Soooo.... James "AVGN" Rolfe is in the news this week..

[KaraFang]

I really don't get the reverence for Ghostbusters, it's good but I don't think it feels like a classic to anyone that wasn't 12ish when it first came out.

I was six.

Man I am old...

It's, umm... I suppose the easiest way to explain it (for me, and a lot of my friends at the time) was that we hadn't seen anything like it before. Back then, we had very basic films for kids. Pretty awful ones. The 80's started to provide stuff that was a little more designed to appeal to not only adults, but children too (but didn't speak down to them). Also, it was:

a) mature for a PG film
b) well written
c) had money spent on them.

GB was, frankly, one of the 1st in the early 80's that did this. I can think, off the top of my head, under PG levels others of:

Starwars (70's), Indiana Jones, The Dark Crystal, Explorers.

I'm sure there are others.

Also, as a kid at the time, it was amazing to see science beating ghosts/paranormal in the "real" world. This had NOT been done before and many of us had seen (at that point) something maybe a little more adult like a horror film. To have a movie that was funny, scary, but also contained the message "Don't worry kids, science has got this." was amazing.

man, the conversations we had in the playground. The hundreds and hundreds of times we played Ghostbusters together. (Sigh) Happy memories.

 

[The Lunatic]

Odd.

I think that as a movie reviewer, informing your fans that you won't be receiving a movie that's received a bit of attention is a reasonable thing to do.

But, I don't really get why it warrants any response other than "Okay".

 

[Dazzle Novak]

Is there no reaction too small to warrant a magnifying glass and counter-backlash? Some people disagree on the internet. Man the stations! This is most unorthodox and unsettling!

Where's the outcry.

On Twitter. Mostly random noise, but Pat Oswalt showed his genius comedic abilities with this piece of comedy 'gold' [https://twitter.com/pattonoswalt/status/732634606982160388]. I can only wonder how his show could have possibly been cancelled /sarcasm

Also the guy who called GamerGate worst then ISIS also complained about it.

Those two together are enough to make people notice. Of course it just makes people have their opinions on the two fall further due to the fact James didn't say a single irrational thing in his video, but hey career suicide is always fun to watch, especially in this day and age where so many in Hollywood and the entertainment industry as a whole have apparently made it their goal to do so.

Doesn't the fact that you have to refer to him as "the guy who called GamerGate worse than Isis" because his name wouldn't ring a bell for 99.9% of people strike you as evidence that maybe you're inflating his influence and importance? You've got one celebrity (Oswalt) making a snide jab and you're convinced that's the harbinger of the SJW horde. This is more a damning indictment against internet conduct, in your eyes, than the trolls mocking his recently-deceased wife.

The OP insists this "controversy" is "in the news". Since when did a half-assed blog post and twitter become the news in any meaningful sense?

 

[DudeistBelieve]

Are they calling him a misogynistic **** on Twitter? They're calling him a misogynistic **** on Twitter, aren't they? Fuck Twitter. Twitter fights aren't news.

In any case, his video seems very reasonable, with the main point being that he would've liked to see the old cast introduce a new cast and kick start a new line of Ghostbusters movies. He wants there to be a transition and people involved with Ghostbusters have been squandering that opportunity apparently for years. Fair enough. He's even honest enough that he holds the possibility that it might be good.

He's also an MRA apparently.

EDIT: Different link because I can't seem to embed tweets to save my life -_-

http://archive.is/f337w

That... That tweet can't be legit, can it? Is it?

 

[anthony87]

Are they calling him a misogynistic **** on Twitter? They're calling him a misogynistic **** on Twitter, aren't they? Fuck Twitter. Twitter fights aren't news.

In any case, his video seems very reasonable, with the main point being that he would've liked to see the old cast introduce a new cast and kick start a new line of Ghostbusters movies. He wants there to be a transition and people involved with Ghostbusters have been squandering that opportunity apparently for years. Fair enough. He's even honest enough that he holds the possibility that it might be good.

He's also an MRA apparently.

EDIT: Different link because I can't seem to embed tweets to save my life -_-

http://archive.is/f337w

That... That tweet can't be legit, can it? Is it?

Well she put her Twitter to private after being asked to explain her reasoning so I'm going to assume it is.

 

[Lightspeaker]

Yeah I saw some of this backlash on twitter.

