Ghostbusters is a prime example of why the 1980s were such a great decade for movies. In some ways, it was an unassuming buddy film, yet Ghostbusters broke new ground in its use of special effects in service of comedy and became one of the greatest box-office hits of all-time. Bueno talks to just about everyone involved in the making, except Bill Murray, but that is to be expected, given his rep for media-shy eccentricity.
Aykroyd and director Ivan Reitman trace the film’s origins, starting with Aykroyd’s initial off-the-wall, futuristic treatment that sounds almost like a ghost-busting version of Starship Troopers. Eventually, Ramis sat down with Aykroyd to script out something more contemporary and grounded. Their writing flowed nicely, not that the stars always kept to the printed page. To Reitman’s credit, he also directly addresses the scaled-down role of fourth Ghostbuster Winston Zeddmore (probably the great Ghostbusters controversy), about which actor (and fan favorite) Ernie Hudson maintains a philosophical tone.
When watching Cleanin’ you realize it is unlikely future filmmakers could make equivalent documentaries about the big superhero tentpoles of our current day. Whereas Bueno’s film is chocked full of clever work-arounds devised by the special effects team, contemporary CGI films would just have SFX artists on laptops and actors wearing motion capture suits. In contrast, an awful lot of the effects on Ghostbusters were practical—and they had to render them relatively cheaply and with a much faster turnaround time than was previously standard practice.
