The first trailer for Ghostbusters: Afterlife is here, and it took a cue from the Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailers. Following the example of franchises like Halloween and Terminator, Ghostbusters is going through a new phase with a sequel to the first two films. After Paul Feig’s 2016 reboot failed to cover its budget, the franchise was thought to be dead, until a new Ghostbusters film was announced in January 2019, with original director Ivan Reitman now serving as producer and his son, Jason Reitman, in charge of directing.

The announcement teaser for Ghostbusters: Afterlife (first referred to as Ghostbusters 3 and later Ghostbusters 2020) was a very short video that showed a rusty Ecto-1 and a proton pack could be heard at a distance, which was enough for fans to get excited about the project. Now, after much speculation on the identity of the new characters, how the original ones (minus the late Harold Ramis, who passed away in 2014) will come into play, and what the story will be about, a first trailer was released – and it’s heavy on nostalgia.

Related: What the Ghostbusters 2016 Extended Cut Adds To The Movie

As mentioned above, Ghostbusters: Afterlife is following the model of other franchises that have released sequels in recent years that are directly linked to the original works and ignore others, but the film also learned some tricks from Star Wars that can be seen in the trailer.

How Ghostbusters: Afterlife Copied The Force Awakens Approach

Paul Rudd from Ghostbusters Afterlife

Ghostbusters: Afterlife follows single mom Callie (Carrie Coon) and her two children Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and Phoebe (Mckenna Grace) who move to Summerville, Oklahoma after being evicted from their home. There, Trevor and Phoebe discover how their family (namely their grandfather) is linked to the original Ghostbusters, and this discovery will come in handy when the town starts experiencing a series of unexplained earthquakes. Ghostbusters has a special place in the hearts of many, and with this new film serving as a sequel to Ghostbusters II, Sony is appealing to nostalgia, just like Star Wars: The Force Awakens did a few years ago.

The trailer introduces viewers to the new characters, those who will be taking over the Ghostbusters job, reminding everyone that this is the story of a new generation but without leaving the originals behind. Although Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, and Sigourney Weaver are confirmed to appear, none of them show up in the trailer, except briefly through archive footage. There are lingering shots of objects from the original film that fans surely recognize (the Ecto-1, the Ghost trap, and the uniforms, this one further hinting at Trevor and Phoebe being Egon’s grandchildren), once more relying heavily on nostalgia. Star Wars: The Force Awakens did the same in its trailers, focusing on the new generation while also featuring (sometimes briefly, sometimes not so much) objects and characters from the original trilogy.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife is, like Star Wars: The Force Awakens, a legacy sequel, and one that fans hope will pay its respects to the original film while also introducing a new generation of Ghostbusters that can carry on with the franchise, if the team behind it decide to do so depending on how this one performs.

Next: The Ghost In The Ghostbusters Logo Has An Actual Name

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