Actually there is a demographic out there that would enjoy a movie that plays off of the things they enjoyed about the original Ghostbusters movie, namely the writing and the comedic camaraderie that Ramis, Murray, Akroyd, Hudson, Weaver, and Moranis had together. It may be impossible to have that combination again.
I recently re-read The Princess Pride, and there are scenes I would love to see on the big screen. At the same time, a lot of what made the movie for me was the cast and their chemistry, so while I would like to see those bits in a movie, I still would dread a remake.
So the exact scenario you're talking about. But using an example that isn't being remade.
It's what it boils down to. Of course some people are going to quote me saying they have different reasons but that's not the point. Every reboot gets criticism from 'fans' or whatever they want to call themselves. That's nothing new. But this has been blowing out of proportion for one simple reason. You and I both know what that is.
I could look at it from the opposite direction. Make any movie/game female centric and any legitimate criticism is cast aside as merely sexism. I should be the guy in here defending this movie. I like reboots like this and I am not a big Ghostbusters fan. I also am not afraid of popular opinion as I think Green Lantern is a good movie. (Not great, but good.) If I saw any merit in this movie I would be happy to defend it but I see it as almost insulting the source material trying to cash in on nostalgia for a Ghostbusters movie that chases after the comedy in Bridesmaids and Scary Movie rather than Ghostbusters. Before you think that Bridesmaids comment is sexist, stop a second, go watch its trailer again as I have, and tell me there is no similarities. Ditto with Scary movie Then compare all these trailers as well as the original ghostbusters trailers.
I really don't think it is hard to see why people are upset. However, in the light of all the sexism stuff around media right now I think too many people are actually staring right at a movie that is both sexist and a tad racist (for the sake of comedy) and defending it in the name of political correctness. A touch of irony. Sorry, but I can't join you in your campaign against what I see as Ghostbusters fans as that actually looks like the prejudice perspective. I feel Ghostbusters fans have very valid concerns based on all the trailers. The "good trailers" just play music and don't let you see actual parts of the movie, the "bad" trailer shows you a bunch of stuff that goes against what the original movies were doing.
Another thing I noticed is that with the exception of the ghost spewing slime, every ghost in the trailer is merely walking or flying around doing nothing. Not attacking anything, just flying, walking, or standing around looking spooky and... neon. The attacks come in the form of actors because "possession". Now this may change in the movie but that is just another thing on the list that would concern me if I was actually anticipating this movie.
It's what it boils down to. Of course some people are going to quote me saying they have different reasons but that's not the point. Every reboot gets criticism from 'fans' or whatever they want to call themselves. That's nothing new. But this has been blowing out of proportion for one simple reason. You and I both know what that is.
I could look at it from the opposite direction. Make any movie/game female centric and any legitimate criticism is cast aside as merely sexism. I should be the guy in here defending this movie. I like reboots like this and I am not a big Ghostbusters fan. I also am not afraid of popular opinion as I think Green Lantern is a good movie. (Not great, but good.) If I saw any merit in this movie I would be happy to defend it but I see it as almost insulting the source material trying to cash in on nostalgia for a Ghostbusters movie that chases after the comedy in Bridesmaids and Scary Movie rather than Ghostbusters. Before you think that Bridesmaids comment is sexist, stop a second, go watch its trailer again as I have, and tell me there is no similarities. Ditto with Scary movie Then compare all these trailers as well as the original ghostbusters trailers.
I really don't think it is hard to see why people are upset. However, in the light of all the sexism stuff around media right now I think too many people are actually staring right at a movie that is both sexist and a tad racist (for the sake of comedy) and defending it in the name of political correctness. A touch of irony. Sorry, but I can't join you in your campaign against what I see as Ghostbusters fans as that actually looks like the prejudice perspective. I feel Ghostbusters fans have very valid concerns based on all the trailers. The "good trailers" just play music and don't let you see actual parts of the movie, the "bad" trailer shows you a bunch of stuff that goes against what the original movies were doing.
