Nothing makes you feel older than when your childhood heroes start dying...
When I was young, I was obsessed with The Ghostbusters. I watched the cartoon several times a day. I was too young to see the original movie in theaters (I was barely two), but when the sequel came out, you would have had to cross the streams to keep my ass from seeing it. My parents took us to the drive-in (Remember those?) and I sat in the back of our station wagon having a 7-year-old orgasm (which is just when you get really, really excited without having to change clothes afterward).
Now Egon is dead and he's taken a little piece of my childhood with him...
Generally, the sequel to the legendary original is bashed fairly handily on most movie nerd message boards. The main complaints are that the movie was just a carbon copy of the original and the sequel was dumbed down to appeal to kids who were obsessed with the extremely well done animated cartoon, The Real Ghostbusters (Why would the animated series be the "real" version? Is it supposed to be ironic? 'Cause I'm pretty sure I didn't know what irony was when I was seven).
The rabid movie nerds are right on both accounts. The movie is basically a lamer version of the original. They even do the Ghostbusters the disservice of running them out of business and making everyone in New York forget that a giant sailor made of marshmallows invaded New York and the Ghostbusters saved them. Who would forget that? Or sue them for that matter? So then they have to prove themselves all over again and there's an evil force (a transvestite painting) possessing people and making them do his bidding and then a giant thing walks through the city (this time the Statue of Liberty...which makes no sense) and the Ghostbusters save the day and Peter and Dana (There is no Dana! Only Zuul!) get together...again. Pink slime doesn't make it different.
The thing that really doomed this sequel was the cartoon being so damn good! Watch it today...as an adult. It's still amazingly good! So they did what any money-hungry whores would do: They dumbed it down for the kids. There's no edge to the sequel. No one smokes anymore. None of the ghosts are creepy or scary. Ray never gets a BJ from a ghost whore (Still don't know why that was even in the original). It's tame, it's safe, it's a commercial for some new action figures. Vigo is defeated by singing...by SINGING!
Still, with all that being said, it's still the fucking Ghostbusters and if it's on TV (like it is every damn weekend on VH1), I will watch it and laugh at Janocz's ridiculous accent and Peter's quips and the dancing toaster and Egon's deadpan delivery. It still reminds me of being a kid when everything was awesome and nothing hurt. And, after all, isn't that what movies are supposed to do anyway? Transport us to a place where things are better?
Still, if they try to make a third one or a reboot, I will flip shit!
Why It's Not Really As Awesome As It Should Have Been:
Seriously, that whole Statue of Liberty part made ZERO sense! The positively charged slime made the toaster jump around, not walk like a human, so wouldn't the statue have just vibrated down the street, crushing everything in its path? And how could you control its movements with a Nintendo game controller? What was it hooked up to? And why did it BLINK! Dah! It's so stupid!
Best Quote (This one's for you, Harold):
Ray: You mean you never even had a Slinky?
Egon: We had PART of a Slinky...but I straightened it.
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