#Ghostbusters sequel

[captaingimpy]

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire: A Worthy Successor that Captures the Spirit of the Original

“Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” carries the legacy of the Ghostbusters franchise forward with confidence and flair. As someone who enjoyed “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” but had mixed feelings about where the story might go next, I approached this sequel with a blend of excitement and skepticism. I’m happy to say that “Frozen Empire” not only met but surpassed my expectations in many ways. The film…

[ollierachnid]

you should draw Ray and Winston... if you want.

I feel like no one ever acknowledges their dynamic but the scene where it's them in the ecto-1 talking about the end of days is one of the best in the movie. They're so cool.

I loveeee these two, they're so fun to me! The conversation in the car is such a good little insight into their connection.., plus the start of GB2 indicating they're sticking it out together for the business after Peter & Egon have branched off is so sweet (the bday party sceneeee). I need more about them.. thank you for the request!

[qi-mera]

When a series has amazing potential but wastes every great storytelling opportunity it makes me want to bite and kill

[courtneysmovieblog]

My top 10 favorite movies of 2024

1. Wicked

2. Deadpool and Wolverine

3. Inside Out 2

4. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

5. Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story

6. IF

7. Challengers

8. Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F

9. The Idea of You

10. Jim Henson: Idea Man

[acmeoop]

Slimer “Spud” Designs “Ghostbusters II” (1989)

[dutchessofcaladan]

Ghostbusters: Soul Resurgence

Chapters 1-8

Epilogue! This will lead to my next fic Ghostbusters: The Curse of Koza'Rai which I hope to begin writing soon! As always, I hope you guys enjoy and a big thank you to @phantomoftheparadise0002 for beta-reading this!

Ray sat in the study, examining a new book that had recently come in, struggling slightly with translating it.

Flipping a few pages on, his eyes darted to a picture of a man who looked as if he was screaming, not in fear, but in anger, reaching out to whoever looked upon his picture.

Upon further inspection, he noticed the faint image of apparitions in the background. Running his fingers over the picture, his gaze landed on the name.

“Koza'Rai.” He muttered.

“Ray?!” Alex called from down the hall. “You ready?! Callie said the reservation was for 8!”

“Yeah! I, I'll be there in a minute!” He stuttered, shutting the book.

As the door shut, muffling the rest of their conversation, a wind began to blow through the study.

Blowing the book open the the page containing Koza'Rai, a hand began to stretch out from the book, soon followed by a face.

[velvetjune]

Spoilers for the Lake House DLC trailer (alan wake 2). I am! so! excited! Something I’ve loved about the Alan Wake games is its portrayal of different art forms and how they impact real life through the dark place, and the artists’ mindset. Cant wait to see how this expansion will include paintings, especially after how striking the paintings were in the first game from a patient at Hartman’s facility. All the blood and bodies in the hallway with the blue paint mixed in. chefs kiss. that’s art

[pitch-and-moan]

Stripes: Answer the Call

A reboot of the Bill Murray comedy with a gender-swapped cast.

[swsequelsalt]

The risk/reward of just ignoring one sequel's mistakes in the next one

Ghostbusters Afterlife —

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire —

I've previously written on this blog about the unfortunate legacy of The Force Awakens and how its massive success paved the way for a veritable buttload of legacy sequels that made similar mistakes.

One example I cited was Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Among the things I hated there was the declaration that no ghosts had shown up anywhere for approximately 30 years, effectively negating any EU lore or personal imaginings of interim adventures. Instead, we're made to believe that ghosts ONLY appear when an apocalyptic threat is making them emerge.

This year's direct sequel, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, just completely ignores all that. Ghosts can appear anywhere and any time regardless of whether a major threat is coming to somehow spawn them. In fact, we even see the library ghost from the opening of the original 1984 Ghostbusters has apparently just been floating around freely EVER SINCE THEN. She's just stayed in the New York Public Library the whole friggin' time! (Which is kind of ridiculous all by itself, but whatever.)