Another thing I noticed is that with the exception of the ghost spewing slime, every ghost in the trailer is merely walking or flying around doing nothing. Not attacking anything, just flying, walking, or standing around looking spooky and... neon. The attacks come in the form of actors because "possession". Now this may change in the movie but that is just another thing on the list that would concern me if I was actually anticipating this movie.
The thing is that there was a huge backlash against the film solely because it was an all female cast. Now the trailer being lackluster is a reason to be weary, even upset at the film. But people were raging from the moment it was announced, before the cast was picked, before we knew anything about the movie other than it being a female cast.
Now if all people know about a movie is that their are women in it and the scream. By process of elimination they have to be screaming because it's a female cast. There was nothing else they could be upset about.
This works better inspite of the footage and because of the Ray Parker Jr. song. You could have footage of a bunch of urinating dogs set to that song and it would still work. That's the power of music.
I do like the trailer better, but the people involved in the movie didn't make it, while people actually involved in the movie made the official trailer, so which do you think is going to be more reflective of the actual movie?
Winnosh said:
CrazyGirl17 said:
It looks better... but that won't effect the actual movie, so... what's the point? Or am I just cynical?
It's what it boils down to. Of course some people are going to quote me saying they have different reasons but that's not the point. Every reboot gets criticism from 'fans' or whatever they want to call themselves. That's nothing new. But this has been blowing out of proportion for one simple reason. You and I both know what that is.
I could look at it from the opposite direction. Make any movie/game female centric and any legitimate criticism is cast aside as merely sexism. I should be the guy in here defending this movie. I like reboots like this and I am not a big Ghostbusters fan. I also am not afraid of popular opinion as I think Green Lantern is a good movie. (Not great, but good.) If I saw any merit in this movie I would be happy to defend it but I see it as almost insulting the source material trying to cash in on nostalgia for a Ghostbusters movie that chases after the comedy in Bridesmaids and Scary Movie rather than Ghostbusters. Before you think that Bridesmaids comment is sexist, stop a second, go watch its trailer again as I have, and tell me there is no similarities. Ditto with Scary movie Then compare all these trailers as well as the original ghostbusters trailers.
I really don't think it is hard to see why people are upset. However, in the light of all the sexism stuff around media right now I think too many people are actually staring right at a movie that is both sexist and a tad racist (for the sake of comedy) and defending it in the name of political correctness. A touch of irony. Sorry, but I can't join you in your campaign against what I see as Ghostbusters fans as that actually looks like the prejudice perspective. I feel Ghostbusters fans have very valid concerns based on all the trailers. The "good trailers" just play music and don't let you see actual parts of the movie, the "bad" trailer shows you a bunch of stuff that goes against what the original movies were doing.
Another thing I noticed is that with the exception of the ghost spewing slime, every ghost in the trailer is merely walking or flying around doing nothing. Not attacking anything, just flying, walking, or standing around looking spooky and... neon. The attacks come in the form of actors because "possession". Now this may change in the movie but that is just another thing on the list that would concern me if I was actually anticipating this movie.
The thing is that there was a huge backlash against the film solely because it was an all female cast. Now the trailer being lackluster is a reason to be weary, even upset at the film. But people were raging from the moment it was announced, before the cast was picked, before we knew anything about the movie other than it being a female cast.
Now if all people know about a movie is that their are women in it and the scream. By process of elimination they have to be screaming because it's a female cast. There was nothing else they could be upset about.
We also know it's a reboot/remake, which a lot of people, myself included, are getting very tired of. reeboots/remakes/sequels/whatever already have points off them for having that 'safe' factor and lack of creativity, regardless of anything else, and this movie plays it as safe as it can from the looks of the original trailer, appealing to a bridesmaids audiance, and making a movie with bridesmaids sense of humor and calling it ghostbusters isn't exactly a great sounding idea. I mean ghostbusters isn't a masterpiece, but it's sincere and fun, and a sequel/whatever whose only reason for existing is to genderswap the characters is anything but sincere.
I mean i don't hate this movie or the fact that it exists, but i am rolling my eyes at the fact that someone said "hey let's genderflip ghostbusters" and it got made into a movie. It could become a thing now, no more new movies, we just start in the 80s and just genderflip everything, and it's fine that these exist, but it all strikes me as not bringing all that much to the table artistically or in terms of entertainment, when that movie already exists save for a cosmetic change.
