Ghostbusters: Afterlife 2 – “Nostalgia is Going To Kill Us”

The blog’s been extra quiet lately as I’ve been writing my book (ahhhhh! yay!) but I decided to give myself a night off from book work tonight.  Why?  Well, I’m glad you asked.  I could read for pleasure.  I could enjoy watching Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! and then go to bed early.  I could spend the whole night with the Doctor.  All of those would be excellent uses of my night.  However, instead, I’m using it to vent a little frustration.  You see, Ghostbusters is one of my all-time favorite movies and one of my all-time favorite storytelling universes so when I recently read Jason Reitman’s plans for Ghostbusters: Afterlife 2 I had FEELINGS.  As is so often the case, this piece was born in a conversation I had with Jeffrey (of The Imperial Talker).  The title of the piece – Nostalgia is going to kill us – was his exact quote when I told him of the sequel story.  I couldn’t agree more so I was super excited when he said I could nick his observation for this piece.  Shall we dive in?  Are you ready?  Siiiiiiiiiiiiigh…let’s go.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife and Ghostbusters: Answer the Call – Honoring the Ghostbusters Legacy

Making a sequel to Ghostbusters (1984) is tricky.  Ghostbusters is one of few perfect movies.  Everything about it works!  It was one of my all-time favorite movies when I was five-years-old and it still is now at thirty-nine.  Already a fan of the cartoon show, my world was forever changed when my uncle gave us a VHS tape on which he’d recorded a Ghostbusters movie with real people in it from HBO.  I was a little thrown (at first) as they looked different and I am 99.99% sure it was what scarred me and made me scared of dogs all through my youth (as they constantly refer to the demonic forms of Zuul and Vinz Clortho as “dogs”) but none of that really mattered.  It was love at first viewing and it’s the only movie from my youth I still watch multiple times a year.  It spawned three sequels – Ghostbusters 2 (1989), Ghostbusters: Answer the Call (2016), and the new Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021).  One I loved!  One disappointed me.  And one was a straight up traumatic experience.  With thoughts of Ghostbusters: Afterlife fresh in my mind, I felt it’d be fun to discuss which is which!

Ghostbusters: Afterlife – A Trailer, A Mixed Bag of Emotions…

Obviously I’ve been eagerly awaiting the trailer for writer/director Jason Reitman’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife to drop.  The original Ghostbusters (1984) is my all-time favorite movie.  I not only watched it all the time as a kid but I still watch it all the time as an adult.  It’s consistently been bringing joy to my life, and I’ve consistently watched it multiple times every year, for over thirty years!  I don’t have that relationship with any other film – not Avengers, not (500) Days of Summer, not any of the Star Wars movies.  Also, I enjoy Ghostbusters even more as an adult because now I get all the jokes!  So not only do I love this movie but it keeps getting better for me.  Of course then, when I heard Reitman was making “a direct sequel” to his father’s iconic 1984 film, I was intrigued.  So much could go right!  But so much could go wrong too.  Now the trailer’s here and I’m feeling…lots of things.