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What Did You Think?
It sucked 5%  5%  [ 1 ]
Not as good as RGB, but it was watchable 53%  53%  [ 10 ]
It was even better than RGB 42%  42%  [ 8 ]
It needed more Tracey the Gorilla 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
Total votes: 19
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PostPosted: August 25th, 2007, 11:02 am 
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I would have liked Extreme Ghostbusters more if the animators and song writers tried as hard as they did with RGB. I wanted so much to enjoy the opening theme, but I couldn't get passed the fact that it had no hook or melody that's supposed to get you engaged in the montage of the opening credits.

EGB will have it's fans and detractors, but I think it pretty much fell into the niche that other animated series such as "Men In Black", "Godzilla", "The Mummy", and "King Kong" fell into...capitalizing of a populor movie to make a toyline and a fast buck. Not that there's anything wrong with that, because most of the cartoons that we loved in the 80's did just that. But even so, more effort could have been done to make you fall in love with the characters of EGB as what happened to it's predesscors (sp?).

But alas, one other main thing that I didn't like about the cartoon was that if you were deaf and tried to watch it, you were screwed. It had no Closed Captions.

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PostPosted: August 25th, 2007, 11:44 am 
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Topic on the old board:
http://ectozone.proboards31.com/index.c ... 1093654552

The controversial 1997 sequel to The Real Ghostbusters...so how did you take it?

I'm in the "It wasn't as good as JMS Era RGB, but sure as hell was better than the 'Magnificent Five' or 'Ransom of Greenspud' " category.

The Pros

As it came out years after RGB, it took place years after RGB. I admit I much prefer series that grow, change, and evolve over the years to those which keep the same damn status quo for years on end.

I like the new characters. Eduardo and Kylie had a bickering romantic vibe slightly evocative of Venkman and Dana's. Garrett was irrepressibly gung-ho, and Roland provided the necessary common sense any group of Ghostbusters needs. I personally though the actors had good chemistry and played off of each other and the supporting cast (especially Maurice LaMarche) pretty well.

Slimer was restored to "mostly incoherent babbling gluttonous pet" after the trespass of the "Slimer talks clearly and saves their asses every episode" problems of late RGB. They even drew him a little uglier, to boot.

Egon and Janine, my favorite characters from RGB, were important supporting players. Maurice LaMarche was even back to play Egon! Janine aquired her third voice actress, Pat Musick, who was not nearly as grating on the nerves as Kath "Miss Helium" Soucie. And while certain developments in their romantic relationship were forgotton (see Cons below) the relationship itself was not, and by late episodes like "Back In the Saddle" it's clearly blossoming. And Louis f***ing Tully is not even mention in this show.

Ray, Venkman, and Winston even turn up in two episodes.

There was a darkness and intensity to the plots that at times rivalled such RGB classics as "Ragnarok and Roll"

The Cons

Like everyone else, I admit I hated the new "improved" equipment. It just smacked of "We gotta do something different in the new series". Not to say that some fan fic writers (TheRazorsEdge) haven't mined these ideas for good effect, though.

The rather oblique PC-ness of the characters (We have a Girl, an African American, a Latino, and a Handi-Capable!) It was better explained that say, the Power Rangers (a gymnast, a hip hopper, a martial artist, an Asian girl, and a geek all happen to just hang out?) but still felt a bit forced on us.

As cool as the characters were, they did lack the chemistry of the originals. Murray, Aykroyd, Ramis, and Hudson or Music, Welker, LaMarche, and Hall. Both groups had superb chemistry and comedic genius going for them.

Egon and Janine's touchingly weird romance started the series backtracked from where it had been: in RGB, Egon declares his love for her in "Janine You've Changed". By all rights, they should've started this series married, maybe with kids.

Ray, Venkman, and Winston came back for two episodes...but it had Dave Coulier and Buster Jones doing the voices. How much cooler would it have been to have had Lorenzo Music and Arsenio Hall? Sigh... And they were all too old looking. And why the f*** was Ray wearing one of Egon's flight suits?

