Ghostbusters: Now A Major Motion Picture by Nancy Holder is an adult book, published by Tor, based on the new Ghostbusters movie. The 4"x7.5" paperback tome, consisting of 259 pages, is printed with the same sized font and paper stock typical for paperback novels. There is another movie novelization by Stacia Deutsch, which was published by Simon Spotlight. To avoid any confusion, that one will be referred to as the "junior novelization" and this one is the "adult novelization". This book carries a list price of $9.99 ($13.99 Canadian), but you can always find it a little cheaper at Amazon, where an eBook version is also available.

It should almost go without saying - but I need to say it anyway - THERE WILL BE SPOILERS AHEAD. Click through, or continue reading, only if you've already seen the movie. You have been warned...

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Ghostbusters: Movie Novelization by Stacia Deutsch is a young adult book based on the new Ghostbusters movie. The 5"x7.5" paperback tome, consisting of 139 pages, is printed with the same sized font and paper stock typical for paperback novels. There is another movie novelization by Nancy Holder, which was published by Tor. To avoid any confusion, this one will be referred to as the "junior novelization", and that one is the "adult novelization". Of all of the Simon Spotlight books, this one is the most text-heavy and image-light, making it suitable for an older child/tween than Proud To Be A Ghostbuster, Who You Gonna Call?, and Ghostbuster's Handbook. Released by the Simon and Schuster imprint, Simon Spotlight, this book carries a list price of $6.99, but you can always find it a little cheaper at Amazon, where an eBook version is also available.

Over 18 chapters and a prologue, Ghostbusters: Movie Novelization adapts the movie script written by Paul Feig and Katie Dippold into a more straightforward telling of the story. That means that, if you didn't like the movie (which I didn't), you may like this novelization because, due to the nature of the different formats, it eliminates a lot of the problems that the movie suffers from. Of course, author Stacia Deutsch must still adhere to Feig's and Dippold's story. It's not like she can tell her own tale.


The novel is based on the script, not the final film, so it's not 100% the same as the movie. This becomes apparent when we are introduced to Erin at the start of Chapter 1. She is in her apartment, getting dressed for work, while watching the Ghost Jumpers TV show. In the movie, she's already on campus when we first see her and the TV show is only seen a little later on in the lab. Erin had a boyfriend named Phil Hudson, who also worked at Columbia University, and a mentor named Phyllis Adler, who was a bit of a jerk.

Due to the nature of the different formats, the novel eliminates the pacing issues and stupidity of the movie, so the story flows better. You'll find that Kevin isn't quite as stupid in the book. He's still dumb as a bag of rocks (he still tries to put his hand through the fish tank), but stuff like the "bang gong, put fingers over eyes" gag, and the lens-less glasses, are gone. Kevin's big-boobed ghost logo is replaced with a "silly looking cartoon ghost". A lot of his gags in the film are visual, and that does not translate well to the printed word. +1 for the novel.


As I was reading the book, I kinda felt like I was seeing an alternate cut of the film because there was enough new material and enough material removed that it felt different. On page 53, Rowan meets a hotel guest who, due to having ectoplasm dripped on her, has a ghost living inside her back. That would have been a really cool visual effect, if it were in the film. Later on, after the climax of the story (on page 132) is a reference to the original film, when a reporter interviews a man who said that he "got into a cab being driven by a skeleton". Also, the post-credits scene is not in the book.


A lot of the really inappropriate and dumb stuff from the film is not present in the book, such as the Dean's endless middle finger gag. Patty still slaps Abby in the possession scene, but the "Power of Patty compels you" line is MIA. We still have the lame stage dive, but Patty's "race or lady thing" line is replaced with, "How dare you let a lady hit the floor? Pick me up now!" The mayor's aide, Jennifer Lynch, shows a video on her laptop of what exactly "Mass Hysteria" is.

