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Which Movie Was Best?
Ghostbusters (1984) 90%  90%  [ 28 ]
Ghostbusters II (1989) 6%  6%  [ 2 ]
I can't decide 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
They both sucked because Jake and Eddie weren't in them 3%  3%  [ 1 ]
Total votes: 31
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 Post subject: Which Movie Was Better?
PostPosted: September 5th, 2007, 3:56 pm 
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This is an evergreen topic that comes up in just about every Ghostbusters forum...so here it is here

Myself? Easy. GB1 was the best. A perfect blend of comedy, horror, weird science, and a dash of romance. It was Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis's work of genius that established the scenario so perfectly...and so open that two years later J. Micheal Straczynski and the most talented writers in animation at the time created something that, in my estimation, was very much it's equal.

Unfortunately, five years later, the ball was dropped. For various reasons--time constraints, the influence of the already decaying animated series--the second movie didn't live up to it's predecessor. Let me count the ways...

--Almost plot point per plot point regurgitation of GB1's plot. Dana is menaced by supernatural evil. A wierdo has the hots for her. The Ghostbusters are down on their luck. Ray, Egon, and Venkman have a bust that turns things around for them. There's a montage sequence where Things Get Busy. The Weirdo is posessed by the bad guys. The Bad Guys get Dana. The Ghostbusters are menaced by a dickless, jack-off beaurocrat, before the mayor helps them. There's big show down where something big walks down the street. Do I have to go any further?

--Let me get this one out of the way right now: Janine turned into a desperate tramp barely recognizable from either the first movie or the animation. Her panting for Louis Tully simply made no sense in the context of the first movie or the animation. It was a creative misfire that was justly vetoed by every officially-licensed GB iteration since. (Except for the iBooks novel, but even then there was a notable lack of enthusiasm and even an ambiguous moment or two)

--On a related note...especially after three years of RGB getting along just fine without him, Louis Tully was shoehorned in just because he was friends with Ramis and Aykroyd. In addition to the above ruination of Janine just to give him something to do, they graft a completely new persona on to him (lawyer) to justify his presence in the movie.

--Why the hell wasn't Winston there with them at the River of Slime and the courtroom, anyway? After RGB had well established Winston as an equal to the rest, to see him relegated to "that other guy" again was a step back.

--Vigo the Carpathian was not a bad villain...but he just lacked the coolness and "Oh sh*t!!!" factor of Gozer.

--The GB2 logo wasn't as cool as the classic. It just smacked of "marketing trick!!!" One more GB2 innovation that's been ignored by every GB version since.

--The ECTO-1A was loud and ugly compared to the classic ECTO-1. Granted, my fan fic team, the GBWC, uses a car intentionally patterned off the ECTO-1A, but hey, they live in LA.

--Characters defanged. Other than Janine's spontaneously hyperactive libido, just about any other "adult" traits were toned down or removed entirely. Venkman's perversion was downplayed (there was the one bit about wanting a love potion to seduce a Penthouse Pet). Ray got a smoke in a couple of scenes, but Winston and Venkman do not. None of them chug beer. It was definitely a concession to the fact that more kids would be seeing the second movie because of the cartoon's success, but it weakened the characters.

That's my view. What does everyone else think?

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PostPosted: September 9th, 2007, 9:41 pm 
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Fritz, get outta my head. I hardly have room in there w/me in it!
Count my ways:
1) It's like the writers deleted the persons, places & things in the 1st film & substituted different ones for the 2nd. The writers could've sued themselves for plagiarism.

2) The Janine transformation. Her behavior was unexplained & therefore unjustifiable. The audience would've like to know what happened in the 5 years. I can't fathom Janine going from being repulsed by LT in the 1st film to going gaga for him in the 2nd. She also appeared to have lost a fair dose of IQ points in the 5 years. No other (male) characters go through such drastic & unflattering changes, only Janine.

3) I could accept TL & DB also being in the sequel, but only in cameos or supporting roles. The film is about the Ghostbusters, not their supporting players. Having them present was very limiting creatively.

4) Winston got neglected again. "Typical."

5) Vigo failed to scare me. Couldn't get over his long hair, split ends & shoulder pads. Hated the vanquishing of Vigo scene.

6) Despised the logo change. Limited & unjustified. Why would the paranormal investigators have such a logo; surely the original is instantly identifiable.

7) The pimped up vehicle reminded me of a laser light show @ a disco. New gadgetry that isn't used or explained doesn't work.

