- September 28th, 2019, 8:22 pm#4924883I think you summed it up nicely. The Ghostbusters aren't Tony Stark, they don't have billions of dollars at their disposal. They're three schlubs who started a business together, and eventually franchise it out to other people. I think that, at most, they would build and sell the proton packs and maybe the traps, but everything else would be up to the individual franchisees. And when something breaks or you need to tweak something, what are you going to do; send it away for weeks at a time, or fix it yourself using something that's not the same, but does the same job? Fix it enough times and maybe you can build your own from scratch, but using a different base. The purchase of what would become the Ecto-1 was happenstance - do they really expect all franchise owners to go out and find a specific model of classic car? Of course not, they're going to use whatever is the most efficient and cost-effective for their business, and different vehicles offer different opportunities and restrictions for how you lay out all that gear on the roof.
Across 3 movies, 2 animated series and a bunch of comic books, the uniforms and tech has changed. So there's no reason to be beholden to one specific look. Part of the appeal for me, and what I think makes Ghostbusters great, is that ANYONE can be a Ghostbuster. Not everyone can be Thor, or Black Widow, or a Stormtrooper. But anyone can be a Ghostbuster regardless of race, religion, gender, sexuality, age, physical build, or even mobility. And while cosplay and conventions are growing more and more inclusive, I think that GB is perhaps one of the most open fandoms out there when it comes to costumes and props. I think most of us have enough energy inside of us that we can be excited for how accurate one person made their prop, and the creativity another person showed in coming up with theirs, and the enthusiasm another shows for their last-minute kludge job that gets the message across because dang it their tech guy probably WOULD use an old hoover casing and hose for a back-mounted proton pack and ghost trap combo.
tl;dr I'm glad that if someone says "I wanna wear a pink jumpsuit instead of brown", everyone just nods and says "cool, I wanna see it when it's done."
I really have no idea what I'm doing.