The last time we met the Ghostbusters, they were a few young teenagers busting ghosts in a small Midwestern town. Now they are a couple of slightly older teenagers, busting ghosts from the traditional ghostbusters headquarters in New York. There’s some kind of cursed, pre-Sumerian ghost ball that has the unpleasant habit of freezing people.1
Phoebe, the star of Ghostbusters: Afterlife, is in some park, perhaps central park, setting up the pieces for a game. There is no opponent present but, just like in that movie, the pieces start moving on their own.
The first few moves are shown perfectly clearly: it’s a Scotch,2 arrived at via the slightly unusual move order 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nc3 Nc6 4. d4 exd4 5. Nxd4. It is here that Phoebe’s opponent, while playing 5. … Bb4, becomes visible. There follow some standard moves: 6. Nxc6 bxc6 7. Bd3 d5 and at this point, I’m starting to feel a bit uncomfortable. Are we watching people play actual, reasonable chess?! Surely not!
Well, no. In the following position,3
where black seems to have lost a tempo compared to the plausible variation 8. 0-0 0-0 9. e5, white decides to castle. She could have taken the knight, of course, but she probably finds black’s attack after exf6 Re8+ Kf2 Qxf6 too spooky.
For a few moves, the camera focuses on the players, human and post-human, instead of on the board. The next time we see the position, its has turned into a set piece for a movie scene:4
Black has obviously messed up terribly, since her knight can be picked up for free. But if you see this position in a movie, you know that white is going to take the bishop on g1 and that black is going to reply Nf2 mate. And that is indeed what happened.
Movies today are too predictable.
Realism: 3/5 For a time they were heading towards a well-deserved 5/5, but then they lost a point because they lost a tempo and then they lost another one for the ridiculous Ktg3-Bg1 construction.
Probable winner: Black. Even death couldn’t beat her.
1. [It was probably used by Batman to capture Mr. Freeze.] ↩
2. [People in this movie say Phoebe is too young to be a ghostbuster, but I think she’s too young for a scotch.] ↩
3. [The chess diagram empire.] ↩
4. [As well as fodder for a chess in popular history blog.] ↩