Peter Venkman is a carpentry salesman.
One of the people we saw in the trailer bore a very striking resemblance to Bill Murray. Perhaps if the main characters discover this, they'll ask Dr. Venkman to school them in the ways of Ghostbusting so they can save the town and do their grandpa proud.- Jossed. When talking with Phoebe on the phone, Ray reveals that Peter is now a professor at SUNY Cortland, specifically in the field of advertising and promotion.
The small town in the middle of nowhere is hiding a long-term containment unit.
After the Manhattan Crossrip and the incident with Vigo the Carpathian the ghost busting business effectively dried up. With nobody trying to force their way into the mortal world there wasn't enough activity to keep the Ghostbusters in business nor enough funding to keep their facilities. Eventually Egon and Ray went out to find a place where they could safely build a long-term storage facility to hold all their catches for the foreseeable future since they couldn't just let the grid shut down in the middle of New York City. They found some stigmatized property owned by the Shandor family to study and set up the tech to run unmonitored until things picked up again then... it just never did. Egon spent his time researching the mines to see what Shandor had once been up to and keeping watch until one day he simply didn't wake up again leaving it unattended for years to slowly breakdown. Now its leaking, causing earthquakes as energy escapes, and threatening to cause another major crossrip incident.- Jossed. A mountain near the town is a ritual site for Gozer and Egon was attempting to permanently prevent the entity from coming through.
All the OG Ghostbusters will return.
Even Egon. His death simply allowed him a personal look at the paranormal and he has been continuing his research ever since.- And also Dana Barret, and her son Oscar Barret too, with William Deutschendorf reprising the role. With a loving dedication to his brother Henry in the credits.
- Egon could be the ghost detected by the P.K.E. Meter, which guided Phoebe to the secret laboratory for her to find the Proton Pack.
- Confirmed for everyone except Oscar and Louis Tully.
The cartoon series were in-universe adaptations of the Ghosbusters' adventures that took massive creative liberties.
By that same token, the video game could be this, since it's evident from the trailer that the Ghostbusters never branched out into other cities. The mine shaft belonging to the Shandor Mining Co. is the source of the strange materials that Shandor used to construct 55 Central Park West and other buildings that were related to the Cult of Gozer.
Shandor established the mining business in Summerville to further his own ends. With miners who were loyal to his cause, Shandor acquired the unusual metals that would eventually be built into 55 Central Park West and other buildings in New York City.- Confirmed.
Similar to above, Egon was there for a more permanent solution for the accumulated trapped ghosts, but not for a "long-term storage" solution.
He was there to release them. Cultish rituals deep underground are in-line with the eldritch theme of Ivo Shandor, Gozer, etc. Egon found one of Shandor's old mines and determined such a site could be used to open another cross-rip in the other direction, where all the ghosts boxed up in the containment unit could be released into the spirit realm. Except he died before he could finish the job, and now the containment unit, moved to the underground site, is deteriorating from lack of maintenance and causing problems for the nearby town of Summerville and attracting attention from the other side of the rift. Thanks to a combination of inheritance laws, destitution in his descendants, and his granddaughter being a Generation Xerox of him, the plot is set for the movie.- Sort of confirmed. A mountain near the town is a ritual site for Gozer and Egon was attempting to permanently prevent the entity from coming through.
- The containment unit failure problem becomes a Sequel Hook in the second stinger as well.
Louis Tully will return?
After a third part of Ghostbusters was requested, plus it would be a direct sequel to the last original team movie and would trance the vast majority of the main cast, but unfortunately Rick Moranis did not return to 'Ghostbusters: Afterlife', who played Louis Tully. A grown-up Oscar will appear in the film
And will be played by Evan Peters, seeing as he's no stranger to ghosts.- He's better be played by William Deutschendorf reprising the role.
Egon is the Grandfather of Trevor and Phoebe
It would be quite obvious and it would be a tribute to Harold Ramis.- Based on the known plot details and the fact that Trevor and Phoebe both have dark curly hair and pale skin (with a pair of round glasses for Phoebe to boot), it's more than likely.
