We all love these '80s classics, but there's something pretty messed up in every single
one of them.
And the weird part?
You might not have even noticed them until now.
1984's Ghostbusters is one of the most beloved comedy classics of all time, spawning a franchise
that encompasses everything, including two different Saturday morning cartoons.
It's also full of weirdness that goes well beyond the supernatural forces gathering at
the top of Dana's apartment building.
The most bizarre element might just be how the movie's characters ignore one of its first
hints of supernatural powers.
When we're introduced to fan-favorite Dr. Peter Venkman, played by Bill Murray, he's
running a psychological experiment with a couple of grad students.
The whole thing is rigged, a detail that's meant to underline Venkman's snarky, somewhat
slimy personality.
His tactics are less about research and more about flirting with a pretty blonde — which
is probably why the university was inclined to fire the whole department.
But there's one thing that's easy to miss: the experiment actually works.
"Couple of wavy lines?"
"Sorry, this isn't your lucky day!"
The whole thing is ostensibly designed to show whether stress, in the form of electric
shocks, can enhance psychic abilities.
It turns out that it does, but Venkman decides to ignore that result.
It's pretty surprising, since scientifically proving the existence of psychic powers probably
would've been the biggest story of his career… if he hadn't also fought a giant ghost marshmallow
with nuclear laser beams later that year.
Set five years after the events of the original, Ghostbusters II starts off with so many leaps
in logic that it sometimes feels less like a sequel and more like a reboot.
In the space between the two movies, Dana Barrett has ended her relationship with Peter
Venkman, gotten married to someone else, had a son, and gotten divorced, and also managed
to completely change careers.
She goes from being a professional cellist at the New York Philharmonic to working in
restoration at the Museum of Modern Art, two highly specialized jobs that require vastly
different training and education.
It's even worse for the Ghostbusters themselves, with the team falling on some pretty hard
times.
Peter has a cheesy TV show about psychic phenomena, and Winston and Ray are even reduced to appearing
in their uniforms at children's parties.
The reason?
They were sued for all the property damage at the end of the first movie and forbidden
from busting any ghosts.
That gives audiences the same kind of scrappy team of lovable losers that they loved in
the first movie, but since the New York City that we see in Ghostbusters is pretty much
under constant attack from the supernatural, it's tough to believe they'd turn on our heroes.
Even the most jaded New Yorkers probably aren't going to forget that time a giant sugary kaiju
stomped through the Upper West Side and flattened a church.
Having citizens denying that happened is a pretty big stretch, even for a movie that
asks us to believe in mood slime.
While it wasn't a huge success when it hit theaters in 1987, The Princess Bride became
a cult classic on home video, and it's easy to see why.
Framed as a story being read to a sick child, the swashbuckling tale of fencing, fighting,
giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, and miracles feels like the best fairy tale
ever told, and gave people seeking revenge for the deaths of their fathers the perfect
speech to quote as many times as they needed to.
"Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya… prepare to die"
What many moviegoers might not realize, however, is that The Princess Bride isn't just a book
in the movie, it's one in real life, too.
Written by William Goldman, who also wrote the screenplay for the film, it even has a
similar framing sequence.
The premise is that it's Goldman doing an "abridged" version of a story his grandfather
used to read to him on sick days, full of commentary and asides.
It's got plenty of scenes that didn't make it to the film, too, including detailed origin
stories for Inigo and Fezzik, and a terrifying trip through Prince Humperdinck's zoo of death.
There's also a different ending in there, one that's much darker and more ambiguous
than the happily-ever-after of the movie, in which Westley continues to suffer from
having his life drained, Inigo's wounds reopen, and Humperdinck's men close in as the group
tries to escape.
You might think that's not a big deal, and that movies based on books change things all
the time — and you'd be right, except for one thing.
In the novel, Goldman claims to be surprised at the ending himself, because his grandfather
always skipped over that part.
Given that Peter Falk's character in the film often skips over things that he doesn't think
young Fred Savage would like, it stands to reason that he might've bailed on the downer
ending, too, keeping it from both his grandson and the moviegoing audience.
Who could've guessed that movie was lying to you for the past 30 years?
One of the more interesting things about Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure is how it treats
time travel.
Rufus, for instance, is only able to come back in time to help the Wyld Stallyns with
their history report because he lives in a future where they already succeeded.
The movie also plays with the idea of Bill and Ted being helped out by their own future
selves, as long as they remember to actually go back and do it.
"Dear Bill and Ted, good luck on the report. Sincerely, Bill S.Preston Esq. and Ted Theodore Logan!"
That's what time travel experts call a "closed loop," and you see a similar — but much
less comedic — approach in Terminator.
If you actually start to think about the inescapable pull of destiny that we see from our slacker
heroes, though, things start to get pretty grim.
Throughout the movie, Bill and Ted collect important historical figures to come address
the students of San Dimas High, and, given that we're working within a closed loop, they
logically have to return them to their own native times afterward so that they can fulfill
their own histories.
The thing is, most of those histories involve horrifically violent deaths.
Abraham Lincoln is, of course, shot in the back of the head by John Wilkes Booth.
Billy the Kid is famously gunned down by Pat Garrett.
Socrates was sentenced to die by poison.
