Ghostbusters: Afterlife Using Gozer As The Villain Is A Mistake

There’s a lot of evidence pointing at Gozer the Gozerian being the villain in Ghostbusters: Afterlife, which can be a big mistake for the franchise.

You Are Reading :Ghostbusters Afterlife Using Gozer As The Villain Is A Mistake

The Ghostbusters franchise is back in action with Ghostbusters: Afterlife, and while a lot of details about the plot are still a mystery, it all points at this new adventure counting on the presence of Gozer the Gozerian one more time, and that’s a big mistake. Back in 1984, the world met a one-of-a-kind team of parapsychologists in Ivan Reitman’s Ghostbusters. The movie was a commercial and critical success and became a cultural phenomenon, so naturally, it made way for a franchise. Ghostbusters got a sequel, a reboot, and is now preparing for a new sequel titled Ghostbusters: Afterlife, which will introduce a new generation of characters while also keeping some strong links to the original team.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife is set 30 years after the events of Ghostbusters II and follows Callie (Carrie Coon) and her children Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and Phoebe (McKenna Grace), who after being evicted from their home move to a farm inherited from Callie’s late father (Harold Ramis’ Egon Spengler), located in Summerville, Oklahoma. When the town experiences a series of unexplained earthquakes, Trevor and Phoebe discover their family’s link to the original Ghostbusters team and decide to continue their legacy by taking care of whatever is messing with Summerville, with the help of some of the old Ghostbusters’ equipment and Mr. Grooberson (Paul Rudd), a local seismologist.

Details on who the villain will be in this new Ghostbusters movie are still unknown, but the trailers and extra clips released so far have shown a new ghost named Muncher, Mini Stay-Pufts that love to create chaos everywhere they go, and terror dogs, which in turn link to none other than Gozer. The eldritch abomination was the main threat in the first Ghostbusters movie and its appearance has already been teased in the trailers, hinting at it being the main villain in Ghostbusters: Afterlife. However, this is a big mistake for the franchise, and while its appearance is charged with nostalgia, it can backfire big time.

The Evidence Posting Toward Gozer As Afterlife’s Villain

Although Gozer serving as the main villain in Ghostbusters: Afterlife hasn’t been confirmed, there has been enough evidence that points at this entity’s return and role as the main antagonist. In the first trailer, the demon dogs’ inclusion was teased in a brief scene where Mr. Grooberson is in his car and a monster-like creature lands on it, and there’s a quick look at the mining where trouble seems to come from, and it’s called Shandor Minings, a callback to Ivi Shandor, a Gozer worshipper from the first movie. However, the strongest pieces of evidence of Gozer’s return are in the second Ghostbusters: Afterlife trailer, where the kids go down the mine and find a temple to Gozer with a giant statue of the deity’s female form as seen in Ghostbusters, where it was played by Slavitza Jovan and voiced by Paddi Edwards, and later on a creature can be seen climbing out of a portal in the temple, and it looks like Gozer.

The trailer also confirmed the return of the demon dogs or terror dogs, who appear in Ghostbusters and were revealed to be some of the servants of Zuul and Gozer. One of these can be seen in the scene where Mr. Grooberson is running out of a Walmart (after encountering the Mini Stay-Pufts in an aisle) and is being chased by one, which connects with the scene in the car in the first trailer. Gozer, then, will be a strong presence in Ghostbusters: Afterlife and will most likely be the one behind everything wrong in Summerville, but that isn’t necessarily good for the franchise.

Why Using Gozer In Ghostbusters: Afterlife Is A Mistake

Ghostbusters: Afterlife is a sequel to Ghostbusters II, and while the main characters from the original movie are set to appear in cameo roles, this new adventure is already making some of the most common mistakes of reboots and more in recent years. By bringing Gozer back as the main villain, Ghostbusters: Afterlife is recycling the story and elements from the original movie without adding enough new material to make it a story of its own, and through this, it’s also relying a lot on nostalgia, which is something that many recent franchise movies have done. Besides, Ghostbusters: The Video Game has already brought Gozer back as the main antagonist and had the player defeat its worshippers with Gozer as the final boss (of course), so having it as the villain in Afterlife isn’t really that new.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife Can Still Work

Although having Gozer as the main villain of Ghostbusters: Afterlife can backfire, the movie still has some elements to its favor that can make the story work. Although the premise of the movie has already been released and the second trailer made a lot of big reveals (such as Trevor and Phoebe being Egon’s grandchildren, the legacy of the original team, and Ray still having his occult bookstore), there’s still a lot about Ghostbusters: Afterlife that is being kept under wraps, and there surely is a reason for that. Reitman and the studio could be keeping the biggest story details a mystery and misleading the audience with the trailers, so even if Gozer is at the core of Summerville’s problems, the story might not have the evil entity as its moving force. In addition to that, Ghostbusters: Afterlife seems to be focusing more on its characters than effects, so the story could take a different turn than it’s currently believed. Of course, a big part of Ghostbusters: Afterlife will be the nostalgia factor, and even if that’s already putting the movie at risk as it’s a formula that has been used too often in recent years, it can still be saved by those details that have been kept under wraps and that can take the story to another level.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/ghostbusters-afterlife-movie-gozer-villain-return-mistake/