Ghostbusters: Scifi or Fantasy?

POSTED BY: DMI
UPDATED: Thursday, March 10, 2011 21:14
VIEWED: 14126
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DMI

Wednesday, March 9, 2011 1:25 AM

My wife and I had this discussion over dinner. She claims Ghostbusters is fantasy because it deals with the paranormal and that which science cannot explain. I claimed that Ghostbusters was Scifi because, though it deals with the paranormal, they are all scientists (okay, two of them are scientists) and must be using the scientific method to in some quantify and define the "other realm" in order to interact with it in a predictable way through technology(ex: point proton pack at ghost = hold ghost in place).

So, who's right, Browncoats? Help us out here.

BYTEMITE

Wednesday, March 9, 2011 2:00 AM

Technically stuff dealing with the paranormal is considered part of the supernatural genre, not fantasy. Fantasy tends to be fictional iron age settings on this world or imaginary worlds, with magic or extraordinary creatures, but it can also deal with the surreal (Alice in Wonderland).

As for Ghostbusters, I'd call it Sci-Fi before supernatural for the reasons you said.

Horror and Comedy would also be acceptable, even though there really isn't that much scary in it, some people still classify it as such.

(Erg, sorry for the multiple responses, I had both beta and original open and accidentally kept posting to original)

DREAMTROVE

Wednesday, March 9, 2011 3:12 AM

The SFWA crowd has a pretty fine line definition which might come in handy here: What elements does the story hinge on?

Here, the story hinges on the supernatural Ghosts, demons, gods. It's comical in part because of the jarring setting switch. A switch to comtemporary is often done for budget, but by not making our characters mystics, we have more humor potential. That said, the switch doesn't hinge the plot.

If you remove the science from the story, and replace it with magic, the story remains basically in tact. You end up with a bunch of rogue mystics that you can call for ghostbusting, rather than a geeky trio ala Buffy.

However, try removing the supernatural element from this movie, and replacing it with a science fiction one, like aliens. You have a completely different movie.

Ergo, it's fantasy.

If you were to stick in supernatural creatures dressed up as aliens, it still wouldn't work, because such aliens would be a supernatural element still, and not a science fiction one.

It's often been argued by writers that Star Wars is fantasy and not science fiction under this premise. That's a more extreme conclusion, but it still works, for the most part: Darth Vader is an evil King in a traveling death star castle. He destroys villages, and a young knight, trained by a typical yoshi, must battle him in a sword fight to restore peace to the kingdom, with the aid of a magical force.

The science fiction elements in star wars are few and far between, but there are a couple: The millenium falcon is actually a spaceship, and not just a fantasy element dressed up as sci-fi (the force and light sabers definitely are fantasy tropes dressed up as sci-fi) The other one that comes to mind right away is the droids. Sure, fantasy has Golems, and you might be able to call C3PO the tin woodman, fair enough, but R2 is not Toto. R2D2 interfaces with computer systems to control things remotely. If this were fantasy he'd have to be replaced with a dog-familiar with spell casting ability, which would be a radical change. However, it wouldn't alter the storyline.

But Star Wars is probably the one epic which is sitting right on the dividing line.

Ghostbusters is solidly in the supernatural category. There's just no way to science the ghosts into true sci-fi aliens without radically altering the story.

I think. The ghosts do lack that fundemental connection to the past that ghosts are supposed to have. It's not a story that belongs in a category with "The Others" but I would still call it fantasy.

Another measure is often whether or not the sci fi element has its basis in science, as in, it represents a scientific or future development that is a natural or logical possible outgrowth of a current or previous set of circumstances.

The core question that defines Science Fiction is "What if?"

The core question that defines a ghost story is "What Happened?"

These are pretty much as solid as the Mystery standy "Who Dunnit?"

The Sci-Fi What if? is a logical social or scientific step, never a magical leap, because if it's a magical leap, then it's fantasy. Ergo, "What if there were gods?" is not SF. If you take the science element of this story, the proton pack as a development, it's neither a major story hinge, nor does it naturally lead to the story we have, and there's no way to logically get to it from here. The what if is really What if you had Zuul in your icebox, which makes it fantasy again.

