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 Post subject: Peter and Dana
PostPosted: September 11th, 2007, 1:38 pm 
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I got the Egon/Janine topic, now for the other canon romance from the first movie...

(Previous discussion)

The relationship with Peter Venkman and Dana Barrett was at the center of both of the Ghostbuster movies, but was seriously not served well by the cartoon series--where Dana Barrett is not even mentioned.

Granted, this worked out well before GB2--since it was revealed that in the interim, she'd busted up with Venkman and married "The Stiff" (Andre Wallance).

So what do you think? Do you buy into the idea that Dana shouldn't even have been in GB2? Should she have at least been in the cartoon after GB2? At least mentioned?

I admit, it took me a while when I got into GB fandom to warm to the idea of Venkman and Dana ending up together. Not because I was against it, mind you, or one of those tards who though he should end up with Janine or something like that (yeah, I know, but they're out there ) But I'd formulated the idea that she was the "secret hurt" behind his lizardlike activities...I'd mined it for a little bit of pathos in some of my first stories ("Invasion of the Danish Snatchers" or the original version of "Charlie Takes the Fifth")

But heck, just to show I'm not inflexible, I followed what most of the rest of fandom wanted--it didn't hurt the idea that Rosey developed a great take on the Venkman family, including her creation of Peter and Dana's daughter Jessica.

It's an interesting thought experiment to think how she would've come across if she'd been in the cartoon--the chemistry between our conjectural cartoon voice actress and Lorenzo Music and/or Dave Coulier could've helped defeat some of the ambivalence one way or another.

Of course, some of the Venkman girls would probably hate Dana even more than they do now (lol) The hatred seems muted compared to the hatred Egon fangirls have for Janine, but I've seen it a time or two.

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 Post subject: Re: Peter and Dana
PostPosted: September 11th, 2007, 7:23 pm 
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Yea I was always wondering were Dana was

her is another question . If she was it the cartoon do you think that over time she would have donned a pack and helped Janine .

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 Post subject: Re: Peter and Dana
PostPosted: September 11th, 2007, 9:25 pm 
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Jason knetge wrote:
Here is another question . If she was it the cartoon do you think that over time she would have donned a pack and helped Janine?


I don't think so; Dana seems a little upscale & delicate for that duty. Protect her child & go on the offensive? Yes. Power up a pack? No. That privilege is reserved for Janine.

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 Post subject: Re: Peter and Dana
PostPosted: September 12th, 2007, 12:34 am 
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Well yes but I think your still thinking of her as movie Dana.

You have to think this as RGB Dana some one who would have bin there start to finish . I certain that there would have be a time were she would use one .

May be something were all the guy's are brain washed and the girls have to save them . ( every old cartoon has don it at lees once )

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 Post subject: Re: Peter and Dana
PostPosted: September 12th, 2007, 9:53 am 
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Interesting thought, Jason. I'd have to say you're probably right--if she'd been in the show for any length of time, she probably would have put on a pack at least once. Even if afterward she said "Believe me--this isn't something I'm going to do every day. I'm leaving this job to you guys."

I understand, really, some of the reasons she wasn't in the show. As a show being sold to kids on Saturday Morning, the emphasis is going to be on the exploits of the four Ghostbusters, and their adventures chasing ghosts. Dana Barrett's connection to the Ghostbusters is purely personal--she's Venkman's love interest. Janine is also a Ghostbuster's love interest, but the main difference, the one that got her on the show and not Dana, was because she's also connected to the Ghostbusters professionally. It made it a lot easier to justify Janine appearing frequently and occassionally helping out.

Dana would have to have been handled one of several ways:

--Constantly in trouble with the supernatural. You thought she was a "paranormal black hole" before, what if ghosts, demons, and evil sorcerers were after her every week? That would have probably gotten old fast. A danger of instead of "Who are the Ghostbusters fighting today?" it becomes "Who's menacing Dana Barrett today?"

