BennyP wrote: ↑February 8th, 2022, 5:48 pmProtonPack83 wrote:
That looks so much better! Great job - one of my main gripes with them insisting on adding the little upgrades on everything Egon related is ONE: Egon was smart enough to get it right the FIRST time and TWO: the upgrades look ugly and ruin the aesthetic of that awesome utilitarian 80s tech-y look and honestly they visually look like a regression. I cannot fathom how putting a rifle grip up front will help you handle a thrower any better than an actual finger style grip that it was invented with. I think they really got the "upgrades" wrong and gave fan downgrades. Even the pack doesn't do anything different - it just sounds different and cycles faster, but this is never discussed or talked about "why".
I don’t mind the changes (wouldn’t necessarily call them upgrades), we learn from the film that Egon had very little money (could barely keep the lights on according to Janine)… so it’s not a stretch to imagine that getting replacement parts for non-essential elements that break, such as a grip, weren’t a priority. After 30 years, parts will inevitably deteriorate and need replacing.
If you live in Oklahoma, it’s probably a lot easier and cheaper to get a shotgun grip than a bespoke moulded grip (this is conjecture as I’ve never been to Oklahoma). I like that the changes feed into the ‘Egon was skint’ narrative and that he used whatever was lying around… shotgun grip, grip tape etc…
It's a thoughtful way to think about and I can appreciate that, but I don't see those parts really wearing out when the grips themselves were so durable. I get what they were going for - I mean, it certainly works for the house! The taser PKE was definitely a cool and fun update, as well as the EC trap - both novel concepts, but I feel like the pack simply should have remained the same. It didn't need anything fancy - it is what it is and it does the job in a utilitarian way. Ray was still a bit of a gear head and they all came in with original 84 packs, unmodded as far as we could see.
I could see small changes like hoses and such since those definitely deteriorate over time and are rubber - that would totally make sense. A shotgun grip just seems like such a downgrade for a thrower that we see clearly bucks the user like crazy with all that power behind it - you'd think the grip that was invented in the first place would be the best. I mean, look at Fender guitars, Leo Fender designed the Telecaster in 1950 and the Stratocaster in 1954 by a guy who was total tinkerer and couldn't even play the instruments. Those 2 guitars have remained practically unchanged for 70 years. That's insane, but they did their jobs perfectly and didn't need fixing. I feel the same way about the beauty of the original pack - it was great prop design, like a lightsaber.