Is Ghostbusters Turning Into Stranger Things? (VIDEO SCRIPT)

When the trailer for the new Ghostbusters movie, Ghostbusters Frozen Empire came out in November of 2024, it also came out with a rehashed debate topic back when Ghostbusters: Afterlife was released in 2021:

/Why is Ghostbusters -- a film series initially known for being a vehicle for a handful of Second City Television and first generation Saturday Night Live creatives and performers -- suddenly taking itself seriously? Why are the trailers focusing less on the jokes? Why is the feel of the new films after the 2016 remake less like Bill & Ted and more like Star Wars? Why do these new ones have reverence when Ghostbusters, Ghostbusters II and Ghostbusters Answer The Call never really cared for such a thing in the first place?/

Like I stated before, this argument came up once before when the legacy sequel Ghostbusters: Afterlife came out in 2021.

/Thanks to the combination of Ivan Reitman’s son Jason wanting to make a Ghostbusters film in the vein of his dad while wanting to give the late great Harold Ramis’s character Egon a proper sendoff in the universe, as well as Sony wanting to cash in on the supernatural success of Netflix’s Stranger Things (even getting one of the kids to play Egon’s grandson), Ghostbusters Afterlife not only cashed in on the nostalgia of Ghostbusters 1 specifically, but also took itself a bit more seriously than 1, 2 and Answer The Call, focusing more on the disconnect that formed between Egon and the rest of the guys, as well as his own family in trying to make sure all of Ivo Shandor’s plans to summon Zuul, Vins and Gozer were permanently foiled./

The thing is, before the movie was released and everyone -- including me -- cried like a fucking baby when /Ghost Egon helped his granddaughter Phoebe fight off Gozer like Ghost Goku helped Teen Gohan increase the power of his Kamehameha Blast fighting Perfect Cell and made up with his friends and family before passing on, Ghostbusters meets Stranger Things was pretty much the only vibe that peeps were getting from the promotions./

And for a lot of people who are mostly fans of how funny the concept of self-employed blue-collar working class ghost exterminators is, they feel a bit let down at how much of that and the comedy that comes from that isn’t represented in Afterlife and see them also ignoring the importance of that concept in 2024’s Frozen Empire. Thus feeling the need to bring back up the debate.

But while there are peeps who care more about the comedy associated with what I just mentioned, there’s also a group of Ghostbusters fans who -- while also caring about the human factor and how the comedians that play said humans amplify it -- also really like the lore established for the ghosts and gods that said humans have to face...

Have done so since the first movie...

/And are greatly looking forward to seeing the supernatural epicness that Ghostbusters has shown its capable of play out in an event as big and bombastic as Frozen Empire shows its gonna do./

Fans who prefer the writings of Tobin’s Spirit Guide more than the assholish-ness of Peter Venkman now that they’re old enough to realize that Peter Venkman is an asshole. Fans like me.

That means, yes; despite my attempts to apply logic, reasoning and fairness in this Devil’s Advocate opinion piece, this is still gonna be pretty biased.

As a ride-or-die Gozer fan and someone who really enjoys the way that the power levels of ghosts and gods exist in the Ghostbusters universe similarly to how my fellow queers and our straight allies like how the power levels of mutants are measured in the Marvel Universe...

This bias is to be expected, and I suggest you find another video to watch if you wanna see a better attempt at something more rounded out

These are my opinions, my points, and you are welcome to agree or disagree with them as you see fit.

But if you end up liking what I’m putting down, my name is La’Ron Readus; offering you critique and immersion of your favorite bits of geek and pop culture media

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So if you will, let me show you why it’s just as important for the legacy series of new Ghostbusters movies to cater to those of us who always wanted the supernatural epicness to be front and center.

Why did the trailers shift gears?

The answer is because they HAD to.

Like I stated before, Ghostbusters -- and as a result, Ghostbusters II -- was initially crafted to be a vehicle for a handful of first generation SNL stars and Second City Television creatives in the mid 80’s.