- Confirmed.
Slimer will appear.
It's a stretch, but it's possible since he's sort of a popular character.- If he does, I hope he'll be a puppet like in the first two movies.
- Should he appear, he will end up sliming a member of the new Ghostbusters team, just as he had done with Peter back at the Sedgewick Hotel in the first movie.
- Or, it will be a Running Gag with Slimer sliming Venkman if he turns up in the film, again (as he did in not just the first film, but in the Ghostbusters video game).
- Jossed: There are only four ghosts in the movie and Slimer isn't one of them.
Slimer will become the mascot of the new Ghostbusters team as in the cartoon series
Slimer will not be as evil and ends up joining the new Ghostbusters team as the team mascot as in the cartoon series. There will be a bit of Art Imitates Life
Egon and Peter had a falling out some time after the second movie but unlike their actors, never reconciled before Egon's death.- Confirmed, though it was between Egon and the rest of the team after his increasingly paranoid and erratic behavior led to him disappearing with the Ecto-1 and all of their equipment.
The family from the first Afterlife trailer is Ray's.
Ray and Egon are the most likely candidates to be the teammate whose daughter is the mother of the family in the trailer. The beginning of the first movie did mention that Ray had to mortgage his family's house to get the startup money for the team, so are we looking at that house in the trailer? Figures Ray would be packrat enough about the many toys and such they had from the busting days.- Jossed, they're Egon's family through and through.
The family from the first Afterlife trailer is Egon's, but are not his biological descendants.
Egon always seemed rather asexual in the movies, uninterested in relationships, but the series is rather heavily hinting at them being his family. It's possible that he did settle down and have a family, but it's also possible he decided to adopt as a single dad. The similarities between the grandchild and him are more the mother's doing, wanting a lover that resembled her dad, but said lover failed to be a proper father figure (assuming he didn't die).- Jossed
Oliver Cooper will play Egon Spengler's brother.
His role will be small but important.- There could be a scene where he is on the phone with Egon; with Egon's voice being inaudible to the audience.
- Jossed.
It´s not a coincidence that Phoebe wears glasses similar to Egon's.
The glasses were a gift from her grandmother, who kept them after divorcing Egon.- Callie doesn't care that her daughter wears those glasses because she doesn't know they were Egon's.
- Jossed, because Phoebe discovers her grandfather's glasses in an old Ghostbuster's suit.
Egon's death was a punishment
Although the original Ghostbusters defeated Gozer together, Egon was who had the idea of cross their proton energy streams. Members of the Cult of Gozer will appear
Some Summerville residents will be descendants of the original members. They could belong to a group that was kept secret by order of Ivo Shandor. Egon was protecting his daughter
Egon's absence from Callie's life will be a case of Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You.- Confirmed, he was trying to come up with a way to stop Gozer from entering the living realm for good.
Janine Melnitz is a Secret-Keeper
For some reason, Egon confided in Janine the fact that he has a daughter and why he is not present in her life. As a result, although she still liked him, Janine was no longer romantically interested in Egon; because she couldn't start a family with him.- After Egon dies, Janine arranges for his daughter to inherit the house in Summerville. She knows Callie is in financial trouble and wanted to help her. Although well-intentioned, Janine was unaware that there was Ghostbusters equipment hidden in the house.
- Possibly Jossed; Janine doesn't seem to recognize Callie or be aware of what Callie was hoping to do (cash out and get back to wherever she was or move to a new place).
The 2009 video game is part of canon backstory for Afterlife.
Ghostbusters: The Video Game is set in 1991, only about two years after the second actual movie, so "There hasn't been a ghost sighting in thirty years" is still relatively accurate - possibly moreso than it would have been, thanks to the film's delayed release. In addition, the game actually depicts the closure of the New York rift which the Gozer cult instigated, which helps explain the cessation of paranormal activity. And last but (probably) not least, the Ghostbusters Afterlife tie-in replica of Spengler's Neutrona Wand includes firing modes directly based on the video game.- The only thing that's harder to reconcile between the two is how Shandor was a spirit in the game and appears in his body here, and it's possible that can be explained by his spirit astral projecting itself during his suspended animation to help keep his mind fresh and alert for when he is returned to action.
