MovieChat Forums > Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021) Discussion > ret con by omission

ret con by omission

posted 2 years ago by daveyh (576)
6 replies | jump to latest

Putting aside the actors' real life ages, just going with the timeline of this movie, Egon's first grandchild would have been born no later than 2002. Which would mean his daugher would have been born no later than the mid-1980s.
Yet in both the earlier films, there's no mention whatsoever of Egon having kids and is strongly implied to be a bachelor - there's the hint of romance with Annie Potts' character in the first one and mention of his sleeping with mood slime in the 2nd one. So where's this family suddenly come from?! The only answer is the old "well, we didn't explicitly say that he DIDN'T have a family in the earlier movies". Come on.
I can't help thinking this might have played better if they'd had an older actress playing Egon's estranged wife/widow with Egon's teenage/pre-teen kids. But then you wouldn't get Paul Rudd flirting with an attractive younger actress, because that's what cinema goers want to see
And while I'm at it, I don't remember any references to the events of the 2nd movie at all in this. So ret con by omission in more ways than one! Let's pretend Ghostbusters 2 never happened (at least in the video game, they have Vigo's portrait in the basement and talk about how Shandor was the architect of the museum etc)
As I said in my last post, sorry if I'm covering old ground here. I'm not trawling through 16 pages of threads to check!

[–] WilloughbyStain (194) 2 years ago

The occult shop Ray was working in comes from the second movie. That aside, the film makes more sense if the second film is taken out of the equation, even though they've specified that the second film is still "cannon".

[–] daveyh (576) 2 years ago

oh yeah, forgot about Ray's shop!

[–] FFNogoodnik (770) 2 years ago

Well, Egon's first grandchild was born in 2006, if he was born in 2002 then during the events of Afterlife he would have been 19 and not 15.
His daughter was born in 1982 according to Afterlife.
From: https://ghostbusters.fandom.com/wiki/Ghostbusters_Wiki:Ghostbusters_Timeline_(Movie_Canon)#1982_A.D.

According to Egon Spengler's notes on a note card seen at the 1:26:37 mark in Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Chapter 14, Callie Spengler celebrated her second birthday in 1984. Therefore, she was born in 1982. The note card is left of Callie's left shoulder when her back is to the screen as she is looking at the board of photographs, clipping, and notes about her life. The note card is to the left of the full size photograph of her in a blue dress with a white collar and above a yellow Post It note. The top of the note card reads "Birthday 1984" and the line below it reads "Two Years Old."

With this in mind Egon had a relationship with a woman that produced a Callie a couple of years before the events of Ghostbusters. If that relationship ended before the events of Ghostbusters then there was no reason to show it as it was not related to the story.
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[–] daveyh (576) 2 years ago

Ah ok, I thought the grandson was supposed to be 17, and, although it came out in 2021, for some reason I assumed the events were taking place in 2019 (pre-covid, a nice round 30 & 35 years after the other 2, the other 2021 releases I've watched were actually filmed in 2019 - still, I should have checked on that before starting a thread!).

Thanks for the replies

[–] daveyh (576) 2 years ago

OK watched it again last night (it is October). When they're inside the mountain, they do make a big reveal of the fact that the grandson's only 15 after claiming all movie to be 17. And the years carved into the wall, they do quite explicitly say that it's taking place in 2021. Sorry I missed all that on my first watch. I also picked up on the years noted on the photo wall of Callie (didn't see the 1984 one you mentioned but I did see one of her as a child saying 1987).
I still don't like that Egon would have been a father during the events of both earlier films and yet this is never mentioned in them, even if it does have nothing to do with the story line.
And I stand by what I said in the OP that the events of the 2nd film are airbrushed here (apart from Ray's Occult shop).

[–] cbsteven (212) 10 months ago

You could say that nothing is said about any back story in GB1. They could all have kids. Maybe Egon wasn't on good terms, and not talking to any of the family?

You could also say that GB2 had nothing to do with the Gozer/Shandor arc, so didn't need to be referenced. But the number from the original advert got through to Ray's Occult.