[Ivo Shandor]

Ecto 1A is supposed to look ridiculous.
It's for comedic effect, just as Ecto 1 was.

Disagree with that. It's not supposed to look "ridiculous". Maybe a bit overdone and elaborate, but not ridiculous.

In fact, if the new movie has anything that's "supposed to look ridiculous" it will be a sure sign that the creators don't understand Ghostbusters and the movie sucks.

A talking ape with a vacuum cleaner is ridiculous.



The REAL Ghostbusters are not.

[GBfan_85]

Ecto 1A is supposed to look ridiculous.
It's for comedic effect, just as Ecto 1 was.

Yeah I disagree as well. Those cars weren't built to look "ridiculous" or be comedic. Sure they were supposed to look "man made", but they certainly weren't designed to be laughed at. Even as over the top Ecto 1A was, I'm more than positive Ray/Dan had a backstory for every piece of equipment on that car.

[skankerzero]

'm more than positive Ray/Dan had a backstory for every piece of equipment on that car.

So here's the thing;

Reading about the history of how it was designed, there's no doubt in my mind that the designer had a meeting with Reitman / Akyroyd to discuss the overall vision and general direction he should go with the car. I can imagine Akyroyd had some specific visual elements he wanted to see in the overall design. Reitman also approved the concepts as they were being developed. Portions of the car were also altered from the approved design during fabrication.

All that being said, any story that Akyroyd may have had for the equipment on the car came after it was designed and delivered. Akyroyd himself didn't sit there and design the roofrack equipment. He wasn't looking over the designers shoulder. He didn't build the car himself. The only reason the Ecto-1 has any cool 'history' or technobabble for the equipment is because Akyroyd himself is great and an extremely creative person. Other than that, the equipment is just randomly placed on the car to look cool, just like any visual design.

We went through this very thing with the Proton Packs in the game. Akyroyd basically let us design what we wanted, then we provided screenshots for him and he added the history and technobabble on top of them. It's how production design works.

The new Ecto-1 has just as much history attached to it's equipment as the original Ecto-1 did at this phase. It's up to the story tellers to attach history and story to it all.

[d_osborn]

Ecto 1A is supposed to look ridiculous.
It's for comedic effect, just as Ecto 1 was.

Disagree with that. It's not supposed to look "ridiculous". Maybe a bit overdone and elaborate, but not ridiculous.

That's actually incorrect. It was very much for comedic effect. The crazy look of the 1A was part of a deleted bit where Venkman wanted to go over the top on new GB company branding. They had new logo, tagline, military-inspired dress blues, crazy merchandise, yadda yadda. Obviously very little of this stuff made it over to the shooting script. It was actually a pretty funny, almost self-deprecating bit.

Skanker-- you're like the voice of reason in this mad house.

[skankerzero]

Skanker-- you're like the voice of reason in this mad house.

I always try to be.

There's a big difference in replicating props and designing props from scratch. Even more of a difference when doing it in a production environment.

This is why I roll my eyes when I see comments like, 'They spent 5 minutes on the design'. That shows ignorance.

The original designs for Ghostbusters are amazing, but they're no more functional than the new ones. The benefit of the old ones is that they've had 30 years of lore put behind them. There are plenty of things on the original packs / car that make absolutely no sense yet its ok to overlook that for some reason.

Makes no sense.

[groschopf]

Skanker-- you're like the voice of reason in this mad house.

I'll second that.

I think the most striking difference between the props of the 1984 and 2016 movies comes down to how much money we can assume was or wasn't used to start the company up.

Ray took out a huge loan to finance the operation. Buying an entire three-story building in Tribeca (let alone the cost of living in New York in general) wasn't as exorbitant as it would be today. Stantz, Venkman and Spengler apparently had enough start-up cash to acquire vehicle, all of the equipment they'd need, branding and even television air time. We know after the Sedgewick that they were making money hand over fist, but the only indication of that new cashflow is the illuminated sign they hung on the exterior of building. The original team had all of the neat, well polished and handsomely crafted toys they needed from the get-go because they had the start-up capital. We see no prototypes or modifications.