/SNL star Dan Akroyd, who is autistic and has always HAD a special interest in the paranormal and supernatural co-wrote and starred in it./

/Harold Ramis -- who initially turned down being a writer for SNL to stay a writer on Second City Television -- also co-wrote and starred in it./

/Eddie Murphy was originally gonna play Winston Zeddemore before Ernie Hudson signed on, and Bill Murray took the role of Peter Venkman after original portrayer John Belushi tragically passed away./

Now to put things into perspective for you, Saturday Night Live came out in 1975. And by the time the 70’s ended, a good chunk of everyone that was initially meant to be a Ghostbuster and would eventually BECOME a Ghostbuster pretty much became household names in comedy. Enough to get their own movies and features.

/Bill Murray collabed with Harold Ramis for his first feature Meatballs in 79, Dan and John did The Blues Brothers in 1980, and Dan and EDDIE did Trading Places in ‘83. By the time Dan and Harold sat down to make Ghostbusters -- this brand new IP that nobody but its creators had any knowledge of -- everyone that was initially planned to be in the movie was incredibly established in the realm of American comedy./

So what did the trailers decide to focus on when the final cast was set and Columbia Pictures was ready to sell tickets? You guessed it, the comedy.

/More specifically, the now-famous comedians that are starring in it and the in-universe jokes they’ll be telling in the movie as their respected characters in order to let the potential movie-goers know that there WILL be comedy./

Thanks to Ghostbusters being a new concept, Dan and Harold as well as the marketing team wanting to keep the plot surrounding Gozer a surprise for the actual moviegoers, and Columbia realizing that promoting these comedians currently hot on everyone’s lips first and foremost will get the people in the theaters the quickest...

/The jokes and comedy that were present in Ghostbusters ‘84 were what were primarily used for the promotion material./

It couldn’t be done like Richard Donner’s Superman was handled in the late 70’s, where the IP was already fairly popular to the point where you could just use the lore and source material of the character as promotion material alone.

/Especially because the one playing Superman, Christopher Reeve, was a completely fresh face in Hollywood when he was cast and only the secondary characters were portrayed by heavy hitters./

Because Ghostbusters was a new IP and peeps didn’t wanna spoil the movie in the trailers, they didn’t have that luxury, /so they HAD to use the fact that it was primarily starring Dan, Bill, Harold, Sigourney and Rick as the main way to get butts into seats./

The thing is, because Ghostbusters was initially promoted completely based off of personality, that’s what a lot of the Gen X’ers and some first wave Millennials who were young enough to experience the career takeoff of the actors who would eventually play the main characters of the first two films and the very beginning of both the franchise respectively remember vividly.

And while that’s a legit reason for older fans of the Ghostbusters franchise to not like that promotion and trailers for the legacy films kinda forsake the comedy nowadays...

/There also has to be acknowledgement of how big the Ghostbusters IP has grown since the mid 80’s -- both as a money-making franchise and as a fandom./

It’s gotten to the point where now thanks to the movies, the cartoons, the video games and the comics, Ghostbusters is just as big an IP as -- once again -- Superman...

/Where you can promote the plot of the movie over the actors that are starring in it because there are people who care about THAT area of the Ghostbusters just as much now./

And that means, acknowledging that thanks to everything I just mentioned...

Ghostbusters has lore.

And not only does it have lore, but it’s always been hella interesting.

I go over it in a video I made on my main channel a bit in-depth, but there’s definitely a good chunk of us in the Ghostbusters fandom that gravitate more toward the ghosts, the gods, the demons and the manifestations that are introduced in either the movies, cartoon series and even the comic books, along with the rules and guidelines that explain how powerful and dangerous they are.

Some gravitate toward it just as equally as the working class satire of the Ghostbusters themselves, others gravitate toward it more, and that’s fine.

Hell, despite little La’Ron first being introduced to Ghostbusters through Ghostbusters II one night in the early 90’s when my parents had HBO, /my little superhero loving ass couldn’t help but look at Vigo the Carpathian -- including what he was able to do, how he was able to control Yannosh, and his overall plan to possess Dana’s son Oscar before the new year hit -- as anything less than a fucking supervillain that needed to be stopped./

/Even the way the Ghostbusters reacted to his grand plan after they were released from the mental hospital had heavy “superhero about to fight the supervillain” vibes/ (And we’re the only ones who can stop it. Oh, you bet we are!)

But what REALLY sold me on the lore of the ghosts and gods taking up most of the reason why I’m part of this fandom is the GOAT themselves, Gozer the Gozerian.