I think it pretty much encapsulates something I saw someone say a couple days ago: because of everything going on around it there is literally no safe position to hold on the new Ghostbusters film, and your best bet is to just not talk about it at all.

You say you like it? Well you're only liking it because you want to 'virtue signal'.

You say you hate it? MISOGYNIST! MONSTER!

You state that you refuse to have anything to do with it and therefore won't say if you like or dislike it? YOU'RE ONLY REFUSING TO GO BECAUSE YOU HATE WOMEN! SEXIST! MRA!

You can't have an actual opinion on the movie, because the movie itself apparently no longer matters. What matters is what flavour of abuse you want to take for holding your opinion.

A sacred cow this is not.

For many people Ghostbusters was and is one of the best horror-comedies ever crafted. On par with Airplane as a comedy. It was Oscar nominated and is preserved in the National Film Registry of the United States Library of Congress. It is on a 97% positively-received critic rating and an 88% positively-received audience rating (with over a million ratings) on Rotten Tomatoes.

For many this most definitely is a sacred cow.

So complaining about this his decision is bad but it's totally reasonable to berate a reviewer for only playing the first 30 hours of a 40 hour game before reviewing it?

...

I really don't get the reverence for Ghostbusters, it's good but I don't think it feels like a classic to anyone that wasn't 12ish when it first came out.

Come on, don't play the false equivalence game.

There is a world of difference between saying "I'm not going to review this X because I fundamentally disapprove of it" and saying "I'm going to review this X but I'm not going to put the time in to actually do it properly".

Its the difference between not reviewing The Martian because you don't like the idea and reviewing The Martian negatively because you only watched up to the bit where he gets hit by the antennae and found it boring and unfunny up to that bit. Or the difference between personally deciding to no longer eat meat for whatever reason and actively advocating that nobody should eat meat and just making up a bunch of reasons why, refusing the put the time in to actually do some research.

(Of course I appreciate the exaggeration on the '30 of 40 hours' thing and there's definitely a discussion to be had on how much a reviewer needs to be expected to experience something to review it properly. But its sort of hard to justify as to where and when you should stop. A great example is Puella Magi Madoka Magica; you HAVE to watch at least the first three, maybe even four, episodes of that to understand where the series is going. Otherwise you take entirely the wrong idea. Personally I think reviews should be expected to actually finish things before review (provided it can be finished); but I also appreciate that in the real world, especially for 'professional reviwers', that simply isn't always possible. And also appreciate that sometimes it just isn't necessary to complete something to know what its like, perhaps the easiest way to approach that would be for people to disclose how far they got with it.)


As for your second point: for myself, I wasn't even born when Ghostbusters first came out. It was still a very important film to me when growing up.

 

[Phasmal]

Since when is Twitter the news? Since when is people throwing a shit-fit on Twitter a big deal?

I don't even know who this guy is, I watched like the first 40 seconds of the video and then stopped caring. If he doesn't want to see the film, that's fine. But when will this never ending parade of whining about the new Ghostbusters end?

Yeah, the movie is probably gonna suck. Lots of movies suck. It's just life.

 

[Ogoid]

Not that I'm any surprised by it at this point, but seriously? James is probably one of the less contentious people on the whole internet. It would already take a very special brand of clueless, humorless twat to go after him even if what he said hadn't been both completely reasonable and explicitly stated to be nothing but his opinion.

 

[RaikuFA]

Since when is Twitter the news? Since when is people throwing a shit-fit on Twitter a big deal?

I don't even know who this guy is, I watched like the first 40 seconds of the video and then stopped caring. If he doesn't want to see the film, that's fine. But when will this never ending parade of whining about the new Ghostbusters end?

Yeah, the movie is probably gonna suck. Lots of movies suck. It's just life.

1st off, the guy is James Rolfe aka The Angry Video Game Nerd. He pretty much pioneered the whole "review shitty games and point out their faults in humorous ways on Youtube" spiel so he has some pull on the net.*insert "the more you know" gif here*

2nd, the issue (at least with me) is the background with this film. It seems like the executives only made this not because it's their vision but because making a female only GB sounded progressive and that gets money somehow. Plus I heard McCarthy was told she "doesn't know anything about Ghostbusters" despite being a fan of the films and shows growing up when she tried fixing the script.

