Ghostbusters 2016 Fan Theory

Okay, so you’re still with us so we shall dive straight in.

The theory is that this movie is, in fact, part 4 of the Ghostbuster’s Cinematic Franchise.

I hear you saying “Wait, you two morons, there was never a ‘Ghostbusters 3’.”  First off, rude.  Be nice.

Secondly, many fans of the film series widely accept Ghostbusters: The Video Game released in 2009 is in fact the missing 3^rd film, due to its quality, addition of the original cast voicing the characters, and its adherence to cinematic cannon.  The game was set in 1991, three years after the second film wherein they are still riding the hero train, working as city contractors and training new recruits.

Our theory begins between GB1 and GB2 where the city of New York has some sort of amnesia about the events of the first film, despite there only being a 5 year difference.   You would think seeing a marshmallow man the size of an apartment building would have been ingrained in the minds of the populace, but sometime after the events of GB1 the Ghostbusters are sued by the city for the damages to the apartment building and surrounding area and are force to shut down.  Ray even comments about the very issue in the film, pointing out how nobody seems to remember what they did.

If the game is GB3, and for the sake of this theory, we’ll say it is, that means there’s 25 years between it and the film of 2016.  In 5 years, just 5 years the city forgot what they did, what would they forget in five times that?  Sure in GB3 they still remember but they’re still under the oversight of the city, and specifically Walter Peck who has gone right back to not believing in ghosts.

Now for some interesting coincidences.  It’s quite a coincidence that as this new team of Ghostbusters is formed, the same old faces from the franchise pop up again?  Literally all the surviving Ghostbusters and Dana Barret, now calling herself Rebecca Gorin, pop up along their journey.  Bill Murray is trying to debunk the new team, Dan Aykroyd is driving a cab and Ernie Hudson is Leslie Jones’ uncle, a funeral director.

Mentor to budding scientist, paranormal debunker, cab driver, funeral director, all of whom just happen into the path of a new team of Ghostbusters right as they are coming into their own…how very convenient.

But the real telling point to build this theory is what the mayor does at the end.  He publically denounces the Ghostbusters, but privately funds their research.  This is a very weird compromise unless you consider:

The people of New York are going to forget about the events soon.  There is something inherent to the paranormal that makes the human brain write it off as myth, something that likes the stories but cannot accept the reality.  The events of 1984, 1989, and 1991 all fall into the depths of urban legend and everyone except the people directly involved in the matters completely forget about it.  It’s the paranormal so anything is possible.

But what about the original Ghostbusters: Well they went into a form of witness protection.  Egon and Ray were both respected scientists so they probably wrote books about their adventures, but as public memory started to fade people completely forgot about these events.  Its hard to maintain your reputation when the collective consciousness says it never happened and you’re written off as frauds.  But someone with the city or federal government knew what was going on and assigned them new identities.

Dana Barret became Rebecca Gorin, her eccentric nature being a byproduct of being victimized, twice, by ghosts.

Winston Zeddemore move in with family and became a funeral director, something a little more down to earth.

Ray Stantz just needs money to fund his little experiments and probably is very happy living as a cab driver.

Egon Spengler probably went to work directly for the government.

But then there’s Peter Venkman.  He became a paranormal debunker because 1) he loves the lime light, and 2) who better to debunk the paranormal than a guy who’s faced it in combat.

Rebecca/Dana figures out what Kate McKinnon’s Holtzman is working on, or where her research is headed, and notifies Egon.  Egon, already watching Yates and Gilbert closely arranges events to force the three together over time.  Ray, a cabbie, can drive by the area any time and keep an eye on them.  Winston discovers his niece is in now involved with them and loans her the car.  During all of this they call in Venkman who goes in “debunking” them but really getting a good look at the work they’re doing.

They are still active but due to injunctions from the government and the ravages of time they can’t bust ghosts anymore.  Gilbert and Yates had to use some kind of material for research, why shouldn’t it be dusty old copies of Ray and Egon’s books?

So there you have it, a theory that connects all four installments of the Ghostbusters.

Hope you enjoyed.

If you get a chance, check out The Lake Haven Chronicles by William Dilbeck

https://www.amazon.com/Better-Off-Dead-Lakehaven-Chronicles-ebook/dp/B00JLPG8HE#navbar

thanks for reading.

Legal Advice: Ghostbusters Edition

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past year, you know that there is a new Ghostbusters film on the horizon.  Before that film hits theatres, let’s take a look at Ghostbusters of yesterday and how they would be thrown into a prison so deep and dark they’d never see the light of day.

Flash back to 1984 and the Ghostbusters are working on their little kickstarter business working off the money Ray Stantz borrowed against his mother’s house.  They proceed to start “busting ghosts”, which we’ll address directly in a moment.  What is the equipment they are using.

