We live in a world where remakes and remasters are commonplace, where creators feel like they need to tweak and adjust classic films for the new era. However, when you look at recent remasters, like the new “Star Wars” Blu-ray release, it seems the people paying for these films would rather be given the original. It is refreshing, then, that this week we will get to see an untouched classic the way it was meant to be seen. Started on Oct. 13, the original 1984 “Ghostbusters” will be playing again in theaters all around the country.
The announcement was put up on their Facebook page last month. "It's time to get your cats and dogs together and prepare for mass hysteria: This October, for the first time in over 25 years, the original and unforgettable Ghostbusters makes its triumphant return to theaters," the site read.
For the uninitiated — or anyone that may have been living under a rock for the past 25 years — “Ghostbusters” is the story of parapsychologists Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz and Egon Spengler, played by the hysterical Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis. When the trio is thrown out of their college for studying a “fake” science, they decided to go into business and open Ghostbusters, a ghost removal service. They start finding that the things that go bump in the night are indeed very real and are trying to destroy Manhattan.
“Ghostbusters” is a classic film with a large and dedicated fan base, but a large percentage of those fans were either too young to remember or not even born yet when the film originally played in theaters. This is a great chance for that group of people to see the film the why it was originally meant to be seen.
The film is going to be played in around 500 theaters across the U.S. as well as several theaters here in the Valley, including the Harkins at Tempe Marketplace. This is a limited engagement at the theater and at the moment, there are only show times on the 13th, 20th, and 27th of October.
This re-release may be a sort of test run to see how much interest there is still in the series for the rumored "Ghostbusters 3." While the wisdom of releasing a new “Ghostbusters” film can certainly be debated, this still a once in a lifetime opportunity to relive a classic film that no fan should miss.
Reach the reporter at tkuipers@asu.edu
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