The dark plots were sometimes laughably defanged by American kids television standards and practices. People could have their souls eaten or their eyes plucked out, but when the monster was slapped in the trap everything would magically return to normal.

So my judgement: Flawed, but worthy. Perhaps you will see differently...

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PostPosted: August 25th, 2007, 12:55 pm 
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I actually tried giving this show a chance. But to me I felt that it short had a PC feeling to it and I wished that the writers improved on the show and the song too. I did like a few episodes like "The Crawler", "Back In The Saddle," and a few others.

On the good side, they did have Ray, Peter and Winston come back. And man, did they look so old! :shock: Personally they should've kept their RGB looks and possible had Ray and Winston grow a beard and a mustache. And Ray couldn't fit into his old uniform and short of gained some weight.

All in all I give this show out of ten a 7

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PostPosted: August 25th, 2007, 2:22 pm 
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Well that was egon uniform I think

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PostPosted: August 26th, 2007, 12:49 pm 
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Well, let me start by answering some of Fritz’s points.

Fritz wrote:
The rather oblique PC-ness of the characters (We have a Girl, an African American, a Latino, and a Handi-Capable!) It was better explained that say, the Power Rangers (a gymnast, a hip hopper, a martial artist, an Asian girl, and a geek all happen to just hang out?) but still felt a bit forced on us.


I don’t agree. It’s New York, and I do feel that a group of characters in a show should accurately reflect class/sex/race etc. ratios in the wider community. It’s always refreshing to see something that doesn’t focus almost exclusively on white middle-class able-bodied characters (which there are still plenty of in EGB). It so happens that I fit into all three of those categories - but when I was a girl, it was encouraging to see a woman in the new team (which was still 75% male, so a bit disproportionate, really). I happen to think it says something for the state of things if people express any degree of surprise at seeing a woman in any role other than those typically ascribed to women. Arguably, the RGB setup could imply that boys - particularly white boys - can grow up to be action heroes, and girls can grow up to be secretaries. I realise, of course, that Janine was a strong female character and she gets to do cool stuff in, most obviously, “Janine Melnitz: Ghostbuster”, but the fact remains: she was in a job widely accepted as being “female”, and subordinate to four men.

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As cool as the characters were, they did lack the chemistry of the originals. Murray, Aykroyd, Ramis, and Hudson or Music, Welker, LaMarche, and Hall. Both groups had superb chemistry and comedic genius going for them.


I don’t agree with that either. People do have a tendency to compare every aspect of the show to RGB. Possibly it would be more appreciated if one just erased RGB from one’s memory for a day and went into it blind. But I guess we’ll never know. Anyway, my personal opinion is that these characters’ chemistry was at least as good as the originals’. I guess, since I’d rather watch Extreme than Real, I must think the character interaction was better. The character development was excellent - you can really see a progression of their relationships forming as the series goes on - and each Ghostbuster had his or her own dynamic with each of the others. I can’t think of a single character combination that didn’t work well (even Roland and Eduardo had their moments - more on that later).

Quote:
Ray, Venkman, and Winston came back for two episodes...but it had Dave Coulier and Buster Jones doing the voices. How much cooler would it have been to have had Lorenzo Music and Arsenio Hall? Sigh... And they were all too old looking. And why the f*** was Ray wearing one of Egon's flight suits?


I have way more complaints about “Back in the Saddle” than that, which I won’t go into right now. I’ll just say that I thought it was an absolute travesty. It and “Witchy Woman”, which just got the whole Ed/Ky dynamic all wrong because the writer misunderstood her character slightly and his a lot, were three bad episodes to thirty-seven very good ones. Some better than others, of course, but all very good nonetheless.

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The dark plots were sometimes laughably defanged by American kids television standards and practices. People could have their souls eaten or their eyes plucked out, but when the monster was slapped in the trap everything would magically return to normal.


