Ghostbusters 2016 Reboot discussion

[Captain Pirate Man]

For the record the Nostolgia Critic review I mentioned was not a negative or positive review. It was a commentary about how ridiculous this debate has gotten.

If you enjoyed the film, good for you. But when you make assertions like "misogynists killed the movie" than you are very much generalizing and I stand by everything I said in my previous post.

[x105Black]

One must not be a misogynist to dislike the choice of an all-female team. I count myself as a feminist, and the choice bothered me.

[Blondie-Wan]

(n/m)

Edited August 13, 2016 by Blondie-Wan

[Blondie-Wan]

For the record the Nostolgia Critic review I mentioned was not a negative or positive review. It was a commentary about how ridiculous this debate has gotten.

If you enjoyed the film, good for you. But when you make assertions like "misogynists killed the movie" than you are very much generalizing and I stand by everything I said in my previous post.

The debate has gotten ridiculous, no question.

Once again, though, to clarify, I've tried to repeatedly clarify that I don't think misogyny is wholly, 100% responsible for the movie's failure, though you've overlooked that. I'm saying it again here, now, just for you. Happy?

I've also fully acknowledged not everyone who dislikes this movie does so out of misogyny. But that said, it is undisputable a level of misogyny has been directed at this movie that few movies, even other movies fronted mainly by women, has had to contend with.

One must not be a misogynist to dislike the choice of an all-female team. I count myself as a feminist, and the choice bothered me.

I don't know why, unless it's tied to opposition to rebooting at all. I can understand that - believe me, I can, and my ideal dream third Ghostbusters movie would have been a straight-up Ghostbusters 3. But with Ramis gone and Murray flatly unwilling to return in that role, it just wasn't going to happen. And with the property being a studio property seemingly tailor-made to be a franchise, it was going to be continued in some way or other. A reboot, especially one with some unique spin that distinguished it from the originals in some way, was probably the thing that would make the most artistic sense - more so than the "passing the torch" movie some have suggested - and be justifiable creatively as well as commercially. IMO, of course.

I'm truly sorry it's not working out. I would have really liked to have gotten more after the one I saw, if they'd have been as fun as this one was. Oh, well.

[RetroInferno]

Purely looking at data, It was wildly reported that Sony deleted the general negative comments towards the movie trailer and leaving the awefull comments about women, that allowed them an angle to market their awefull movie, the ex: I you think this movie is not funny your are a sexist pig.

Some people over at youtube analysed the trailer's comments and about 99,92% of the people that saw the trailer did not leave a nasty anti women comment on the video. That about over blowing the issue, congratulations Sony.

People should be more pissed at Bill Murray for not wanting to play in Ghostbusters 3 YEARS ago which would probably prevented this movie from ever seeing the light of day.

[Blondie-Wan]

People should be more pissed at Bill Murray for not wanting to play in Ghostbusters 3 YEARS ago which would probably prevented this movie from ever seeing the light of day.

Why should they be pissed at him? He doesn't owe it to fans to be in Ghostbusters 3, and there also isn't a good reason to be upset about this movie's existence, contrary to what the detractors say.

If this reboot hadn't come out the franchise would have just died. The reboot tried to keep it alive (and maybe it is, just comatose), but despite being a good movie it's come up short at the box office. Congratulations?

Lots of parties screwed up on this. Sony did with sucky marketing, and also responding to haters and trolls in the wrong way. Entitled manbabies who banged on about a female team did by being generally awful. Saner viewers seem to have paid a little too much attention to the hate, and stayed home; they missed out, unfortunately. But the people who actually made the movie did a good job (IMO, obviously, but I'm not alone, and the movie speaks for itself).

[Captain Pirate Man]

@Blondie,

I don't disagree with you about this movie having to deal with sexism. But my point is that's exactly what the studio wanted to happen. They encouraged this fight to try and make money. Was there an already existing level of misogyny? Yes absolutely, perhaps more than other films, I will give you that. But it's not NEARLY the level it's made out to be. Sony deliberately created, and encouraged this controversy just to sell movie tickets, which is down right dispicable.

Which gets me to my overall point, Sony fanned the flames of this controversy in order to make money, and we all fell into the trap. That's why I am personally over these back and fourth discussions, because that is what THEY wanted. They knew the film was not very good, so bad press is better than no press, but creating an "everybody's sexists" press is even better.

[Blondie-Wan]

@Blondie,

I don't disagree with you about this movie having to deal with sexism. But my point is that's exactly what the studio wanted to happen. They encouraged this fight to try and make money. Was there an already existing level of misogyny? Yes absolutely, perhaps more than other films, I will give you that. But it's not NEARLY the level it's made out to be. Sony deliberately created, and encouraged this controversy just to sell movie tickets, which is down right dispicable.

