Ghostbusters Director Calls Out "Assholes in Geek Culture"

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

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I've shown the trailer to a number of people who don't spend a pathetic amount of time on internet forums (like we do) and who don't have much of a clue of the kind of warfare that goes on online over "gender issues"(wouldn't know what an MRA or an SJW or what the return of feckin' kings was) and I gotta tell you that not a single person I know has been impressed by it. The best I've seen is a confused face and zero laughter. Most people cringe at it and ask questions like "what did they do?" and "why did they do it?".

All I saw was the exact same type of jokes of the original movies.

Except this time it was women cracking them.

Oh, wow. Yes, I remember the part in the original where Winston slapped the shit out of Ray screaming "THE POWER OF PAIN COMPELS YOU!!!"


Note how natural the acting is, how serious the tone is, and that the joke is actually clever.

I don't agree at all. Trademark Bill Murray smart-assery is worlds apart from the kind of shlock I'd say this was. This looks sub-Sandler (since some of his older films actually had a bit of funny in them). This is almost like one of those disaster-movie Meet the Spartans abominations with a Ghostbusters skin, going by what they've shown us.

If Meet the Ghostbusters looks like fun to you, that's you. I'm going to stand over here with all the people who don't believe that the humour or the tone resembles the original film at all.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

You do understand that what you are describing here is not a problem with the new Ghostbusters, but a problem with modern Hollywood acting.

Don't agree. Plenty of great performances every-year. Outside of hokey low-rent comedies things actually feel as natural as they ever have. If anything it can be jarring to look back at older stuff. A good amount of it feels utterly corny.

If you want to assign blame for the new Ghostbusters, I'd start with the script... The material that those actresses were given to work with. Unless they were holding back the good material from the trailers (which is completely opposite land to how things are usually done) then it was a dud.

All those super hero movies that make millions and are loved by everyone? They are VERY POORLY ACTED.

Still don't agree. I'd say it varies just like everything else.

And that's not to mention again the Robocop remake, Total Recall remake, etc. All of them have bad acting and poor script, yet none of them got so much hate.

Those franchises are not as big, to start with. They're films with cult followings, they're not the mainstream money printing mega-hit that Ghostbusters was. Check the box-office numbers if you want to fully understand the difference. They're also not bad (they're not what I wanted), they're just average action movies(at worst). Nothing is more off-putting than lousy comedy, especially when it's riffing on beloved material.

This is a bit of a tangential distraction anyway. The core is that you want us to believe that people don't like it because-vagina, rather than based on it's dubious merits. Whilst I do understand that there are indeed people out there for whom hating-the-opposite-sex is a massive pre-occupation, the existence of such people isn't evidence in-and-of-itself that that's why it's so heavily downvoted.

We're talking about the same "geek-culture" (whatever that means) that's kept a female-lead and utterly wank Resident Evil film series alive for 15 years, right?

Frankly the onus is on you to demonstrate your theory, if you're so invested in it and want it to gain traction (kinda looks like you saying things you wish were true so far). Alternatively you could just listen to everyone telling you that it looks shit.

I'm going with Occam on this one.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

I'll make it quick:

1) you can't honestly tell me you think Ghostbusters is more popular than Robocop.

It's both "self evident" and "might" be the case.

Yes...

A fair larger box office taking, a hit song, a hit cartoon and a hit toy range say it's more beloved and relevant.

2) Yeah if it looks like s**t so much, I ask again, why is it that other movies that everyone agreed were s**t did NOT get this amount of backlash? Because those movies sucked, but didn't have four female leads daring to be funny instead of sexy.

4 female leads failing to be funny, you mean.

You don't have to be very old to remember Ghostbusters fondly from your childhood, whereas if you were old enough to see Robocop upon it's release you're pushing on for 60 (at least) and likely don't give a fuck about petty internet gender-political bollocks.

I'm not even going on how I insist those superhero blockbusters are poorly acted. Can't convince you out of that, if you think they're well acted.
But I might reccomend some movies with very good acting. The Fly, for example. The Shining. The Good, The Bad, The Ugly.

