The Ghostbusters Franchise

Garraka was basically the Drunk with Power enforcer to a tyrant who wanted to be in control himself and then got sealed away by the tyrant for his betrayal. He's hardly someone that cared about the well-being of the people and ultimately turned Dragon Ascendant.

At least that's what I got out of it myself anyway.

Edited by futuremoviewriter on Apr 5th 2024 at 9:08:25 AM

Hoo boy. Is it just me, or is nostalgia filmmaking these days a matter of outsourcing scripts to three hundred different writers, throwing it all in a blender, then taping what comes out to a whiteboard?

I guess I laughed a few times during Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, but they were pained laughs because I could feel the strings being tugged. Even my son could feel it while we watched together at the drive-in. The parts of the film that aren't cringeworthy nostalgic callbacks are character beats that come as macros with most scriptwriting software.

Phoebe's arc is the only part with any soul (see what I did there?) and it got me at least a little interested. Well... I call it an arc... nobody grew or learned anything, but her ghost pal is something we genuinely haven't seen before in these films. It almost made me think of The Sixth Sense, a much better movie. It helps that Melody still looks human as opposed to a pile of snot and teeth. Oh look, the cliché meter is broken again.

It would have been neat if the story had explored the morality of taking these ghosts, who are all presumably being held on the mortal plane because of some unfinished business, and throwing them in prison for eternity rather than helping them resolve their issues. But nope, gotta beat the demon god with pew pew lazers.

Edit: Reading back a page or two, I also picked up on the chemistry between Phoebe and Melody. Kinda felt like something was happening there, but I guess the age gap wouldn't have worked.

Edited by Fighteer on Apr 6th 2024 at 1:39:00 PM

Kinda disappointed that they still had Walter Peck holding a petty grudge against the Ghostbusters. Was really hoping they'd give him some kind of Character Development, like actually be helpful to them in some way. Maybe prevent someone else from trying to hinder the Ghostbusters.

Maybe next film...

It's sad since the idw comics had him reform and become an ally to them. Would have been cool to see

I agree with those who wished they'd explored the moral ambiguity more; it's built up to be a major theme of the movie and then just stops. Wonder if there were some rewrites there. Like, the younger characters are clearly uncomfortable when they see Winston's new facility is basically a black site for ghosts, so I thought there'd be like a generational conflict thing on the morality of ghost busting there. Silly me.

Melody and Phoebe are the same age; the former laments at one point about how much it sucks to be a teenager forever. And count me as another who ships it; there was one point I actually thought they were going to kiss.

Also, did the acid ghost kill the blond guy? He just never appears again after it barfs on him.

Edited by HamburgerTime on Apr 7th 2024 at 10:16:42 AM

Gonna be awkward when Phoebe isn't a teen anymore.

Point.

Melody may be stuck in the form of a teenager, but she's been a ghost for a century or more. Also, someone pointed out that Phoebe's actor is 17, so that sort of thing gets really dicey to shoot.

I don't need a romance arc there. Just thought they had some very strong chemistry on screen. That said, Melody was using Phoebe from the start, so... relationships founded on false pretenses tend not to last.

Edited by Fighteer on Apr 7th 2024 at 12:55:46 PM

Yeah. Too many cooks. A lot of good ideas that are only half-baked in a movie trying to do them all at once—trying to have its cake and eat it too.

I like it. I have the same problems though.

Edited by futuremoviewriter on Apr 7th 2024 at 1:58:17 AM

Yeah, I think the actors ages are a major reason why it couldn't have been explored more than subtext. Like the characters might be the same age but Melody is a case of Dawson Casting.

To me I feel like Trevor and Phoebe should have interacted more. Like does he ever find out that Phoebe becomes a ghost for a bit.

Trevor - that's the older brother, right? He's got his own little Scooby Gang of plucky teenagers, which is cute, if slightly weird considering the intense danger they're regularly in, never mind their total lack of qualifications for an allegedly scientific field.