So that's certainly ONE way to deal with dumb/bad ideas introduced in legacy sequels; just kind of pretend the idea was wrong or that you never said it, and don't bother explaining yourself when you show the opposite to be true. :P I... kind of love that??? But I feel like I probably shouldn't, because they should probably have to justify why they claimed that stuff in the first place.

But can you imagine if the Star Wars sequels pulled this kind of thing?

The Rise of Skywalker certainly does take pains to undo some of The Last Jedi, but it also feels the need to acknowledge what that movie said and did. Like "Oh Rey — it IS true that your parents were nobodies, but your grandpa is still somebody." Imagine instead if The Rise of Skywalker had just treated it like "OF COURSE Luke never thought the Jedi were a mistake, and of course he didn't run away to die! He was on that planet to build a new Jedi Academy, silly! Didn't you notice?" And then they just never explained the discrepancy.

I think I might've loved that, LOL. But like I said... I probably shouldn't. :P

[domonicriley]

Using Nostalgia and Self-Reference in Movies

Watching any recent sequel to a legacy franchise can feel like you’re playing nostalgia bongo, with the amount of references and callbacks to previous moments from the franchise’s history. Think the mini Stay Puft marshmallow men in Ghostbusters: Afterlife and Frozen Empire, or the reuse of famous quotes in Alien: Romulus, not to mention the fact that Star Wars is now just a big Easter egg hunt that only references itself. But why are they like this?

Well, for a start, it’s partly to do with the way Hollywood likes to play things nowadays. In the past, they would take risks on untested new ideas, allowing talented creators to make some pretty amazing movies. They weren’t always successful, but they managed to find a balance between profit and artistic integrity. Now, they are far more risk-averse. Looking at a release slate for 2024 movies earlier this year, it was nothing but sequels, prequels, and spin-offs: Gladiator II, Deadpool & Wolverine, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, Godzilla X Kong. Barely a single original idea was given a real shot.

In contrast, the list of movies released forty years ago, in 1984, was a very different picture. Popular franchises like Terminator, Ghostbusters, and The Karate Kid got their first start in this year, and are still going (for better or worse) four decades later. Has there been a breakout franchise in 2024 that will still be able to boast this? I doubt it.

This reliance on established franchises can be looked at two ways. Cinema doesn’t hold the appeal it once did. Home entertainment’s improved, and the choice of what to watch has expanded, with competition from streaming services, while studios continue to hurt themselves by throwing movies onto their own streaming platforms instead of giving them theatrical releases, or pulling them from cinemas early if they underperform. Why go to the trouble of visiting the cinema when there’s so much on offer in the comfort of your own home?

Then there’s the fact that sequels are a safer bet than starting out with a completely new and original idea, especially as the budgets for large moves have gotten out of control. No one’s willing to risk $200 million on the next Star Wars.

Having a pre-established fanbase ready and waiting to watch your movie is less of a risk than having to get people excited about something new. The problem is that this stops anything fresh coming to the fore and really taking people by surprise. This is further confounded by the way studios approach movie making now, with executives and producers taking a bigger hand in what gets made and how it gets made, stifling creative freedom and leaving little room for the next generation of filmmakers with the same vision as Steven Spielberg and George Lucas.

Hoping to minimize risk, the studio just rolls out another entry from a legacy franchise, but this is not a certain win. Fandoms are quite forgiving, but in the past ten years or so, many have fallen out with the studios that control their favourite franchises, as many poor-quality reboots and sequels have taken apart the things they love. Look at the way Luke Skywalker is treated in The Last Jedi, or Tolkien’s world in The Rings of Power. Such bad faith entries have turned fans away, and made them suspicious of certain studios who want to keep making more out of these IPs.

One response to this by the studios is to try and reach out to fans with movies and TV shows that are as inoffensive as possible. These often lack much originality, relying on established characters, callbacks, and the power of nostalgia to make their audiences happy. Not only are they a symbol of a studio that’s messed up, but also of a franchise that’s running out of ideas. There are two recent movies that can illustrate this for me.