Which gets me to my overall point, Sony fanned the flames of this controversy in order to make money, and we all fell into the trap. That's why I am personally over these back and fourth discussions, because that is what THEY wanted. They knew the film was not very good, so bad press is better than no press, but creating an "everybody's sexists" press is even better.

I can't agree with that, for two reasons. First of all, while I can totally see them reacting to sexists in the wrong way, I just don't see them planning at the outset to manufacture a controversy; that's just not how big corporations operate.

Secondly, I think they truly believed in the movie's quality, and still do. Studios tend, if anything, to overestimate the quality of their movies. And this really is a genuinely good movie, or at the very least a decent one. Yes, that's an opinion, but not just mine - it's corroborated by critics, and by people who've actually seen it. And while your own opinion may differ, and that's perfectly fine (have you actually seen it yourself?), when we're discussing the overall response, it's appropriate to disregard our own individual responses and look at aggregate and consensus. And the general consensus among critics is that this is a decent movie, even a good one.

Among general audiences, it's harder to pin down, since we can be sure a number of people fundamentally opposed to this movie's existence from the outset are reflexively giving it low ratings without even having seen it, but unfortunately we can't be sure exactly how many of them there are or what percentage of the total they may be (though we may make reasonable inferences).

[Captain Pirate Man]

Not to sound argumenative, but you are being naive if you don't think this controversy is EXACTLY what the studio wanted. Perhaps not originally, but when they realized they were dealing hostile fans they DID indeed go into full "spin" mode and turn this film into some sort of political statement. Its so glaringly obvious, I'm not sure how you don't see that.

As for the reviews, the majority of the reviews I've read have been along these lines "the movie is very average, but it is a good cause so I'm going to give it a better score." So a C level movie is getting bumped up to a B because it's a "good cause". Well ok, but that doesn't change the fact that it is in reality a very average film. Yes there a glowing positive reviews as well as negative ones, but the majority (and I read a lot) are along the lines of what I said earlier. So in reality, it's an average film.

As for people driving down the audience score on rotten tomatoes, so what? If people feel that strongly about it, that's there prerogative. You might not like it or agree with it, but those things exist and people are using them to speak their minds. That's really the purpose of them isn't it? Sure I suppose you could argue that they are abusing the system, but such is life. Systems are always getting abused across the board.

As for my thoughts on the film (yes I have seen it, but I watched a bootleg copy, I wouldn't pay money to support it). I agree with the vast majority, it's a very average or slightly below average film. It is by no means the "worst film ever made", but it's not NEARLY as good as it's defenders try and claim. To put it bluntly, it has a TON of flaws, they are literally everywhere. The story is down right generic, the writing is pedestrian, the characters are awful (except for some of the main 4 are decent), the villian is literally one of the worst villains to ever Grace a movie screen. He's really that bad and forgettable. The whole thing is really a train wreck imo. Most of the jokes are completely unfunny (some are ok, but not enough).

Honestly I don't blame the actresses one bit for this film, I blame Feig. He did a terrible job on this movie, it's probably his worst film to date. He doesn't understand the Ghostbusters franchise enough to be given the keys to it, clearly. He just made mistake after mistake after mistake. Honestly I don't think he is capable of writing and directing these types of films, he should stick with his traditional stuff. I do think the 4 main actresses were the best part of the film, but as whole I can't say they were good let alone great. Wiig was fine, Jones was fine (even though her character was written horribly). The blonde girls character was a mixed bag for me, funny at times, but super annoying at others. McCartney's character was my least favorite. She just plain annoyed me throughout the whole film, I didn't laugh at her once.

Beyond all that the final thing about this movie that bothers me is they keep attacking Ghostbusters 2 with it. "Well at least it's better than Ghostbusters 2". Really? How is this movie better than GB2. Now I admit GB2 is hardly an all time great film, but IMO it is VASTLY superior than GB2016. Reboot vs sequel aside, GB2 was funnier, more consistant, better more original plot (yes I know the film uses the same beats as the original, but the overall plot is original), and the villian is actually pretty good. No Vego isn't great, he's no Gozer, but he is 10X better than the villian in GB2016.

GB1984- 10

GB2- 7.5

GB2016- 4.5

Edited August 13, 2016 by Captain Pirate Man

[x105Black]

I loved Vigo the Carpathian. I really want a minifigure version of him. I don't get all the hate towards Ghostbusters 2. I really enjoyed it.

[Jbricks]

How does this contribute to a productive Ghostbusters film discussion at all, in any way?

Everyone:

I've been watching this thread for a while now, and it's really spiraling out of hand. If you like the movie great, rejoice, talk about it. If you don't like the movie, ok, talk about your dislike if you wish. But don't come here to tell people that they're wrong for liking the movie or worse yet, use this thread as means to incite anger because its supposedly besmirching a 'classic' through the use of actresses.