I wish you would have edited that complaint a bit. I cannot stress enough that the return of people’s stolen eyes in “The Unseen” was as believable as the rest of the episode - and actually it didn’t involve the demon going into a trap at all. But I agree with the point entirely. The prime example is “Dry Spell”, in which people’s souls and all of their body fluids were taken. Then the monster went into a trap, and the clearly dead bodies of its victims would just sort of inflate. It’s a complaint, but the show is so good it doesn’t bother me that much. You just have to accept these things and not mind.

EGB remains my favourite cartoon to this day. Though some - well, three - episodes fell rather wide of the mark, overall the show was an excellent piece of character driven viewing. When re-watching it recently, my brother and I were occasionally inspired to say to each other, “You wouldn’t get a scene like that in a modern cartoon.” There’s one combination of two characters who didn’t get to do very much together at all, and that’s Eduardo and Roland. But other than that - well, I’ve already mentioned the progression of their relationships with each other. The four of them actually meet for the first time in the first episode, and then as the series moves on you really can see how they go from being work colleagues to being friends, and growing closer. Garrett was the only one with no mention of any family background. I don’t know, maybe they were saving that one up - but the writers left us with the bare bones of some very interesting personal issues that could have been (and, I believe, would have been) developed beautifully in season 2.

Personally, I saw improvements to both Egon and Janine’s characters after ten-odd years of them growing older and wiser, but I’d rather not go into it. I do have a lot I’d like to say about all four of the new team members, but I’ll wait either until Fritz starts a who’s-your-favourite-Extreme-Ghostbuster thread (which I think he hinted at elsewhere) or I decide it’s worth starting one myself. I just wonder how many people would vote and respond, but anyway -

If you asked me to pick one aspect of the show that made it really special, rather than just a bit special, it would be the relationship between Eduardo and Kylie. The very clear progression of the development of their feelings towards each other is the reason I don’t like “Witchy Woman” - Blenheim (writer) appears to have done his utmost to ruin it. Anyway, I guess I’m a sucker for the old love/hate relationship. Their dynamic was beautiful, and Tara (then)Charendoff and Rino Romano couldn’t have played it any better. Of course, there’s a lot I could say about that relationship - but I’ll save it for another time. I have gone on long enough. Kudos if you’re still reading.

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PostPosted: August 26th, 2007, 2:22 pm 
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Glad to see some good discussion. I know we disagree which is better, and that's all right--hey, at least I'm not one of those ones that hates EGB right?

I suppose you can more accurately phrase my sentiment as "EGB wasn't as good as the early RGB, when JMS was there, but it was a lot better than post-JMS Slimer-As-Hero/Dave_Coulier-and-Kath-Soucie/'Magnificent Five'-and-'Surely You Joust' RGB"

Quote:
It’s always refreshing to see something that doesn’t focus almost exclusively on white middle-class able-bodied characters (which there are still plenty of in EGB). It so happens that I fit into all three of those categories - but when I was a girl, it was encouraging to see a woman in the new team (which was still 75% male, so a bit disproportionate, really). I happen to think it says something for the state of things if people express any degree of surprise at seeing a woman in any role other than those typically ascribed to women. Arguably, the RGB setup could imply that boys - particularly white boys - can grow up to be action heroes, and girls can grow up to be secretaries. I realise, of course, that Janine was a strong female character and she gets to do cool stuff in, most obviously, “Janine Melnitz: Ghostbuster”, but the fact remains: she was in a job widely accepted as being “female”, and subordinate to four men.


Some good points there. And there have been a number of EGB haters who've nevertheless offered the disclaimer "But Kylie was cool" Believe me, I many times wish Janine was given a more active roll than she was (that and she wasn't lobotomized in either the post-JMS way or the GB2 way).

Though EGB didn't help their case by giving Kylie a noticeably smaller weapon than the others, one that didn't even vaguely resemble the equipment in the movie that started it all. They even called it the "girl gun" a couple times, but at least there was some tongue-in-cheek overtones to that.

