The trailer for the new 2016 Ghostbusters reboot movie came out today. It's embedded above, so feel free to watch it before reading on. I'm going to share my thoughts on the trailer in a sort-of running commentary form, though I won't go over every single shot.

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The official Ghostbusters website has recently been completely revamped with new image galleries for the original two films and the new reboot. The images on display are very large and are some of the highest quality that I've ever seen. As such, I updated and added to the images here on Spook Central on the following pages:

• Ghostbusters 1 Multimedia - In the Official Photos section, updated these images: gb1_mult_img_offphoto04.jpg, gb1_mult_img_offphoto06.jpg, gb1_mult_img_offphoto08.jpg, gb1_mult_img_offphoto19.jpg; and added the last two images in the section.
• Ghostbusters 1 Deleted - Added two images of Ray sitting by equipment with LED text display.
• Ghostbusters 1 Deleted: Pulling Up To Fort Detmerring - Very first image on the page, and the first image of the guys outside of the car, have been replaced with better copies.
• Ghostbusters 1 Deleted: The Fort Detmerring Ghost - Added brand new behind-the-scenes image of Ray in bed at the very bottom of the page.
• Ghostbusters 2 Multimedia - In the Official Photos section, updated these images: gb2_mult_img_offphoto13.jpg, gb2_mult_img_offphoto17.jpg, gb2_mult_img_offphoto18.jpg, gb2_mult_img_offphoto20.jpg, gb2_mult_img_offphoto21.jpg, gb2_mult_img_offphoto25.jpg, gb2_mult_img_offphoto26.jpg, gb2_mult_img_offphoto28.jpg.
• Ghostbusters 2 Deleted - Updated the last Egon/Ray with mood slime image.

If you want to download the full set of images from the official Ghostbusters website, for a LIMITED TIME, you can grab them in this 73 Mb .rar file that was collected by Matthew Jordan. When that file is no longer available, you'll need to download them off the Ghostbusters.com site. Here are the direct links:

GHOSTBUSTERS (INCLUDES SOME MISLABELED GB2 PICS)
http://www.ghostbusters.com/wp-content/gallery-bank/gallery-uploads/ghostbusters_1984_image_001.jpg
through
http://www.ghostbusters.com/wp-content/gallery-bank/gallery-uploads/ghostbusters_1984_image_080.jpg

GHOSTBUSTERS II
http://www.ghostbusters.com/wp-content/gallery-bank/gallery-uploads/ghostbusters_1989_image_001.jpg
through
http://www.ghostbusters.com/wp-content/gallery-bank/gallery-uploads/ghostbusters_1989_image_036.jpg

GHOSTBUSTERS 2016 REBOOT
http://www.ghostbusters.com/wp-content/gallery-bank/gallery-uploads/ghostbusters_2016_image_001.jpg
through
http://www.ghostbusters.com/wp-content/gallery-bank/gallery-uploads/ghostbusters_2016_image_014.jpg

I noticed some blurring and editing in the images, just like in The Ultimate Visual History book, which makes me sad. This makes me think that the blurring was done by Sony *before* they gave the photos to Insight Editions. The full list of blurs/edits is below. I did not include extreme cropping, such as the crowd at the bottom of "ghostbusters_1984_image_042.jpg".

• ghostbusters_1984_image_017.jpg - Blurred crowd faces; they look like their faces are melted!!!
• ghostbusters_1984_image_018.jpg - Text on green truck has been removed. (For comparison)
• ghostbusters_1984_image_024.jpg - Temple doors blurred.
• ghostbusters_1984_image_025.jpg - Labels on yellow tank on car roof has been blurred out. (For comparison)
• ghostbusters_1984_image_026.jpg - Background people's faces blurred, including William Atherton on the far left.
• ghostbusters_1984_image_040.jpg - Blurred firemen faces.
• ghostbusters_1984_image_041.jpg - Temple doors blurred. (For comparison)
• ghostbusters_1984_image_042.jpg - Elements in the background have been blurred: the green sign on the building and graffiti on the white truck.
• ghostbusters_1984_image_058.jpg - Painting blurred.
• ghostbusters_1984_image_060.jpg - The labels on the yellow tank on the car were digitally removed. (For comparison)
• ghostbusters_1984_image_061.jpg - The name "Sniffer" and the company's name plaque were digitally removed from the equipment Ray is holding. (For comparison)

As someone who likes things in their original form, I absolutely HATE when they do crap like this. Gotta blame the legal department.

As previously stated, some new images from the reboot were added to the official site, but they have not been added to Spook Central. This is because Spook Central will cover the reboot in a limited capacity. I thought that I already gave my stance on the reboot, but I can't find any record of it, so let me use this space to let all of you dear readers know how Spook Central will and will not cover the reboot.