Thanks!

You're right, this topic is about the movie and not the controversy that Paul Feig inciting harassment and the censorship by Twitter are a part of. I apologize for taking the thread off course. No more activity in this topic from me!

Edited August 13, 2016 by Jbricks

[Captain Pirate Man]

I loved Vigo the Carpathian. I really want a minifigure version of him. I don't get all the hate towards Ghostbusters 2. I really enjoyed it.

I think it's because it follows the same beats as the original. Also making the statue of liberty walking was a mistake.

[Blondie-Wan]

Not to sound argumenative, but you are being naive if you don't think this controversy is EXACTLY what the studio wanted. Perhaps not originally, but when they realized they were dealing hostile fans they DID indeed go into full "spin" mode and turn this film into some sort of political statement. Its so glaringly obvious, I'm not sure how you don't see that.

That's different from them having intentionally manufactured the controversy from the outset, though, which is more like what you said; it's also close to what I said. You're disagreeing more here with your own previous statement than with mine.

As for the reviews, the majority of the reviews I've read have been along these lines "the movie is very average, but it is a good cause so I'm going to give it a better score." So a C level movie is getting bumped up to a B because it's a "good cause". Well ok, but that doesn't change the fact that it is in reality a very average film. Yes there a glowing positive reviews as well as negative ones, but the majority (and I read a lot) are along the lines of what I said earlier. So in reality, it's an average film.

Average at worst; the majority of the reviews skew better. I'm basing that not just on the reviews I've seen, but upon the overall aggregate scores compiled by aggregator sites.

As for people driving down the audience score on rotten tomatoes, so what? If people feel that strongly about it, that's there prerogative. You might not like it or agree with it, but those things exist and people are using them to speak their minds. That's really the purpose of them isn't it? Sure I suppose you could argue that they are abusing the system, but such is life. Systems are always getting abused across the board.

They are, but rarely like this; Ghostbusters is getting "special treatment", as it were. Also, just because people do it doesn't make it right. If this movie gets an unusually high number of "1" ratings from people who haven't even seen it, it stacks the deck against the movie.

As for my thoughts on the film (yes I have seen it, but I watched a bootleg copy, I wouldn't pay money to support it). I agree with the vast majority, it's a very average or slightly below average film. It is by no means the "worst film ever made", but it's not NEARLY as good as it's defenders try and claim. To put it bluntly, it has a TON of flaws, they are literally everywhere. The story is down right generic, the writing is pedestrian, the characters are awful (except for some of the main 4 are decent), the villian is literally one of the worst villains to ever Grace a movie screen. He's really that bad and forgettable. The whole thing is really a train wreck imo. Most of the jokes are completely unfunny (some are ok, but not enough).

Honestly I don't blame the actresses one bit for this film, I blame Feig. He did a terrible job on this movie, it's probably his worst film to date. He doesn't understand the Ghostbusters franchise enough to be given the keys to it, clearly. He just made mistake after mistake after mistake. Honestly I don't think he is capable of writing and directing these types of films, he should stick with his traditional stuff. I do think the 4 main actresses were the best part of the film, but as whole I can't say they were good let alone great. Wiig was fine, Jones was fine (even though her character was written horribly). The blonde girls character was a mixed bag for me, funny at times, but super annoying at others. McCartney's character was my least favorite. She just plain annoyed me throughout the whole film, I didn't laugh at her once.

Well, this is one of those "opinion" things where we simply disagree, and that's all there is to it.

Beyond all that the final thing about this movie that bothers me is they keep attacking Ghostbusters 2 with it. "Well at least it's better than Ghostbusters 2". Really? How is this movie better than GB2. Now I admit GB2 is hardly an all time great film, but IMO it is VASTLY superior than GB2016. Reboot vs sequel aside, GB2 was funnier, more consistant, better more original plot (yes I know the film uses the same beats as the original, but the overall plot is original), and the villian is actually pretty good. No Vego isn't great, he's no Gozer, but he is 10X better than the villian in GB2016.

GB1984- 10

GB2- 7.5

GB2016- 4.5

I actually like Ghostbusters 2 myself, and I agree it gets a bum rap, but I just honestly don't think it's as good as the reboot. It simply doesn't have as much humor in it, or as much heart. I'd probably go more like this:

Ghostbusters (1984): 10

Ghostbusters 2: 6.5

Ghostbusters (2016): 8

But different strokes, and all that.

