Ghostbusters Director Calls Out "Assholes in Geek Culture"

[Elwes]

My thing is pretty simple, I didn't like the trailer.

I don't think I'm an arsehole (but then I wouldn't would I?). I just think I have standards. And calling out a bad trailer for being a bad trailer that probably means a bad film isn't being overly critical - it's just being critical. Unless everyone is supposed to like everything.

There were specifics that irritated me.

• 
  [li]The voiceovers were flat, and they were clearly dialogue directly taken from the film -- not a good sign.[/li]
  [li]"That stuff went everywhere! In EVERY crack." -- *really? sigh*[/li]
  [li]"Let's go. Let's go. Oh. Erm. Oh. I'm sorry. I'll let you. I'll let you. Next time..." -- *groan*[/li]
  [li]"THE POWER OF PATTI COMPELS YOU!!!!" -- *DEAR GODS. NOOOOoooooo!!!!!*[/li]

Then I watched the FanCut trailer and realised just how badly the original trailer had got it wrong.

Original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3ugHP-yZXw
FanCut : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaC3HUuJQT0

The thing is, unless the guy who recut the trailer can also go back and redo the whole film - the original trailer is going to my best indication of the cinema experience.

I went back and rewatched my DVD copy of the original Ghostbusters. I'd forgotten so much, not all of it good. Venkman's psychic experiments at the beginning of the film just made me want to sit with my head in my hands. Likewise anything featuring Louis Tully. But it's definitely one of those things that is better than a sum of it's parts.

The more I watched the original, the more I realised that the film was just a phenomenon. Epic in it's delivery in a way that I don't think could have been planned. It's the music. It's the crowds of people involved. It's the vibe that is on a continual feedback loop than builds and builds in the same way Rocky Balboa's morning run ends in a momentous run up a bunch of steps. And yes, it's my memory reliving my youth.

Then there's the new movie. I don't know the actresses. Some searching shows they've been in other films I had no interest in watching either. I'm sure SNL is hilarious, but as a non-US citizen I've never seen it. I can see why repeating the "let's use SNL commedians for the reboot" would seem like an obvious move. At the end of the day I didn't like the trailer, because it looked like other comedies that I didn't like. The humour and tone just made me think of all the bad Adam Sandler, Jim Carrey, Wayan Bros, Will Ferrell or Ben Stiller movies that came before it. This from someone who mostly likes Jim Carrey movies and even quite enjoyed Pixels (2015).

Clearly this movie isn't aimed at me. But I wanted it to be, so I'm mad. Well, not really. There are lots of bad movies and I'm not fussed about them either. It's more that they took something as epic as Ghostbusters and (seemingly) turned it into a Dumb and Dumber movie. It would be like rebooting The Godfather starring Adam Sandler, Steven Seagal, Jaden Smith and David Hasselhoff, with a Paris Hilton cameo. It's not just that it would be bad, it's s***ting on the original.

EDIT: Argghhh. That makes it sound like I think the actresses are as bad as the actors I used as examples. That wasn't my intent. As I said earlier, I don't know the actresses. In the same way a bad Jim Carrey movie doesn't mean Jim Carrey is bad. Plus I like Jim Carrey. Badly expressed example is bad.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

He's not wrong. We are indeed assholes. But, that doesn't mean we are wrong about how bad this movie will appear to be.

 

[J Tyran]

He claims that the all-female cast is a mere co-incidence: the funniest people he knows just happen to be women, which is why he has cast them in the movie.

Sorry, I'm calling total BS on this right here.

It is total BS the Sony hack/leak revealed E-mails between Amy Pascal (A Sony executive) and Paul Feig where she was fixated on all female cast and brought Feig in due to his preferences in movie making, the production of this movie has been incredibly troubled. Tantrums on set and social media from the cast from the people involved in the production , anger about a "lame duck of a script".

 

[SweetShark]

He's not wrong. We are indeed assholes. But, that doesn't mean we are wrong about how bad this movie will appear to be.

If you want to call yourself like that, you are free to do that. But I am not one of them.
The director have an unprofessional behaviour to call ALL "Geeks" assh*les without realising he include the general idea of a geek person who like something strongly, not only movies, but comics, videogames, books, sports, music, EVERYTHING!!!
I am very disappointed by him. He should at least said he doesn't appreciate the nagative reaction he receive because of the trailer or cause of the female cast. Yes, I would accept that.

 

[Level 7 Dragon]

And you know what the scary part is?

He's right. Geek culture is terrible and needs to be ended,

Pardon for ad homiem, but whenever I see your posts, you keep criticizing the general culture. First of all, there is no geek culture, more of a sphere of niche interests that intersect at certain points in time and in certain contexts.

Waving a straw at an uncountable and diverse demographic is immature at best and a fire hazard at worst.

 

[Bombiz]

I'll say it again: this movie is gonna fail just because it has four female comedians, and that means it'll be at least 20 years before we get another comedy movie with female leads.

And before you say "nuuuh-uuuh it's not because they're women who dare to be funny instead of sexy".... why is it that there never was an uproar about the remake of Total Recall, the remake of Conan, or the remake of Robocop? And those movies REALLY SUCKED.

I don't think it's gonna fail Because of it's for female leads rather people wont see it because, judging by the trailers, it seems to look horrible. Though I gotta say that the amount of back lash/bitching could be because of the four female non sexualized leads.

 

[Batou667]

Really, dude? Just how mean can you get? Did the new Ghostbusters' director steal your wife or what?

I'd say that was about 20% of my maximum meanness.