There are a few scenes that were deleted from the film, which still appear in the novel, that I wish were deleted from the novel as well. The "Kevin makes military and police dance" sequence (reused alongside the end credits) pops up on page 113, and just reading it made me feel dumber. When the Ghostbusters are relaxing at the headquarters eating pizza, Abby and Erin tell how they bonded as kids over a science fair project about the ghost barrier, and then pull out their old demonstration and act it out with a rap song. This would have stopped the movie dead (as if Feig didn't do that already with other bits). The rap was painful to read, so I know it would have been painful to see and hear. I wonder if they even filmed that scene. Oh, and the juvenile fart EVP joke is still present, too.

Some of the original Ghostbusters-actor cameos are different in the novel. Annie Potts' hotel clerk is now a man. Dan Aykroyd's cab driver cameo is extremely brief and lacks its "Ain't afraid of no ghosts" punchline. Lady Slimer (voiced by Ghostbusters II's Slimer, Robin Shelby) is nowhere to be found. And then there's a character deleted from the film that would have made for a great cameo. On pages 119 and 120, a "confused tenant" wanders into the Mercado lobby and is assumed by Rowan to be a fifth ghostbuster. If Rick Moranis were to have ever appeared in the film, I could totally see him playing this role.


Eight pages of color photos appear in middle of book, between pages 76 and 77. They are arranged with more style than the photos used in the score album, which just proves, like I said in my review, that the art design on the score album was lazy and uninspired.

Up to this point, I've had nothing but good things to say about the novel. To be fair, I need to point out that the novel isn't perfect. There are spots where the author writes something that makes no sense if you had not seen the film. On page 63, she writes that "Patty's uncle's hearse [is] now called Ecto-1", but fails to state why is it now called Ecto-1. Sure, Feig and Dippold probably didn't include an explanation in the script, and the original film didn't either (we're never told why Ray chose that name for the vanity plate), but that's why this is a novelization and not a reprint of the script itself. FYI: In Richard Mueller's novelization of the original film, this isn't an issue because Ray has a line of dialogue (on page 94) in which he tells Peter that "it's not a car, it's an Ectomobile", and the car is always referred to as such. The same with the Larry Milne novelization. (Both novels are available on the Ghostbusters Books page here on Spook Central.)

On page 136, Stacia Deutsch writes that "Erin and Abby tried the Abby-and-Holtzmann elaborate handshake". Since this handshake was never mentioned before in the novel - unlike the movie, where Abby and Jillian Holtzmann do the handshake in their lab in front of Erin early in the film - I have to wonder why the author thought it should be mentioned at all. It's a visual gag that wouldn't even make sense in the printed form, especially to someone who didn't see the film first.

What I just mentioned are the only problems I found with the story in the book. Any other problems have to do with the story by Feig and Dippold, and not Deutsch's adaptation of it. This would include the amateur-level dialogue present in some sections that reads like bad fan fiction. I should know, as I've written bad fan fiction. For example, here's an except from pages 59 and 60 right after Erin and Abby perform their old science fair presentation and rap song:

Abby and Erin laughed, hugging and celebrating. "We remembered it!"

Holtzmann joined them in the hugs. "I am so happy you two are together again. So happy," she said.

Erin and Abby then looked at Patty.

"I was all set to make fun of you, but that was actually beautiful," Patty admitted. "It was good you had each other."

Later on, on pages 75 and 76, Erin kissing the ghost trap is made into more of a thing than in the movie. Not only does she kiss it at the theater after the bust, but she does so again back at headquarters:

"Guys. It's time to celebrate. This is what 'legit' feels like." She grabbed the trap and gave it another kiss.

"Okay, you gotta stop kissing the trap," Abby warned.

"I know. But it's like, the more you guys say 'Don't kiss the trap', the more I want to kiss the trap." Erin raised the trap to Holtzmann. "Get in on this!"

