How ‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife’ pulled off tribute
Guiding principle: What would Harold Ramis think?
Editor’s note: This article contains a spoiler or two about the plot of the new movie “Ghostbusters: Afterlife.”
Going way back when he was an impressionable 6-year-old visiting the set of his father Ivan’s 1984 smash “Ghostbusters,” Jason Reitman’s favorite member of the team of proton-pack-wielding specter-catchers was always Egon Spengler.
So when Reitman decided three years ago to pick up the torch of the beloved franchise, he knew that he wanted to pay loving tribute to the man who had brought the bespectacled, socially awkward Egon to life: comedy legend Harold Ramis, who died in 2014 at age 69 from complications from inflammatory vasculitis.
Reitman and his co-writer
Gil Kenan constructed the new film “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” around Spengler’s estranged family. Egon’s single-mom daughter (Carrie Coon) and her two children (Mckenna Grace and Finn Wolfhard) have inherited Egon’s decaying farmhouse in Oklahoma — and, as they soon discover, also unwittingly taken on his responsibility for keeping the world safe from malevolent spirits.
“Ghostbusters: Afterlife” opened in theaters last weekend.
Placing Egon at the heart of the film offered a way to bridge the ’84 “Ghostbusters” — co-written by Ramis and Dan Aykroyd — with a new younger generation that hadn’t yet been born when the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man first terrorized New York. But with Ramis, who also directed such classic comedies as “Caddyshack,” “National Lampoon’s Vacation” and “Groundhog Day,” no longer here, Reitman knew he needed to handle the character with great sensitivity.
“The film’s journey is very much about the Spenglers, but it was also very personal for me,” says Reitman, who shared the script before shooting began with Ramis’ widow, Erica, and daughter Violet. “The question was how to be really respectful to the character of Egon Spengler. The question that Gil and I would ask ourselves the most is: What would Harold think of this? And are we actually capturing the voice of Egon, particularly through his granddaughter, who is modeled after him?”
In the film’s final scenes, the
compiling my writings into a book,” Rizvi said. “If not now, then when?”
Erma Bombeck heard three words from an English professor when she was young that changed her life. “You can write!” and, indeed, she discovered she could.
“I realized it was time to take those words to heart,” Rizvi said. “To have the courage to share my stories and, through this book, encourage others to share their own.”
“One Heart With Courage,” Rizvi’s first book, was published in October. The book begins with a prelude, which describes Rivzi’s journey from life before 2020 to what transpired during months of lockdown and isolation.
What began with Rizvi pulling together pieces she had written over the years, ended up becoming the story of her life, on paper. It begins with a simple piece about growing up in Vandalia in the 1960s and ends with “Words of Thanks” to the people who supported her along the way and for the family and experiences that have shaped her life.
“There is a section about two cultures and one world and a chapter about faith,” Rizvi said. “And there is also a section on the writer’s journey — my journey.”
But it’s those magical relationships, those friendships she describes as priceless, that she says are to be cherished most of all.
“I truly value friends. It’s the greatest joy in life,” Rizvi said. “I’ve often written about the beauty of human connection. Nothing in life is ever perfect, and no time will ever be the best time. But life is short, and it’s how we use our moments that matter.”
“One Heart with Courage” is available at bookstores and on Amazon.com.