8) Defintely Disneyed the characters. Egon's less stiff, more friendly (Mr. I'm always serious: where he go?). Ray only smokes stogies not cigs, nobody drinks or uses foul language. Just rate this film "G" @ this point! What happened to the beer swilling, chain smoking, cursing characters to which we could relate? Me thinks they were replaced by doppelgangers.

Making these creative compromises in that short term period weakened the franchise in the long run.

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PostPosted: December 4th, 2007, 7:21 am 
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Why do I always end up um-ing and ah-ing over this question? Just occasionally, I go back to a time when I might pick, I can't decide. But I can decide. I don't have any of the problems with GB2 that a lot of fans seem to; I liked it as much as GB1, but it gave me that many more laughs. So that one's better, in my opinion. My minority opinion. I'm good at those, aren't I? :lol:

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PostPosted: December 6th, 2007, 6:13 pm 
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Janine should have been the one who went out on foot to support the guys during the final battle, not Louis. She's done it before in the cartoons. If they were going to have anything influenced by the cartoons, let it be that.


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PostPosted: December 10th, 2007, 2:43 pm 
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I'm just waiting for the first Jackass visiting here to choose that last option up there.


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PostPosted: December 10th, 2007, 10:14 pm 
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Ghostbusters. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed GB2 and thought it was one of the better sequals to a movie I've seen in my life thus far, but it just didn't have the wit and humor the first Ghostbusters had.

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PostPosted: January 9th, 2008, 9:30 am 
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I was 13 when GB2 came out & I have this picture of myself after seeing it at the cinema for the first time, I'm wearing my GB2 shirt & I have a really sour look on my face. :oops:
I thought it'd be fantastic with they way they hyped it up, but I was deeply dissapionted.
The sour look has a lot to do with Janine & Louis I think. (Insert vomit here.) I still have nightmares about it! :evil:
The rest of it doesn't bother me that much. Except maybe half ignoring Winston & ignoring the history of RGB entirely! Like it never happened you know the whole "We've been out of business for 5 years" bit was so annoying!
Then Dan & Harold went & took part in the "Making of RGB" special at about the same time. It was like "Oh now they acklowledge the cartoon." :roll:
I guess you can tell which movie is my favourite... GB1 of course.

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PostPosted: July 16th, 2008, 6:39 pm 
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The Ghostbusters movie is written better, and the characters are more entertaining. This wasn't a hard choice to make. Basically the real question is, how could have GB2 even matched up with GB? Its not like theres a lot of fresh ideas in number 2. As noted, mostly cheese factor such as new logo, upgrading the Ecto-1, having the slime mainly pink instead of green, adding in those slime blasters, and the purple uniforms they had in a few scenes to just make it look new. God even the soundtrack was nothing but a upgrade. Bill murray seemed to be under the weather in gb2. The only sort of bright spot was winstons character sort of getting a bit more scene time.

I thought another negative was the lack of good jokes in GB2, and the scary direction.

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PostPosted: July 17th, 2008, 2:23 am 
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Fritz, I agree with absolutely everything (pretty much everyone else)...you were so bang on.

The only thing I didn't agree with was your last point. I don't think that the controversial characteristics (smoking, pimpin' from Peter) were integral to the characters, and that the movie didn't lack because those characteristics weren't dominant. I think it was responsible of the producers to acknowledge the fact that yes, children are now watching as a result of the cartoon and to respect that. I still feel that the characters were true to their nature, they were just given a sh**ty script. As a side note, knowing that, I was even more appaled at Janine's character, as I like how the cartoon portrayed her to be tough, no nonsense and not just a chick behind a desk, but in GB2 there was none of the qualities that made Janine a positive role model to young woman that the series did...now she was just a dumb slut behind a desk. :puke:

Maybe it's because I'm a Grade 3 school teacher, or maybe because I'm thinking of starting a family, but I didn't think the movie suffered because of the lack of mature themes, but as a result of the other reasons that were listed. I think it's great that the movie became more 'family friendly' (although I still don't think I would have taken my kids to see it)...but for those parents that did, there were less cringe-worthy moments (minus Janine & Louis on the couch *throws up in mouth a little*)...

Then again, I haven't seen the movie in about 10 years, so maybe if I watch it again I'll be able to see this lack of character development that everybody is talking about...


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PostPosted: July 31st, 2008, 3:21 pm 
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Hey there everyone.

I would say that GB1 was the best just because it had 2 good things.

1) An excellent story line and a great B plot

and

2) Some Egon/Janine fluff...Awesome.

Thanks and Write back,
Rachael


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PostPosted: August 1st, 2008, 11:23 pm 
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[quote="JECrazy"]I was 13 when GB2 came out quote]


omg, you were 13?
wow, i was like.... um, still in utero.
gross but true.