Don't worry, I'm just a misanthrope.

 

[FirstNameLastName]

He's not wrong. We are indeed assholes. But, that doesn't mean we are wrong about how bad this movie will appear to be.

If you want to call yourself like that, you are free to do that. But I am not one of them.
The director have an unprofessional behaviour to call ALL "Geeks" assh*les without realising he include the general idea of a geek person who like something strongly, not only movies, but comics, videogames, books, sports, music, EVERYTHING!!!
I am very disappointed by him. He should at least said he doesn't appreciate the nagative reaction he receive because of the trailer or cause of the female cast. Yes, I would accept that.

No offense, but this one post pretty much encompasses every problem I have with this thread. At no point did he call all geeks "arseholes", nor did he call most, or many. He didn't imply the average geek is worse than anyone else, nor did he imply there's a higher than average number of arseholes in "geek culture". All his statement implies is that some of the biggest arseholes he's ever met happen to be geeks. That's all. That doesn't say anything about you, it doesn't say anything about me, it doesn't say anything about the people on this site, it merely means exactly verbatim what he said; that some of the biggest arseholes he's ever met happen to be within "geek culture".

Also, it should be noted that these quotes that have got everyone horribly upset were made back in 2015, before the trailer was even released, so it's not possible for them to be a bitter response to negative reactions to the trailer despite pretty much everyone assuming that. I can't really blame people for not knowing that though, since it's only mentioned in the linked article, not the Escapist article, and seems to have been added after the fact. I guess this just proves the damage that can be done when journalists decide to form a human-centipede and simply pass on news from one to another without a single thought; you get giant controversies in response to ... absolutely nothing, other than misinformation and out of context quotes.
Still, it would be nice if the Escapist's article could be updated to contain this vital disclaimer, rather than continuing to push this same false narrative that has got everyone upset for nearly 10 pages.

 

[Kingsman]

Fieg, look over your trailer again, and count the number of times the "funniest people you know" literally and directly explain the joke.

There's a reason Comedy is dying in Hollywood. No one there knows how to set up a joke or let it breathe anymore.

 

[SweetShark]

He's not wrong. We are indeed assholes. But, that doesn't mean we are wrong about how bad this movie will appear to be.

If you want to call yourself like that, you are free to do that. But I am not one of them.
The director have an unprofessional behaviour to call ALL "Geeks" assh*les without realising he include the general idea of a geek person who like something strongly, not only movies, but comics, videogames, books, sports, music, EVERYTHING!!!
I am very disappointed by him. He should at least said he doesn't appreciate the nagative reaction he receive because of the trailer or cause of the female cast. Yes, I would accept that.

No offense, but this one post pretty much encompasses every problem I have with this thread. At no point did he call all geeks "arseholes", nor did he call most, or many. He didn't imply the average geek is worse than anyone else, nor did he imply there's a higher than average number of arseholes in "geek culture". All his statement implies is that some of the biggest arseholes he's ever met happen to be geeks. That's all. That doesn't say anything about you, it doesn't say anything about me, it doesn't say anything about the people on this site, it merely means exactly verbatim what he said; that some of the biggest arseholes he's ever met happen to be within "geek culture".

Also, it should be noted that these quotes that have got everyone horribly upset were made back in 2015, before the trailer was even released, so it's not possible for them to be a bitter response to negative reactions to the trailer despite pretty much everyone assuming that. I can't really blame people for not knowing that though, since it's only mentioned in the linked article, not the Escapist article, and seems to have been added after the fact. I guess this just proves the damage that can be done when journalists decide to form a human-centipede and simply pass on news from one to another without a single thought; you get giant controversies in response to ... absolutely nothing, other than misinformation and out of context quotes.
Still, it would be nice if the Escapist's article could be updated to contain this vital disclaimer, rather than continuing to push this same false narrative that has got everyone upset for nearly 10 pages.

If this is true about the article, then i must say a big sorry.
I guess I didn't read it with a lot of attention to fully understand it.
However with that said, he really should had said he have problem with the movie geeks, not all of them.

 

[Fallow]

Still, it would be nice if the Escapist's article could be updated to contain this vital disclaimer, rather than continuing to push this same false narrative that has got everyone upset for nearly 10 pages.

Editorial oversight? At The Escapist? Preposterous. 23 skidoo!

Not, but for real. Guys like Andy Chalk have pretty much proven that journalistic excellence isn't exactly the highest priority.

Oh now that... that right there is a side splitter. It implies, among other things, that there is some cadre out there for whom journalistic integrity mans a damn thing. There ain't. Instead it's lone wolf individuals scattered here and there like diamonds drowning in pig shit.

Have you heard about the Society of Professional Journalists [https://www.spj.org/]?

 

[Metalix Knightmare]

Ed The Sock generally has the right idea here.

Really, dude? Just how mean can you get? Did the new Ghostbusters' director steal your wife or what?

Isn't said director gay?

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

I think it's self-evident that "we don't wont female comedians especially when they aren't even sexualized" might play a big part here.

You think it's "self evident" that it "might" be the case that...

You can assume the worst in people if you like. Hell, you might even have liked the trailer and subsequently just don't get where people are coming from here.

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?".

It looks bad. The jokes weren't funny... This is the common consensus. You don't need conspiracy theory to explain the number of down-votes and the general disapproval.

We can only hope that it's not as lame as the trailers made it look.

Meanwhile the new CoD trailer sits at 2.2 million down votes to GB's 785k, despite GB's having had an extra 2 months to accrue disgust.