The first is Ghostbusters: Afterlife, released in 2021. The movie is as easy on its audience as possible. It came out a few years after the mess of Ghostbusters 3, which had been a disaster when it came out, almost destroying the franchise. Off the back of this, Sony, decided to take it easy with the next movie in an attempt to win back fans, taking no creative risks, and treating the original characters with respect, especially the death of Harold Ramis who played Egon Spengler.

I liked Afterlife for what it is, but what it is is a nostalgia-heavy film with so many references to the first two movies. What’s more, its sequel, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, continues this trend, failing to cut its own path, and relying entirely upon the fact that it was a Ghostbusters movie to get people watching, rather than also being an entertaining movie in its own right.

The second movie is 2022’s Jurassic World: Dominion. After a hugely successful reboot in 2015, and a less-than-great sequel in 2018, the Jurassic franchise was starting to look tired. The idea of dinosaurs running around eating people has been done to death by B-movies, and these films were embracing Monsterverse pseudo-science more and more. What choice was left for them but to go with the nostalgia angle?

Unlike Ghostbusters, there was no need to appeases the fans, who were still invested in this franchise, the decision to bring back Alan Grant, Eliie Sattler and Ian Malcolm was more about giving a generic Jurassic World movie a unique selling point, bringing back characters who hadn’t been seen for decades. Unfortunately, they weren’t the centre of the movie, as they had to compete with the new heroes like Owen Grady and Claire Dearing, but at least they were not deconstructed in any way, by making Alan into a failed alcoholic. It was pure nostalgia for its own sake, and considering that Dominion managed to bring in $1 billion, it seemed to work. The problem is where can the franchise go now? There’s another JW movie scheduled for release next year, but it feels like this property has fired all of its shots long ago, leaving little point in a seventh entry.

As these two examples show, nostalgia can be a good selling point, but it also means that these movies don’t have much to recommend them outside of it. They might be enjoyable enough, and certainly not damaging to the franchise, but they don’t blow you away either.

So, how should franchises use nostalgia and callbacks?

That depends to some extent on why it’s included in the first place. When I see a Terminator movie or show, I want to hear someone say “I’ll be back”. When franchises have been going on for so long, they pick up little things that fans are waiting for, like how Star Wars always includes the line “I’ve got a bad feeling about this”, or the way Lethal Weapon’s Riggs and Murtaugh do their “on three” routine. If they weren’t there, it would be disappointing. The problem is when this is the only thing that a movie can do to get a response from its audience. I can remember several scenes and lines from Frozen Empire, but none of them are original in their own right. The first Ghostbusters movie, on the other hand, has many moments unique to that film.

Often by the fifth or sixth entry, a franchise simply starts to reference (or even parody) itself, hitting all the beats they think fans want, constantly calling back to earlier entries. It’s rather like a Build A Sequel workshop, where pieces from all the other entries are sewn together to make something that’s derivative of everything else. All the pieces are there, but there’s nothing unique about it.

This might seem like it’s only a small concern, but I think it leads to deeper problems. For one, it will relegate these franchise to history at some point in the future, when no one is around who remembers seeing the original when it came out.

These sequels will become irrelevant if no one knows what they are calling back to, and not only that, but where will the new audience come from? Would anyone who didn’t know the original Ghostbusters care about Frozen Empire? Would it inspire them to go check it out? Or is it just something caught in its own franchise loop?

Fan service can make sense, and there’s nothing wrong with it. It would seem the better option rather than a franchise completely ignoring its fanbase to try and find a new audience. But in order to live on, these IPs need to keep bringing in more viewers. They need to do the impossible of pleasing their existing fans while also opening up to new fans.

If that can’t be done, then perhaps it’s time for these franchises to come to an end, to leave the originals unspoilt for fans to enjoy, and for studios to do that thing they have become terrified of, but which they will need to do sooner or later to survive: create something new.

[let-fans-be-fans]

Sequelizers: Ghostbusters - Afterlife

To begin with, we'll set the prologue concretely somewhere in the late 1990s, like 1998-ish. Then, throughout the movie itself we will establish two very important plot points, which are these:

Callie and her two kids, Phoebe and Trevor are no relation to Egon Spengler whatsoever.