- That, or Shandor really was dead the whole time, with his spirit only returning to his reanimated corpse after Gozer manifested in Summerville.
- It would also explain why he was trying to sway Gozer over with the fact he built the tomb in her honor, and trying to pull a "We can rule together" (mostly because he knew he failed handling the Ghostbusters on his own) and she split him in half because she remembered what he did to her, and was still a little miffed about it.
There will be a Take That! to Ghostbusters (2016).
In this movie, one of the protagonists will mention having heard rumors of an all-female team fighting ghosts in New York, but most will dismiss it because there were no reports to confirm whether or not the rumors are true.- Jossed. There's no mention of an all-female team at all.
Either in this film, or a followup to this one, the Ecto-1 will get a new color paint job.
Though the white on the Cadillac is iconic, by the end of the film, or maybe in a followup, the Ecto-1 will get a new paint job, and the color will be black (tying into the original intended color in the script for the vehicle before the production chose to make it white to make it more noticeable during the night scenes).
At some point in the movie, Ray Stantz will mention that he failure to catch a Friendly Ghost and Three Evil Ghosts as a Noodle Incident after the events of Ghostbusters II.
It is likely that after the events of Ghostbusters II, the Ghostbusters team separated after having defeated Vigo, each member would have taken a different path except Ray who decided to continue with the Ghostbusters business, but apparently the business the Ghostbusters has not gone quite well. in 1995, a bored Ray agreed to make house calls to continue the Ghostbusters business like Whipstaff Manor, since Maine is only a day's drive from New York. He probably thought it would be easy, explaining why he was alone. Clearly, The Ghostly Trio was too much for Ray to handle alone, and he was probably too embarrassed to admit his failure to his old team. It's not like the ghostly trio are killing people or doing something actively malevolent. Phoebe and Trevor aren't Egon's grandchildren. They're his clones.
A Walter Peck expy will appear.
The person will be an even bigger dick than he was. They'll probably have a blog or YouTube channel dispelling ghosts and call the new Ghostbusters fakes.- Jossed.
Egon killed himself
Since his trap failed, and most likely injured after the car wreck, he knew he had no chance to escape. So to prevent himself from getting possessed he used the P.K.E. Meter's taser function on himself to trigger the heart attack that everyone else assumed was natural causes. Phoebe's skill with a proton pack and thrower
For a five foot tall, twelve-year-old, slightly built girl of presumably more intellectual interests in place of physical training, Phoebe handles a heavy pack (see Peter Venkman, grown man 6'2" tall, struggling to get the thing on in Ghostbusters II and staggering about a little doing so) and a thrower (which given the way we see grown men shaking while using it has clearly quite a sustained kick and bounce) without the difficulty one would expect. The movie does provide, during the final battle, a possible explanation: Egon's spirit is seen supporting his granddaughter as she fires at Gozer. And given we've seen what was clearly his spirit guiding Phoebe in finding and repairing the pack she's using, it's not unlikely he's been beside her the entire time helping out, and that it's only at the end with the full brunt of paranormal energy concentrated at the farm that sufficient ambient energy was enough to shift him into visibility.- There are a total of (at least) nine proton throwers in the movie. Four in the mine (partially disassembled and later destroyed), keeping the ghosts back and causing the quakes, and five in the final battle (Ray, Winston, Peter, Trevor, and Lucky/Phoebe). Even if Ray, Pete, and Winston built new packs after Egon left, that still means Ego built at least two more. Phoebe's pack may be an improved/lighter version. This is subtly implied when Phoebe asks Egon how he built such a small cyclotron, and he shows her all of his diplomas.
