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Ghostbusters II (1989) (1 Viewer)

Erik Archer

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Hello there all, been a member here for some time but never really got around to posting until now, just been busy and mainly surf here for news and updates more than anything. Figured I'd finally get around to posting now and post about a film I always feel has been quite underrated.

Does anyone else absolutely love Ghostbusters II and consider it an unfairly maligned and hated on movie? I can understand thinking the original is better and I'd never argue or dispute that, but I think GB2 in it's own way is still an awesome movie that deserves so much more respect than it gets. I find it's just as entertaining and smart as the first with the same winning balance of scares and humor, much of the cast is back and still has the same great chemistry as before and I always really enjoyed the river of slime plotline and thought Vigo was a great villain. It's just as quotable for me as the original is, too.
I can't wait to see how both movies look on BD. I got the new set last month and this week will finally see them in HD for the first time. People say GB2 looks like a whole new movie.
 

TravisR

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Erik Archer said:
Does anyone else absolutely love Ghostbusters II and consider it an unfairly maligned and hated on movie?
I haven't seen it in forever but I remember enjoying it. As for its reputation, I blame Bill Murray for that. Once he said it was bad, everyone else started saying it too.
 

Ejanss

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I never heard him say it was bad (although I recall Siskel & Ebert, who liked the first one, call this one "Almost laugh-free")--


I, and most of the people sitting in the theater audience at the time (haven't seen it since then), remember thinking it was bad,
1) because there was no earthly reason WHY Sigourney Weaver or Rick Moranis should come back,
2) or why "Slimer" now has a name and is considered a good character after the Saturday cartoon marketing,
3) isn't it bad enough that most 80's comedies had a gratuitous trial scene at the end of their movies (and oh lord, did Murray have to catchphrase quote "Who you gonna call?")
4) even a Dragonslayer fan has to admit how pathetically dweeby an adult Peter MacNichol comes off as a major character,
5) although the standard "They reunited after living in unemployed failure since the first movie" sequel trope is always depressing, knowing that Dan Aykroyd is the one who tries to get the sequels going, watching Stantz unable to entertain bored kids at a party, and Zeddemore saying he's had enough, seemed an eerily prescient metaphor, and right at the beginning of the movie.

All these, however, paled in comparison to the bane of our '87-'91 moviegoing existence: The "Yuppies change diapers" 80's-MOVIE BABY BOOM as the central plot point. Bill Murray meets Willow. :angry:
However, like Siskel, I was one of the few folks in the audience who actually GOT the Laura Antonelli joke.
 

MaxMorrow

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I wouldn't say I love GB2-- but I'd say that I genuinely LIKE it, and like it more than most people appear to.

While (like many sequels) it doesn't reach the heights of the original, it would have been near-impossible to do so. We were prepared by the time the second one came out, and had certain expectations based on five years of waiting.

My understanding is that GB2 had a lot of studio influence that got in the way of the creative team. The moments with more a more kid-friendly tone (the use of "Slimer", and the weak ending bit involving the portrait of the 'Busters) certainly seem inspired by the success of the Saturday morning cartoon rather than the original film.

I feel like there's a lot of great moments in the film, and the cast has wonderful chemistry (of course), and on repeat viewings (most recently with the arrival of the new Blu Ray set) I enjoy what I see as more of a relationship-driven film than the first-I'd love to see Murray and Weaver renew their on-screen pairing in a non-GB contemporary relationship comedy/drama.

So..not an outstanding film for me, but a good one that deserves more credit than it gets.
 

Alf S

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It was and still is (IMO) a dog of a sequel that falls flat on pretty much every level. It's one of those sequels that you just get a sense that all the folks involved just did it for the paycheck. It was sad to see the mighty fall so far from grace on this one. Like was mentioned earlier, we all had such HIGH hopes/expectations that this just was a slap in the face by the time the credits rolled.

Now if you asked my 6 year old (who loves #1) if he likes this one, he'd probably say yes, but he's not nearly as infatuated with it like he is with the original movie.

This one would get a D from me.
 

Jonathan Perregaux

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It's funny, a lot of the Ghostbusters quotes floating around in my mind actually come from Ghostbusters II. "I'd like to run some gynecological tests on the mother." "Who wouldn't?!" I'm sure this is because HBO/Cinemax endlessly ran it over and over.

There is no question that there is a diminished energy level in the sequel and that it could have done with further script polish to punch up what few jokes there were.

