Ghostbusters is a magical mess, and Ghostbusters II is a cold miscalculation.
1984 was an incredible year for movies, and Ghostbusters is arguably the best from that year.
So why does it always feel like the subsequent movies we get are a pale imitation of the original?
The Ecto-1 car was a black vehicle that could disappear.
Belushi’s passing forced a recast.
Eddie Murphy was considered for Winston before Ernie Hudson stepped in.
Both John Candy and Sandra Bernhard turned down the roles of Louis Tully and Janine Melnitz, respectively.
Candy wanted to give Tully a German accent and a pair of dogs.
Ghostbusters is such a huge movie that it’s basically a part of American culture at this point–.
But the pieces that fit together so perfectly came out of necessity, budget control, and improvisation.
Ghostbusters II is a photocopy of the original
The sequel, however, is something else altogether.
If we look at the movie from a thousand-foot view, they’re essentially the same film.
Something spooky happens to Dana, and she goes to the boys for help.
The boys are successful and popular, but there’s a mean government guy with a vendetta against them.
They get waylaid by the system and things get worse and worse.
A weird guy gets wrapped up in the evil stuff and unwittingly makes things worse.
There’s a montage of spooky happenings and people screaming.
The mayor gets the boys on the case.
That’s the plot summary of both movies.
It doesn’t stop there, though.
Peter puts the moves on a reticent Dana Barrett.
There’s a scene of them explaining the impending disaster in a holding cell.
There are three separate Slimer cameos, all of which feel shoehorned into the movie.
Peter goads the bad guy.
Still, when you line up all those similarities, it’s impossible to miss.
Just about every decision Ghostbusters II makes feels like a response to Ghostbusters or calculated audience pandering.
In some ways, the story feels really modern.
It’s not hard to draw a line to that in the modern news.
And it’s a trend that continues in the new Ghostbusters movies.
Slimer shows up again in Frozen Empire.
Paul Rudd and Carrie Coon’s characters get turned into demon dogs.
The Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man shows up over and over in both movies.
It feels like “Remember what Ghostbusters was” instead of “What can Ghostbusters be?”
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