Beetlejuice Beetlejuice continued the stories of the title bio-exorcist and the Deetzes, and as fun as it is, it left a couple of plot holes. Back in 1988, Tim Burton introduced the audience to Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton), a chaotic ghost and self-proclaimed bio-exorcist who was summoned by Barbara (Geena Davis) and Adam Maitland (Alec Baldwin) to get rid of the Deetzes. However, the Maitlands bonded with the Deetzes’ teenage daughter, Lydia (Winona Ryder), and Beetlejuice took advantage of that. At the end of Beetlejuice, he was sent back to the Neitherworld and the Maitlands and Deetzes agreed to coexist in the same house.
Now, over thirty years later, Betelgeuse is back with more chaos in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice as the Deetzes return to Winter River after the death of Charles Deetz. Lydia’s daughter, Astrid (Jenna Ortega), is tricked by a new friend into crossing into the Neitherworld, literally risking her life. With no other choice left, Lydia summons Beetlejuice, who agrees to help her rescue Astrid under the condition that Lydia marries him. Their marriage will not only break Beetlejuice’s curse but also keep him far away from his vengeful ex-wife Delores (Monica Bellucci).
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Read More Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Ending Explained: What’s Next For Betelgeuse & The Deetz Family
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice has a fast-paced, funny story packed with twists and turns that keep audiences guessing and laughing until the very end.
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Thanks to all that, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice takes the audience to the Neitherworld and back to the world of the living, revisiting some of the rules and more that the first movie established. However, this back-and-forth between worlds also created a couple of plot holes and left some headscratchers that may or may not be solved at some point.
8 Time Dilation Doesn’t Exist In Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
Time Works In Much Easier Ways In Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
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After they died, the Maitlands experienced some truly bizarre things before it became clear to them that they were dead. When they returned home, Adam tried to leave the house and ended up on Saturn’s moon about to be eaten by a sandworm before Barbara pulled him back into the house. Adam left for a couple of seconds, but to Barbara, he was gone for hours. When the Maitlands traveled to the Neitherworld for the first time and spent a couple of hours in the waiting room, when they returned home, months had passed and their house had been sold.
As mentioned above, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice took the audience into the Neitherworld and spent a lot of time there following Beetlejuice, Lydia, Astrid, Jeremy, and Delia, all of them in different situations. Following the time dilation effect from the first movie, months should have passed between them entering the Neitherworld and returning to the land of the living, but in reality, only a couple of hours passed and they didn’t miss much.
7 The Afterlife Rules For The Recently Deceased Are Even More Unclear In Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
The Maitlands, Jeremy, & Delia Went Through Different Processes
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Beetlejuice also established some of the Neitherworld’s rules that seemed pretty simple, but the sequel either changed them or ignored them, thus creating plot holes. In Beetlejuice, through the Maitlands, it was revealed that those who had traumatic deaths were confined to the place where they died for many, many years… except that they died in a river, but were set to spend 125 years in their house, for some reason. However, in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Jeremy was confined to his house and the tree house in his backyard as he killed his parents in the house but died in the tree house.
Read More Beetlejuice: 9 Rules In The Handbook Of The Recently Deceased That Ghosts Must Follow
Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice delivered a dark comedy which saw Adam and Barbara navigating their afterlife with some help from the Handbook for the dead.
There are also the cases of Delia, Charles, and Richard. Charles died in the ocean after being eaten by a shark, but he made it to the Neitherworld, and Delia should have been confined to the graveyard (or the house, like the Maitlands) as she died there, yet she was immediately sent to the waiting room. Richard died in the Amazon but was also sent to the afterlife and got a job there (more on that later), so the rules for the recently deceased are a lot more confusing in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.
6 The “Loophole” That Set The Maitlands Free
The Maitlands Conveniently Found A Loophole
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As mentioned above, according to the Handbook of the Recently Deceased and the rules of the Neitherworld stated that the Maitlands had to spend the next 125 years in their house as ghosts. It was because of that that they wanted to scare the Deetzes away, but instead, they found a way to coexist in the house. Because of that, the Maitlands should have appeared in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, but that would have been tricky as they aren’t supposed to age, so the sequel would have to use the controversial de-aging tech on Davis and Baldwin.
Related I Still Have An Issue With Adam & Barbara’s Beetlejuice Deaths
Beetlejuice revealed some of the Neitherworld’s rules when the Maitlands died, but there’s one thing that bothers me about the Maitlands’ ghosts.
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Luckily, Burton found a way to justify the Maitlands’ absence in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice – the problem is that it left even more questions. Lydia explained that the Maitlands found a loophole in the clause that stated they had to stay in their house for 125 years and finally moved on. Even Astrid pointed out “how convenient” this was and the movie never explained what exactly the loophole was and how long had passed since the Maitlands left the house.
5 Charles & Delia Went To The Great Beyond Right Away (But Not The Maitlands)
The Great Beyond Might Have Its Own Rules
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One of the biggest surprises in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice was the death of Delia. Delia dealt with grief in her very unique way, and part of her process was a ritual on Charles’ grave that involved snakes that she paid for to be defanged. Unfortunately, they weren’t, and they bit her on the neck, killing her on the spot. Delia woke up in the waiting room and summoned Beetlejuice in hopes that he could help her return to the land of the living as, according to her, she shouldn’t have died. Meanwhile, Charles wandered the Neitherworld as he didn’t know where to go.