Sometime I might come back to this thread and do a long-form breakdown of the new movie and why I think it's good, but honestly, this discussion is wearing me out. I also just really don't want to trap myself into getting into heated Internet arguments over movies in general, especially if they lead to dumb things like getting yelling at people I otherwise like and want to be on good terms with, since we share a community and all. It's counterproductive. At least we can agree the '84 original is a classic, and LEGO is the best toy ever; perhaps we should just leave it at that.

Edited August 13, 2016 by Blondie-Wan

[Captain Pirate Man]

Edited August 13, 2016 by Captain Pirate Man

[LEGODalekbuster523]

For the record the Nostolgia Critic review I mentioned was not a negative or positive review. It was a commentary about how ridiculous this debate has gotten.

I can't believe he portrayed those of us who were slamming the sexists in a negative light. We were the heroes of the hour.

[Actor Builder]

I can't believe he portrayed those of us who were slamming the sexists in a negative light. We were the heroes of the hour.

People "Slamming The Sexists" were "The Heroes of The Hour"?

That's ridiculous. Hear me out as best you can...

Sexism is bad, sure.

But "slamming sexists" does not make one a hero. It makes one just like the sexists. pointlessly bashing others on the internet.

The true heroes were the ones who fought sexism somehow without stooping to a level of simply "Slamming".

Your logic ends up looking a lot like this schoolyard fight I just made up:

Three friends sit on a stool. they are Fred, Juan And Arnold.

"You're stupid!" Fred says to Juan.

"No, You're stupid!" Arnold interjects, defending Juan.

And Arnold was the hero that day.

When in reality, none of the three characters was a hero in the slightest. No one did anything beneficial whatsoever.

[Forresto]

I think the problem with the ghostbusters controversy is that there was a fog of war and nobody really knows who was or is on whose side. There were those who didnt like the movie as they were indeed sexist whilst others didnt because they simply did not enjoy it. Likewise there are people are probably enjoyed it due to the movie having an all female cast and those who liked it since they simply believed it to be good.

My point being I think people are getting generalized into groups they dont neccesarily belong as per usual with the internet. Then of course this so called hanmer of justice will occasionally fall on the wrong person. There are no two sides to this issue, its a work of art and there will be many different interpretations.

I think if someone says something sexist you just tell them dude thats not cool and move on with your life. You dont have to shame them or curse at them. Simply say thats not ccool and walk away. But dont assume people are sexist and go after them.

Edited August 24, 2016 by Forresto

[Digger of Bricks]

 

[Tariq j]

I'm really looking forward to this, although we don't know who's socming back, I have a feeling the premise is going to be like the new Star Wars films with the original actors passing the torch onto a new set of Ghostbusters. 

[Digger of Bricks]

On 1/17/2019 at 7:38 AM, Tariq j said:

I'm really looking forward to this, although we don't know who's socming back, I have a feeling the premise is going to be like the new Star Wars films with the original actors passing the torch onto a new set of Ghostbusters. 

Screen Rant - The New Ghostbusters Will Reportedly Be Teens in Sequel

Quote

According to Birth. Movies. Death., it is now believed that the main characters in the new film will be kids around the age of 12 or 13. While presently unconfirmed, sources suggests there will be as many as four teenage protagonists - two girls and two boys. Another report only mentions two kids, but the character descriptions bear a striking resemblance to traits held by Ramis’ and Aykroyd’s characters in the original. Allegedly, the film will center on a “family who moves back home to a small town…[and] learn more about who they are and the secrets of the town itself.”

 

Edited January 18, 2019 by Digger of Bricks

[WelcometoSaturn]

I think I am missing the point. I do not think we need a new generation of ghostbusters at the point.. look how the last one turned out 

[Digger of Bricks]

On 2/4/2019 at 12:57 PM, WelcometoSaturn said:

I think I am missing the point. I do not think we need a new generation of ghostbusters at the point.. look how the last one turned out 

Well, nonetheless...

Screen Rant - Ghostbusters 2020 Director Confirms Main Cast, Including McKenna Grace

 

I don't know, I'm not a Ghostbusters kinda guy, but that Stranger Things' Finn Wolfhard is in this is sorta cool. Perhaps it'll be better than what everyone else had said about the 2016 reboot. 

[Noctina Noir]

Watched the movie recently on FX. Found it...rather dull honestly. Like it had some interesting ideas but it really REALLY needed to be edited down. Some of the jokes dragged or just felt awkward.
That being said, I am enjoying their comic run. They are greatly funnier (even the LEGO Dimensions version of the movie had me laughing a lot) and they actually try and explore different stories than more or less retreading the original which is kinda what GB 2 and sort of the video game did. Actually the comics had done a mostly female team story arc a couple years prior to the 2016 and would have been a great base for the movie especially since it involved notable story points from the fist two films. I don't hate the movie. I'm just like "oh it exists" and just move on.

Edited May 27, 2019 by Noctina Noir

[Digger of Bricks]