--She joins the Ghostbusters. But why? You thought they had to twist Louis's character to make him fit into the professional side, that would've been nothing compared to this. "I used to be a celloist and an art restorer, now I'm a Ghostbuster!" She isn't rough and tumble. She doesn't have Ray and Egon's knowledge base. It just wouldn't be in character. They would have had to completely twist her character beyond recognition to make this work. (Almost as much as they butchered Janine's character post-JMS...)

--She's only an occasional guest-star. This would be the only way to have her appear and keep close to the character as defined in the movies. The occasional story where she is forced to put on a proton pack. Every once in a while, a ghost, demon, or evil sorcerer has designs on her. And the occasional gag about her and Venkman's romantic foibles. So maybe it's not worth the trouble to come up with a character design and cast a voice actress for a bit/guest part?

I honestly think the last option should have been taken after GB2. It's not like RGB completely ignored GB2, in that they stuck Janine in the same stupid haircut and shoved Louis into the show. And they even had a RGB-ized character design by that point, in the GB2 comic adaptation if nothing else.

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 Post subject: Re: Peter and Dana
PostPosted: January 9th, 2008, 9:16 am 
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I would love to have seen her on occaision, not donning a pack because I just don't see her as wearing one, just you know going on a date with Peter or something small like that. Just something to acknowledge her as Peter's main squeeze. ;)

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 Post subject: Re: Peter and Dana
PostPosted: July 25th, 2008, 2:46 pm 
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Hey there everyone,

Oh boy, The Relationship between Peter and Dana was a complicated one at best.

It took her getting possesed and almost Dying to make Dana relaized that she actually liked Peter.

In GB2 when she returned, everything was different. Dana had been married, and had a son (Oscar).

I am too much of a Egon/Janine shipper in GB1 to even bother about what happened with Peter and Dana...they drove me nuts.

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 Post subject: Re: Peter and Dana
PostPosted: July 25th, 2008, 11:33 pm 
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yes, dana should have been in the cartoons.
it would have brought things REALLY together.

yes, she should've been in GB2, im glad she was.
no dana, no oscar.
also, i feel the relationship between her and "the stiff" should've been fleshed out a little more, but that's just me.
details, details, details.

and no, you are not allowed to talk to me about EJ shipping.
its against my religion.
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 Post subject: Re: Peter and Dana
PostPosted: September 7th, 2008, 2:47 am 
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I was just thinking about Peter & Dana yesterday, and then I stumble across this post...can't believe I missed it...

Yeah, wasn't a big fan of the Peter/Dana thing. No real reason, I just didn't connect to them. Didn't like the way the whole thing went down. She seemed too uppity and snooty to be into Peter. Didn't care for that. Don't really know what Peter saw in her either. Her personality was just....blah. :roll:

I'm personally glad that she wasn't in the cartoon -- totally agree with EJShipper that I was too concerned with E/J to give a damn...but not only that, I liked Peter's womanizing personality. If they had injected Dana in any way they would have had to tame that down...if not, that would have made Peter extremely unlikeable...think of the message that would have sent kids..."even if you have feelings for someone you can still play the field"...riiiiiight. They'd have to make her his girlfriend or nothing at all...I think the concept of "an open relationship" is a little too sophisticated for Saturday morning cartoons. ;)

I know some only like the idea of Dana in the cartoon because that is keeping with canon but think about it...In a way, Peter flirting with anything in a skirt WAS keeping with canon because he was like that in the movies, and I believe the reason why Peter and Dana split was because he couldn't commit? So it is reasonable to suggest that with RGB being set between the movie time, that she WAS "there" per se, but he was just not WITH her...

I think another female dynamic would have just made things complicated anyways...I was already aggravated with friggin' Professer Dweeb and the Junior Ghostbusters. Even Slimer was beginning to get on my nerves towards the end, actually. Anything that took camera time away from my boys and/or Janine frustrated me...