The sequel didn’t really explain the rules or requirements for riding the Soul Train and going to the Great Beyond.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice introduced the Soul Train that takes the deceased to the Great Beyond – the thing is that the sequel didn’t really explain the rules or requirements for riding the train and going to the Great Beyond. Per the rules established in Beetlejuice, Delia and Charles should have also spend some time in the land of the living, but for unexplained reasons, they went directly to the Soul Train and the Great Beyond after the waiting room. It could be possible that those without unfinished business are the ones who can move on to the Great Beyond, but it remains unclear.
4 The Afterlife Rules About Civil Servants Change In Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
Astrid’s Father Shouldn’t Have Been Working There, Right?
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Another “rule” established in Beetlejuice was that those who die by suicide become civil servants in the afterlife. This even made way for a joke in which the waiting room’s receptionist, Miss Argentina, mentioned that, had she known what she now did, she wouldn’t have had her “little accident”, as she showed her slit wrists. However, this rule seemed to have changed at some point between Beetlejuice and the sequel, as Astrid’s father was revealed to be working at immigration in the Neitherworld.
Related Beetlejuice’s Afterlife & Neitherworld Explained: Locations, Jobs & Rules
The world of Beetlejuice has a complex afterlife structure, filled with many locations, jobs, ghosts, and a somewhat strict set of rules.
Richard didn’t die by suicide – Astrid explained he was on a trip to fight for climate justice and had a boating accident in the Amazon, but the authorities never found his body. Richard even had a couple of fish attached to different parts of his body, as the dead keep the appearance they had when they died. Richard, then, shouldn’t be a civil servant, unless now the deceased can get any job they can in the Neitherworld, which would also explain Beetlejuice’s job at a call center.
3 Why Beetlejuice Waited So Long To Reach Out To Lydia
Over 30 Years Later, Beetlejuice Shot His Shot Again
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Lydia ended up capitalizing on her gift of seeing the dead and became a psychic medium and the host of her own supernatural talk show, Ghost House. All of a sudden, Lydia started hallucinating Beetlejuice at random places, such as among the crowd while filming her show and among the students at Astrid’s school. Not long after, Beetlejuice revealed to Bob and his other employees that he had been reaching out to Lydia, and he succeeded at it – the question is why he waited so long to contact her.
It could be that Beetlejuice had been trying to reach out to Lydia for years but only succeeded until now.
There’s nothing in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice that suggests Lydia had been tormented by Beetlejuice between movies, only when he appeared in the crowd and after that. It could be that Beetlejuice had been trying to reach out to Lydia for years but only succeeded until now, but if that’s not the case, then it’s unknown why it took him so long, as this was before Delores returned.
2 Delores Sucks The Souls Of Dead People In Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
How Did She Do That If They Were Already Dead?
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One of the biggest reveals in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice was the backstory of Beetlejuice. As it turns out, Beetlejuice was Italian and a graverobber who survived the Black Plague. One day, he met Delores, and was instantly bewitched by her. Unbeknownst to Beetlejuice, Delores was a soul-sucking witch, and on their wedding night, Delores poisoned him, but Beetlejuice killed her with an axe before he fell. Delores was kept in pieces in different boxes in the afterlife, and it was due to the mistake of a janitor that she was freed.
While looking for Beetlejuice across the Neitherworld, Delores continued to suck the souls of anyone who crossed her path – but these people were already dead. This raised the question of how Delores could suck the souls of dead people, as well as what happened to them after their souls were taken by Delores (was there a second afterlife after the Neitherworld?). Delores’ powers shouldn’t be useful in the afterlife anymore, yet they still were, somehow.
1 Where Did Betelgeuse Go After Exploding At The End Of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
Beetlejuice Wasn’t Back In The Waiting Room Again
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Even after two movies and a couple of trips into the Neitherworld, Beetlejuice continues to be a mystery, and the ending of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice only added to it. At the end of Beetlejuice, the bio-exorcist was eaten by a sandworm and sent back to the Neitherworld’s waiting room, where his head was shrunken after he tried to steal someone else’s ticket. This made it easy for Beetlejuice to return in the sequel, but his fate was left a mystery at the end of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.
After Astrid revealed that Beetlejuice and Lydia’s deal was invalid and so she didn’t have to marry him, Lydia proceeded to say his name three times to send him back to where he belonged. Beetlejuice exploded after Lydia said his name a third time and disappeared, and he wasn’t shown back in the Neitherworld again. Beetlejuice appeared one final time in Lydia’s lucid dream, but it’s unclear if he’s reaching out to her again or if it was simply a nightmare Lydia had out of trauma.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice 
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Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is the sequel to the original Tim Burton classic that starred Michael Keaton and Wynona Rider in a horror-comedy that involved ghosts trying to scare off new homebuyers from taking their house. The sequel brings back Michael Keaton as the hilarious and sleazy ghost with selfish intentions, now joined by Jenna Ortega in a new role.
Director Tim Burton Release Date September 6, 2024 Cast Michael Keaton , Winona Ryder , Catherine O’Hara , Jenna Ortega , Justin Theroux , Willem Dafoe , Monica Bellucci , Arthur Conti , Nick Kellington , Santiago Cabrera , Burn Gorman , Danny DeVito , Sami Slimane , Amy Nuttall , Mark Heenehan , Charlie Hopkinson , Liv Spencer , Skylar Park , Matthew Lyons , Jane Leaney , David Ayres , Sophie Holland , Walles Hamonde Runtime 104 Minutes Expand