I'll just make this short observation on the hearse joke, alone:
Regardless of the quality of the joke premise in the first place; Just the simple act of changing it to precede the: "It's a Cadillac!" line with nothing but an awkward pause, or at least having its speaker interrupt the previous comment after: "disclose", would have gone a good length towards make it seem less like one of those old cheap direct-to-video: "Let's make a low effort spinoff based on this obnoxious side character" jobbies.
The thing is that there was a huge backlash against the film solely because it was an all female cast. Now the trailer being lackluster is a reason to be weary, even upset at the film. But people were raging from the moment it was announced, before the cast was picked, before we knew anything about the movie other than it being a female cast.
Now if all people know about a movie is that their are women in it and the scream. By process of elimination they have to be screaming because it's a female cast. There was nothing else they could be upset about.
And the majority of the backlash like that came because it was marketed as "ALL-FEMALE CAST". It wasn't marketed as a reintroduction for a new generation, a new spin on an older idea, not even a threadbare continuation of the originals.
Like seriously, the majority of marketing on this thing has hinged on the idea of women instead of men, and everything since then has been called. The stereotypes, the humor, the actresses(people even begged Tina Fey to be apart of it since she's one of the few that could pull off the original feel), hell, people even called Chris Hemsworth(though he was one of something like three other names of big hunky hollywood guys at the moment) to be the new Janine. Look at the cast and crew and how hard they've been shilling the idea of "Girl Power" because look at all these girls involved.
Yeah, people threw a holy shit fit over the all-female cast, but that's all this has been since the start. It hasn't been Ghostbusters in anything but packaging because they decided that the female cast was more important to tell the world than literally anything else about what they wanted to do. And the further down the line you go, it's just more and more obvious that's the only idea they had for a movie.
The thing is that there was a huge backlash against the film solely because it was an all female cast. Now the trailer being lackluster is a reason to be weary, even upset at the film. But people were raging from the moment it was announced, before the cast was picked, before we knew anything about the movie other than it being a female cast.
Now if all people know about a movie is that their are women in it and the scream. By process of elimination they have to be screaming because it's a female cast. There was nothing else they could be upset about.
But it should be noted that it did in fact turn out to be bad in relation to the source material. Does this mean that an all female ghostbusters movie can't be good? No, but it does lend credit to the notion that this fan outlash detected something amiss. No doubt what they detected was a cheap cash in on gender politics and that is exactly what we got. If they "called it" back then and back then people were like "You don't know that yet" - and now this disaster shows up, why not just concede that they were right back then? Would it be gender politics stopping someone from conceding? But now we have people saying that you can't know until you see the film.
At the end of the day the Ghostbusters fans have a legitimate gripe with the movie regardless when they "called it". Ignoring who was right or wrong and when, they have legitimate artistic complaints about the direction of the movie. Saying "this movie is going to suck" the minute it gets announced, you have a 50% chance of being right or wrong. It doesn't matter your reasoning. Its not like either side has anything to brag about either way. They won a coin toss. It could have went either way.
That's awful presumptuous of you to call them presumptuous of the film.
I don't like it because even though they cast all women to try something new, they essentially made female Egon, Ray, Venkman, and Winston. The spin is they made them all buffoon characters. Ray and Egon were pretty smart in their field and weren't really bumbling idiots. Not to say that these women are, but this trailer is a lot more about what these funny ladies are doing. It looks like this movie is going to be filled with 1 liners and cheap dialogue aimed for a barrage quick chuckles. We might get a brief moment of serious exposition of someone's past just for the sake of a serious moment where someone cries or mopes as that is part of the formula but it looks pretty hollow so far.
Just to give you a feel for the original tone:
Notice how Winston wasn't a black stereotype, he was just a average guy. Notice the not-over-the-top whacky zany atmosphere. Have a look at the original two trailers and you can see an effort to put an actual touch of horror into the ghost scenes. The light hearted tone of the movie is only there to serve as a counter balance to the horror aspect.
