It’s Bustin’ Time! The highly anticipated first look at Ghostbusters: Afterlife has premiered, and the third film in the Ghostbusters trilogy looks to honor the past two films while taking the franchise into the future. The official trailer shows Egon Spengler’s (Harold Ramis) kin visiting an old farm house, loaded with all sorts of gear and paraphernalia from his Ghostbustin’ days. When strange things begin happening in the area, his grand daughter appears to take up his mantle along with his proton pack. With help from her other teenage friends, it looks like a new generation of Ghostbusters has been born!
Most fans were excited to see the Ecto-1 back in action, along with all the references to Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II. There were other fans that felt the film was a blatant rip-off of Stranger Things, and didn’t have the same “feel” as the other films in the franchise.
WHY WE NEED IT: THE OTHER REBOOT FAILED
For a variety of reasons, the 2016 reboot of the franchise didn’t sit well with Ghostbusters fans. Whether they didn’t approve of the new all-female team, the writing, or the plot, it failed miserably at the box office and divided the fanbase to such an extent many ignore that it happened to this day.
After the 2016 film, fans wondered what would happen to the franchise as a whole. Ghostbuster Dan Aykroyd had been working on a script for a third film for years, but it always seemed to be a figment of the spirit realm. His involvement means success for the franchise in many fans’ opinion.
WHY WE DON’T: IT’S A RIP OFF OF STRANGER THINGS
The Official Ghostbusters: Afterlife trailer doesn’t reveal very much about the plot, but it does show something wrong in the neighborhood of several curious teens. One of those teens just happens to be Finn Wolfhard, aka Mike from Stranger Things, a series about teens investigating supernatural occurrences in their small town, just like the young leads in the Afterlife.
We don’t see any members of the original cast in the trailer, except in a few video clips. It’s been confirmed they’re in the film, but fans are concerned that the kids will take up the majority of the screen time, and the OG Ghostbusters won’t come in for Bustin Time until the very end.
WHY WE NEED IT: IT HAS THE ORIGINAL CAST
The trailer may not have shown the OG Ghostbusters, but the cast list for Ghostbusters: Afterlife includes Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and Ernie Hudson, so we know they’re putting on their proton packs at some point. Unfortunately, the late great Harold Ramis, who also wrote the first films, won’t be among them.
Dan Aykroyd has tried to get a third Ghostbusters film made for 2 decades now, but after a number of script and production company changes, it never seemed like the right time. Fans have been waiting to see the original cast back together for decades, so this will be a treat for the fandom.
WHY WE DON’T: IT’S A SHAMELESS MONEY GRAB
Without a doubt, we are living in the era of reboots and remakes. Popular franchises are being milked for all they’re worth, even when each new entry sees diminishing returns. The Alien and the Terminator franchises, both popular in the ’80s and contemporaries of Ghostbusters have suffered in the last decade with several lackluster contributions.
It will be a shame if Ghostbusters: Afterlife exists for no other reason than to make producers profits. It’s a beloved franchise with a devoted fanbase who have patiently kept up with it even if its only iterations have been in the form of video games, comic books, and animated cartoons.
WHY WE NEED IT: IT TIES INTO EVERY CORNER OF THE FRANCHISE
Even mega-fans may not have caught all the Easter Eggs in the new Ghostbusters: Afterlife trailer, but they’re there if you’re familiar with various parts of the franchise. For instance, there’s a brief visual of the sign for Shandor Mining Company, which is a reference to Ivo Shandor, briefly mentioned in the first film, but made the Big Bad of Ghostbusters: The Video Game.
Shandor was not only the leader of the Cult of Gozer, but the architect behind 550 Central Park West. He used selenium and other materials to build the same telemetry trackers used by NASA to “identify dead pulsars in deep space” and bring his god to Earth.
WHY WE DON’T: IT DOESN’T LOOK LIKE GHOSTBUSTERS
For many fans, the fact that the film doesn’t take place in the Big Apple is almost sacrilegious. It doesn’t have the look and feel of a Ghostbusters film if it’s set out in the wheat fields of a flyover state. That being said, it also doesn’t have the look or feel of a Ghostbusters film because it’s being released in 2019.
There’s a real concern that it will look too “new” and shiny next to the originals, and there are fans hoping for a combination of CGI wizardry and puppetry to marry the visual effects of the older films. If everything is too cosmetically slick, it runs the risk of appearing like the Star Wars Prequels alongside the Original Trilogy.
WHY WE NEED IT: IT COMPLETES THE TRILOGY
Ignoring the 2016 reboot in its entirety, that would mean the last canon Ghostbusters film came out in 1989. Seeing as how it’s been 20 years since Ghostbusters II, it’s about time a worthy capstone for the trilogy was made. It would have been even better if Harold Ramis was still alive for this installment, but by the looks of it, Egon’s kin are going to carry on in his place.
We’re just glad that the film is coming out before the original cast got too old to effectively play their characters, and were able to still crack wise with their usual spunky energy. It may not be the perfect third act, but the fact that it happened at all after dwelling in production purgatory is enough for us, by Gozer.
WHY WE DON’T: IT COMES OFF LIKE A DRAMA
While watching the new trailer, fans seemed to be divided into two camps; either they felt the lean towards a dramatic retelling was evocative of early Spielberg films, or they felt like the humorous tone of the original films would have been a better match.
The trailer doesn’t have a lot of jokes in it, but to watch the trailers for the original films, you’d hardly guess they were going to be as hilarious as they are. But the fact remains that Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II were adult comedies, and fans simply want to make sure the appropriate type of humor is included in the latest chapter.
WHY WE NEED IT: TO CARRY ON THE FRANCHISE
What happens when any franchise gets long in the tooth, and the original cast gets too old to play their parts? They pass the torch. Hopefully this is done with respect and dignity (we’re side-eyeing you, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull), allowing younger lead actors to carry on the traditions of the original storytelling.
The trailer for Ghostbusters: Afterlife shows several promising ways the torch is going to be passed; the presence of Paul Rudd, as likable a cast member as any of the original Ghostbusters in their heyday, and the grand daughter of Egon Spengler, who seems to have a deep fascination with spores, organizing, and ghost traps.
WHY WE DON’T: IT RETCONS TOO MUCH GHOSTBUSTERS LORE
As Paul Rudd’s character firmly states in the trailer, there “hasn’t been a ghost sighting in 30 years”. This means that the Ghostbusters haven’t been active in all that time, which not only removes the 2016 film from canon, but also removes much of the Expanded Universe lore, including comic storylines, animated series, and video games.
Apparently it wants to treat the Ghostbusters crew as legendary figures, with their historic deeds captured on grainy video from the ’80s. But wouldn’t Egon’s grand daughter be able to look up everything about them? And why would there be no other supernatural activity for three decades?