This just makes Erin look really stupid, or like she has some kind of brain damage. What kind of college-educated person does something like that, and multiple times, no less? Clearly, this behavior is in Feig's and Dippold's script, and is not a product of Deutsch's imagination, as Erin kisses the trap in the movie, too.

Okay, time to wrap this up...

If I knew nothing of the film before reading the book - and I mean absolutely nothing; no reading the production ins and outs, or viewing any trailers, or anything else - and this book was my first and only exposure to the story, I would have loved it. Stacia Deutsch does a better job of telling the story than Paul Feig does in the movie. Print is not only NOT dead, in this case, it far surpasses the motion picture.

Where the Hell does the time go?

It was 20 years ago this month, way back in August 1996, that I created Spook Central. Yes, TWO WHOLE DECADES and still going! That means that Spook Central is the longest-running Ghostbusters website on the internet. Some would also say that it's the only good Ghostbusters thing a "Paul" has ever created :-)

I've ruminated many times before on Spook Central's creation - blog posts from 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, and 2004 are still online - so I don't really know what I can say at this point that I haven't already said before. I guess I'll make this really personal, and a little cathartic, and run down what I've been through since the site's 15th anniversary. Mind you, this only covers the past five years. It would make you weep if I told you my childhood and teenage traumas.

Starting exactly five years ago, at the end of August 2011, Hurricane Irene hit New York. My home was flooded with 1-foot of water, forcing my parents and I to be evacuated by rowboat! We were able to return a few hours later, and although we lost a lot of our belongings, the damage was minimal. It would get worse the following year. As is well-documented on Spook Central, my family fell victim to Hurricane Sandy on October 29, 2012. Below is the last photo I ever took at my old home, at 8:50 AM Eastern on the morning of Monday October 29, 2012, linked to the last Facebook post I would ever make at that house on that computer (which was destroyed when the water rose above the height of the desk top). As you can see, at this point, the water was already over the second step of the front porch. That is my father standing there on the left, wearing his iconic red winter coat, which I now wear in his honor. About an hour later, we would leave that house, for the final time after 23 years.


My parents and I lived in a Red Cross emergency shelter for 6 weeks, before finding a new place to live, because our old home was inhabitable. This time, the house was flooded with SIX-FEET of water, which also destroyed irreplaceable photo albums and yearbooks. With very limited resources in the shelter, I managed to find two complete "strangers" in the fandom (Hi Alim & Bob), whom I never knew before this incident, who aided my family in ways that the "proper authorities" had no interest in doing.

We moved into this new place in December 2012. My father passed away 13 months later in January 2014, and my dear friend (and fellow Ghostbusters webmaster and fan) Doreen Mulman followed two months later. The following year, in September 2015, my mother fell ill. After two and a half months, during which she was actually getting better, she passed away shortly after Thanksgiving, leaving me all by myself by the time our three-year anniversary of living here rolled around in December 2015.

My handicapped sister is the only living immediate family member I have left, and is working on moving in with me, but that process has been bogged down in bureaucratic "red tape" for the past six months. Since the passing of both parents, I have been under extreme financial hardship. It is thanks to a very understanding and patient landlord that I am not homeless right now. As if enough wasn't already taken from me, last year I was diagnosed with diabetes, so now all of my favorite foods have been taken from me, as well.

Needless to say, Ghostbusters and Spook Central, has helped me to keep going. Working on the site; reviewing new merch; chatting it up with Raffaele, Matt, and Michael about Ghostbusters (and sometimes other shit); provides a nice distraction from my troubles (not the cool ones Audrey Parker gives you). I was actually looking forward to Spook Central's 20th anniversary. I wanted to do something really special, just as I did for the 15th anniversary, when I had Spook Central embroidered patches produced.

My plan was to have Spook Central t-shirts made, similar to the one artist Dan Schoening drew me wearing in a Ghostbusters comic book.