- It is also entirely plausible that Peter's struggling with the pack in Ghostbusters II was him being melodramatic about the thing, as fitting for his character.
- Egon got sick of dragging it around, and rebuilt it with a casing made from lighter materials.
- Which would be a logical thing for a man Egon's age to do, given he wouldn't be as strong or limber as he once was.
- Note that, even with a lighter-weight pack, Phoebe mostly fires off proton beams from Ecto-1's retractable gunner seat, not her own two feet. If she'd had to haul that thing along corridors or up umpteen flights of stairs, she'd have no doubt been as wreaked as the original team on Gozer's doorstep.
Ghosts are back
Gozer and Egon together were the reason there have been so few ghosts for the last 30 years. Gozer was hoovering up the souls (as Sumerian death gods are wont to do), while Egon's stream crosser kept inverting the portal and forcing Gozer back. Now that Gozer is trapped (in a ghost trap, not a parallel dimension), there will be a lot more ghosts around again.- Maybe paranormal activity has a rise and fall, much like the tides, and the dates listed in the temple are marking high points of the cycle, when ghosts would be more common and visible, and also the points of time where Gozer would have the easiest time (but not the only chance) of breaching the barriers between where Gozer is from and the earth.
- Ghosts are likely to be back like never before. 1) Gozer is no longer hoovering up souls. 2) Gozer may have been trapped, but unlike in the first film, the portal has not been closed. It's STILL OPEN, and flooding the surrounding world with pure psychokinetic energy. There's plenty of evidence from all the films that elevated ambient PKE levels can cause previously dormant ghosts to manifest more strongly, hence why Egon became fully corporeal at the end. 3) Gozer is no longer ruling the sprit realm, and neither Zuul nor Vince Clortho are available to deputise. Are there likely to be power struggles among the denizens, which might lead to other purely supernatural entities coming though, either in search of Gozer, or seeking to rule our world themselves?
Ghostbusters 4 ideas
- Following the events of the Afterlife, Hades approaches the team. He congratulates them for trapping Gozer, who Hades always thought was a jerk. But doing so created a sort of a gap, and some of the worst souls in Tartarus have escapes, so the Greek death god wants the Ghostbusters to get them back.
- Over the course of the movie, the Ghostbusters start to think Hades is playing them and behind the escape. But it turns out it is a third party (Hela?), who is hoping the Ghostbusters will take out Hades. Hades is actually being fair and honest (like he was in the original Greek myths).
Why Egon didn't speak.
Other than the obvious real life reason, there's a possible explanation. In past films, we've seen that less powerful ghosts aren't known to speak. For example, Slimer in the films never spoke a word (in comparison to this animated series counterpart), but has roared, snarl and whine. Though Vigo the Carpathian is seen able to speak, he appeared to be rather powerful in comparison to Slimer. So, it's possible that the reason why Egon doesn't say anything to his friends and family after finishing off Gozer is because he's not powerful enough to do so. I surmise Egon went from a Class Two spirit (wispy and invisible, but can move small objects such as books and chess pieces) to a Class Four (possessing bodies and recognizable facial features) temporarily because of ambient spectral energy available in the atmosphere about Zuul. Class Fours may or may not possess the power of speech, and there have been documented real-world sightings of such silent specters
. Despite how much he would want to say his goodbyes, he is unable to do so due to the fact he was a lower level ghost and whatever boundary that separates the dead and living wouldn't allow him to do so in an intelligible way.- Given what we see Egon is a poltergeist, which is a specific form of ghost that can move objects but usually can't be seen or heard. The only reason why he was able to visibly manifest was because of the heightened spiritual energy levels during the climax. Even if he tried they likely wouldn't be able to hear him. Knowing Egon this was probably intentional. He's likely aware of why ghosts exist and what it takes for certain ones to manifest and thus directed his death in such a way that he would become one and thus still be able to watch over things until someone managed to work out and complete his plan.
