Seeing as we’ll be diving into what happens during the third act of Ghostbusters: Afterlife, consider this your spoiler warning. Now, as the marketing has made perfectly clear without stating it overtly, the plot of the sequel is set in motion by Harold Ramis’ Egon Spengler, the only member of the original quartet no longer with us after his passing in 2014.
His family move into the dilapidated farmhouse bequeathed to them in his will, where they soon discover that the eccentric genius had a whole other life they didn’t know about. With the grandchildren following in his footsteps, the climactic action sequence merges the old with the new, as the youngsters partner up with Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz and Winston Zeddemore to prevent the end of the world.
In a moment fans weren’t expecting, the spectral form of Egon appears during the final battle to lend an assist to his old cohorts, and as you can see from the reactions below, the surprise cameo from the ghostly Dr. Spengler has hit audiences squarely in the feels.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife director Jason Reitman has admitted that he wouldn’t have included the scene had he not gotten the approval of Ramis’ family, but it’s still a little disconcerting to see the CGI recreation of somebody who died seven years ago appear in a big budget Hollywood blockbuster, regardless of how well-intentioned it is.