I know it sounds crazy, but I have to agree with Walter Peck about Phoebe's age. I realize it's routine in action movies for minors to be exposed to life-threatening danger on a daily basis, but in real life that would get you some seriously unpleasant attention from your local labor board.

This movie wants to have its cake and eat it: put the characters in [alleged] mortal danger but refuse to engage with the ethical implications of that. Nobody seems to suffer from trauma. They're all psychotically well adjusted.

Zeddemore running a paranormal research agency raises more questions than it answers. Like, if he's got all these people and all this tech, why are the Ghostbusters still running that old firehouse as a front? Heck, wasn't that place abandoned for like 20 years? Con Edison must be cutting them a lot of slack on the electricity bill for the containment unit. (Yeah, I know it's sitting atop a ley line or some bullshit like that. Didn't seem to matter before.)

The movie is full of all these things that are just there. They aren't explained; they don't fit into a narrative structure; nobody has arcs. It's just a bunch of stuff happening until the credits roll.

Edited by Fighteer on Apr 7th 2024 at 6:18:32 AM

As explained by Winston, Ray, and Janine, the Firehouse has become a supernatural conduit due to the accumulation of ghosts caught and stored there, as well as the fact that Walter Peck inadvertently released them in the first Ghostbusters movie.

A finger plugging a leak, if you will.

Plus the fact that the Ghost Container is still there and nobody knows how to transport it to the new facility yet because they didn't think about it in the 80s.

Peck is also an elitist jerk who only used Phoebe being underage as a factor against them because he could and not because he expressed legit concern about her getting hurt. He had her get locked up at one point just for being defiant toward him in public. Even though he's been right technically about many things, it's always for the wrong reasons though.

Finn Wolfhard was almost 21 during filming and he plays a more believable 18 year old than Emily a 16 year old admittedly—especially because she's older than him in real life (though not by much since they both were born in 2002, her in early May and him in late December).

Edited by futuremoviewriter on Apr 7th 2024 at 4:07:19 AM

This is obviously true, but the fact that he brings up labor laws means they must exist in this setting, and therefore Phoebe's apparent unpaid employment as a Ghostbuster is a plot hole that can't be ignored just because Peck is an ass.

A minor is wandering around New York at night, playing chess with ghosts, wielding unlicensed nuclear particle beam weapons around civilians, allowed unsupervised near extremely dangerous equipment, and enlisted as a combatant in a paramilitary unit.

If you didn't want us to think about it, why bring it up?

Edited by Fighteer on Apr 7th 2024 at 7:43:14 AM

I mean him allowing it at the end implies that it is not really a hard fast law.

I don't think Peck has a point personally. I think Callie does and so does Phoebe but Peck going "you can't have kids do that" would hold more water if this film to place a few months after Afterlife and not a few years. Like if these were hard fast laws then certainly, they would have been told about it before this movie rather than act like it is coming out of nowhere.

@Fighteer Oh it's definitely there certainly. Not saying it's not, I'm saying that one has to consider the source though.

Yeah. The movie doesn't really give us a sense of how the characters have been doing in New York before that, meaning it implies they've been adjusted for quite a bit in the last few years. Also, Peck just happened to think about it and bring it up after all that time too when anyone could've easily looked into Phoebe's age and brought it up before him.

Basically that's it. It wasn't a problem until Peck brought it up based on how the story was framing it. Not saying it's not also problematic though as they paint Phoebe as being in the right about being kept away from it and while Callie and Gary both being concerned for her safety is treated like it doesn't matter at the same time as well.

I mean, Zed feels weird because... the Firehouse is falling apart. The Containment Unit is crumbling. And then he wanders in going "Oh, yes, we've been working on an institute for studying ghosts and fixing this exact problem!" but... then why is the Firehouse in such shit shape? Wouldn't he want to at least keep it from getting worst before the solution hit? Shouldn't the family have been told this before they moved in there???