- It's also possible that he does have the capacity to vocalize, but his ghost-voice is simply too ghostly for him to want his daughter or her children to hear him sounding like that. Better if they know his voice from old YouTube clips than remember it as something eerie and morbid.
Callie was the little girl in Egon's puppy experiment in Ghostbusters II.
Callie noted that Egon wasn't there for her, mostly due to work. It would make sense that Egon would take her with him to his lab where he was running the emotion experiments, and even incorporate her into it so to not only keep an eye on her, but how she reacted.- Except the little girl from GB2 had dark hair, and Callie is blond even in her childhood photos.
- Alternatively: Egon did take Callie to the same lab while "working" and incorporated her into experiments, though on the day Dana came by, she was with her mom instead of with Egon.
- Another alternative: Egon conducted the experiment to determine the best way to make his own daughter happy. The room in which the little girl in was was full of toys, it is possible that Egon asked his assistant to give the girl a different toy every so often, while he evaluated what would be an ideal gift for Carrie. And the puppy went to determine if a pet would make the girl happier than a toy.
Winston's "one employee" he started his company with was Louis Tully.
Seeing we know that Louis was involved with the Ghostbusters in the second film, it's hard to know what happened to him between the events of the second film and Afterlife. However, seeing he was doing good with working with the guys, after Egon took off with Ecto-1 and equipment, it'd make sense that Winston took Louis in for his new business venture due to his knowledge on taxes (as he was his profession in the first film).- Given that Louis was an accountant, it makes sense that he'd be asked to help with financial enterprises.
Janine actually worked with Egon intermittently as a driver/backup.
Not only does she show up at the farmhouse soon after Callie and the kids, indicating a continued acquaintance with Egon, but she's evidently the only person from the old crew who actually knew where he was living. (If the others had known, they'd probably have shown up to demand their stuff back.) And Egon couldn't have made proper use of Ecto-1's gunner seat without having someone else on hand to drive the car and the remote-controlled ghost trap. Yet he never cannibalized the seat or its power supply for spare parts, even though he'd gone far into debt to pay for his other devices' components, implying he wanted to keep open the option for high-speed ghost pursuits. Egon named Callie himself.
The name Callie is derived from the Greek word "kallos" meaning "beautiful" or "lovely." Who else but Egon would even know that? Egon and Ray extensively refurbished and modified the Ecto 1 after the events of Ghostbusters II
When Lucky and Trevor are retrieving the Ecto 1 from impound, they find it in the garage on a lift. You can even briefly see the trick rear suspension, which is clearly not stock '59 Cadillac suspension. In-universe, Trevor eyes the rear axle and its suspension components. When compared to how the car performed in "Ghostbusters II" versus Afterlife, you can clearly see that the car handles far better in Afterlife than it did before. Both the Ecto 1 and the 1A wallowed in turns and neither of them had a gunner seat (that we saw in action at least).Part of Ray's resentment of Egon is that he took the Cadillac that Ray had put a lot blood, sweat and tears into refurbishing and improving. In the first film, Ray was the one to source the Ecto 1 and fix it up. In the second film, he's the one who holds onto the car and brings it or another Cadillac back into service. Of course, whether in-universe the Ecto 1 and 1A are different cars is still up for debate (though it's speculated that they are different cars).
Egon didn't die from using the taser on himself.
Now, a lot of people have come to the conclusion that Egon pulled off a Heroic Suicide to avoid being possessed by Zuul at the beginning of the film, trying to do a Kill the Host Body to avoid being possessed. However, when you look at the scene again, you notice that one of the hands that grabs him in the chair actually grabs ahold of his hand with the PKE meter in it, meaning that he wouldn't be able to turn his hand in any way to be able to shock himself. Phoebe points out as the cause of Egon's death was a heart attack, stating it was natural causes. Had he shocked himself, there would be telltale signs of being tasered and the PKE Meter would have been taken by the police as evidence of a potential murder (as the police would have to investigate if the death was a suicide or a murder, as they wouldn't have any context as to why Egon had shock marks on him where the zapping portion of the meter would have shown up on his skin). Seeing that the heart attack was natural causes, as Phoebe states, that means that Egon died of a heart attacked induced by extreme fear. It is possible, as there are documentation that intense emotion can actually trigger a heart attack in susceptible individuals. Given Egon's old age, there's a chance he might not have been aware that he was an susceptible individual (or he might have but ignored it, which would be in character of Egon). Trapping Gozer in the trap field was Egon's backup plan.