 

[Phasmal]

1st off, the guy is James Rolfe aka The Angry Video Game Nerd. He pretty much pioneered the whole "review shitty games and point out their faults in humorous ways on Youtube" spiel so he has some pull on the net.*insert "the more you know" gif here*

2nd, the issue (at least with me) is the background with this film. It seems like the executives only made this not because it's their vision but because making a female only GB sounded progressive and that gets money somehow. Plus I heard McCarthy was told she "doesn't know anything about Ghostbusters" despite being a fan of the films and shows growing up when she tried fixing the script.

Okay, but still. Who cares?
Films get shitty reboots all the time. I'm never gonna agree that this kind of reaction was called for, because it's waaaaay over the top. I dunno, maybe it's because in my opinion the original Ghostbusters was, well, kinda crap. But even if they remade something I love in a way I absolutely hate and it got this kind of reaction, I would still think people need to put on their grown up panties and get over it.

Spoiler: Basically...

 

[anthony87]

1st off, the guy is James Rolfe aka The Angry Video Game Nerd. He pretty much pioneered the whole "review shitty games and point out their faults in humorous ways on Youtube" spiel so he has some pull on the net.*insert "the more you know" gif here*

2nd, the issue (at least with me) is the background with this film. It seems like the executives only made this not because it's their vision but because making a female only GB sounded progressive and that gets money somehow. Plus I heard McCarthy was told she "doesn't know anything about Ghostbusters" despite being a fan of the films and shows growing up when she tried fixing the script.

Okay, but still. Who cares?

Going by Twitter at least, a great deal of people.

 

[RaikuFA]

Oh look, a load of jokes about Patton Oswalt's wife being dead. Including one from ex-Escapist Scrumpmonkey. How did Twitter get to this point?

Jesus, that's just horrible. No one deserves that, especially since the wounds are still fresh.

 

[Phasmal]

Okay, but still. Who cares?

Going by Twitter at least, a great deal of people.

Oh, no, not Twitter.

Maybe I'm just getting old, but I think people put waaaay too much stock in this sort of thing. I just don't have the emotion to spare if some film sucks or if some guy won't see a film because he thinks it's gonna suck. There have been some dumb people who are annoyed that it's all ladies, and they're just.. well dumb people. If it's gonna suck, it's gonna suck cause it's a bad film, not because it has women in it.

That's probably obvious but I wanted to pad out my response a little. I don't like leaving like one-sentence replies.

 

[RaikuFA]

1st off, the guy is James Rolfe aka The Angry Video Game Nerd. He pretty much pioneered the whole "review shitty games and point out their faults in humorous ways on Youtube" spiel so he has some pull on the net.*insert "the more you know" gif here*

2nd, the issue (at least with me) is the background with this film. It seems like the executives only made this not because it's their vision but because making a female only GB sounded progressive and that gets money somehow. Plus I heard McCarthy was told she "doesn't know anything about Ghostbusters" despite being a fan of the films and shows growing up when she tried fixing the script.

Okay, but still. Who cares?
Films get shitty reboots all the time. I'm never gonna agree that this kind of reaction was called for, because it's waaaaay over the top. I dunno, maybe it's because in my opinion the original Ghostbusters was, well, kinda crap. But even if they remade something I love in a way I absolutely hate and it got this kind of reaction, I would still think people need to put on their grown up panties and get over it.

Spoiler: Basically...

I am the same way about a lot of remakes. Even this one I had the benefit of the doubt it could be good because I like McCarthy and knows she works well with withers comedy wise so it could've been decent. But after that background stuff I'm not gonna care anymore.

 

[lacktheknack]

So we're getting to the point where we're getting salty overy people getting salty over someone getting salty.

When will this wheel of sodium end.

only the dead can know peace from this sodium chloride

 

[anthony87]

So we're getting to the point where we're getting salty overy people getting salty over someone getting salty.

When will this wheel of sodium end.

only the dead can know peace from this sodium chloride

I'm more of a pepper man anyway.

[sup][sup][sup][sup][/sup]Not even sorry[/sup][/sup][/sup]

 

[DemomanHusband]

So we're getting to the point where we're getting salty overy people getting salty over someone getting salty.

When will this wheel of sodium end.

Justified, appropriate salt is good. A life without salt would be bland. His video was justifyingly salty, the reaction wasn't, hence it is wrong, hence calling it out is also good. The good salt fights the bad.

Honestly, when you have an entire Internets worth of nerds willing to sit through and review 4 (4!) Abortions of transformers movies, going on two awful tmnt movies, and every other God awful reboot and remake

But "suddenly" this is the straw that breaks the camels back? Yeah, people have the right to call shenanigans on that.

