Fixing Ghostbusters 2

[seriousfic]

Okay, whatever your opinion of Ghostbusters 2 is (from "crap" to "ehhhh"), we can agree that the premise of the Ghostbusters suddenly being disgraced bums is bullshit. Even for a comedy, everyone deciding that the famed ghost-battlers battling a giant ghost must be fake is flimsy (so is Sigourney Weaver breaking up with Bill Murray just long enough to have a child by another man, and take up the violin, and cripes, why not just come up with a whole new love interest while you're at it?.

So, to revise: Instead of losing everything, the Ghostbusters become world-famous, rich, and powerful. Which is just as bad, as they all drift apart to do their own things. Egon runs the Large Hadron Collider, Venkman becomes a monocle-wearing plutocrat, so on and so on. Perhaps they were so good at Ghostbusting for a while there that pretty much all the "real" ghosts have been busted, so now they just pay college kids to check out the inevitably-bogus sightings for them. Like a local pizzeria turning into a franchise, they're just living off the recipes now.

Then someone, maybe a new character, maybe one of the original four, maybe even Louis, figures out there's a reason all the spirits are lying low. Instead of the hyperactive ghosts in Part 1, this time the ghosts are trying to lull everyone into a false sense of security. And it would take something powerful to order them all around...

So you could have a lot of fun "getting the band back together" scenes, reintroduce the characters living out their dreams (I repeat: Bill Murray in a monocle), start things off with a lot more energy than them having to work their way up from the bottom again.

Comments

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

(from "crap" to "ehhhh")

Fuck that, our whole household loves that movie, warts and all. There actually IS a strong cult following for GB2, regardless of what reputation it has with pop culture at large.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

I hate how Facebook has trained me to be lazy to the point that I instinctively thought "where I do 'Like' this comment?"

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

As for your actual point, I'd like to address it and bring in my Henchgirl's rebuttal regarding how the fact that they went destitute is actually trenchant commentary on NYC, especially of that era... but we just did that with Box, which kicked off a long and passionate back-and-forth which left us exhausted and dejected. Because we take GB2 that seriously, you see.

So instead, I will say that I'd like to see how your GB2 would have played out.

[(Anonymous)]

The whole Ghostbusters were hated thing always bothered me. What, did the people think they somehow dumped about a million tons of marshmellow on the city?

What about Vigo? I rather liked the idea of character even if he didn't do that much.
-Nobody

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Don't forget the millions in property damage (something that was established in the hotel, the comeuppance of which they only barely escaped the first time thanks to Venkman's charm), the unexplainable phenomenon that your average person probably couldn't accept, and the general ungrateful crumminess of people ala the Marvel Universe.

Seriously, he is Vigo! You are as the buzzing of flies to him!