For Gozer to be summoned, both Vinz Clortho and Zuul have to be possessing host bodies to perform the ritual. But in the prologue, Egon already had Vinz Clortho in a ghost trap. Further, the equipment Egon had set up to hold back the death pit was apparently working fine without maintenance, even several weeks after Egon's death, until the possessed Grooberson sabotaged it. The only reason Gozer was even at the farm is because Vinz Clortho escaped the trap in the first place.Thus, Egon's initial plan (and the one he actually died trying to carry out) was to have Vinz Clortho and Zuul stuck indefinitely in separate ghost traps. Since he already had Vinz in one trap, the trap field was the most convenient place to trap Zuul in the time he had. Thus, with the Keymaster and Gatekeeper unable to perform the ritual, Gozer would be essentially unable to come to our world. The only reason the trap field even existed in the form seen in the movie (which undoubtedly used up almost every trap Egon had) is because Egon wanted to have an option in case Gozer came through anyway.
Even if Gozer ever escapes the trap, they won't be as powerful as they were.
When Gozer is trapped, they don't just get sucked in like normal ghosts, but the field of traps seems to rip out what look to be souls out of Gozer before trapping them, so perhaps their apocalypses weren't just something Gozer did, but were to farm souls to power themselves up, and the traps have significantly De Powered them. Egon and Janine were in a relationship.
Note that Janine fumbles before saying she was "a friend" to Egon while introducing herself to Callie. Janine undoubtedly knew how strained the relationship was between the two of them and thought it best to not mention that she was romantically involved with Egon. Egon "got spooky" because he looked in the trap in the first movie.
Unlike how Egon explains why crossing the streams would be bad, Ray never says why looking into the trap is a bad idea. At the time, nothing seemed to happened but it unknowingly made Egon's mind more susceptible to paranormal influences and his exposure/experimentation with the mood slime in the second movie only increased that sensitivity to the point he "knew" that something was coming but was unable to adequately explain or convince his friends. Egon is asexual, and Callie's conception happened out of curiosity.
The above theory that Callie is adopted has been Jossed, but the fact remains that Egon in the previous movies seemed disinterested in relationships. Perhaps he simply knocked a woman up by accident while trying to see what sex felt like just because he was curious. Callie knew more about her father and the farm than we thought.
For most of the movie, Callie talks as if she had little or no contact with her father even as a child. But when sees the working PKE meter and follows it to the underground lab, it's as if she knew what the device was for (unlike Phoebe, who was following it out of curiosity). Perhaps she had been exposed to his ghostbusting work before he left her life. And when the lights in the lab (animated by Egon) pointed things out to her, she didn't react in shock like most adults would; maybe something happened (offscreen) that made her realize that Egon was haunting the farm. Ivo Shandor is the one who chose for Gozer to manifest as a woman.
As established in the first film, Gozer appears in a form chosen by those who summon her. In the first film she appears as a woman, gets turned into Stay-Puft, and appears here as a woman again. She changes back because the woman is the form the resurrected Shandor has chosen for her. (This also would explain why the new woman form looks different from the 1984 version. She is not tied to a particular image.)- This is consistent with what Ray explains about the Destructor Form in the Ghostbusters video game, Gozer, like the other ghosts, operates on a form of symmetry that has him locked into Stay Puft for the Destructor Form. "One Destructor Form per god per dimension''. This would explain why Gozer is still manifested as a woman in the non-destructor form, as Gozer is probably allowed one non-Destructor Form in the same way.