My idea would have had the Spook Central logo on a black shirt, as I think the contrast works better. The first issue, which I have not been able to overcome, is to get a high-res recreation of the original Spook Central logo (image at the top of this page), which Bill Emkow created for me back in March of 1997. It has to be a re-creation because that little 289x106 gif ain't gonna cut it for shirt-printing purposes. I don't have the skills to do it, but I'm thinking that it would not be too difficult for someone who does. It's a common font (Courier New), with some kind of glow and drop shadow effects, and a small cut-out of Slimer from this common Ghostbusters still image.

The second issue would be to find a place that can handle the production of the shirts, plus order processing and shipping. I see a few options online, but don't have a clear choice because I need further information. With everything that's happened in June and July, I have been too inundated with other stuff to give this research the time it requires. And without the high-res logo, there hasn't been much incentive because I can't proceed without that.

I also have to wonder: Would any of the Ghostheads out there buy a Spook Central t-shirt?

So, here I am, celebrating two decades of Spook Central without having anything special to commemorate the occasion with. It feels a bit weird to post this, because I don't like posting a "what could have been". On the other hand, I couldn't let the 20th anniversary pass without any mention whatsoever.

I reviewed the 2016 movie soundtrack album the other day, so it's only fitting that my next review is of the 2016 movie score album, featuring music by composer Theodore Shapiro. As I stated in my other review, I am not a music critic, so apologies if I don't use musical terms correctly, or don't comment on things that a music critic would.

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This is a first. I've never reviewed music on Spook Central before. Blu-rays and DVDs, video games, books, even marshmallows...but never music. Bearing in mind that I don't have any degrees in music, and have never worked for Rolling Stone or Billboard, I am going to apologize in advance if I don't use musical terms correctly, or don't comment on things that a music critic would. I'm writing this completely from the viewpoint of a consumer with a very eclectic music collection, who also happens to be a Ghostbusters fan :-)

I want to also note that, as with all of the other new movie merchandise, I am reviewing the soundtrack album strictly on its own merits, and not in relation to the movie itself (though I reference the movie here and there).

Okay, I think that wraps up all of the pre-flight announcements, so let's get right to it...

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June 14th saw the release of Ghostbuster's Handbook by Daphne Pendergrass, a children's book based on the new Ghostbusters movie. The 5"x7.5" paperback tome is printed with a medium-sized font on glossy paper stock (like the old Ghostbusters II Storybook from Scolastic) and is suitable for the 10-13 year old age range (my personal guess). While not as heavy on large-size text as Proud To Be A Ghostbuster and Who You Gonna Call?, there is still an ample amount of photographs, so it didn't take me very long to breeze through the 96 pages. Released by the Simon and Schuster imprint, Simon Spotlight, this book carries a list price of $6.99, but you can always find it a little cheaper at Amazon, where an eBook version is also available.


Over eight chapters (noted below), Ghostbuster's Handbook is written and formatted as the pocket-handbook of a new Ghostbusters recruit. The background of the pages look like yellow, lined notebook paper, and the text has many "hand-written" corrections. There are a lot of photographs, though two of them are repeated.

CHAPTERS
1. How to Use This Guide
2. Important Ghostbusters and Their Contributions
3. A Brief History of Our Organization
4. Getting Down to Business: Ghostbusters Protocols
5. Procedures, and Precautions
6. Terminology
7. Famous Cases
8. Codes of Conduct and Perks


We start with biographies of the new crew, and a little bit of their backstory. In my reviews of other books and merchandise, I noted that, much to my chagrin, Sony prefers to never have Jillian Holtzmann referred to simply as "Jillian", even though they are fine calling everyone else by their first names only. (Kevin never gets a last name in the books.) Author Daphne Pendergrass actually addressed this by stating that "she prefers to be addressed as Holtzmann". Thank you, Pendergrass, for providing a official explanation for this quirk. I'll still call her Jillian.