Joan of Arc is burned alive at the stake for heresy and then had her body burned again
to prevent the faithful from collecting her ashes.
Genghis Khan's cause of death was unknown, but c'mon, it probably wasn't pleasant.
Only Beethoven, Napoleon, and Freud died of natural causes, but even then, the latter
two suffered from particularly painful varieties of cancer.
Bill and Ted never actually learn anything about history, and in a closed loop, they
couldn't have changed their fates even if they wanted to, but still.
It's a pretty rough image to keep in mind when you're watching our history pals goof
around at San Dimas mall.
Unlike Bill & Ted or Terminator, 1985's classic Back to the Future presents a view of time
travel where you actually can change the past.
That's why Marty McFly's in danger of being wiped out if he doesn't fix the timeline in
1955, as evidenced by the scenes where he almost fades out of existence before he manages
to get his parents back together.
We also know that the 1985 he returns to isn't the one he left — among other things, the
Twin Pines Mall has become the Lone Pine Mall after Marty knocks one of the trees down with
the DeLorean in the past.
What really complicates things, though, is that Marty sees that timeline's version of
himself heading back to the past in Doc Brown's time machine after he arrives back...in the
future.
You might think that's just closing the loop, but watch the end of the movie.
The Marty that leaves isn't the one who grew up in a crappy subdivision with an underachieving
father, it's a Marty who grew up in a world where George McFly was a successful go-getter
novelist.
So where did that world's Marty go when he traveled back in time?
We know from Back to the Future II that time can be split into alternate realities, so
presumably the "Good Timeline" Marty comes back to another different future, and then
watches a third Marty vanish in the DeLorean, and so on.
There's an infinite number of Martys who can never truly go home again, and who live out
their days in a universe that simply is not theirs.
No wonder he's depressed in the future.
Even looking back from three decades later, 1988's Who Framed Roger Rabbit? still stands
as a masterpiece.
In a time when we've seen plenty of movies where people are acting alongside computer-generated
characters who aren't actually there, Bob Hoskins sells the idea of interacting with
a cartoon better than anyone else.
Plus, the reveal of Judge Doom as a maniacal, dagger-eyed toon is one of the most enjoyably
terrifying moments to ever make it into a movie that was supposed to be for kids.
But while Judge Doom being dissolved in boiling acid at the end of the movie is a pretty well
known piece of nightmare fuel, the thing we never seem to talk about is that he actually
wins in the end.
His entire evil plot revolves around destroying Toontown and paving it over so that he can
build a new kind of road called a "freeway."
Even if Eddie Valiant stopped him in the '40s, that's exactly what eventually happened.
Just ask anyone who's ever been to Los Angeles: There's a whole lot of freeway, and no sign
of any Toons.
In addition to giving an entire generation of kids some pretty unrealistic expectations
about what they could find by poking into holes in their backyards, 1985's The Goonies
stands as one of the best adventure movies of all time.
It has action, danger, and deathtraps, and rewards the brave and clever kids with an
unimaginable pirate treasure at the end.
But even if you're completely on board with the premise and the adventure, it's hard to
believe that the treasure would still be there when Mikey and his pals got to One-Eyed Willy's
ship.
While it's actually pretty easy to imagine that people might be scared off by a pipe
organ made of bones, it's a little tougher to believe that Chester Copperpot was the
only person in 350 years to try following the caves all the way to the Inferno.
If nothing else, somebody had to go down there to dig the wishing well, or to put in the
water pipes for Astoria's country club, and would've stumbled on the path by accident.
Even if they were killed off by one of Willy's many deathtraps, someone would've eventually
gone looking for them, and found the Inferno waiting at the end.
"What if? You guys, just what if this map could lead to One-Eyed Willie's rich stuff?"
What really makes it hard to swallow, though, is that the treasure map is only in Mikey's
attic because it was donated to the local museum.
Any curator worth their salt should've at least verified the authenticity of a document
like that, and if they had, they would've spotted the clues that lead the Goonies to
the treasure right away.
Apparently, Mikey's dad didn't even bother to take it out if its frame, so it stands
to reason that he's actually pretty terrible at the basic function of his job, which is
probably why they're in such bad financial shape to begin with.
Remember how Raiders of the Lost Ark is about world-renowned adventurer and actually pretty
terrible archaeologist Indiana Jones trying to recover the Ark of the Covenant from the
Nazis?
And remember how in the end, when Belloq and his Third Reich associates open up the Ark,
the vengeful spirits within come out and kill all the Nazis by literally melting the flesh
off their bones?
You should, because it's pretty awesome.
But here's the thing...
"What about your boss, der Furher?
I thought he was waiting to take possession."
The only reason Belloq and the Nazis do that ceremony out in the desert instead of in the
heart of Nazi Germany is because Indy himself destroys the airplane that was going to transport
the Ark back to the Fuhrer.
If he hadn't, Belloq would've opened the Ark back in Berlin, where Hitler himself — and
possibly the rest of the Nazi high command — would've been present to be melted along
with everyone else.
Considering Raiders takes place in 1936, Indy's involvement kept World War II from ending
a full nine years earlier than it actually did.
Thanks a lot, Indy.
Check out one of our newest videos right here!
Plus, even more Grunge videos about your favorite obsessions are coming soon.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.