With the release of Ghostbusters: Afterlife, audiences will be introduced to an entirely new generation of ghostbusting as a young cast takes center stage and straps on proton packs to fight back against the spirit world. Interestingly, those new characters aren't all that familiar with the events of the first two Ghostbusters movies. Is that surprising, though?

It's been nearly 30 years since the first Ghostbusters film hit theaters and in terms of story, the same amount of time has passed since Gozer was first unleashed on New York City and the Ghostbusters initially rose to prominence. With three decades having come and gone, Afterlife co-writers Jason Reitman and Gil Kenan thought it seemed reasonable to expect the next generation would be in the dark about what happened.

"There are things that break through the sort of the murk or the fog of time and there are other things that perhaps are important when you're living through them, maybe something that rises to the level of an anecdote or a blip," Kenan explained to GameSpot, noting the Cuban Missile Crisis as a major world event which has faded in recognition over the years. "But many, many other stories, including ones that were consequential at the time, sort of disappear into the rearview mirror."