Finally, lets again note that they casted all women (instead of multi-sex) because this movie totally isn't about sexism. Just stating that to show how ridiculous that sounds. This movie is totally about sexism. It only exists for the sake of gender bending, otherwise why is the team not multi-sex if we are attempting political correctness?
This new trailer shows no real regard for the source material. It highly suggests that the movie uses Ghostbusters as a simple prop package to an otherwise standard whacky comedy. You can hold off judgement until the movie comes out but I have seen all I need to to know that this new movie is just trying to be loud, obnoxious, whacky, and make fun of the idea of the ghostbusters. Plus, it is a little racist and a little sexist to be honest.
It's what it boils down to. Of course some people are going to quote me saying they have different reasons but that's not the point. Every reboot gets criticism from 'fans' or whatever they want to call themselves. That's nothing new. But this has been blowing out of proportion for one simple reason. You and I both know what that is.
People have given plenty of reasons why this new movie doesnt work out and why its not a good movie.
You just refuse to accept that its not the all female cast that they object to. What they do is critisizing EVERYTHING else about the movie. The shoddy writing, the slapstick forced humor, the CGI, the lack of chemestry between the characters, the painfull stereotypes.
Look, your argument boils down to: "If the cast was all male everyone would like the movie!" to wich i say: BULLSHIT!
Even WITH an all male cast this movie would STILL shit all over the legacy of the ghostbuster movies and couldnt miss the point anymore if they pointed in the other direction.
The humor in the original ghostbusters wasnt slapstick, it was incredibly sarcastic characters making light of an incredibly serious situation aka they where BELIEVABLE. The new characters? Complete stereotypes: The crazy blond, the awkward teacher, the fat girl and the sassy black woman. This is a CHECKLIST movie without heart and soul. And the first trailer showed you everything you need to know to see that this movie is going to be a disastter. This is gods of aegypt bad.
Oh, so Zenja's post didn't immediately end this? Okay.
I can pretty much guarantee that switching the gender for the new Ghostbusters movie would still result in a "OMG look how bad this is" reaction. In fact, let's do a little thought experiment and try each joke/segment out with a male cast:
1) "That stuff went *everywhere*, by the way. In *every* crack. Very hard to wash off."
Verdict: Great. Toilet humor about a guy getting slime in his ass-crack. Stay classy, Ghostbusters.
2) Exposition about how awesome the team is at their respective professions...
Verdict: Show us some of this awesomeness, please. A bear-trap thing and a wall of mathematical equations doesn't count.
3)...followed by "We can provide a real serv-"
*touches equipment*
"Ow, that's hot."
Verdict: Kind of works, but tends to highlight their ineptitude more than their strengths/abilities. No serious/comedic balance here.
4)"You guys are really smart about this "science" stuff, but *I* know New York."
Verdict: Still telling, not showing. I also feel like this character is being dumbed down to act as the audience surrogate for those who get confused by "science."
5)"And, I can borrow a car from my uncle!"
*Visual joke about the Neo-Ecto being a hearse*
"You didn't disclose that the vehicle was going to be a *hearse.*"
"It's a *Cadillac!*"
Verdict: Visual joke is ruined, cheap joke about how black people like their cars flashy. Would be the same if genders were swapped. Neo-Ecto looks awesome, though. I'll give it that much.
6) "Let's go!"
"Let's g-"
"Oh, I thought..."
*Characters attempt to recover from line spoken out of turn, resulting in anti-climax to a bit of heroic grandstanding*
Verdict: Oh, we can't let anything just be awesome for a second, can we? The new generation's a jaded bunch who wants any potential heroism to be immediately deflected by comedy to make it more "realistic."
Yeah. Okay.
7)Device amplifying paranormal activity, we might be the only ones who can stop it, blah blah.
Verdict: Telling, not showing, *and* a "rational" explanation for why ghosts are rising from the dead.
Is...is this the Star Wars prequels?
8)Entire hat joke
Verdict: Is...is this SNL? WHAT AM I WATCHING?!
9) Holtzmann licking her pistol.
Verdict: What flavor do they come in?
10)"THA POWWA OF PATTI COMPELS YOU!!!!"