The Handbook was written after the events of the movie, so it contains a lot of spoilers. For that reason, I can't be too detailed about the book's contents. There are brief write-ups on the company, the equipment, their techniques, and their terminology. The seven classifications of ghosts are explained, as are some of the ghosts the Ghostbusters encounter in the movie (and the places where they encounter them). For some reason, a photo of ghostly Flappers (people in 1920s attire) was used for Sparky, the subway ghost (on page 69). That, and the two repeated photos on pages 21 & 58 (stack of books) and 27 & 36 (chinese reataurant), are the only photo issues I found in the entire book.


You'll get a brief Final Test, and if you pass, you'll be awarded with a certificate deeming you an honorary Ghostbuster. Ghostbuster's Handbook reminded me, quite a lot, of The Official Ghostbusters Training Manual by Christopher Brown (PDF available on Spook Central's Ghostbusters Books page), released back in the 1980s as a tie-in for the original film. Both books are written from the perspective of an "employee handbook", and both include a certificate at the very end. However, this book is a vast improvement on that one in length, details, and style. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the new movie, no matter what their age.

Whether some of you like it or not, the new Ghostbusters movie comes out on July 15th. Will it be good? Will it be bad? Will it signal the apocalypse? We'll know in 10 days. (It can't be any worse than the horrendous-beyond-words Hardy vs. Hardy storyline currently going on in TNA Wrestling. I forsee a clear Gooker winner come January. - Sorry, watching wrestling while I'm typing this and got distracted by the awfulness of the "attack of the drones" segment on tonight's Impact broadcast.)

In the meantime, here is the official Production Notes for the movie. This is the type of thing that used to be typed and printed on multiple sheets of paper in physical press kits, like there was for Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II, but I'm guessing that Sony (or any studio) isn't making physical press kits anymore. All of this text came from a 57-page .docx file I obtained from the Sony Pictures Publicity website. I'm including it ALL here - spread onto multiple pages - as there is some interesting information contained therein that should be documented online for reference.

Also, if you want high-res high-quality assets from the new movie, I took the liberty of downloading everything from the Sony Pictures Publicity site and re-uploaded it in a MASSIVE 205 MB zip file (link valid for a limited time). It was more of a pain in the butt than it should have been to get it all. I won't go into detail, but suffice to say, you're getting it easier through DropBox. It awaits to be seen if Sony adds more stuff to that site, or if this is it.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page 1 - Introduction / About The Film / About The Characters
Page 2 - About The Props, Gadgets, And Vehicles / About The Design And Locations
Page 3 - About The Ghosts And The Visual Effects / About The Costumes
Page 4 - About The Director / About The Cast (Part 1)
Page 5 - About The Cast (Part 2)
Page 6 - About The Filmmakers (Part 1)
Page 7 - About The Filmmakers (Part 2)
Page 8 - About The Filmmakers (Part 3)

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Pages: 1· 2· 3· 4· 5· 6· 7· 8

This month sees the largest collection of Ghostbusters books ever released since...well, probably EVER! In addition to those we've already covered (or will cover soon) here on Spook Central, today (June 15th) you can get your hands on one more. Amberley Books is releasing Ghostbusters Collectables, written by Matt MacNabb (webmaster of the Ghostbusters Collector website), with brief foreword by Dan Aykroyd (maybe you heard of him). The 96-page paperback is a pictorial look at the various Ghostbusters merchandise released over the past 30+ years, including Filmation's. You can order/pre-order your copy at Amazon or where ever books are sold.

Fellow Spook Central staff member Matt Jordan is tackling review duties on this one. As the person responsible for the overwhelming majority of the Ghostbusters merchandise articles at the Ghostbusters Wiki, he's far more suitable for reviewing the book than I am. So, without further ado, here's Matt's review...

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Where to begin... This book seems to have a bit of a identity crisis. "Ghostbusters Collectables" sounds like it would be a collectors magazine type thing, or so I would have gathered. I was expecting average sales prices on the market for items and noted problems and variants. Well, none of that was found here. This book overall is more like a snapshot of a collection with some text explaining what things are. The book was promoted with the Dan Aykroyd foreword, which felt short and general in nature. Also, it took up less than half a page of the book, leaving half a page of blank white space.