I think it's more a reaction to the knowledge that, when the show was being put together, somebody somewhere basically said "We HAVE to have an ethnically diverse group!" And knowing that that committment to diversity led them to the frankly laughable idea of a Ghostbuster in a whieel chair. As a guy who needs a wheelchair or a prosthetic to get around, I know better than most how difficult to swallow that idea is.

Quote:
The four of them actually meet for the first time in the first episode, and then as the series moves on you really can see how they go from being work colleagues to being friends, and growing closer.


Won't argue with that at all. It was definitely neat to see--when the original team's adventures began, three of them already knew each other, we never see exactly how Janine met them (At least not in official canon)--the only one we actually see meeting the others for the first time is Winston.


As for the "Favorite EGB" poll...well, no law said you had to wait for me to do it :P

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PostPosted: August 26th, 2007, 3:09 pm 
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Fritz, there are a great many people out there who blow a fuse every time somebody doesn't entirely agree with their opinion. I know you know I'm not one of them.

Fritz wrote:
Though EGB didn't help their case by giving Kylie a noticeably smaller weapon than the others, one that didn't even vaguely resemble the equipment in the movie that started it all. They even called it the "girl gun" a couple times, but at least there was some tongue-in-cheek overtones to that.


Somehow I always forget that bugs me, even though it does. Kylie wields a proton pack twice in the series: "The Unseen", when Eduardo's been complaining the proton packs are too heavy and "You get the girl's gun!" (the only instance in which that phrase is actually used), and again in "Ghost Apocalyptic Future" when the rest of her team back in the past/present (depending on your point of view) bury one in a bin bag for her. She does rather better the second time. She's a very small woman, and doesn't look physically very strong, but... yeah.

Quote:
And knowing that that committment to diversity led them to the frankly laughable idea of a Ghostbuster in a whieel chair. As a guy who needs a wheelchair or a prosthetic to get around, I know better than most how difficult to swallow that idea is.


One might counter that point by saying something along the lines of: Garrett's been disabled his whole life, it's all he knows, he's never had the use of his legs and doesn't have to adjust. But I'm not saying I agree with that - I just don't know.

I once read an article on the internet that I've just been having a look for, but it seems to have gone. It was pretty much all about Garrett. One of the people who had something to do with EGB is quoted as explaining how they came up with the characters, and says something along the lines of, "We wanted them to be people you wouldn't normally think of as superheroes. So we had a nerdy guy, a slacker and a girl" - and that sentence is just all wrong, really, because I'm sure being a girl shouldn't be equated with being a slacker or a nerd (and let's just not get into why-shouldn't-women-be-superheroes), and apparently they had Garrett all figured out, but being an athlete and an adrenaline junkie meant that he fitted those action hero criteria pretty well. So then, apparently, somebody suggested keeping him just the same but giving him a disability. I have no opinion on any of that, and I'm not assuming it's all true (I don't even remember if the site where I found it seemed reliable), but it's an interesting bit of trivia at any rate.

Quote:
As for the "Favorite EGB" poll...well, no law said you had to wait for me to do it :P


Yeah, I know. I thought I'd do it myself, and then I thought, would it be worth it? But now you've done it and saved me the decision-making. I already voted, but I'm not going to give my reasons until tomorrow. What I'm going to next is watch a movie, and then I'll type up some overlong responses both to that and the Eduardo and Kylie thread, to be posted tomorrow.

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PostPosted: August 26th, 2007, 3:24 pm 
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I didn't like it till I saw Egon which told me that they're going not going to forget RGB completely

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PostPosted: August 28th, 2007, 1:42 pm 
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Fritz wrote:
The dark plots were sometimes laughably defanged by American kids television standards and practices. People could have their souls eaten or their eyes plucked out, but when the monster was slapped in the trap everything would magically return to normal.

To be fair, the same thing happened in RGB several times. Like in Stay Tooned, Mr. Sandman Dream Me A Dream, & both Samhain episodes.