The actual farmer that owned the land in Summerville, OK was Callie's father, and his recent death in the summer of 2021 is what kicks off the plot.

Until his death in 1998, Egon was technically squatting on the farmer's land which the old man either didn't know about, or particularly care. Someone who did care, however, is one of the young students involved in Doctor Spengler's "unofficial", "illicit" and just for the sake of argument, let's call it "bat-shit crazy" work ever since following him from the Institute For Advanced Theoretical Research. That young student is a self-confessed Ghostbusters fan-boy named Gary Grooberson.

Gary has worked side-by-side with Egon since Doctor Spengler first arrived in Summerville, which was actually 100% official Ghostbusters business. The whole team packed into ECTO-1A to investigate the town on Ray's urging. He'd picked up some rumblings going down in the deep paranormal and occultic parts of Usenet, and dragged along the team's newest Experimental Equipment Technician.

THAT'S RIGHT MOTHERFUCKERS, THE 2009 VIDEO GAME HAPPENED MORE-OR-LESS, AND ONE OF THE MANY POSSIBLE VERSIONS OF "ROOKIE" WAS GARY FUCKIN' GROOBERSON

Mind-blowing, I know, right? Anyway, there was sort of a post-script to the events of the video game with the Ghostbusters chasing the lingering shreds of Ivo Shandor's ghost merged with the supernatural power of Gozer, finding the preserved physical body of the man buried deep in the mines. The instant Shandor's ghostly form touches his former corporeal shell, it causes a massive implosion that collapses that section of the mine tunnels. The Ghostbusters are toast. History. Vitally-challenged. Living-negative. Phoebe looks, utterly aghast, at Gary until Trevor blinks a couple of times and shouts, "They're fucking DEAD!?" Grooberson tells the kids to go, take the car and equipment that was left behind and do whatever they want with it (which they do, as in the movie as it was made) while he tries to get his head together.

All this time, the lingering presence of Egon's ghost has been leading Phoebe to discover the secrets of the old barn, Trevor to find ECTO-1A and all that stuff. Now, that ghost actually speaks to Gary directly (utilizing the vocal talents of the wonderful Maurice La Marche, the OTHER Egon Spengler) to let him in on a terrible secret. He's managed to escape from Hell once before, back to the plane of the living which is what we saw in 1998, in the prologue. With a strong enough pulse of psychomagnetheric energy from the positively-charged side, directed through Shandor's gate in the temple at the deepest part of the mine, they can release the other three Ghostbusters. The only catch is Egon's died too many times for him to stay on this side of the door. For Peter, Ray and Winston to live, he has to remain behind...

Down in the bowels of the mine, the Gozerian temple rises and our heroes are introduced, by the ghostly Egon, to the semi-living Ivo Shandor (JK Simmons) who actually gets to do more, say more to threaten and generally demoralize the good guys. Phoebe and "Podcast" notice a line of X-marks scratched into the walls and the floor, which Shandor demonstrates the purpose of, purely to freak out the living and amuse himself. As soon as he steps beyond this demarcation, his living flesh and impeccable clothing begin to putrefy as he becomes a slime-dripping walking corpse. "Not a pretty sight, is it, kids? Yeah, drink it all in! This is what'll happen to your Ghostbuster buddies the minute they cross beyond that line, did you know that?", Ivo begins to explain as he steps back over the demarcation, slowly returning to his living aspect. A voice from behind him rings out suddenly, "Sure! But Spengler and I had a few theories on why that happens, don't we?" The first OG Ghostbuster to crawl his way back to the land of the living for a legacy cameo emerges!