And I think the only way she would have been intergrated was in one of the ways that Fritz suggested...which just sounds like it could get messy or extremely predictable and corny ... :?

To sum it up, I liked Peter in RGB the way he was...and Dana would have complicated that...so I'm glad there was no Dana in the cartoon...

Gonna post a poll in the animated forum...check it out and vote!


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 Post subject: Re: Peter and Dana
PostPosted: September 11th, 2008, 7:27 pm 
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For me personally, the driving forces of the GB films have always been:

1) The MacGuffin
2) The Science
3) The Comedy
4) Peter and Dana

Now, what I noticed when I took a look at the movies a few months ago was that when you take out the Peter/Dana equation (especially in the case of GB2), you're left with Peter have VERY little to do in regards to the flow of the film. When you think about it, Peter recedes into the background for a lot of the more whacked out stuff when he wasn't needed to crack a joke at Ray or Egon's expense or he wasn't needed to antagonize someone like Janosz. In fact, a lot of the scenes in GB2 were driven mostly by Ray, Egon, and (later on) Winston, whereas Peter was just "there". But when he was with Dana, Peter seemingly becomes integral to the plot again, much like how he did at the tailend when it came to rescuing her.

If it's true that Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd deride GB2's script, it might have also led to the split between Ramis and Bill Murray's friendship when they broke over Groundhog Day because of this lack of any real input as Venkman.

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 Post subject: Re: Peter and Dana
PostPosted: December 14th, 2009, 7:01 pm 
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It would be funny if we tried to write a fic that was the idea of Dana having to help Janine save the guys, and then say that she's not picking up a pack again. :lol:

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 Post subject: Re: Peter and Dana
PostPosted: May 13th, 2013, 11:02 am 
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I'm gonna admit, I don't like this pairing. I don't think Dana is bad, exactly, I just feel like she's flat. Her characterization doesn't go much further than beyond Peter's pretty girlfriend, and in the second movie she isn't written as very likable to me.Yes, she's nice, and yes she's a good mother, but what do we really know about her beyond that? "Nice girlfriend/mother" isn't exactly a unique sort of character.

Plus, as she stated in the second movie, she and Peter are really bad for each other. They don't seem to share many common interests, if any, and both movies have the relationships start due to a mutual protector/protectee crush coupled with sexual attraction, which is hardly grounds for a stable relationship once the thrill of danger wears off.

Peter also appears to be a bit of a commitmentphobe. By the time of the second movie he appears to have gotten over most of the phobia, but nonetheless Dana clearly wants more than what Peter wants, and she wants it faster. The time between the movies was 5 years and during that time they dated, broke up, then Dana dated whatshisface, married, and had a baby, then got divorced, so she couldn't have been dating Peter for more than 2 1/2 or 3 years. There's nothing wrong with wanting long term commitment, but marriage in 3 years is too fast for many people, even outside commitmentphobes.

Peter is of course, not blameless; if he had just had the marriage talk with Dana, he could have communicated his fears and his wanting to take things slower and they may have been able to work on his issues or put marriage off for a while. But of course, there's equal chance that if he had done that, Dana would have got fed up and left anyway. Like i said, she wanted things really fast. She probably wasn't patient enough to wait for when he was ready.

I also have an issue with how they got back together. They would never have even spoken again if Dana's baby hadn't been in danger; Peter offered protection, and that triggered the protector-protectee romance again, and they forgot their old problems temporarily while they focused on Vigo. They flirted, and then suddenly they just sorta fell back into dating again without much discussion. We don't see what happened between movies, but dialogue makes is painfully obvious that Dana breaking up with Peter completely wrecked him and broke his heart. Egon described him as "borderline", which could be taken to mean a number of things and none of them good at all. And yet, he seems totally willing to get back with her immediently, and none of his friends have any issues with it, despite the fact she hurt him so bad.