The film just shows such basic lack of understanding of it's own story. It's VERY much what a first draft of a script looks and feels like; characters have problems and then they discover solutions or further problems, but those aspects all don't quite work with each other. The writer generally knows what they want; The Containment Unit is failing and they want Zed to walk in with a solution for the problem that's all but ready to go, but they haven't quite gotten the pieces to fit yet.

So much of modern film making REALLY struggles in the drafting department and early draft scripts are what end up as the finished product... Which really sucks...

That's exactly it. Sure, it could make sense for Winston to be doing all this, but it doesn't fit with the other things going on in the movie. And why is he employing two of the teenagers from the last movie instead of, you know, scientists and shit?

The movie clearly means that subplot to be taken seriously only in the context of the Spengler family struggles and Peck's antagonism, not as a genuine question. Which is jarringly strange considering that, in any rational world, unlicensed paramilitary organizations employing kids to blow holes in buildings with nuclear lasers would be frowned upon at the very least.

The movie wants to have its cake and eat it too... or perhaps more accurately wave its cake around going, "Hey, look at this cake. It's so yummy. Don't bother thinking about any of this because of the yummy cake."

When I watched that opening action sequence, I wasn't thinking, "Hey, what a fun little action sequence." I was thinking, "Hey, these people should really be in jail and replaced with competent professionals."

Edited by Fighteer on Apr 8th 2024 at 9:17:55 AM

Such a weird decision to take a pro-child labor stance in this franchise about running a small business doing menial but necessary maintenance work.

Edit: I misinterpreted your post.

Edited by Fighteer on Apr 8th 2024 at 10:31:12 AM

@Fighteer I'm definitely agreeing with you. The movie wants you to accept Phoebe as having the right to be a Ghostbuster despite being a minor and making everyone liable if she's hurt too—or get everyone else held accountable when she destroys something too like she does the Lion when the Possessor takes over. There's Protagonist-Centered Morality at play here to be sure, though not one of the worst cases of it I've seen either to be honest.

That opening sequence was definitely fun for me though and the Ghostbusters zipping around the city and destroying stuff in pursuit of a ghost? That's just par for the course at this point.

Well, it's kinda the Gwen Stacy Problem.

We had the fun cool action sequence of a car chase vs. a ghost in crowded NYC.

But then we introduced reality to the mix; wait, having kids shoot nuclear paranormal energy blasts DESTROYS THINGS. And can HARM PEOPLE. And that's bad.

But now... you've introduced a consideration you can't un-introduce. It re-contextualizes ALL instances of children and under-qualified individuals doing Ghostbusting.

I'll at least give Afterlife credit; in that one, the kids were operating mostly on their own and, at least to my recollection, reacting to a Ghost situation and thus their involvement is more understandable- the situation already involves them to some degree.

But this movie has them pro-active in the Ghostbusting and making the choice of involvement. Which isn't quite the same thing.

There is a difference between being a firefighter as a career and... fighting a fire because you happen to be there and know where the fire extinguisher is.

Another way of putting it... besides "They are the main characters", why did this family (and a science teacher) move to NYC??? Especially if Zed apparently has a whole institute of Ghostbusters?

What justification do our main characters have for making this their whole lives compared to... other more qualified individuals?

By extension, why are the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the EPA, the Department of Defense, and every police agency in the tri-state area not on their asses 24/7 about that ghost technology?

Ghostbusters is fundamentally a superhero franchise, and superhero franchises need to hand wave (or just ignore) why these dolts are only ones willing or able to employ their powers to save people, especially when the powers come from technology and not from innate abilities. It's a variation of Reed Richards Is Useless.

It can be ignored until the internal logic of the franchise points it out, at which point it becomes impossible to ignore.

If. You. Didn't. Want. Us. To. Think. About. It. Then. Why. Did. You. Bring. It. Up?

I think that my biggest issue is that like Peck undoes it at the end. Like why bring it up and repeatedly say that Phoebe should have a normal life only to have it undone by a third party and so easily.

I mean, it absolutely is reasonable not to have her hunt ghosts until she's eighteen.

And utterly unreasonable she couldn't do anything else.