Ray's presence in the flesh (so to speak) for the first time in years gives a tremendous boost to his long-time colleague Egon, and this positive shift in the emotional aura of the group kick-starts the old 1989-vintage mood slime-blowers to activate themselves. Gary figures it out, directing the four kids to aim the slime-blowers around the demarcation lines. Egon steps into their line of fire as he and Ray excitedly bounce a jumble of classic Ghostbusters psycho-techno-mystico-babble back and forth until Phoebe (who has been listening intently to their stream of impenetrable exposition) cuts them off with a shout of "Yes! Yes, of course, I get it now..." From the gate, Winston Zeddemore emerges with quite a full beard, his spectral hand crackling and buzzing with energy as he reaches out to touch the thin film of mood slime that dribbles down from where Trevor and Lucky have been blasting away with the slime-blower. Winston pushes that hand forward, and it emerges on the living side of the demarcation completely none the worse for wear. Ray and Egon both nod towards Phoebe with satisfied little smiles and she explains. To keep himself semi-alive as far out of the gate as the demarcation, Ivo Shandor has been feeding off the potential lives of not only the trapped Ghostbusters (directly), but in an indirect way he's also been picking at little bits of every soul in Summerville. Eating away at the life of the town itself... Pushing their way through the mood slime gate, Winston and Ray quite literally burst into life again to take up their old proton packs, giving Shandor a blast of nutronas, positrons, bosons, all that kind of stuff. As they blast him back, Egon (still incredibly charged with the psychomagnetheric energy of the slime) has been fighting his way through the barrier as the final figure's voice echoes from the other side of the triangular gate. "Hey! Now, you kids weren't gonna seriously do this without me, were you?" Roughly man-handling the weakened form of Shandor further through the gates of Hell itself, pausing only to slap Egon playfully on the back (and "one for luck" on the buttocks) is the contractually-mandated final legacy cameo of the Ghostbusters. Doctor Peter Venkman.

Egon gives a withering look to this man, the absolute bane of his fucking existence for most of his life and his dearest, closest friend and Peter replies, "He's all yours now, Spengler. Give 'im... Well, you know what." before stopping at the demarcation to experimentally poke his fingers through, the toe of his left foot... "Naaaahh... You know what? I'm fine with staying on this side." Ray roots through his jumpsuit pockets for a stick of gum, visibly rolling his eyes toward the ceiling and mouthing "Every damn time..." right as Peter stumbles through the shower of mood slime. "Ray Stantz, you old dog, you... I see you finally took my advice, started to lay off the smokes, huh?"

"Well, you know as well as I do, Pete. Those things'll kill ya!" is Ray's final line as he, Winston and Peter head out of the temple, away from the mine and back up into the world they haven't been living in since that fateful day in the early 1990s. We don't hear what he, Grooberson and "Podcast" talk about, though it's obviously a very heated, animated discussion on the state of paranormal discourse on the internet. Trevor and Lucky, Callie and Grooberson are supporting Peter and Winston, their restored bodies being suddenly hit with the effects of decades of aging all at once (obviously, Ray is too absorbed in his discussion to notice these effects to his own body.) We see Phoebe absolutely smiling from ear to ear, absolutely bursting into great wracking sobs and hysterical laughter as she catches up to her mother and Gary. She has finally decided what she wants to do for the rest of her life, and the familiar theme song blares into life as the picture fades out into the blackness of the end credits.

Ghostbusters! If there's somethin' strange in your neighborhood... Who ya gonna call?

[ruleof3bobby]

GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE Grade: D

So unbelievably forgettable. No charm, no wit, no huggable characters. Have yet to see a good ghostbusters movie after the two OGs 1s.

[lighthouseas]

I TRIED TO SEND AN ASK AND ACCIDENTALLY CLICKED UNFOLLOW IM SORRY AUGHHHH anyway. Was gOnNA say i finally watched ghostbusters frozen empire

BAHAHAHAHA IT'S OK!!!!! it happens to the best of us i fear 😔✌️ curse you tiny buttons curse you

AND OMGGGG THATS SO COOL I HOPE YOU LIKED IT!!!!!! that movie makes me so bfbdjdjvdjdnfjd....i Still think about phoebe and melody like...wow. missed opportunity. but i loved it nonetheless.

[video-gh0st]

So back in June I watched all the Ghostbusters films cause it was the anniversary of the original movie and I thought I'd do a quick bullet point review since it's been a bit since I watched them all together.