Back to the Future is a good sci-fi what if. What if you built a time machine in a Delorean? This is a moving with no aliens, future events, or even really any science outside the one idea, but it's still solidly sci-fi. If you remove the science fiction element of a time machine, you have no story.

So, the Science Fiction Writers of America agree with your wife. You might be able to get some mileage out of graciously admitting defeat.

ps. Scientists appear in lots of stories that aren't sci-fi. Another hotly debated on the line story is Frankenstein. I think that the what if *is* the science element,

ANTHONYT

Wednesday, March 9, 2011 2:45 PM

Hello,

I have always considered Ghostbusters to be Sci-Fi, because they explore their subject matter and engage their antagonists with technology.

I do believe the difference between sci-fi and Fantasy is all about the trappings of the story.

Unlike Dreamtrove, I think the story is the same whether you consider the ghosts and demons to be supernatural entities or extra-dimensional beings.

Like Dreamtrove, I think the story is the same whether you leave the heroes as-is, or redesign them as rogue mystics.

In fact, I think every Fantasy story ever written would be substantively the same if the Fantasy trappings were replaced with Technology, and vice-versa. Tons of sci-fi is, in fact, a reworking of a fantasy story told in a technological context.

That having been said, it seems clear to me that the trappings define the genre.

So the question becomes... what are the trappings? Is it the heroes and their technology, or the ghosts and demons?

Because the story is technology driven, and the heroes never make an attempt to deal with their problems in a fantastical or spiritual way, (they never really deal with the ghosts on the ghost's terms) I lean towards Sci-Fi.

If the heroes discarded proton packs and instead did some ghost-whispering to set the lost spirits at peace, then I'd lean towards fantasy.

--Anthony

Assured by friends that the signal-to-noise ratio has improved on this forum, I have disabled web filtering.

CYBERSNARK

Wednesday, March 9, 2011 4:12 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by DMI:
(okay, two of them are scientists)

Technically all three of the founders are scientists (Peter may not be a very good scientist, but he does have his doctorate).

I'd class it more as a supernatural comedy, albeit one with not entirely unreasonable (pseudo-)science behind it. I'd recommend the DVD commentaries; there's a discussion of what Ramis calls "the domino theory of belief" that explains the approach (start with something completely true, then change one minor detail [untrue, yet plausible], then change another [untrue and implausible, but possible], then change another, and another, and eventually you can have a giant marshmallow stomping through midtown and the audience will still buy into it).

And I'd class Star Wars more as a "planetary romance" --a little-known and horribly underused sub-genre of fantasy. Planetary romance is a romance (in the literary sense of having a single hero, chosen by destiny and gifted with "supernatural" powers) that happens to be set on another planet (i.e., a world with a complete-yet-distinct set of rules, which is not tied to our world). Other examples include He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (set on Eternia and focused on Grayskull's Defender), The Dark Crystal (set on Thraa and focused on the last surviving Gelflings and UrSkeks), and Avatar: The Last Airbender (set on the "Avatar World" and focused on the reincarnated Avatar). The only difference with Star Wars is that it's technically an interplanetary romance (yet still focused on the Skywalker family bloodline).

-----
We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

LWAVES

Wednesday, March 9, 2011 9:15 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Cybersnark:
I'd class it more as a supernatural comedy, albeit one with not entirely unreasonable (pseudo-)science behind it.

I class it as a supernatural comedy as well. There just aren't enough scifi elements for me to class it as that.

And I have to disagree with Anthony about the story being technology driven. It's character driven for me, our heroes on side, Gozer and Mr Stay Puft on the other and Sigourney and Rick in the middle. The technology is just a way of dealing with the threat, it isn't the focus of the story. In the same way that Back To The Future isn't about the Delorean, that is just a means of getting Marty to and from the past. The story is about Marty and his family.

The label of Fantasy is often used to describe the world of elves, orcs and magic (LOTR and D+D etc) but really it's an over-arching term that has the sub-genres of Supernatural, Horror, SciFi, High Fantasy etc. It is hard to label anything as just Fantasy, especially when most film/shows cover more than one genre.

"The greatest invention ever is not the wheel. It's the second wheel." - Rich Hall

DREAMTROVE

Wednesday, March 9, 2011 10:01 PM

Anthony,

I was mainly weighing on the SFWA take on genre divisions, where it comes from, which people can take an leave as they like.