This crew looks much more like a start-up just scraping by and making upgrades as they go along. The patches don't show up on their coveralls in some photos, suggesting they are a later addition to the uniform.. if they even have uniforms when they begin working with particle accelerators. Ecto-1 gets a new LED lightbar and another piece of hardware added somewhere along the line, as the two-Ectos-on-a-flatbed photo indicates. The sets, props and overall aesthetic make them look low-rent. What makes long-term fans recoil is a style that's regarded as careless design, but is very clearly a deliberate look integral to the new story of how they got started.

Put another way, the 1984 crew was Ghostbusters, Inc, and the 2016 crew looks like Ghostbusters LLC.

[GBfan_85]

In my opinion ESPECIALLY when you're talking about a movie, perception almost always supersedes reality. Whether not as much thought or not enough thought was put into the design of the new Ecto-1, is irrelevant. (Again to me and some others), in comparison to the original Ecto-1 and the Ecto 1A, the new car simply looks like it was thrown together last minute by whoever happened to have the most free time on their hands.

[skankerzero]

Yes, the final visual is all that really matters in any visual media.

You want to know a secret though? Often times, the design work we view as 'thrown together' is the one that was worked on the most. It's the phenomenon of getting too many cooks in one kitchen. Generally when a design has to involve a ton of people, the process is much slower and involves more iteration due to increased feedback. So you end up with the inverse of what everyone suggests.

Bad designs are usually a result of spending TOO much time on them.

One example; i was designing an outfit for a Twi'lek for a Star Wars game. This outfit was pretty critical and thus was passed back and forth internally and with the publisher. I did many iterations and ended up beginning to stray from my original concept. So I threw it away and decided to start fresh with a new design. I had basically 'overworked' the design and it looked bland and uninspired.

[Razorgeist]

Well said Skanker good work on the game by the way! You're statement reminds me of all the design work that went into Doc Brown's delorean in BTTF. The time travel components were worked on by Ron Cobb and Andy Probert.

[GBfan_85]

Yes, the final visual is all that really matters in any visual media.

You want to know a secret though? Often times, the design work we view as 'thrown together' is the one that was worked on the most. It's the phenomenon of getting too many cooks in one kitchen. Generally when a design has to involve a ton of people, the process is much slower and involves more iteration due to increased feedback. So you end up with the inverse of what everyone suggests.

Bad designs are usually a result of spending TOO much time on them.

One example; i was designing an outfit for a Twi'lek for a Star Wars game. This outfit was pretty critical and thus was passed back and forth internally and with the publisher. I did many iterations and ended up beginning to stray from my original concept. So I threw it away and decided to start fresh with a new design. I had basically 'overworked' the design and it looked bland and uninspired.

VERY well said!

[GBfan77]

I was never particularly fond of the Ecto-1A. I found they put way too much stuff on the top of that car. I'm surprised the roof didn't collapse from the weight.

[Ecto-A1]

Even though I like Ecto-1 (1984) over Ecto-1A, I'll take Ecto-1A over this new car ANYDAY!!!

[Enigmapc]

Ecto-1 is such a fun character! I love the way it was introduced in the film when the doors open, the lights start spinning, the engine rumbles to life and the siren starts blaring. I don't mind Ecto-1A, but I did miss Ecto-1 in GB2.

I have nothing to say about the reboot Ecto other than I hope my initial impressions are wrong.

[barison82]

Also just for real world reasons I dont think this team would be able to get a hold of a working 1959 cadillac to use as a vehicle. This works for this team. And Im glad they went with a sort of wacky old car as opposed to a H3 or something.

It seems to me that they are doing the equivalent of the original 1984 film; in that they are using a car of around 30 years vintage: the key difference is that the '59 Meteor has the distinction of being a design icon of the 1950s which is a much more flamboyant period of American car design than the more conservative 1980s; this adds that extra, special dimension to the Ecto 1/1A. 1950s styles and fashion was also a very popular retro-culture in the 1980s, and perhaps now it's the 80s turn in the 2010s. I can understand the direction they've taken with it.