Ghostbusters (1984)

It's still a classic. Has memorable moments that will live on.

Fun scenes. Going after Slimer is always silly and chaotic.

Peter Venkman is a rough. I actually had a person tell me that Venkman is the reason why they never watched the first movie, and I don't blame them.

Wish there was a bit more build up to the confrontation with Gozer. Would be neat if they kept uncovering clues rather than just the moment they figured it out in the jail cell.

Ghostbusters II (1989)

I don't know why people dunk on this movie, it's great!

You can tell the cast and crew are having more fun and things are a bit more fleshed out.

Venkman actually has some good character growth and is not a total creep!

I actually like the build up to the climax on this one. Throughout the movie, there's a focus on the slime buildup in the city and the flow of the story feels good.

Some fun light scares.

I kinda don't like the whole "the ghosts just stop showing up" thing. It's a trope specifically for this franchise that's not really explained. Just "yeah nothing happened between the movies and people think, we're frauds again! Gotta do it all over again!"

Ghostbusters: Answer the Call (2016)

This movie gets a lot of undeserved hate thrown towards it for being the female lead reboot. A bunch of misogynist trolls threw a fit and never gave it a shot the moment it was announced.

The cast was great tbh. Everyone seemed to gel with one another.

Chris Hemsworth plays a himbo and we see him with his shirt off.

I really like the main antagonist in this movie. I think his character could have been fleshed out a bit more, but still fun idea.

The gear looks really cool in this movie.

Some scenes do keep going a bit too long and has like not good Saturday Night Live skit energy. I think they relied a bit too much on improv.

How the fuck is Chris Hemsworth the funniest motherfucker alive and why is he so cute?

There's a teeny tiny bit a queerness in this story, but I also feel like there's themes of found family going on here too and I like that.

Chris Hemsworth plays a himbo and we see him with his shirt off.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)

Trailers do this movie a disservice by making it feel like it's going for a Stranger Things feel, kinda relying a bit too much on nostalgia or even doing the "wow kids these days." It just felt like they didn't have any confidence on the movie itself when marketing this tbh.

The tone is a bit more serious, but honestly I'm fine with it. Still has some funny moments, but it's leaning more into the horror part a bit more.

Watching Phoebe learn more about her grandfather is honestly fun. And this movie does a great job with handing things off to a new generation in a way that doesn't feel like it's disingenuous.

Literally cried at the end. Honestly that ending felt wonderful and it felt like a good tribute to Harold Ramis.

I don't know why, but my first watch of this last year wasn't as good as the second watch this year. I don't know what happened. But I remember the first time I watched this and felt like it was just ok but not my favorite. Maybe it was just a bit of frustration that the sequel to Answer the Call got cancelled before it could even get into full production.

I appreciate the movie using some practical effects. There are just certain elements that you can't mess with in Ghostbusters movie and they nailed it.

Muncher is my least favorite ghost tbh. Idk, there are people who love Muncher and I do like the tardigrade inspired design, but idk, they didn't appeal to me like the other ghosts did.

[dutchessofcaladan]

I know it's not finished yet, but I'm already thinking of a possible sequel for Ghostbusters: Soul Resurgence. If anyone has any ideas regarding a villian, feel free to message me or reblog this with your idea!

[stephen-barry]

Ghostbusters 6: Will It Happen? Everything We Know

Hey, Ghostbusters...

You've hinted at a future film sequel that, while still based on the narrative you've created, and still based on events in New York City, would have the team fight ghosts based - or originating - elsewhere on earth...

Well, look at this news post as a possible basis for such a movie; Note that your 'narrative' = of bad guys in an "evil" world - somehow "breaking through" to "our side" of reality *could* plausibly happen - thanks to the CERN particle accelerator = a real world *huge* version of your proton packs.

I bet that CERN would let you film there...

Physicists Found the Ghost Haunting the World’s Most Famous Particle Accelerator

Possible Tag Line (after seeing the *huge* CERN "ghost") => "We're 'gonna need a bigger 'buster!"