[Alphagaia]

Hmm. Yeah. Like a flashback cutaway of just plain terrible things being done to him by other people - quick 3 second bits - middle school, high school, college, graduate school, everyday life. With each bit, a worse thing is done, and he gets angrier and angrier.

Yeah something like that, or them finding an old newspaper/ tv show online where he is shamed publicly by Heiss for believing in ghosts and his prototype of a ghostmachine failing to produce a ghost because he did not know leylines are needed yet (and it totally worked before, honest!) Which caused him to lose his job, maybe Erins Dean knows him and the shame it brought his campus etc. This might get too plot convenient though.

[ZedRage]

Pretty much unanimous on this issue, I think.

A friend and I were talking about Rowan after seeing the movie, and we came up with a scenario where maybe he was partly responsible for Abbey and Erin going their separate ways.

Scene: Abbey and Erin are at some Symposium talking about their research and the book they intend to publish. They've got a few copies of their manuscript and are trying to get some serious academic interest (Hence the star of the book "This is not a joke or a prank," or however it goes in that awful scene.) One of the students is a younger Rowan, who mentions something about spirits whispering to him at night.
He creeps out Erin, not only by mirroring her past as the "Ghost Girl," but also seeing how she could easily go off the deep end and become as unhinged, she decides she wants out. She and Abbey fight, Erin walks out, end scene.

It would have given three characters more depth and interest right off the bat, especially if one of the women later mentions something about Rowan looking familiar. It would also explain why he targets Abbey for possession first, and why Rowan is so focused on the Ghostbusters for seemingly no reason by the end of the movie.

[deadderek]

Rowan? A VERY underwhelming and underdeveloped character. So much wasted potential.

[JurorNo.2]

The set up to him being a loner weirdo was fine. To cap it off though they really needed a moment of exposition where someone authoritatively speaks of Rowan's background and how he's been kicked around by life, etc.

[pferreira1983]

Rowan? A VERY underwhelming and underdeveloped character. So much wasted potential.

The pacing needed to be faster and pack more in. Get rid of the long drawn out jokes and use that time to put it into the villain.