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PostPosted: August 31st, 2007, 11:01 pm 
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The rather oblique PC-ness of the characters (We have a Girl, an African American, a Latino, and a Handi-Capable!) It was better explained that say, the Power Rangers (a gymnast, a hip hopper, a martial artist, an Asian girl, and a geek all happen to just hang out?) but still felt a bit forced on us.


Even as a kid I found this PC-ness of Power Rangers very funny because, at least around my parts, you usually stuck with your own kind: nerds hung with nerds, jocks with jocks, and martial artists with...you get the idea.

The one thing that always struck me as odd about EGB was how they were channeling aspects of the original quartet into the new team:

Eduardo=Peter
Kylie=Egon
Garrett=Ray/Peter
Roland=Winston/Ray

At least that's how I always saw them, no matter what their skin color was. And was Kylie ever revealed to be a Goth? I mean, she dressed like one sure but was she really into the whole scene?

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PostPosted: September 4th, 2007, 12:52 am 
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I actually thought the same thing, man. One thing I will say about the show is that they went with the formula that worked in the 80s: "the mouth", "the heart", "the brain", "the everyman". It's like the old saying goes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. But, there's nothing to say one couldn't add on a little bit from there. I was cool with the diversity of the characters. The whole PC-ness of the characters didn't bother me (though, I did have a diabolical lenience toward taking some clippers and shearing off Eduardo's soul patch :twisted: ).

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PostPosted: September 4th, 2007, 11:44 pm 
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Well Id say the title itself made my eyes roll... as if defeating a sumarian god just wasnt extreme enough... the new team had to be the extreme ghostbusters... Going back to it later on, Id have to say it had its own charm... But looking at it now, I have to say a couple character notes...

1) Eduardo... reminds me of Shaggy from Scooby Doo... not only in appearance but in the early episodes where hes sort of a chickenshit... half expected him to be bribed with scooby snax... XD

2) I know Family Guy came after but does the, I forget his name, handicapped guy sorta seem like Joe Swanson...

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PostPosted: September 5th, 2007, 2:48 pm 
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Shiirow wrote:
Well Id say the title itself made my eyes roll... as if defeating a sumarian god just wasnt extreme enough... the new team had to be the extreme ghostbusters... Going back to it later on, Id have to say it had its own charm... But looking at it now, I have to say a couple character notes...

1) Eduardo... reminds me of Shaggy from Scooby Doo... not only in appearance but in the early episodes where hes sort of a chickenshit... half expected him to be bribed with scooby snax... XD

2) I know Family Guy came after but does the, I forget his name, handicapped guy sorta seem like Joe Swanson...

As for the guy in the wheelchair on XGB his name is Garrett Miller.

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PostPosted: September 5th, 2007, 3:52 pm 
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The title was a bit silly. "Extreme" was slapped on everything from stupid stunts ("Extreme Sports"), crap-ass comic books (Rob Liefeld's Extreme Studios) and numerous cartoons. I remember "Extreme Dinosaurs" and of course "GI Joe Extreme" :roll:

I've made the [url=http://ectozone.deviantart.com/art/Xtreme-Fritz-61596534[/url]

But having that overused word in the title didn't keep the show from being good.

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PostPosted: September 5th, 2007, 4:33 pm 
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I never said it made it any less good, it was just one of the few things that made me think "Cash cow cash in marketing ploy" when I saw it and soured me on actually watching the show. Another was the the reworking of the theme song, it was bland and uninspired, then there was the art style, it made me recall all those retarded Nickelodeon cartoons now and at the time. And the fact only Egon was there, I liked the character but as I said in the favorite real ghostbuster thread. The absence of Ray sorta left a hole for me. Of course I admit it also solidified my resolve on not giving it a chance. I came back to it after seeing a link talking about the old Ghostbusters returning, I looked up a video on Google and re-evaluted it and decided that Id been a bit harsh in the beginning and admit, it is a pretty good show on its own whether they are really extreme or not...

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