Ghostbusters: 21 WTF Moments In The Female Remake
21. None Of That Classic Stuff Ever Happened
Now, a lot has been said about Paul Feig's decision to reboot rather than make a continuation of the same Ghostbusters timeline as the original. Even up until the film screening it wasn't entirely clear what was happening, given the first trailer's "30 years ago..." shtick. But to have the new film completely rewrite history so that the first Ghostbusters film never happened is just ridiculous, and it was still a major shock.
Why not have this be a legacy film, with the remaining Ghostbusters passing the torch. It might have drawn too close a parallel, but the film is absolutely packed with references back to the original film, so it's not like they resisted direct comparison. All that meant is that the opportunity to give the new generation some link to the old (whether just replacing them or being related), was almost provocatively ignored. Despite the fact that Holtzmann looks like Egon Spengler, acts like Spengler and Janine combined and would have been perfect as their daughter.
There's even a veiled allusion to the continuity - about the cycle of people experiencing ghosts and then forgetting for decades: that could very easily have been a continuation of the idea that the Ghostbusters went from heroes to almost forgotten between the first two movies.
But no, instead, they reset to zero, missed a lot of great opportunities but STILL shoe-horned in a load of fan service to make sure you absolutely couldn't stop comparing the two.