One thing I'm interested in about the Ghostbusters: Afterlife is the question of if it's "realistic" that 30 years later, Kids These Days wouldn't know about the almostpocalypse.
Until recently, I would have cried foul. Now I'm less sure?
Until recently, I would have cried foul. Now I'm less sure?
I don't think we have an actual real-world event that can stand in 1:1 with "the Manhattan Crossrip of 1984", buuut right now today we have people arguing about what a report that came out yesterday, that anyone can read, says.
People who watched the towers fall on 9/11 argued about what they saw. And now there are eighteen year olds walking around who were born after it happened, and older adults who were tiny children at the time.
I don't think it's a question we can really answer. For the story that Jason Reitman is telling, though, it's necessary that the answer be one thing, and that's fine.
Maybe there's a bunch of old New Yorkers who saw the statue walk and lived through the ghost attacks and all and they're "You don't know. You weren't there." while "Did you know? In 1984 multiple people reported a giant marshmallow man attacked New York City." is weird trivia.
I do think it's smart of Reitman to set his movie in a universe where, absent some kind of psychic accumulator, paranormal activity is basically 0. It completely contradicts every version of the Ghostbusters Extended Universe (RPG, the recent video game, Real Ghostbusters)...
...but if there were literally zero "ghost sightings" in between the Vigo incident and 2019, it makes the whole thing more plausible.
Which gets into what I was talking about yesterday, that this movie isn't "the definitive sequel" but a take on the Ghostbusters universe. It's got tie-in novel energy.
This is exactly how it would go. "Mr. Stay-Puft" is what gets cited in the Ghostbusters universe instead of "New Coke". A stunt that went so badly awry no one at the company would take credit for it.
"Anyone could have told them that marshmallow fluff is not a very sturdy building material, especially when piled 12 stories tall. Panic spread as the massive mascot broke loose from its moorings and began to lurch forward, damaging a church and several cars."
"Many connected the trembling titan with a nearby demonstration where a crowd had been whipped up into apocalyptic fervor by supposed doomsday prophecies circulated by local kooks and 'paranormal researchers', who had been recently fired by Columbia University."
"No one is sure exactly how the massive confection erection caught fire, whether from downed power lines or New Yorkers trying to hold the world's largest marshmallow roast, but in the end pockets of gas or possibly loose starch and sugar particles ignited and it exploded."