NO ONE IS ALLOWED TO BLAME JANINE AND LOUIS FOR THE GENERAL SUCKYNESS OF GBII.
IT IS VERBOTEN!

its not totally their faults, but they arent faultless either.
Yes, Vigo needed a hot oil treatment.
he was like the predecessor of Bo Bice.

dana needed to step it up a bit.
come on, you're BLEEPIN Ellen Ripley for Gozer's sake!

Louis i actually commend for growing a pair by the end of the film.
(when Manhattan Island Tales are published, you'll understand.)

Janine... wow.
ok... so maybe she would've been better suited with Spengler, but he's "Mr. I'm Always Serious." Or, was at least. I feel like Egon got dumbed down, which is a big time cheat and absolute sacrilege. back to Janine, this is just my honest and extremely blunt opinion, but that was pretty sleazy. Maybe she really did like Louis a whole lot, or it may have just been a dalliance (we are NOT talking about the cartoon here, so put it out of your mind.) but the way i see it is she wanted what she wanted when she wanted it. (in M.I.T. she got it, hint hint)

Peter struck me as too much of a family man, not so much a ladies man.
that just aint right.
if it was family man peter was striving to be, as a repentance for his relationship with dana, then that's understandable.

Where the blazes was Winston through a great majority of this?
like the courtroom?
huh?
that SCREAMS token black man... not right.

Ray was just.... eh.
though i did enjoy his foray into entrepreneurship.
Ray's Occult Books... how very catchy.



however, GB1 is not my favorite.
why?
GB2 was the first one I saw, and therefore it holds a special place in my heart.
don't criticize the film for plotholes, discrepancies, or even things that you may or may not agree with.

enjoy it for what it is, and for the joy it brought you when you saw it as a child.
because that's what i did.


this is open for discussion.


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PostPosted: August 2nd, 2008, 8:58 am 
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Well, see, I was even older than JECrazy when GB2 came out. It was a month after my 18th birthday, and just a couple weeks after I graduated from high school.

I've said this other places before, but I honestly wonder if Winston and Janine would have even been in GB2 if it weren't for the cartoon. They're treated like afterthoughts in GB2 in so many ways; it was a bit jarring after three years of RGB making them important characters to see them playing second fiddle to Dana and Louis.

As I've said, I didn't completely hate GB2. I enjoy it a great deal. But it has it's problems, and they were a little more obvious to me, I guess, as a slightly older member of the audience when it came out. I honestly thought some of JMS's scripts for the cartoon were loads better than GB2--if Sony wanted to get me excited about a new GB project, turn him loose on something.

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PostPosted: August 2nd, 2008, 10:52 am 
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I actually remember seeing GB2 as a two-and-a-half year old in 1989, and have many fond memories of it. Perhaps because I was growing up on a healthy dose of RGB at the time, GB2 struck more a chord with me as a child, but I never re-enacted any of it's scenes with my RGB figures (heh, with a Mr. Stay-Puft it was easy to imagine him as a 10-story behemoth to the 5" figures).

Back to the point though, the first movie will always occupy a specific part in my heart as being the first movie. The freshness I think that comes with meeting all the characters for the first time is always a treat even in repeated viewings. Sure, as much as I love GB2, it comes off as being a live-action episode of RGB in so many ways, and loses that freshness. But you can actually say to yourself, "I was there when Venkman met Slimer, when Egon met Janine, when Winston got arrested".

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PostPosted: August 2nd, 2008, 10:54 am 
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As long as Spidey's not involved...*snicker*

For some reason, I have a hard time watching GB2. Probably the Janine/Louis thing is what sticks in my craw the most, and I have to agree about the whole second fiddle/only there cause of the cartoon thing. I think that's why Slimer was there, too- the producers probably felt they had to stick him in there since the kids saw him in the show (heck, the show was being geared around him anyway), so he had the stuff with Louis. I don't remember him interacting with the guys at all in GB2...

Oh, and I was 29 when it came out. You young whipper-snappers... :lol:

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PostPosted: August 2nd, 2008, 11:14 am 
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On the Winston thing, I've often heard there is a deleted scene of him in the courtroom trying to get to the guys but was being pushed forward towards the exit.

For his lack of appearances though, Winston did get some great scenes:
[*]Saved Ray and Egon by busting down the door
[*]The boys adventure in the Pneumatic Transit should have given him nightmares
[*]Him and Ray's "slime time" quote
[*]The ending is always amazing to me with all four "savin the day"

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