Is this the part where I name old films with shitty acting and modern films with good acting? I'm not going to play the cherry-picking game with you. This is an inane line of reasoning.

Or maybe, just maybe, when I called the Robocop remake utter shit, I wasn't met with a god damned WAVE of, "You're just a fucking misogynist!"

Robot identity politics are coming to a future near you. Thefugitoid.com will rain hell down upon the robophobes that don't like 2060's Robocop reboot.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Ghostbusters: 1984.

Robocop: 1987.

What are you even talking about?

Heh... Ok

They are age rated, you know? PG vs 18 on the land-mass I call home.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Yeah, age rating sure has always stopped kids from watching or playing the stuff.

This is silly. Classic film with with hit song, hit cartoon and hit toy range was more relevant to the kiddies of the 80's than a cult-classic at a time where you couldn't download or easily get hold of any film at any time.

You know, guys? I'll make it simple.

I am of the idea the amount of hate this movie is getting is because of the female leads.

We're aware of your speculation.

Even if that wasn't the case, I still want to defend the movie.... because of the female leads.
Call me sexist, but for me, a movie with four female protagonists that aren't about sexualization is something I see so very, very rarely that I want to watch that movie just because of that.

Ah, so the truth comes out.

I'm not going to call you a sexist. I'm not the type to get off on doing such things. What I will do is maintain that I think it looks like a shitty film with lame gags, and that has zero to do with the genital constitution of the main cast.

Now that we've established that it is in fact you that has the gender-political agenda, there's really not much left to say. You could do others the favour of not projecting that mindset onto them.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

I'm not going to call you a sexist. I'm not the type to get off on doing such things. What I will do is maintain that I think it looks like a shitty film with lame gags, and that has zero to do with the genital constitution of the main cast.

Now that we've established that it is in fact you that has the gender-political agenda, there's really not much left to say. You could do others the favour of not projecting that mindset onto them.

Is that a gender political agenda?

Or is that "this is the only movie released with female comedians since FOREVER, that alone is awesome"?

I really don't see why it can't be both. You can spin it however you like in your own head. You admitted you had an agenda, and you explained the nature of it.

That's not even a problem. You can feel that way and you can advocate for more female lead films(you be you), though I'd pick a better example to rally behind. The point where you're rustling-jimmies is the point where you start assigning other people their motives, which seem to be a projection of your own points-of-emphasis but from an oppositional standpoint. Personally, I'm primarily concerned with quality. It looks shit, so I say it looks shit. No hang-ups about gender.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Well, to return back on topic, I also think the trailer was ok.

Agree to disagree, and I think you might be in the minority there.

It was nothing original (how could it be? It's a reboot of an already existing franchise), but I didn't find it bad.

The lack of originality is never a very good thing, but it's really mostly about it looking profoundly unfunny.

I'm not going to call you a sexist. I'm not the type to get off on doing such things. What I will do is maintain that I think it looks like a shitty film with lame gags, and that has zero to do with the genital constitution of the main cast.

Now that we've established that it is in fact you that has the gender-political agenda, there's really not much left to say. You could do others the favour of not projecting that mindset onto them.

Is that a gender political agenda?

Or is that "this is the only movie released with female comedians since FOREVER, that alone is awesome"?

Sisters, Trainwreck, Pitch Perfect 2, Spy, all female lead comedies that came out last year alone.
Your argument is invalid. So, yes. It is a gendered political agenda.

You really want to play the list game?

Wyvern. When you're saying that you're defending it because of your views on representation, sexualisation and a need to just-because-they're-women you are indeed taking it to a political place. I think you'll find most people are fine with this so long as you don't start assigning them motivation for feeling how they feel about the stupid trailer. You don't seem to have evidence. You seem to have a gut feeling based on a bunch of wishy-washy internet bullshit.

There's nothing more to really say. I hope you enjoy the movie. Someone should, it'd be a shame if it were a completely wasted effort.