“Each one of us has an unlicensed nuclear accelerator strapped to his back.”  Bill Murray’s performance makes that sound like a very funny line, until you start thinking about the implications of that.  First off, it’s a miniature particle accelerator, like the one at CERN (which is licensed).  Now I understand that the Ghostbuster tech is all fictional, so I thought I’d take a look at what their specific fictional universe said about the proton pack.

Fudging of science aside, the tie in media states very plainly that each one of these things has a self-destruct blast radius of ½ a mile.  That’s roughly a six city block radius from ground zero.  See the map for details.  Destruction of that magnitude would be very similar to the Oklahoma City Bombing only with the destruction being almost all inclusive.  A typical explosive device has directionality to it.  Any explosion will always follow the path of least resistance.  The afore mentioned bombing shows half the building destroyed, because the explosion, as it expands found the weaker materials to be the path of least resistance and affected them more profoundly.

 

A nuclear explosion is a different kind of event though.  Its far more powerful.  The blast radius may “only” be ½ a mile, but the destruction in that half mile will be far more severe.  On top of that, there are four of these things.  Now that’s not saying the radius would be 2 miles, but rather in that half mile the rather than charred people and crushed buildings you’d probably just have a crater.  Even then, that’s only if the packs were sitting next to each other.  If they were spread out over half a mile in radius from the pack that exploded, each of those would have a blast radius of half a mile.

But the Ghostbusters are scientists, I hear you say.  Well they are, but they aren’t exactly “ethical”.  There’s a very good reason why Peter Venkman stonewalls the EPA lawyer and they packs are unlicensed, what they are doing is very illegal and they could go to jail and no licensing agency with even an atom of common sense would authorize them to build or carry those things.  The proton packs along promise a major fine, confiscation of their equipment and a potential of 10 years in prison, which explains part of the legal case against them in the beginning of Ghostbusters 2.  Why they still had physical access to the proton packs I have no idea, unless due to their “saving the city” warranted them the right to keep the devices but never turn them on.

Imagine a 10 year prison sentence for flipping on a switch.

Now about the containment unit, or “busting ghosts”; this is where we get into some fun “unknown” laws.  Specifically we are going to talk about the “Undiscovered Species Act”.  What this boils down to is if a scientist in the field locates a creature nobody has ever seen before, like bigfoot, and captures or kills it without just cause (ie they were defending their own life), they could face up to 10 years in prison and or have lose any money you received for it because you removed such a rare creature from its habitat.  While this is a county law almost exclusive to Skamania County, Washington this sets what prosecutors can use as a legal precedent to base their case off of.  The ghosts would actually fall under the protection of this act.  They are a rare creature, so rare that we have no way of knowing if they can reproduce.  They seem to consume some sort of fuel to stay active, they have a general habitat, and they are rare enough that most people don’t believe they exists.

In the Ghostbuster’s first real case, in which they capture Slimer, they charge the hotel manager $5,000.  By law, they have to turn that money over to a university, probably the very university they were fired from, along with Slimer for proper scientific study.  They are not an accredited institution, and therefore cannot keep the creature.

But ghosts are just dead people, I hear you say.  Are they?  What do we really know about them given the context of the films and television show?  They are basically energy based life forms.  They have a degree of sentience, an ability to identify and react to danger, an ability to choose based on available data.  At best this is an “Undiscovered Species Act” issue, at worst you are looking at a civil rights suit.

So yes, for their first act as the Ghostbusters, they would be facing terrible fines and possibly up to 20 years in prison.

Who are you going to call, indeed?

 

Thanks for reading.

Ghostbusters Pt 2: Patty Tolan vs the Double Standard

Apparently I have a lot more to say about Ghostbusters than I initially thought.

One of the more controversial moments that came from the first trailer centered on Leslie Jone’s character, Patty Tolan.  When the trailer opens, its shown that she works in the subway, where presumably she encounters something seriously paranormal.  From there she teams with the Ghostbusters and they begin their plan of attack on the supernatural.  She even provides the team with a vehicle, borrowing a car from her uncle.  Of course she states that it’s a Cadillac, but fails to disclose that it’s a hearse.  (Trivia: The original Ecto 1 was a refitted ambulance, not a hearse).

The next few lines she has, in the trailer is upon witnessing a character possessed are “Oh the devil is a liar.” “Get out of my friend, ghost!” she then slaps the character, followed by “The Power of Pain compels you!” accompanied by another slap.

Admittedly if this was going to be the character for the entire movie, that would be extremely annoying, but it was less than a minute of screen time, hardly enough time to get to know a character.

Yet therein lay the problem, the trailer is designed to give you a quick hit of each character so you can determine if you like them or not, and this particular trailer was not flattering to Leslie Jones at all.  At best she came across as dim witted.  At worst a black stereotype.  Unfortunately critics immediately latched onto the latter, with Akilah Hughes of Fusion referring to the character as “a minstrel show”.

