With Ghostbusters: Afterlife now in cinemas, many fans of the franchise have been able to see the return of the 1984 movie’s original stars after over thirty years, and while the internet has been full of spoilers and images the movie still has some secrets to reveal by the final act. While it has been publically known that Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Ernie Hudson would be showing up, exactly how their return to busting ghosts would happen was still a mystery, along with some other surprises in the final reel. For those still wanting to avoid MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW, you may want to back away now.

When Ghostbusters: Afterlife was announced, one thing that was apparent was that a big part of the original team was no longer around to see it: Harold Ramis, who passed away in 2014 at the age of 69. While there are those who believe the 2016 Ghostbusters movie came in to being thanks to a combination of the loss of Ramis and the refusal of Bill Murray to participate in a new movie, it has been suggested that while that movie was being torn down by franchise fans, Ghostbusters: Afterlife was already in production, and now the film is here we know that it isn't just the Bill Murray issue that has been resolved.

In the final act of the movie, after being hinted at throughout the film, we finally get to see all four of the original Ghostbusters standing side by side to battle Gozer one more time, with Harold Ramis’s Egon Spengler appearing in spectral form to help his granddaughter Phoebe handle his old Proton Pack. For a long time it was said that a ghost of Egon would not be used in the movie and most people believed that, making his appearance an emotional rollercoaster that is capped off by a simple message of “For Harold” before the end credits kick in with a familiar theme song.

According to Jason Reitman, one of the most important things to him was making sure that Ramis’ family were happy to give their blessing to the portrayal used in the movie. "I was never going to make this movie unless they were comfortable with the portrayal of Harold," Reitman told The Hollywood Reporter. "Everyone has a favorite Beatle. And everyone has a favorite Ghostbuster. My favorite was always Egon."

There are few fans who won’t get a shiver the first moment they see Ramis’ hand appear, and while there are critics who will always balk at such “fan service”, and in fact much of the movie’s content, the whole thing plays out as a perfect tribute to the actor and his legacy in the franchise, which is something Reitman was keen to point out.

"When I came up with these kids, Phoebe and Trevor, I realized they were the grandchildren of Egon. And that was the reason to make the movie. There was something really lovely about the character of Egon, I think a lot of people can relate to, and that is Egon struggled to communicate with the world. And we wanted to create in Phoebe a character in just the same way: a 12-year-old girl, who, like all Ghostbusters, is an outsider who becomes a hero by putting on the proton pack."

While Ghostbusters: Afterlife has some plot holes while taking the bare bones of 1984’s Ghostbusters storyline and fills it with new characters, what it creates is something that will resonate with those who grew up with the franchise. In the end, we watch movies to feel something and be entertained and Ghostbusters: Afterlife delivers a whole lot of heart, scares and laughs – just don’t expect to see some of the over-the-top slapstick humor of 2016. If you don’t know the history of the franchise then there is just enough explanation to get you by, or you could hunt down the original movie to see where it all began. There are worse ways to spend a couple of hours. This story comes to us from The Hollywood Reporter.