Why “Ghostbusters” Was a One Shot Deal

As you may have heard, there are plans to release a new Ghostbusters movie. It hurts, it really hurts. Ok, maybe it won’t be horrible but there are at least a few reasons that the franchise will never pull the audience it did the first time around.

First of all, there’s the obvious. Three comedic geniuses at the top of their game and the apex of their notoriety worked together to write the first film. The result: Absolutely amazing! The witty banter, the solid but natural jokes, and the hilarious visual comedy were astounding. But there was more to it than that. These three had been working together and around each other for years, honing their comedy to fit each other. They were destined to do something huge.

Of course, the main writer, Mr. Harold Ramis, didn’t just show up to write a comedy. Maybe he did at first, but when the gears got turning, we ended up with several of the most noted plot lines ever derived combined. Now, stick with me here. The first and most obvious is the hero journey. There is an obvious trend from mundane to fantastic, taking steps to reject the journey, then embracing the quest, then discovering the tools and how to use them, culminating in a crazy, multidimensional showdown. Pretty standard fantasy/sci-fi hero journey material.

But did anyone notice the coming of age tale? Yeah, it’s not horribly obvious because these three schmucks are what, friggin’ 40? But, that’s just it, they are schmucks. The incredible Mr. Murray portrays Dr. Peter Venkman who is truly a big high-schooler. Think about it, when we meet him he’s using his government sanctioned research money to get phone numbers. He makes a reference to being in the private sector like it’s a living hell and then in the same breath discusses taking wing to reach their potential. These guys are frat boys who never really left the house, like some kind of perpetual Van Wilders with research grants.

Yet another typical mainline plot is the meaning of life theory. It’s the movie where Jim has been doing one thing all his life and things finally get bad enough to break out and do your own thing. This is where Dan Aykroyd’s Ray Stantz really is a crucial device. Stantz thinks the guys are doing the right thing and then wham, bam, the world goes topsy turvy and there’s Venkman with his crazy, childlike wonderlust saying just jump and find out who we are. Stantz fights it at first, but like every other movie average-joe turned Amazo, he falls in love with the potential he has for his newfound life.

These three plots form the basis for the witty back and forth, and just so we could see it a little bit better, they introduce Zeddmore so we have an ordinary guy off the street to see how these three loopy, zany nuts really are. It’s a perfect reference point and gives most people a down to earth perspective to relate to.

These alone give it the right fuel to connect to a wide audience but what pushed it over the top? Why can’t you top this film? Well, it has to do with how it was written. The powerhouse minds behind it wrote it as a one shot and really only wanted to do it once.

Yes, I say that with confidence and I’ll even explain why.

In the midst of making every ghost a one-liner from the fat slob to the asshole cabbie, they threw everything at the table. They pulled the right cameos and pegged the right venues. They connected across the spectrum of comedy, film, and music. When a movie gets Casey Cassum to do a piece you know it’s gonna be big. The marketing was massive. Yep, let’s face it, when the commercial for the movie was also in the movie you know it’s going to be everywhere.

And then there’s the ending. After all the joke-ghosts the world is about to be destroyed by the cutest, silliest kaiju ever. That’s right, the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man was a joke on Japanese monster movies, it had to be. Try to picture the most harmless thing ever destroying one of the world’s largest cities and you end up with sugar puff Godzilla. Then you lose both the main love interest and the corny side kick which is a plot double whammy against the heroes of any story. And the finale actually has the protagonists risk the existence of two realities to save the day. Let me say that again, the flippin’ good guys decide that instead of just letting bubbly, lightning tossing chick rule the world they will chance blowing her reality and ours to absolute nothing.

That ending says it all, no, I mean it, it says this is the absolute end. You can’t go anywhere after throwing all that in. You cannot top it. Ok, maybe you could but it would require a group of iconic geniuses, a studio that really trusts them all, a killer storyline that hits on a bevy of different chords, a venue that crosses the old triple-threat entertainer threshold, and a plot with a climax so high it makes Voldemort seem like a whimper in the dark.

So, I leave you with the reason we will never have the Ghostbusters sequel we all want. And to the guys who pulled off damn near perfect the first time around I can only say, “Nice shootin’ Tex!”