I admit, I am a little biased against Dana, but I'm only going off what the movies gave me, and her flat character made her unsympathetic actions look a lot worse. All in all, I don' think there's a real future for Dana and Peter unless a disaster happens to her every month or so that turns Peter into her white knight. I have no doubt that not long after the events of the second movie, they would have broken up again

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 Post subject: Re: Peter and Dana
PostPosted: February 8th, 2016, 6:45 am 
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It seems I haven't yet contributed to this discussion, and it also seems I didn't have anything worthwhile to say about it on the old board (mostly just banged on about my take in fanfiction :roll: ). But, since Jake and I watched the movies to prepare for our podcast and gave Dana a guest stint in our EGB fan season, I've had some thoughts on this.

I've seen the 'white knight' theory more than once, and don't remember any names, so I'm not trying to get into a fight with anyone when I say that I don't like it. That is largely because I dislike any implication that a woman is weak enough not only to want protection from a man, but to fancy herself in love with him as a result. It would also be a pretty lazy way of writing the movie's big love interest (Egon and Janine being softer and more understated, of course), and I don't think the writing is lazy at all.

Somewhere on GBFans there's a post explaining (to people who claim they would have accepted Zuul's offer to rape Dana, but never mind about them) that Dana takes Peter on his journey from being a womaniser with absolutely no respect, to someone who can fall in love and enjoy a monogamous relationship. Okay, so GB2 shows us there are a few more hurdles to jump before he's quite finished - but yes, what that Ghosthead says is true. With Dana, Peter learns to be a better person, and by the same token she loosens up a little when she's with him. A really enthusiastic shipper might even use the word 'symbiosis'!

I noticed, in GB2 in particular, that Dana always laughs at Peter's antics; for instance, when he's joking about the guys trying on her clothes and making long-distance phone calls in her apartment, and when he's threatening to paint in a cat beside Vigo. He also makes her laugh in that scene near the fountain, which in real life may not be sandwiched so closely between her throwing him out of her apartment and getting possessed, but this is a movie and movies have to, well, move. I found their progression in GB2 more realistic, as they knew each other and had some history to build on (which obviously is easier on the writers). The scene in the restaurant again is rather quick, but having said that, I think the conversation works well to establish what went wrong and how they can fix it. After that, and the relationship that Peter is clearly developing with Oscar (he won't be 'Uncle Pete' for long, I think)... well, I believe it's quite well known what I thought should happen next. :D

When Dana's feelings about Peter were right back to square 1 in the recent comic, I made my feelings about that pretty clear. It strikes me that Oscar's father can now be used or abused according to the whim of the writer in order to fit in with Dana, Peter and Oscar's situation at any given time, which is hard on him. Speaking of which, I've always considered The Stiff/Violinist/Andre (I think I know which he'd prefer) being that man to be a step above conjecture; in GB2 Peter and Dana speak of Oscar's father as a successful musician, perhaps 'one of the finest musicians in the world' (one even that perhaps they think the audience knows a bit about), and when we see him with his nasal spray, it's pretty obvious that he wouldn't mind marrying Dana someday if he got the chance. Anyway, I think it was Jake who described him as a 'safe option' after Peter i.e. someone who would at least take things seriously. But then that didn't work out, obviously, perhaps because there was no laughter in the marriage. (Actually, in fanfic I gave Andre's second wife a good, healthy British sense of humour, but I don't suppose I was thinking about it in these sorts of terms.)

Finally, I do not think Dana would have had a place in RGB, and much like previous posters I can't put it any better than Fritz did. So I'll leave it there. 8-)

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 Post subject: Re: Peter and Dana
PostPosted: February 18th, 2016, 6:00 pm 
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E/J E/E TJ/JC wrote:
It would be funny if we tried to write a fic that was the idea of Dana having to help Janine save the guys, and then say that she's not picking up a pack again. :lol:


This is a... BIT late... But I actually had a whole story lined up just about that. :o

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