It will always be the original Ecto-1 for me however! I think those 50s Cadillacs just had something very special about them; what a fantastic decade for cars

[Mikeol1987]

come to throw my two cents in because the way people were discussing the two previous ectos is like they are two different vehicles, which they are technically but the 1A always just felt like a progression in the story and yes in and of the vehicle itself, very much fit the whole 'overblown franchise' gone wrong thing.

but they paved the way for this in the first 15 minutes of the original film with Murrays line "the franchise rights will make us rich beyond our wildest dreams" thats why I've never understood the split in fanhood between the two films. yes GB2 was overdone all of it was meant to be. I love both films. to me and the way I saw it back then, was that the 1a was literally just the progression. its weird this franchise has a fan divide, I think they're both really cohesive films and work well together. now this 'reboot' is going to divide the fans even more. haha. If anything I guess it will keep us talking for another 30 years. See how I haven't even discussed that other 'ecto'.
I don't wish to.

[pferreira1983]

Even though I like Ecto-1 (1984) over Ecto-1A, I'll take Ecto-1A over this new car ANYDAY!!!

Yeah it's not a difficult choice.

[gold333]

In the Ecto1 videos on the new 2015 GB blu ray, Dan Aykroyd mentions the Ecto 1 items one by one, including what he calls Muon scrubbers, etc.

[philmorgan81]

In the Ecto1 videos on the new 2015 GB blu ray, Dan Aykroyd mentions the Ecto 1 items one by one, including what he calls Muon scrubbers, etc.

Yeah, there are many things that I can forgive in this movie, but this Ecto 1 and the Proton Packs look real bad. Of course that could be pure nostalgia talking. I doubt the people that designed this new equipment put in as much thought in what it does as much as Dan Aykroyd. I am just hoping the equipment looks good in action. The Movie has wrapped and we know very little about it. That could mean they did a good job in covering details. I really hope the movie is good, an explosion of more Ghostbusters stuff would just be awesome. I hope that animated movie gets a green light. I am really hoping they don't screw this up, it would be just too easy to mess up. I am not a fan of Feig's but at this point I hope his track record of the general public liking his movies continues. I am hoping that Reitman and Aykroyd have more creative control over future projects.

[Ivo Shandor]

Yeah, there are many things that I can forgive in this movie, but this Ecto 1 and the Proton Packs look real bad. Of course that could be pure nostalgia talking. I doubt the people that designed this new equipment put in as much thought in what it does as much as Dan Aykroyd. I am just hoping the equipment looks good in action. The Movie has wrapped and we know very little about it. That could mean they did a good job in covering details. I really hope the movie is good, an explosion of more Ghostbusters stuff would just be awesome. I hope that animated movie gets a green light. I am really hoping they don't screw this up, it would be just too easy to mess up. I am not a fan of Feig's but at this point I hope his track record of the general public liking his movies continues. I am hoping that Reitman and Aykroyd have more creative control over future projects.

Sensible post. I feel the same hope that it's good and the desire for an "explosion" of more GB related stuff.

I feel like the movie has a 41% chance of being decent.

[darthbuster]

Love the ecto-1a because it is so over the top with the roof rack and lights. I love the original ecto 1 too, but I like the ecto-1a better. Feig mobile sucks, as another member said it is uninspired.

[montclaire]

Feigmobile doesn't look that bad from the back, wish they would have nixed that awful yellow gumball and added a bull bar on the front like the EGB version.

[Sav C]

I've always liked the Ecto 1A, and can say hands down that I like it more than the Ecto 1 from the reboot, judging by both the stills and footage of it in motion. The reboot car looks OK, though, it just doesn't recreate the charm of the Ecto 1 or 1A, at least not for me.

[jkslade1985]

The only part of the reboot Ecto-1 I like is the hood ornament... otherwise GARBAGE

[Sav C]

So far I haven't been overly impressed by the car itself, but in this "Vignette" it looks really good, especially thanks to the cinematography.

[Raystantz Italy]

I like the night shot. I would have preferred the yellow light to be green.

[Barkeff]

I always loved the Ecto -1A.Just a ton of stuff to look at.New Ecto -1 is sort of the weakest link in the new movie.I love all the new tech except it.It just looks thrown together to show off at a county fair to people that don't know any better.On the other hand,you've gotta have a car.......function over fashion.

[Creativeguy]

1a all the way. The new car is a joke.