First, let me give my (Paul Rudoff) personal opinion on the reboot movie. Simply put, I find the idea of a female Ghostbusters, as USED IN THIS FILM, to be a gimmick. There are many female Ghostheads who dress up for the various franchises, and I'd much rather see any of them make their own fan film than the "Hollywood Version". And that's putting aside the fact that if this were "real", the team would be more likely to be mixed of both genders than one or the other. It's sad that the overly-PC Extreme Ghostbusters got it right. It doesn't help that I can't stand this director or many of the cast members. I was much more behind the idea when names like Anna Faris and Eliza Dushku were bandied about. Apparently, we can't have female Ghostbusters in their '30s (save for Kate McKinnon), even though ALL FOUR of the original guys were in their '30s when they made the original film. I mean, wasn't the whole reason for the "passing of the torch" idea because the original guys were "too old"? I have nothing against older women, but if you want the rebooted franchise to have legs, you need to put it in the hands of a younger group of women. There are many smart and talented young women in Hollywood. Hell, one of my favorite actresses, Alison Brie, is a huge Ghostbusters fan. I would kill to see her don the jumpsuit and pack, and I think she'd be even more excited at that prospect. Instead, we get Paul Fieg's friend Melissa McCarthy and such simply because they're Fieg's favorites.

That's not to say that I can't be pleasantly surprised by what Feig and company have done. As much as I absolutely hate Jonah Hill - I want to punch him in the face every time I see him, and he completely ruined a whole bunch of movies for me (Forgetting Sarah Marshall being the best example) - I was surprised by how much I liked him in the 21 Jump Street reboot. In fact, I thought that the 21 Jump Street reboot movie was a great way to update an old idea and do it differently instead of simply retreading it. So, I'll have a more firm opinion on the Ghostbusters reboot after I see the real trailer on March 3, 2016. Maybe it'll actually make me interested in the actual film. Right now, the more I see of the upcoming merchandise, I'm actually more interested in the ghosts/demons than the humans.

I've given a lot of thought on how, or even IF, Spook Central will cover the reboot. I'm slowly starting to wind Spook Central down. I've eliminated parts of the site so as to keep the focus on what the site does best. For almost 20 years now, the site has been updated and worked-on by hand by one person. This has its advantages, but it also has its disadvantages, too. Simply put, the reboot would add way too much work for me, and unless it absolutely blows me away, I don't have the passion for it as I do for the classic media. So, I decided that I will cover some of the important elements here on the Spook Central blog/main page. When the trailer drops, I'll post some screens and a review/commentary. When the movie itself comes out, I'll likely post a few words here. Maybe I'll make a post for this or that, but that's generally about it. Most of the official reboot news will be posted on the Spook Central Facebook page, where Matthew Jordan has been really on the ball on it. Matthew posts a lot more on the GB Reboot Appreciation Facebook Page, and he and Michael give in-depth coverage for the reboot on the Ghostbusters Wiki (where I'm also an admin). I'd be more likely to post considerable stuff for the reboot there than I would here.

Finally, the short and pointless 30-second teaser FOR the reboot's trailer was just released (embedded below). Apparently, the Ghostbusters reboot will not feature the Ghostbusters, but will instead be about the police and National Guard. Or maybe this is just a teaser for Sony's sequel to its 1998 Godzilla film. Anyway, the real trailer will be released on March 3, 2016.

Last year, I wrote an editorial about Ghostbusters merchandise I hoped to see this year. It was a "wishful thinking" kind of thing because I knew the chances of any of it becoming a reality was slim to none. Well, one of my ideas became a reality...a virtual reality, of sorts.

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A new Ghostbusters history book was just released entitled "¿A Quién Vas A Llamar?: De Tracy El Gorila A Peter Venkman - La Historia de Los Cazafantasmas". As you can surmise from that title, which translate to "Who You Gonna Call?: From Tracy the Gorilla to Peter Venkman - The History of Ghostbusters", the book is in Spanish. Read on to find out more about it...

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For the first time since the 1980s, a new Ghostbusters informational book was published. Entitled Ghostbusters: The Ultimate Visual History, this 224-page hardcover tome was written by Daniel Wallace, with a foreword by Dan Aykroyd and an introduction by Ivan Reitman. The embossed cover is designed to look like the original RCA/Columbia Home Video release from 1985, which was also embossed in its original release. Coming in at a nice size of 9.5" x 11.25" closed, in full color print on high-quality paper, the book comes factory-sealed, so you'll know that you're getting a new, clean, untouched copy.

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This year's Halloween Treat is really special because it's not, specifically, Ghostbusters-related. It does feature two stars of Ghostbusters: Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray.

Thirty-seven years ago, long before there was a Marvel Cinematic Universe where everyone was teaming up with everyone else, there was a comic book series titled "Marvel Team-Up". As you would expect from that name, it featured collaborations between different characters in the Marvel canon. What you wouldn't expect, however, is that issue #74 featured Marvel regular, Spider-Man, teaming up with Saturday Night Live's Not-Ready-For-Primetime-Players. Yeah, Peter Parker and Mary Jane shared the stage with Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris, Bill Murray, Laraine Newman, Gilda Radner, and Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels. Oh, and Stan Lee even makes his usual cameo appearance, long before that would be his usual thing.