/The first scene I ever saw of the first Ghostbusters movie was Zuul breaking free of her Central Park West statue and possessing Dana, which has been documented by multiple people across the internet and beyond as one of the coolest scenes in the history of American cinema./

Don’t argue with me, argue with your friend who takes pictures of himself pretending to be bored out of his mind at the movie theater while its in the middle of playing a movie to talk shit about a film his brain isn’t developed enough to handle, yet wants to be taken seriously as a fucking critic.

Also, I feel compelled to let everyone know that this scene from the first Ghostbusters movie is designed to convey the same emotional responses /as the scene of Lucky Domingo getting caught up in the Death Chill in the trailer for Ghostbusters Frozen Empire AND SUCCEEDS./

(George Lucas: It’s like poetry, it rhymes)

/And it goes without saying that the entirety of the ritual Zuul and Vinz underwent on the rooftop to summon Gozer, only for them to prove why Ivo Shandor was completely OBSESSED with them when the Ghostbusters tried to fight them in their Androgynous 80’s form, had me completely obsessed with the ENTIRETY of the third act of the first Ghostbusters movie as a child./

I was at the point where I was constantly drawing it, writing alt universe fanfic of it, EVERYTHING.

/Like I was to act 3 of Ghostbusters ‘84 as Janis Ian was supposedly to Regina George, and still am, bitch!/ (Like, why are you so obsessed with me?)

The thing about these aspects of the film's villains, though, is that I probably wouldn’t be as much of a Ghostbusters fan if I didn’t have access to the associations made with them. And they only exist because the in-universe stories associated with them that explain how they tick were so compelling, /only for said associations to be COMPLETELY blown out of the water because we got a chance to SEE them./

/Because there has to be backstories and lore surrounding the entities that the blue-collar working class ghost exterminators has to be even a LITTLE knowledgeable about in order to figure out how to properly “bust” them (even LESS knowledgeable now that the OG 5-Man Band’s Smart Guy is dead and crossed over in-universe now), things like the entities threat level, display of ability and intimidation factor have to be just as front and center to show the gravity of whatever the situation the Ghostbusters are getting themselves into, as the comedy that’s spawned from the outlandish situation in question./

And I know it’ll pain a lot of y’all who side with this aspect of Ghostbusters to hear this. But it’s the spectacle surrounding what the ghost-slash-god can do...

How dangerous they are to us regular-degular humans...

And where they rank in the universe’s power level scouter Tobin’s Spirit Guide that initially draws this side of the fanbase to want to see the movie first and foremost.

Especially because the universe in question is known for dealing with entities that are known for having such a huge effect on humans and cities as big as New York ON THE REGULAR.

/Portal in the sky turning the skies black. A New York museum getting covered by mood slime, followed by a portal in the sky turning the skies black. (somebody get me the Ghostbusters) And now a supernatural version of the New York “Day After Tomorrow” coldsnap that was looking for Jake Gyllenhall, the chick from Shameless and the black guy that every white guy knows from Malcolm in the Middle even though he SHOULD be known for Nickelodeon’s The Journey of Allen Strange. THESE ARE ALL COMMON PHENOMENA IN THE GHOSTBUSTERS UNIVERSE, so why SHOULDN’T they be front and center when promoting a Ghostbusters movie?/

Now to be fair, those complaining about the lack of comedy in lots of the promo for the legacy movies isn’t really centered on the portion of the fanbase that are Tobin Spirit Guide enjoyers like myself.

THEY EXIST AND THEY SHOULD BE SHAMED FOR NOT LIKING HOW WE’RE BEING GEEKS FOR THE SAME FUCKING FRANCHISE THEY’RE BEING GEEKS FOR, but they’re not the majority of the ones that are stating their case.

So when you put aside the peeps who realize that Ghostbusters has aged and evolved past just promoting the personalities attached to the franchise because it’s now bigger than just them, and even put aside that the ones that like the mystical and supernatural aspect of Ghostbusters deserve a bit of catering to now that this spectacle is part of it DUE to it now being bigger, there’s only one other valid reasoning for why peeps don’t care for the marketing of the legacy movies:

Why the Kids on Bikes Shift?