If there is one positive to be noted, it is that the pictures are of decent size and quality in most parts of the book. However, text wise, get ready for three or four lines per picture noting only the most obvious things; trivia and facts are really far and few. Towards the end of a given section, the pictures begin to get a bit random and are placed in the book without much logic or thought.

Some item product lines feel ignored while others get a lot more focus. One clearly neglected line being Mattel/Matty Collector, which got two pages, with one page worth of the section being the Retro-Action Real Ghostbusters dolls. There was photo of two 6-inch toys, and only a summary of the line. Funko on the other hand, got two pages and noted pretty much all of the normal Funko toys and included promo images for each. To me as a reader, this suggests that Funko's line was more significant than the Matty Collector line. Also, the book doesn't mention the prop toys Matty made.

Ultimately, this book has some inconstancy, lacks organization, and feels thrown together. It would be okay for a new fan or someone that wanted a taste of what the Ghostbusters merchandise looks like. But this book is not really good for folks that are collecting.

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Since this book is more image-heavy than text-heavy, it seems only fitting to show you a small sampling of preview page images.

In addition to all of the books we've already mentioned, June 14th sees the release of the Ghostbusters Proton Pack and Wand Deluxe Mega Kit from Running Press, who has a whole line of "kits" (no assembly required) containing a miniaturized "figurine" and a related book. This kit, specifically, contain the following items:

• Mini Proton Pack Replica (with light and sound)
• Sticker Book
• Proton Pack Sticker Sheet
• Proton Pack History & Blueprints

Let's take a closer look at each item...


Mini Proton Pack Replica
The main item in this kit, it's a 2"x4"x1" replica of the Proton Pack from the new movie. Those dimensions were taken with the wand sitting in the notches on the side of the pack, going to the right side and top end of the wand. The pack is made of plastic with a flat base so it can sit on a desk or shelf.


The tip of the wand lights up and the pack makes "whooshing" firing sounds when you hold down the little red button on the wand. It comes pre-installed with three replaceable LR1133 disc batteries. The pack has elastic orange straps (see image above), which might make it of practical use with one of the Mattel figures.


Proton Pack Sticker Sheet
A 2.5"x3" sheet of small stickers to put on the proton pack. All but two of these stickers can be found slightly larger in the sticker book. Only the red nuclear symbol and the caution striping are exclusive to this sheet.


Sticker Book
A small 2.5"x3" book with 8 pages of stickers (the other sides of the pages are blank). The stickers, as you'll see in the images above, are warning decals and signs. There are no photo stickers of the cast, other than the silhouette of a female Ghostbuster. I look at the sticker book as a bonus. The mini pack is the main item here.


Proton Pack History & Blueprints
Not mentioned on the box or shown in any of the official item photos, this is a 6"x5" dual-sided sheet of paper with the history of the new Proton Pack on one side and the blueprints on the other. The history text refers to Jillian Holtzmann simply by her last name. This is getting to be a pet peeve of mine, though it seems like it's in Sony's style guide for the new movie that she never be referred to solely by her first name, like everyone else. In this case, her first name is never given, so if you don't already know it, you won't know who she is. The blueprints are near-identical to those found on the Kenneth P. Higgins Institute of Science Paranormal Studies Lab website, though they include an item pointing to the "Liquid Helium Fill Value" not found on those.

Overall, not a bad little kit. The Proton Pack is well-made and has nifty light-up and sound features. The elastic straps were unexpected, and make it useful for use with the figures, such as Mattel's Real Ghostbusters Janine figure. The sticker book is a disappointment, as I was expecting stickers featuring images from the movie. The Ghostbusters Proton Pack and Wand Deluxe Mega Kit, which is available to buy now, carries a list price of $12.95, but you can always find it a little cheaper at Amazon.