I always wanted to be a Ghostbuster.
Still do, honestly. Whether you’re a kid or an adult, Ghostbusters remains an appealing power fantasy. Unlike most cinematic action heroes of their time, the Ghostbusters were pragmatic capitalists to a fault. Their most formidable foes weren’t Gozer the Destructor or Viggo the Carpathian, but bureaucratic naysayers who threatened to keep them from doing their jobs.
As the beleaguered ghost policemen, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis became overnight mega stars. Behind the camera, director Ivan Reitman redefined the potential for high-budget, star-driven comedies and also became a household name. Yet in the nearly 40 years since its initial release, the actual story of Ghostbusters’ origins as a film, franchise and global phenomenon has been obscure at best.
For decades ghostheads have been fed the same sanitized, ‘official’ behind-the-scenes stories from the actors and filmmakers involved. In his new book, A Convenient Parallel Dimension: How Ghostbusters Slimed Us Forever, author James Greene, Jr. dares to go deeper into the franchise’s haunted past than any author before him.
“In the early stages of the book, there was a conversation with Ghostbusters majority rights holders Sony Pictures Entertainment about making my work officially licensed,” Greene writes in his introduction. “I declined… [wanting] to tell the full story.”
As a longtime amateur practitioner of Ghostbusters history, I am pleased to confirm that A Convenient Parallel Dimension: How Ghostbusters Slimed Us Forever represents THE definitive, unexpurgated story of the beloved film franchise and its central players. Finally, ghostheads have their own gospel, a Tobin’s Spirit Guide of thoroughly researched and thoughtfully disseminated Ghostbusters history.
Until A Convenient Parallel Dimension, the full story of the Ghostbusters franchise eluded even the most hardcore of fans. It’s true that official accounts of the first film’s production have been well documented in DVD featurettes, commentary tracks, liner notes and retrospective interviews. Yet other parts of the franchise (the sordid history of the 1989 sequel, the long-gestating but never-emanating Ghostbusters III, and all the drama surrounding Paul Feig’s remake) have seemingly been relegated to the realm of archived film news, trade industry editorials, movie magazine back issues and Wikipedia rabbit holes. A Convenient Parallel Dimension pulls all these threads together and more, creating what is surely the definitive story of how Ghostbusters’ trans-media megalopolis was built, warts and all.
Few of these carbuncles emerge larger and uglier than that of Bill Murray, whose abusive behavior before, during and after the making of the Ghostbusters quadrilogy obscures his legacy playing effortless slacker scientist Peter Venkman. Greene’s depiction of Murray as a supremely talented comedian with a hair-trigger temper is an unpleasant one with which to reckon. If A Convenient Parallel Dimension has anything close to a villain, it’s the Murricane throughout. The book offers a sobering recontextualization of many mythic Murray stories, not to mention a laundry list of bad behavior permitted by collaborators and studio heads. The scariest thing about A Convenient Parallel Dimension is the fact that it highlights four decades of abuse that have only just now begun to catch up with Second City legend.
If you’ve ever had doubts about the unique genius of franchise figureheads Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Ivan Reitman and Ray Parker, Jr, A Convenient Parallel Dimension will do little to squash your suspicions. Greene provides an uncompromising investigation of Ghostbusters’ most craven creative derivations, which range from Parker cribbing other musicians for the theme song (Huey Lewis’ hit single “I Want a New Drug” and The Bar-Kay’s 1967 “Soul Finger” in particular) to Aykroyd casually declaring that the studio would simply pay off anyone who sued Ghostbusters for intellectual property theft because the film was too big to fail.
Shockingly, he was right– both Funimation (rights holders of the Ghostbusters trademark from a children’s show made a decade prior) and Huey Lewis had their palms greased over the course of the franchise’s history to keep from stymying the Ghostbusters money printing machine. Yet, as Greene gradually reveals over the course of A Convenient Parallel Dimension’s 251 pages, it was this cavalier attitude toward creativity that undermined later attempts to replicate the first film’s success.
From the jump, Aykroyd’s blockbuster ambitions for the series are shown to be a powerful driving force, one that has sustained the franchise for generations of new fans at the cost of originality. Ultimately failing to fully resist the machinations that led to corny, profit-chasing sequels like Blues Brothers 2000, Aykroyd’s relentless cheerleading is nothing less than a double edged sword for Sony and his fellow ‘busters.
There aren’t many heroes in Greene’s book, but Harold Ramis comes pretty close. Greene accentuates just how much of a redemption arc the character of Egon Spengler would be for Ramis after having his co-starring role in Stripes (1981) universally dragged by critics. In perhaps the greatest example of creative overcorrection ever, Ramis’ dual role as writer and star of Ghostbusters elevated him to the upper echelon of comedy filmmakers for the remainder of his career. Like Egon, Ramis is depicted as a flawed man who used his considerable talents to explore bigger questions about the nature of life and death. Greene documents Ramis’ journey from overlooked SCTV performer to the anchor of a multibillion dollar cash cow as one of grace and humility.
Then there’s Ernie Hudson’s story. The infuriating and flatly racist decisions that pushed Hudson’s fan-favorite fourth Ghostbuster, Winston Zeddemore, to the background of subsequent sequels and spin-offs are not depicted as subtle within A Convenient Parallel Dimension. Hudson’s journey from working actor to household name occurred seemingly overnight but without a fraction of the financial or personal accolades received by his co-stars.
From being removed from the first film’s poster and key art to losing the role he originated to Arsenio Hall during pre-production of Real Ghostbusters, Hudson is depicted as an accomplished actor constantly fighting for recognition in the face of apathy from Sony execs and fellow Ghostbusters alike. His story, unsurprisingly, is the most relatable of any depicted in A Convenient Parallel Dimension, an underdog tale of an actor’s faith in himself and his fans in the face of innumerable personal and professional slights.
While certainly a sympathetic figure within A Convenient Parallel Dimension, Hudson is far from the story’s central character. Indeed, if there is a hero’s journey to be had in the book it belongs to director Ivan Reitman. As a refugee of communist Czechoslovakia raised by Holocaust survivors, Reitman’s journey to becoming Hollywood comedy elite is a classic success story. A Convenient Parallel Dimension shows just how much Ghostbusters embodies the intersection of creativity and commerce that was instilled in the director from an early age. A Convenient Parallel Dimension is Reitman’s rags-to-riches story, as well as the story of how Ghostbusters became a family business for Ivan’s son Jason. Their collaboration on Ghostbusters: Afterlife provides a fittingly emotional finale for A Convenient Parallel Dimension.
“Truth is stranger than fiction,” Greene writes, “and fiction is boring if we ignore certain truths.” The certain truth of A Convenient Parallel Dimension is clear. Though the franchise rights alone have been enough to make Ghostbusters’ original stake-holders rich beyond their wildest dreams, that success was not without great personal and creative cost. In this way, A Convenient Parallel Dimension is an indispensable account of how a film can become an all-consuming phenomenon.
Ghostheads have been waiting for a book like this since July of 1984, and the tale has grown richer with new generations of Ghostbusters stories to explore. In short, James Greene, Jr’s A Convenient Parallel Dimension is an addictively written, utterly engrossing read, and an absolute must-have stocking stuffer for fans this holiday season.
The post ‘A Convenient Parallel Dimension’ Review – New Book Finally Tells the True History of the ‘Ghostbusters’ Franchise appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.