So part of the reason why lots of people aren’t vibing with the way the trailers for the legacy Ghostbusters movies are done nowadays is because of how the trailers for Ghostbusters Afterlife 86’d the comedy the trailers for the first two movies had in favor of the spectacle surrounding story, while also focusing on the new characters that took the events happening in Summerville pretty seriously.

The three banked on nostalgia in their own way, but they all focused on two things:

/The lore and nostalgia surrounding Ivo Shandor and Gozer from the first movie that’s both been established and expanded upon by the fanbase and other media since the original movie’s release, and how the new kids -- Phoebe and Trevor Spengler -- are adapting to life in Summerville, OK while making a collective friend group with the local kids to participate in the “Free Range Children” trope that’s been made popular by films and shows like “Stand By Me” and, of course, Stranger Things./

Considering what Ghostbusters started out as, the trailers didn’t really help in convincing the members of its fanbase that wanted to see comedians pretend to be ghost exterminators first and foremost that this was still the goal of the franchise.

/Now it’s playing around with a group of kids on bikes stumbling upon a mystery heavily rooted in plot and lore established in the first movie that involves the entire town, while two of said kids discover and cope with learning their dead autistic grandfather helped saved New York City from paranormal activity twice in the mid to late 80’s./

/To them, from the three trailers that were released for Afterlife, what initially made the Ghostbusters unique has been pushed to the side in hopes of seeing the surviving OG crew come back near the end for a grand finale cameo./

But while I definitely see where peeps are coming from regarding that logic, I will say that those who still decided to see the movie despite the marketing treating Afterlife with a sense of prestige were both pleasantly surprised and rewarded.

/Because despite the focus of the franchise shifting from where it started to where it is now, we got one of the most heartfelt and emotional love letters to not only Ghostbusters, but to Harold Ramis that fits right at home with the franchise./

Yes, I have opinions and issued regarding how much they depowered Gozer, Zuul and Vinz Clortho just so that the three of them can be contained in traps; I personally believe it goes against the reason why Class 7 ghosts and gods are as powerful as they are.

But look at all the good that came from Afterlife because they dared to switch up the formula a bit.

/Phoebe Spengler is exactly what I anticipated a Ghostbusters kid to be and I loved how ride or die she was for her grandfather. Podcast felt right at home with where you’d think the franchise would be considering the shift, and the in-character chemistry between he and Phoebe is so believable on that “we both like-like each other but we’re both too afraid to make the first move” tip. And let’s not forget Egon bringing everyone together to allow both sincere and heartwarming opportunities for character development all around. Not just for the new characters they introduced like his extended family, but for the surviving OG Ghostbusters that return at the end as well; specifically Ray and Peter, the ones that started this venture with him in the first place./

Conclusion

Ghostbusters: Afterlife showed that even a franchise that was initially promoted off nothing but celebrity personality starting out before it proved through the very information created for its IP that it can also stand on that alone, that it’s capable of evolving while still being what it is at its core.

/Even if they don’t make the trailers like they used to, that shouldn’t deter peeps from seeing the new stuff that’s proven it contains within them a similar amount of care as if it were written by Dan and Harold themselves./

I’m not saying you HAVE to like how the new movies are promoted. But if you skip the new movies because they’re not promoted in ways that you’d expect a Ghostbusters film to be promoted, you’re gonna miss out on some good stuff.

/And while it’s still too early to claim that for Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, I can’t wait to see if my personal hunch is correct./

...Wait. It’s called Frozen Empire because New York is known as the Empire State, and its gonna be frozen over...(sighs) Why did it take me so long to get that?!

(Snaps) Right! Yes! Homework!

Write in the comment section below what YOU think of the direction for the legacy follow-ups to the first two Ghostbusters films.

Or if you feel like sharing with the rest of the class, let me know where YOU stand in the Ghostbusters fandom. Are you pro-Ghostbusters, pro-Tobin’s Spirit Guide lore, or a bit of both?

Whichever one you wanna answer, feel free to let me know!

/Thank you to ALL of my patrons -- big and small -- for your financial support and making this possible! If you want to support the creation of the videos for this and the main channel, make sure you click the card at the end or the link in the description to join.

But until then this is Readus 201. Class dismissed./