Real quick, what is a minstrel show? The minstrel show, or minstrelsy, was an American form of entertainment developed in the 19th century. It was a form of entertainment that required payment to attend. Each show consisted of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music, performed by white people in make-up or blackface for the purpose of playing the role of black people.  Minstrel shows lampooned black people as dim-witted, lazy, buffoonish, superstitious, happy-go-lucky, and musical.

To say the least this is an unfavorable comparison for modern black actors, especially since the stereotype set down by the minstrel shows reached all the way into movies being made in the mid 1950’s. 

That comparison, of Jones’ performance to a minstrel show, actually is right where the double standard starts.  If you compare Patty Tolan to, say, almost every black, male side kick character ever made, starting from Chris Tucker, into Busta Rhymes from the “Shaft” film, to almost every character played by Kevin Hart and even Anthony Anderson’s character from “Transformers”, you see that she’s not that far from the standard.  You can go so far as to look at Tyler Perry’s Madea series and the assorted characters that litter the background.  The major difference is that she’s female.

It’s highly likely that if the character had been played by a male actor, it would have slipped under the radar of scrutiny, but that is the double standard we have for women and Leslie Jones caught the brunt of it.

Leslie Jones is an attractive woman, but she’s not “conventionally attractive” so she can’t get away with portraying what some see as a stereotype.  Even if she was “conventionally attractive” they would have given her scrutiny because society will want her to be a “role model for young black girls.”  If every actor I just listed doesn’t have to be a role model to young black boys, why does she have to be one?

Leslie Jones famously shot back on Twitter by stating "Why can't a regular person be a ghostbuster?", and I pointed out in a previous blog that a regular person WAS a ghostbuster in the form of Ernie Hudson’s Winston Zeddemore, but that he could be a regular person without falling into the stereotypes set down for black sidekicks of the 1980’s.  But what is “a regular person”?

I won’t speculate as to what Leslie Jones’ social or familial background is, but it’s reasonable to assume she knows at least one person with traits similar to Patty Tolan.  I don’t say that to pigeon hole her into a particular demographic, the fact is that everyone who’s ever stepped out their front door and worked in the work force knows someone with similar traits.  I do, and she’s a mover and shaker at a sheriff’s department so if you tell me that a person like Patty Tolan couldn’t get anywhere in the world, I’d have to call you out on some serious narrow mindedness.

The point is that, to an extent, Patty Tolan is a regular person who has a lot of potential as a character and its 1) unfair of anyone to base judgement on a total of 1 minute of screen time stretched across two trailers and 2) unfair to hold any one to a standard that we don’t set for everyone across the board.

Going back I found the character annoying because that kind of person annoys me.  I don’t like yelling.

Ghostbusters 2016 Breakdown

The 1980’s gave us lots of things to be nostalgic about, but one of the crowning achievements of that era was the original “Ghostbusters” film.  It stands out as a “must see” on almost every film fan’s list.  That alone is enough to label any attempt at a reboot of the franchise as a horrifying cash grab.

It doesn’t help that for the last ten years or so we’ve been hip deep in reboots of classic films.  Some of them have been soulless and shameless; some of them have been heartfelt and even improved on the original.  I think that may be the starting point to the controversy of the new “Ghostbusters” film. 

The History

The original film was collaboration between Dan Aykroyd, Harlold Ramis, and Ivan Reitman.  These were the concept creators, the writers, and the polishers of the story.  As the film grew into a reality and changes had to happen, they happened organically because these three guys were involved all the way.  They shaped the world of the Ghostbusters first hand.  That is a very big deal because under normal circumstances you have one person submit a story idea and they either bring in a script or the script idea is farmed out to writers who submit multiple drafts until one is picked, polished and printed.  The studio hires a director, they cast the characters and the final product can feel very manufactured.  Its and assembly line process really and the original film was not this.  It was something that grew and the people who started it were the ones who finished it.  So, “Ghostbusters” as a film feels alive, like it’s a person and for a lot of fans, that person became a friend.

I grew up with the franchise.  I wore out two VHS copies of the original film; I saw the second film eight times while I was laid up from an injury in the 4th grade (my dad rented it for me).  I watched the original cartoon in its entirety and yes, I even watched “Extreme Ghostbusters”.  Right about here is where a lot of fans get divided.  There was very big push for “Ghostbusters III” but that was on the heels of “Extreme Ghostbusters”, and it was with that series that you could see the quality really flake away from the original concept.  With the lack of quality, so went the interest.  Ghostbusters is a franchise that lives off of its fan base.  It needs a strong foundation in order to support quality work.  The final result of “Ghostbusters III” was a result of a lack of interest in studios would have translated into a bad movie and the creators didn’t think the fans that stayed the course deserved a bad move.  So Ghostbusters faded from theatres and television and lived on in comic book format.  But in its legacy it maintained that friendship with its fans.  It still felt very organic very alive.

