How They Should Have Made Ghostbusters III

Sequels (particularly belated ones) all share a trivial but blatant tendency to repeatedly reference their source material, now matter how inappropriate it is to the scene. Think the Lost Ark's cameo in Crystal Skull, or the entire third act of Star Trek Into Darkness; it's a strange tool that filmmakers feel they have to use to score points with a fan base, when it's rarely ever essential. Even Ghostbusters 2016, despite existing in a new canon, inexplicably acknowledged the existence of Slimer, Stay Puft, Zuul etc.

Nostalgia is fine in small doses, but you can never be utterly dependant on it. It's mostly redundant and dissatisfying, and indicates a lack of faith in your new material.

For Ghostbusters III, it's probably enough that we're seeing our beloved characters in costume again. The series' usual staples (the fire house, the Ecto-1, Slimer, Ray Parker Jr.'s theme song) all make for nice icing on the cake, but the film overall should have held its concentration on new jokes and imagery, scaling back references to the first two movies.