Verdict: Because we can say "Devil" and no one cares, but saying "Christ" would require people to be exposed to religion. The first Ghostbusters had an entire conversation that mentioned the Book of Revelation, and this one passes exorcism and religion off as a joke?
Yeah. That sounds about right for a modern comedy.
Final Summary: Anyone who thinks the bulk of criticism is coming from "Wahh, I don't like female characters, they have cooties!" is full of the smelliest shit this side of a dairy farm.
It's what it boils down to. Of course some people are going to quote me saying they have different reasons but that's not the point. Every reboot gets criticism from 'fans' or whatever they want to call themselves. That's nothing new. But this has been blowing out of proportion for one simple reason. You and I both know what that is.
If you want to focus on the actual issue, it's movies with women leads only getting significant funding if they're sequels/spinoffs to other things (read: movies that didn't have women as leads), and then that movie getting the halfassed treatment because nobody's taking it seriously for any number of reasons related to this type of project (lazy sequel, lazy reboot, don't think it will win any awards due to bias so why even try, not being able to write anything good with women leads, not hiring women or PoC in the other decision making roles that could help steer them away from horrible mistakes), or thinks that making it "more progressive and modern" was all they had to do in order to make it good - or at least, able to make a profit. In addition, since not as many big property movies with women leads are being made in general (and much less that try to buck the stereotypes), there is an additional layer of scrutiny heaped on every release of this type, which adds to the perceived risk of backing those movies (and pushing project management to take more "safe" actions which often end up creating a bland product), in addition to creating the adverse environment.
As it is, you're either addressing the wrong problem (if this problem actually existed as stated, anyway), or oversimplifying it, because all you did was take the same rationale that you were using before knowing otherwise ("movies with women just suck") and adjusting it to be slightly different but still overly broad ("people always hate movies with women in them").
While I feel most of your arguments are valid, I don't think the idea of a guy creating a device to "amplify paranormal activity" is inherently a bad idea, although the "show don't tell" way they presented it is stupid. I mean, it's pretty much implied that the reason there were so many ghost sightings all of the sudden in the first movie was because Gozer's impending arrival was drawing them to the place where It would show up. That's a good explanation (to a question the audience probably never asked), but the movie is smart enough to present it without having to push it on us with an exposition dump.
This could be done the same way. Clearly, it isn't, though. And with everything else they're doing wrong, well, yeah, I can tell this is going to suck.
But what really cheeses me here is the effect this will have on studio execs. If this movie fails (and I hope it does, because I don't want to live in a world where a movie having a joke about a woman getting slime in her vagina is putting its best foot forward can succeed), Hollywood execs will take it to mean what they always assumed: that women in lead roles can't sell movies. They won't think, "Oh, maybe we made a piece of shit that nobody sensible would like," it's failure will be blamed on the cast being women.
But what really cheeses me here is the effect this will have on studio execs. If this movie fails (and I hope it does, because I don't want to live in a world where a movie having a joke about a woman getting slime in her vagina is putting its best foot forward can succeed), Hollywood execs will take it to mean what they always assumed: that women in lead roles can't sell movies. They won't think, "Oh, maybe we made a piece of shit that nobody sensible would like," it's failure will be blamed on the cast being women.
To be fair, they won't be completely wrong. The cast is largely mediocre and so much of it was banked on it being "ALL-WOMAN GHOSTBUSTERS". I mean, can you look at ANY of them and tell me they're leading material? Even as an ensemble most of them haven't done much over ten minutes here and there due to their SNL background.
Or maybe...and I might be going out on a limb here, but bare with me....maybe many of us think this film looks like garbage, regardless of its cast?
It's not that it has an all-female lead cast. It's that the film looks unfunny and amateurish. It looks like Pixels, with a thin veneer of Ghostbusters smeared on top.
But hey, you keep on fighting the good fight against dem sexists and whatever. Thinking Paul Feig is an atrociously bad writer and director clearly means we hate women.
I can't wait for this movie to make a ton of money and receive fan and critical acclaim, if only to watch everyone on the internet freak the fuck out because "it wasn't true to the source material!"
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