I've always had a few peeves about GB2. In no particular order:

[*]Why does nobody believe they saw a giant Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man assault New York City back in 1984? That would be on the cover of Time Magazine. It would be the marshmallow-based 9/11 event of the century.
[*]Why are the Ghostbusters themselves so villified? They fought and stopped all this paranormal crap that was clearly flying around the whole city. You'd think they'd get dinner with the President and keys to the city after what they did (as long as Ray kept quiet about summoning the Marshmallow Man).
[*]Why is Ecto-1 is such a state of gross disrepair if Ray is still driving it and clearly understands and performs automobile maintenance? The whole thing was totally refurbished only five years ago. What, exactly, did that refurbishment consist of? Suspension work, shocks, brakes, brake pads, lining, steering box, transmission, rear end, new rings, mufflers, and (a little) wiring. That's like a whole new car! I'm not sure Ecto-1 could come apart so drastically in five years... unless nobody put any oil in it that whole time, thus explaining the trail of smoke.
[*]Why would the judge fly into such an unprofessional, mis-trial sized rage while handing down his sentence ("...burned at the stake!") if he didn't actually come into contact with negative slime?
[*]Why is Janine hanging around with Louis Tully instead of Egon? She clearly had a thing for Egon in the original. Plus, why is she so nerdy-looking all of a sudden? Oh, so she can inexplicably be with Louis, I guess.
[*]Apart from a very rudimentary toaster-dance test, how did the Ghostbusters know they could control the Statue of Freakin' Liberty using positively-charged slime? Like, "Aha! Of course! We need a symbol to rally the people—let's blindly take advantage of an impossibility that has no basis in prior established fact in order to accomplish our defeat of Vigo." And it actually worked!
[*]Why is the ghost Titanic in one piece, yet also sporting a gaping hole in her hull? The sunken R.M.S. Titanic was found in 1985, and at that time it was discovered that the ship had split in two. So, no excuse. Joke ruined.
[*]Why, exactly, would the Ghostbusters alter their company logo to have a "II" in it when they went back into business? When Napster returned from the dead, did their logo have a "II" on it? Or Sbarro? Or Six Flags? Or Eddie Bauer?
[/list]

ghostbusters-2-animated-title-card_columbia-pictures.gif
 

Ejanss

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Jonathan Perregaux said:
I've always had a few peeves about GB2. In no particular order:

[*]Why, exactly, would the Ghostbusters alter their company logo to have a "II" in it when they went back into business? When Napster returned from the dead, did their logo have a "II" on it? Or Sbarro? Or Six Flags? Or Eddie Bauer?
[/list]

ghostbusters-2-animated-title-card_columbia-pictures.gif
It's a "V" for Victory, after they won the court case and could reopen their business. Nice marketing dodge. :rolleyes:
 

MaxMorrow

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Jonathan Perregaux said:
[*]Why are the Ghostbusters themselves so villified? They fought and stopped all this paranormal crap that was clearly flying around the whole city. You'd think they'd get dinner with the President and keys to the city after what they did (as long as Ray kept quiet about summoning the Marshmallow Man).
[*]Why is Ecto-1 is such a state of gross disrepair if Ray is still driving it and clearly understands and performs automobile maintenance? The whole thing was totally refurbished only five years ago. What, exactly, did that refurbishment consist of? Suspension work, shocks, brakes, brake pads, lining, steering box, transmission, rear end, new rings, mufflers, and (a little) wiring. That's like a whole new car! I'm not sure Ecto-1 could come apart so drastically in five years... unless nobody put any oil in it that whole time, thus explaining the trail of smoke.
[/list]
They were "sued by every state, county and city agency in New York" for the events of the first movie. I took it as less that nobody believed what happened, but rather that the bureaucracy-similar to the way the EPA functioned in the first film-didn't trust an unregulated group of three guys running around with nuclear backbacks, and after the damage caused to the city they decided to sue the company that ultimately profited from it to the point of bankruptcy. And with the the powers-that-be condemning them, some of New York's citizenry (but not all, as seen within GB2 itself) bought into that.

With Ray operating an occult bookstore and having to do birthday parties on the side, he might not have the cash to fix up the Ecto-1...he had a third mortgage on the house he grew up in to finance the GBs in the first film, and likely he lost that house after being sued into oblivion. Ray's probably very deep in debt at the beginning of GB2.

Jonathan Perregaux said:
[*]Why is Janine hanging around with Louis Tully instead of Egon? She clearly had a thing for Egon in the original. Plus, why is she so nerdy-looking all of a sudden? Oh, so she can inexplicably be with Louis, I guess.
[/list]
This seems to be a common concern for GB fans, and I totally get it; Egon and Janine had the potential to be a cute couple. All I can say is that, like Egon, I'm not dating the same person I did five years ago either :)
 

Jonathan Perregaux

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Maybe she got tired of the nightly ritual of, "Remind me to run a proteomic analysis of your cervical fluid within the next three hours." That's probably cute the first few months...But Tully?! Janine, come on!
 

