Beetlejuice Beetlejuice reunites the audience with the title ghost and the Deetzes, and it also introduces new characters, such as Willem Dafoe’s Wolf Jackson, who is the official replacement for the best characters from the afterlife in the first movie. Over three decades after the release of Beetlejuice, the famous bio-exorcist has returned with another dose of fun and chaos in the land of the living and the Neitherworld. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice takes viewers back to Winter River as Delia (Catherine O’Hara), Lydia (Winona Ryder), and Lydia’s daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) return after Charles Deetz’s death.
Astrid makes a new friend in Winter River, but she’s tricked into crossing into the Neitherworld, putting her life at great risk. Lydia, with no other option left, summons Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton) to help her rescue Astrid, and he agrees as long as they get married after saving Astrid. This will not only break Beetlejuice’s curse but also keep him far away from his soul-sucking ex-wife Delores (Monica Bellucci). Going after Delores and Beetlejuice is Wolf Jackson, a new character who ends up replacing the best afterlife characters who didn’t return in the sequel.
Wolf Jackson Wasn’t Alone In Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
The Neitherwold has its own police force and detectives, and one of them is Dafoe’s Wolf Jackson. Jackson is a ghost detective, but when he was alive, he was a B-movie action star, and he’s very proud of having done all of his stunts – however, that’s also what killed him. While filming a movie, a grenade went off very near his head and killed him, and that’s why part of his brain is now exposed. Like almost every other ghost in the Neitherworld, Jackson appears in the clothes he was wearing when he died, and that’s why he wears a detective-like suit.
Jackson and his team of policemen have similar roles in
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
to the ones Juno (Sylvia Sidney) and the dead football team had in the first movie.
Jackson takes the case of Delores stapling herself back together and sucking the souls of everyone who crosses her path as she looks for Beetlejuice. Jackson’s work gets more complicated when Beetlejuice brings Lydia into the Neitherworld, as it’s illegal to bring people who are still alive into the afterlife. Jackson brings out his team of policemen to go after Beetlejuice and Lydia, and they follow him into the land of the living and the church where Beetlejuice and Lydia are about to get married.
Jackson and his team of policemen have similar roles in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice to the ones Juno (Sylvia Sidney) and the dead football team had in the first movie. Juno was the caseworker assigned to the Maitlands who also worked with Beetlejuice years ago, as he was her assistant. Juno was later joined by a team of recently deceased football players who were completely lost in the Neitherworld. Juno was the main bureaucratic representative in Beetlejuice, just like Jackson is in the sequel.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice brings back most of the main characters from the first movie (except the Maitlands, who found a loophole in the clause of their stay that allowed them to finally move on), but many characters from the Neitherworld didn’t return. Among the Neitherworld absentees in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice are Juno and the football players, but Juno would have been impossible to bring back. Sidney passed away in 1999, and recasting Juno wouldn’t have felt right.
As for the football team, there’s no official reason for their absence, but a contributing factor could be that the original actors couldn’t have returned as their characters aren’t supposed to age. With the introduction of the Soul Train and the Great Beyond in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, their absence can be explained by saying the football players rode the train to the Great Beyond, so they no longer have to wander in the hallways of the Neitherworld.
Wolf & His Team Could Have Had A Very Memorable Scene
The football team followed Juno around in the Neitherworld as they were very confused about their whereabouts. The players hadn’t understood yet that they didn’t survive the bus crash, and Juno was starting to be annoyed by them. The dead football players had one final scene in Beetlejuice when, at the end of the movie, Lydia sang and danced to “Jump In The Line (Shake, Señora)”, as she floated in front of the staircase. The players appeared on the stairs behind Lydia and danced with her, and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice completely missed a chance to do this with the police officers.
When Jackson and his policemen arrive at the church as Beetlejuice prepares to marry Lydia, he freezes them and breaks out into a musical number with “MacArthur Park”. Jackson and the policemen remain frozen throughout the whole dance, and it would have been funny to have them sing and dance with Delia and Astrid, similarly to the football team and Lydia in Beetlejuice.
