman’s characterization fits right into the whole “slobs vs. snobs” style of comedy that “Animal House” made popular. The heroes being obnoxious and irresponsible was expected at that time.
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May 9, 2022 15:15
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Alan_Shore posted:It's a great experience to watch Ghostbusters and only pay attention to Egon. He's hilarious and wonderful and Harold Ramis is truly missed Having only seen the 4:3 pan-and-scan TV/VHS version of the movie for years, finding out Egon was indicating to Venkman how much to charge at the Sedgewick was a revelation.
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Jun 8, 2023 01:30
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It's hilarious that Murray was allegedly the sticking point in getting Ghostbusters 3 made for decades and now he's just...there.
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Nov 8, 2023 18:41
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Timby posted:"Egon Spengler can burn in hell" is the moment I finally turned on Afterlife; there is no way Ray Stantz would say that. Especially after the follow-up exposition scene in which Ray just says that Egon got paranoid and eventually took the equipment and hosed off to Oklahoma because he had found something big. I didn't hate Afterlife that much, but I had the same reaction to that moment. For a movie to be so overly reverent to the original in so many superficial ways but cock up the characters that much really felt bad. Do anything else with that scene. Have Ray say no one knows where Egon went, have him say Egon went insane Lovecraft-style, have him say Egon told everyone else to leave him alone, just don't have Ray the human Golden Retriever say he hopes Egon is burning in hell. It's "Leia ignores Chewbacca after Han dies" levels of not getting the characters.
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Nov 10, 2023 18:22
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ImpAtom posted:Hey, anything that gives us more Winston is fine by me. Ironically the legend goes that if it wasn’t for Murray, Hudson would have been given hardly any lines in the original.
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Nov 17, 2023 01:43
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The alternative is Venkman whalloping Dana with a clown hammer or dropping a bowling ball on her head Fred Flintstone-style, so Thorazine is probably more elegant and efficient from a storytelling perspective.
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Nov 28, 2023 23:08
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Alan_Shore posted:I'm begging people once again to not take the worn out SMG bait Venkman would have been a dick to anyone with a badge. It’s part of the “Animal House” DNA the movie shares. Now, if Peck had talked to Ray, he would have walked away thinking they were harmless loons. If Peck had talked to Egon, he would have walked away confused.
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Nov 28, 2023 23:57
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ruddiger posted:Did Carl Winslow shoot a kid pre or post ghostbusters? Slimer was the kid Sgt. Powell shot before he moved to LA.
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Nov 29, 2023 17:42
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If Peck showed up a week later Winston probably would have pointed out some specific OSHA/EPA violations while complaining about his salary.
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Nov 29, 2023 17:53
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