Erik Archer

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*My understanding is that GB2 had a lot of studio influence that got in the way of the creative team. The moments with more a more kid-friendly tone (the use of "Slimer", and the weak ending bit involving the portrait of the 'Busters) certainly seem inspired by the success of the Saturday morning cartoon rather than the original film.*


I never got this criticism of GB2. It never felt more kid-friendly to me and I'd argue it's far darker and scarier than the first in some regards (such as the heads on the stakes in the subway, the slime in the bathtub, Oscar being abducted by the Ghost Janosz and many of Vigo's scenes). Usually it gets derided as being more aimed at kids as the Ghostbusters don't smoke nearly as much in GB2, which is something they didn't exactly do a whole lot of in the original to begin with. It isn't like the smoking made the first one good anyway, it was the excellent writing and acting from the involved players. Not to mention there's still quite a bit of subtle adult humor and innuendo throughout that would easily go over most kids' heads.
 

SilverWook

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If a supernatural force can raise the Titanic off the ocean floor and sail it to New York, it can darn well put the stern section back on if it really wants to.

Looking at screenshots of that scene, I can't really make out the stern anyway. Here's a photo of the actual ILM miniature...

7457420_1_l.jpg


Maybe the ship itself is a ghost? Like the train in the old subway tunnels?
 

Sam Favate

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I recently watched GB2 as part of the new blu-ray set, and it's not as bad as I remember from seeing it in '89, but it is not a good movie. First, Murray and the others obviously didn't have the enthusiasm they did for the first. It shows. The plot is pretty cartoonish, even compared to the first, which had the advantage of novelty. The second comes off as Scooby Doo. The movie has its moments, but not enough of them.
 

Ejanss

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Sam Favate said:
I recently watched GB2 as part of the new blu-ray set, and it's not as bad as I remember from seeing it in '89, but it is not a good movie. First, Murray and the others obviously didn't have the enthusiasm they did for the first. It shows.
Murray reportedly didn't have enthusiasm for the first one--he only did it as a concession to Columbia for their letting him make his "serious" debut in "The Razor's Edge"--but got into it.
Here, he's just not into it and looking to get out: Even in the S&E clip, where he says "So, you're saying this is mood slime?", there's almost a note of "...THAT'S your script concept, Dan??"

(Although one critic panning the movie said that Murray "wears his hip disinterest in this movie like a badge of honor." ;) )
 

Sean Bryan

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I love Ghostbusters, but I'm not a fan of Ghostbusters 2. When recently watching it I got the sense that there were way too many "story beats" they were trying to recapture from the first movie and they didn't work for me. It just doesn't have that "magic" the first one has.
 

Gary Seven

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I just watched this movie and missed the Laura Antonelli joke. I certainly know who she is as I lusted after her in my teenage years. What was the joke?
 

Ejanss

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Gary Seven said:
I just watched this movie and missed the Laura Antonelli joke. I certainly know who she is as I lusted after her in my teenage years. What was the joke?
Bill Murray has to mind the baby, and ad-libs, "We'll just sit around, maybe watch a Laura Antonelli movie..."
Most say there was only one funny joke in the whole movie, and pick different ones, but that's mine, and for similar reasons. The right people will get it. :)

As for the OP's question of "why more people don't like it?", let's just take a show of hands of how many saw Men in Black II in a theater, and that'll move the discussion along more quickly.
 

Alf S

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Ejanss said:
Bill Murray has to mind the baby, and ad-libs, "We'll just sit around, maybe watch a Laura Antonelli movie..."
Most say there was only one funny joke in the whole movie, and pick different ones, but that's mine, and for similar reasons. The right people will get it. :)

As for the OP's question of "why more people don't like it?", let's just take a show of hands of how many saw Men in Black II in a theater, and that'll move the discussion along more quickly.
Or Cars 2. Blech!
 

Ejanss

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Alf S said:
Or Cars 2. Blech!
No, no, specifically MIB2, for "Wacky, ad-libbing, offhandedly loony and sci-fi-original comedy in the first movie, that lazily fell back on their laurels in the second one, and just gave us a more or less pointless This Week's TV Episode (with a depressing subplot about our characters falling into low-paying jobs), while pimping their catchphrases and marketing after the cartoon spinoff--While the main comic hero of the first movie, whose sarcasm seemed hip and rebellious, now just seems snarky and bored, and wanting to get the heck out of there."
We didn't really care about the Johnny Knoxville character, and we didn't really care about Vigo, either.
 

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