Watch The Eerie Ghostbusters: Afterlife VFX Tests That Brought Egon Spengler Back To Life
It's Ghostbusters Day, and in honor of that spooky event, we have a video showing the "Ghostbusters: Afterlife" VFX tests that brought the late Harold Ramis back to life for the film. It's very unsettling to watch, but worth it if you're a fan of how the cake is baked, if you know what I mean. There are spoilers ahead for "Ghostbusters: Afterlife," so please keep that in mind.
In the film, present-day Dr. Egon Spengler is estranged from his daughter and her children. Still ghostbusting, he traps an entity and then dies of a heart attack in the basement of his farm. After his passing, his daughter Callie (Carrie Coon) and her kids Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and Phoebe (McKenna Grace) inherit the property. Later, his ghost leads them to a better understanding of his love for his family and helps them defeat the baddies.
Harold Ramis passed away in 2014, but the effects house MPC brought him back as a ghost in the latest film. It's incredible what can be done with tech, and as long as the family is okay with it, it's fine, but it's still unsettling to me. Even more unsettling is the uncanny valley we see in the tests. It didn't translate that way in the film, as you can also see in the video.
A legend recreated
It's fascinating to see how they used the 3D render of his likeness and clips from prior performances along with photos of his visage from later in his life to age him appropriately. I don't know how believable it would be, or at the very least palatable, if he wasn't portrayed as a ghost in this film. It's amazing what we can do, but there are still moments that don't quite work when we're talking about humans in CGI. If we look at a character like Grogu in "The Mandalorian," or Groot and Rocket in the MCU, it's not jarring at all. Humans, on the other hand ... we know exactly what a human face should look like, the way our eyes move and the way skin moves on the face. It's disturbing to see when it's just a little bit off.
That said, sometimes this can be overlooked. Seeing Princess Leia in "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story," or even Carrie Fisher at the end of the latest "Star Wars" trilogy, was so powerful for me that none of the uncanny valley stuff mattered at all. Egon Spengler is a character like that.
Do, Ray, Egon!