I, honestly, have no idea what prompted this rather unusual cross-over. Saturday Night Live was three-years-old at the time and was pretty popular, but it would be another five months before they would spoof superheroes with the now-classic Superhero Party sketch (aired on March 17, 1979 with host Margot Kidder). I guess the folks at Marvel were just big SNL fans.

Sadly, this issue has never been published again since October 1978. When Marvel reprinted Marvel Team-Up issues #52 through #75 in Essential Marvel Team-Up, Vol. 3 (ISBN 978-0785130680), it was not included because they don't own the rights to the Saturday Night Live property, and either NBC didn't want to play ball, or there were issues with the likeness rights of the individual actors. What ever the case may be, I carefully scanned in my personal copy, and I'm sharing it so everyone can enjoy this classic craziness. Super big thanks to Matthew Jordan for cleaning-up the pages so they look even better than the actual 37-year-old book. Click on the cover to download the PDF.


For more Halloween Treats, check out my other site/blog, where you can find the movie scripts for Who Shot (Framed) Roger Rabbit and the Full Moon Pictures classic Arcade. For more on this issue, besides the sites I linked to throughout this post, also check out iFanboy and Brian's Comics.

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For the complete list of Spook Central's Halloween Treat posts from years past, click here. Thanks to Miss Kate for the "Halloween Treat" title banner that appears at the top of this post.

A rather odd grouping of stuff for this Spook Central site update. The bulk of the update is that ALL of my Real Ghostbusters Animation Cels are now part of the site. Eventually, I'd like to identify every episode each cel comes from and find the final frames in the episodes.

A super-large scan of The Real Ghostbusters Kenner Dual-Sided Door Poster/Calendar is now on the Real Ghostbusters Merchandise page. If you ever wondered what the source is for most of the Spook Central holiday images seen in the upper right corner of the main page...well, now you know.

Finally, the artwork for the Ghostbusters II CD & Cassette Singles of Bobby Brown's and Run-DMC's hit songs from the movie have been added to the songs respective pages. The music will be added, eventually, but I still have to see what I can do to clean the audio files. Right now, I'm concentrating on images, so I figured it best to get the art up first and get a placeholder made.

Making Ghostbusters by Don Shay is considered the "Ghostbusters Bible". Well, this month the "New Testament" has been released. That being, Ghostbusters: The Ultimate Visual History by Daniel Wallace. I contributed a lot of images for the book (you'll see my name in the credits). Most of my contributions are in The Real Ghostbusters section. Specifically, several animation cel scans from my collection are in the book.

My cel of Slimer & Peter, without the background, was reproduced as a mini-cel, affixed to page 187. The publisher has given me the exclusivity on presenting this item to all of you as a preview of the book.


Ghostbusters: The Ultimate Visual History, which you can order at Amazon, was originally slated for a September 27th release here in the U.S., but since the U.K. publisher released it a month early, it seems that the release has gotten pushed up. As of right now, Amazon has it in stock and ready to ship!

I will have a detailed review of the book here on Spook Central soon. I still have some stuff for Spook Central that I want to get done with first. I originally had planned to write it next week, but I have been dealing with a family member in the hospital for the past five weeks, which will likely cause it to be delayed until after Halloween.

Overall, I think the two Blu-ray discs released in 2014 for both films are the best available copies of the films. When I need to pull new images, I tend to go with my Blu-ray rips over my DVD rips, so it seemed fitting that I replace all of Spook Central's old movie frame grabs with new ones from the Blu-rays So, here's the quick laundry list of pages that have new movie images on them, all in the original 1920x800 high-resolution/definition quality. The music video frames are, of course, not high res/def, since they're standard def on the Blu-rays. But they are larger and infinitely better than what I used to have. The quality of details is amazing! With the Props pages, if you click on the header image you'll get the full image. The Deleted Scenes pages also include a few re-done book-scanned images in high-resolution.

• Filming Locations pages
• Props pages
• GB1 Deleted Scenes pages (some on main page, Nobel Prize, Fort Detmerring ghost)
• GB2 Deleted Scenes pages (some on main page, many on other pages)
• GB Music Video
• On Our Own Music Video

For the most part, the 2014 Blu-rays are significantly better for both movies. Some frames are a tad darker, but not usually by very much. As mentioned in my review from last year, all pink slime effects shots in Ghostbusters II are significantly darker, but I still felt that they were acceptable. I only encountered three images where the new Blu-rays were too dark to replace them, so I had to keep the old images.

1. GB1: Ecto-1 aside FDR drive before Ray & Winston talk (two frames used from this one shot).
2. GB2: My Slime Blower header, which is a crop of Winston and Peter firing on the Vigo painting after Ray gets possessed.

I did notice a few interesting things, so I made a few quick comparison images to illustrate what I found. Old images are on top/right (sourced from the 1999 DVDs) and the new images are on the bottom/left (sourced from the 20104 Blu-rays).

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This is a first for Spook Central's Shot on Site series. This is a Ghostbusters II location that was already identified, but I will be writing about it based on its usage in another movie - and tying it all together using images from both movies, some behind the scenes images, and the usual Google Maps images to show it in real-life. This is going to be quite image-intensive, so keep that in mind as you proceed.

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