Besides, this is Ghostbusters. A franchise with one decent cult classic, one awful sequel, and a cartoon series ranging from passable to awful.

A sacred cow this is not.

Harold ramis is dead. Dan Aykroyd is so morbidly unfunny I wish he died instead. Bill Murray is probably nude hiking around the himalayas on opium. And no one cares about Erie Hudson, not even the rest of the cast. Good luck getting them back together solely because of your childhood.

Here's the funny thing, in the case of Transformers, nobody was called anti-transformer scum for not liking the trailers, not enjoying the movie, and refusing to give it a good review.

With TMNT, nerds weren't suddenly called racist because they didn't feel like sitting through a bunch of green-skinned ninjas spout 90's references while Michael Bay's effects team did their best to make movements look straight out of Foodfight!

the new Ghostbusters movie is an echo-chamber of progressives that insist that the quality of the movie is already assured due to it being a movie where nearly the entire main cast is female, barring the one actor that's even slightly good in the movie AKA Chris Hemsworth. The Ghostbusters franchise is indeed not a sacred cow, but it would still be a good idea to not shit in a rag and smear it on the first movie's poster like the recent trailers have. (What's continuity? Mention the first movie, but not have ties to it? What's going on?) The first movie's comedy certainly wasn't entirely subdued, but it did not rely on "Big Angry Black Woman with Christian Beliefs Slapping Around Another Woman" or "Look at how tough we are oops we made a mistake, I guess you can relate to us now!"

To be entirely honest, the movie has given no indication that it belongs anywhere aside from the Happy Madison line-up of movies, and I really am wishing I could say the movie is good. But with Melissa "My Brand of Comedy makes Chris Farley look philosophical" McCarthy, Leslie "The Power of Patty" Jones, and the two other actresses who barely seem to have any presence, I'd say Rolfe's decision to not even humor it is a just one.

 

[RJ 17]

I actually watched that video last night, and my first immediate reaction was "Oh James...I love ya...you've entertained me through the years, but god damnit...you have NO idea of how big of a shit-storm you just stirred up." To be clear: I have no intention of seeing this movie for pretty much the exact same reasons James lists out: the jokes in the trailer fell flat, the effects look like a neon acid trip, and all the other history surrounding the franchise.

But just judging by the reaction that half of the internet has already had to anyone who dares say this movie looks like crap ("YOU'RE JUST A SEXIST PIG WHO DOESN'T LIKE THAT THEY TOOK YOUR BOYS CLUB MOVIE AND FILLED IT WITH GIRLS!"), I already knew that James would be getting in trouble over this one. Hopefully all the years that he's been around will have gained him a thick-skin to block out all the shit-post comments that he's going to receive over this one.

My favorite thing about this situation is that James isn't the first internet celebrity to openly say they're not going to see the movie. Each one of them clearly laid out their reasoning, and none of them (to my knowledge, at least) said "It's because they have an all female cast." Yet everyone that says they have no interest in the movie is shat all over for the exact same reason.

And then you got someone like Patton Oswalt giving him shit?

Put Ghostbusters to the side for a moment, this is nuts right?

Patton Oswalt's Tweet: https://twitter.com/pattonoswalt/status/732634606982160388

My favorite thing about that tweet is that the first three "comments" (I don't use twitter so I don't know if that's what they'd be called ) beneath it are basically saying "Fuck You, Patton."

 

[StatusNil]

Oh, no, not Twitter.

Maybe I'm just getting old, but I think people put waaaay too much stock in this sort of thing.

Hey, I'm all for ignoring Twitter, but not until every damn "News" outlet stops ripping their headlines straight off it without further reference to that meta-Twitter plane of existence we used to call "the World". So of course the better solution would be to abolish Twitter altogether, so as to save the hacks from their own lazy credulity and us all from their counter-reality bulletins warping our understanding.

As for getting old, maybe so, but you still have a long way to get to my vantage point.

 

[Rednog]

Odd.

I think that as a movie reviewer, informing your fans that you won't be receiving a movie that's received a bit of attention is a reasonable thing to do.

But, I don't really get why it warrants any response other than "Okay".

He's not a movie reviewer.
People are expecting him to cover Ghostbusters because he's a fan of it and has covered the various Ghostbusters iterations.