“Ghostbusters 2016” does not feel that way.  It feels very manufactured.  At least that’s what the first preview would have you believe.

The Warning Shot

When the first trailer for “Ghostbusters” circa 2016 dropped I honestly started off confused.  Text at the beginning referenced the original franchise, and they played the key cords to the original theme, and then seemed to forget that those events ever took place.  The jokes showcased in the trailer on the raunchy side, bordering on inappropriate because I guess that’s funny.  Then came Leslie Jones’ character.  This was the moment that I think made a lot of fans just cut ties from the move all together.  She was loud, she came across as “hood” and the trailer made her look incredibly stupid.  The portrayal of the character in the trailer made her look like every negative black stereotype imaginable.

Leslie Jones took the back lash personally and even commented “Why can’t a regular person be a Ghostbuster?”

Well, a regular person CAN be a Ghostbuster.  A regular person WAS a Ghostbuster.  Winston Zeddemore played by Ernie Hudson was a guy who came in off the street and applied for the job.  He even had the purest of motives, a steady paycheck.  He grew into one of the most respectable, grounded, and conventionally wise characters of the 1980’s.  He was a role model, he was someone kids, no matter your race, but especially if you were black, could look up to and say “I could be like him.”

The way the first trailer portrayed Jones’ character was the exact opposite of Zeddemore which for many fans spelled disaster.  This was just another slapped together studio film.  And the ghosts on screen didn’t help the image.

Ghostbuster’s ghosts have a very specific look.  They are semi solid but translucent with a very faint glow about them.  These ghosts were bright, loud, neon colors with significant glows that hurt your eyes.  On top of that they invoke a very bad memory as many of them look like they escaped a screening of Eddie Murphy’s “Haunted Mansion”.  Anything that triggers a latent memory of that movie is going to garner a negative reaction.

Studios Need to Reevaluate

So remember I keep specifying “the first trailer” and “give the impression”.  That’s because that’s just the way the first trailer was cut.  When the second trailer came out there was a very different tone.  There were more dialogs about what was actually going on, smarter jokes and the balance was shifted.  Leslie Jones actually had more screen time in the second trailer and it made her character look a lot better.  There was more wit about her.  Where the first trailer made her look like a screaming fool, the second one made her more down to earth, more aware of the situation and more reasonable in her responses.  Basically they turned her from a screening of “Soul Plane” into an actual person, someone you could have a conversation with.

Toned down also were the gross out jokes.  Frankly I didn’t need to know where Kristin Wiig need to scrub slime out of on her body, and thankfully the second trailer did not retread that material.  Yes, the ghost vomits slime on her but that’s it.

Kate McKinnon comes across as a character that speaks when it’s actually needed but gives great reactions to events going on around her, even when it’s just two characters accidentally talking over each other.

Melissa McCarthy is a great comedic actress, but a lot of times it feels like she’s just playing herself.   Regardless it’s very clear she’s having a blast.

In short the whole tone of the films was elevated from one trailer to the next.

The Fallout

But was this tonal shift enough to get fans interested again in the film?  Well, for some it was.  For some it just drew some harder criticisms.

Having a gender swapped cast did not sit well with feminist, which some people found ironic until you realize that feminism isn’t about putting girls first but rather evening the playing field between the genders.  Feminists wanted a mixed team, men and women working together on equal playing fields.  Having Chris Hemsworth (Thor) as the hired on eye candy very much hurt the message feminists were trying to get out there.

Ultimately the damage is done because the film, for better or for worse is in the can and slated for release with no time to adjust or reshoot or recast to meet the criticisms.  But ultimately that is fine.  Sony is standing by their product and that’s what they need to do right now.  They need to say “like it or not, here it is.”  The big question is whether or not the film will earn enough to justify a sequel.  As we saw with “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows” a sequel can be an opportunity to fix flaws in the first of the series.  If they decided to make the cast more inclusive they can either expand the number of Ghostbusters or rotate in new characters and out old characters.

When I came to understand that the film was, in fact, a reboot, I felt that was shortsighted on the part of the studio.  I personally think it would have been great to have the “Ghostbusters” as a business lying dormant for two decades, and have these women discover something serious going on and need to revive the spectral fighting service.  They could go to the remaining 3 Ghostbusters, past their prime to be any help or shell-shocked from their last adventure and they sign over the rights and equipment to the new crew and then the new crew build and improve on that technology.  It would be 5 minutes out of a movie that could have satisfied the fans of yesterday and given the movie a stronger foot hold.

But that didn’t happen.  So what you could do in a sequel is expand the cast by at least 2, include two guys to aid the team  and make them just as important, not more important, just as important to the group.

Also wash out the colors of the ghosts because that’s really painful to look at.  The designs are alright, but they are hard to look at.