As for Ghostbusters per se, I think that the story hinges on the supernatural, not the technology, which is actually magic dressed up as technology.

I would differ on "every Fantasy" I think many would lose a lot, because magic tends to be an unknown personal power, like the force, and cannot just be given to Han in a pinch the way a piece of technology could.

Just to clarify what I mean by "replacing":
The redressing of tropes from one genre into another is like downloading a skin that patches orc and hobbit graphics onto armies from Venice and Milan in Total War: Ie., they do not start behaving like orcs and hobbits, they only look like orcs and hobbits.

If you are to actually replace the tropes with reasonable parallels from another genre, then you will have story changes:

If you take the proton pack and replace it with some other form of exorcism, you do not majorly change the story, in fact, you could argue that the proton pack is not in fact technology, but horror genre exorcism trope dressed up as sci-fi.

However, if you remove the ghosts and replace them with aliens, not ghosts that look like aliens but behave like ghosts, you have an alien invasion story, which is not radically different either.

Where the story changes is when you replace gods with alien queens. No Zuul in the icebox, no girlfriends turning into dogs and no staypuff marshmallow man, and you have a different story.

IMHO.

DMI

Wednesday, March 9, 2011 10:25 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Cybersnark:
Quote:
Originally posted by DMI:
(okay, two of them are scientists)
Technically all three of the founders are scientists (Peter may not be a very good scientist, but he does have his doctorate).

I know. I was making a joke about how bad a scientist Peter is.

I appreciate the responses and I really like the idea of asking, "what does the story hinge on?" The submission guidelines for many scifi magazines use the same premise, defining a science fiction story as one in which if you removed the scifi element, the story would collapse.

However I have to agree with Anthony that what we call ghosts doesn't necessarily have to be fantasy because they could merely be extra dimensional beings (I seem to remember Ray using that word in one of the movies, though I can't remember the context now).

IMDB lists it as an Adventure Fantasy Mystery. Personally, scifi or fantasy aside, the movie is clearly more comedy than adventure. I did find something actually useful on there though.

Quote:

In the storyboards for the film (included in a gift booklet for the Ghostbusters two disc set), the guns for the proton packs were actually wands, like magic wands. They were long sticks with a ball on the end. They fired by the Ghostbusters flicking their wrists as a magician would and pointing the wands at the ghosts. The wands were changed to laser guns to fit the idea that the Ghostbusters created their gear from practical equipment.

Sounds to me like the original concept was definitely fantasy and then they tried to move it in the direction of science fiction.

-----------------------------
I pray for one last landing,
on the globe that gave me birth.
Let me rest my eyes on the fleecy skies
and the cool, green hills of Earth.

LWAVES

Wednesday, March 9, 2011 11:35 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by DMI:
However I have to agree with Anthony that what we call ghosts doesn't necessarily have to be fantasy because they could merely be extra dimensional beings.

Surely ghosts, as we know them, are extra-dimensional beings and supernatural at the same time? They don't appear to exist in our dimension but can 'cross' into it, for lack of a better word, making them extra-dimensional. Either way, as supernatural ghosts or extra-dimensional ghosts, they are still fantasy.

As for Ghostbusters then I always assumed that the ghosts (library lady, the runner etc) come from the same dimension as Gozer. They increase in frequency as Gozers arrival gets closer so they have to be linked in some way. But as Gozer is corporeal it can't cross over the dimensions in the same way that ghosts can. It needs a 'doorway' to be opened.

Plus I don't see the film as an Adventure movie either, or a Mystery. IMDB has got that completely wrong. It has some elements of both but if you go that far then you may as well call it a Horror because of the ghosts.

"The greatest invention ever is not the wheel. It's the second wheel." - Rich Hall

BYTEMITE

Thursday, March 10, 2011 12:13 AM

I would like to mention, using the concept of magic is not something you can just simply hand off to a normal, or "Han," whereas technology is... That the fourth guy they hire for the ghostbusters is not a scientist or a wizard, but an average guy.

Also, that Dan Akroyd, who helped produce and write the show, is majorly into soft forms of science fiction. Such as aliens.

Also, that other series have had strong supernatural/paranormal bends but are still considered science fiction, such as X-files.

ohemgee, I am a nerd.

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