Ghosbusters (2016) · 12:52am Mar 6th, 2016
A couple of days ago, we saw the release of the trailer for the new, all lady version of the Ghostbusters. For those of you who haven't seen it, it is below.
I have some severe mixed feelings about this movie.
I've never been opposed to the idea of an all female Ghostbuster team. It's a stance that I feel somewhat alone on, just based on what I've read around the interwebs. That constant kevetching that I've run into has really made me want to support the movie for that reason alone.
But, oh lord, did this trailer make that hard. In so many ways, it feels like the things that bugged me the most about Star Wars: The Force Awakened are being mirrored here. Watching the trailer, got the distinct feeling that the movie is going to go through all of the story beats of the first movie, just to prove that it is a "Ghostbuster" movie. We have the hearse, we have Leslie Jones as the "working class" character like Earnie Hudson was in the original, etc, etc. Because its a reboot, I suspect, and we have to try and get the original fans invested again somehow.
Speaking of Leslie Jones, seeing her get stuck being the "sassy loud black lady" in the trailer was rather...cringe worthy. I hope that her character has more too it in the actual film.
It's a shame, really.
Personally, I would have set the new movie in the same universe as the originals, but in a different city. I'd probably choose Atlanta or New Orleans. Some city with a more haunted reputation than New York, with our ladies working out how to make the proton technology on their own. Then you could have the movie end with a cameo from some of the original cast, officially extending an offer to our new characters to become the first Ghostbusters franchise. Because I can totally see Peter Venkman thinking that's a fantastic idea. You'd think that something like that would have immediately popped into the studio's mind, considering that this is the era of shared universes and continuities in movies.
I hope that I'm wrong, but I'm a little weary right now. Only time will tell now.
Yeah, that's looking like a regrettably giant... meh
Wouldve worked better if they brought in the original members as a mentor figures of a sort. Alternately work off of the 'Extreme Ghostbusters' storyline
It just feels like they turned Ghostbusters into a chick flick.
I'll probably enjoy it the same way I enjoyed the Nightmare on Elm Street reboot.
I seem to have the unique ability to not instantly compare remakes or reboots to the originals, being able to judge them entirely on their own merits.
I'd like to offer an alternative view: The trailer was put together by an idiot.
When you really look at it, it's just a bad trailer. The Civi War trailer has the exact same problem of having no energy; you see the trailer and you aren't excited for the film. The audio backing makes a big difference.
Consider the trailer for Prometheus. Visually, there's not much there, but the audio backing makes it sound exciting and dangerous (more so than the film actually was).
It might be easier to show what I mean. Here is a fan recut of the GB16 trailer. Watch it, and then honestly tell me that this trailer, which is only half the length of the official one, is not ten times better:
I still don't have high hopes for the movie, since what little information we have suggests it has a bad script, but the trailer can make all the difference.
My greatest gripe is that I find the characters weak compared to the original ones. Not one jokes in the trailer made me laugh, as if the execution isn't preformed that well. The trailer so far seem to have the concept of ghostbusters but lack the spirit. The closed thing that made me laugh in the entire trailer was when one of the characters gets possessed and is then exorcised with a few bitch slaps and a praise to the lord. But later thinking it actually now makes me frown.
I will give the movie a chance but to be honest I really start to think this movie is going to become a big flop. The characters seem simple lacklustre to me. While humour is subjective to me it seems the humour we have seen so isn't the humour we all know and love from the original ghostbuster movies.
3793242
Meh, really is the best way to sum up my feelings about it. A resounding "Meh."
3793343
The fact that they decided to go reboot rather than being a continuation of the existing universe feels strange in this era of unified continuity and serialized storytelling.
3793585
Chick-flick...huh. What's kind of your standard there, the fact that it's an all female main cast? It's not a romantic comedy, the ladies are doing ghost busting stuff. I'm not getting what makes this a "chick-flick".
3793589
I think that my whole thing comes down to the fact that I want to be shown new things and build off of what came before. And while reboots can show new things and do new takes on existing material, a lot of times they seem to forget that and tend to just do the original thing again, but worse.
But that's just my opinion of course.
3794387
While I agree that this trailer was bad, I'm not sure I agree that the Civil War trailer was bad. I certainly got into it at least.
I do like that fan trailer though.
3794426
It is really hard to get a feel for the characters in that trailer. Which might be a problem with the way the trailer was edited like Krusk suggested or the script (also like Krusk suggested). I'm still kind of hoping that I get proven wrong and that its better than the trailer has shown so far though.
3794782
The sad part is that I feel like there's an inkling of a few good ideas in between all the groan inducing "whys". Notably, to go back to your initial post...
To be fair, in the original Winston was pretty much a bland afterthought of a character who added very little to the movie beyond being a token minority. Whatever else might be the case, this new character certainly isn't bland, and I actually kind of like the way the film seems to be giving her an actual role in the team as the streetwise tough girl to contrast the trio of nerdy scientists. Unfortunately what little credit that introduction earned went flying out the window for me when she turns into an over the top caricature of a black preacher for the exorcism scene.
Issues of racism aside, I'm even more worried about the sexism angle. Not so much from the movie, but more so from the potential audience reaction. I fear that should it bomb as badly as the current trailer backlash on the internet suggests that all blame will fall on being a supposed "chick flick" and that Hollywood will learn entirely the wrong lesson.
Same here... although it's not like Marvel studios really needs to hype up their own films at this point to get audiences excited. They probably could have just filmed Chris Evans sitting in a chair and bluntly declaring, "Go see my movie," and it'd work almost as well.
3794814
I disagree here, since it seems to me that Winston was intended to be the straight man of the group. His presence helps to actually heighten the rest of the comedy because we can count on him to treat ridiculous situations as they actually are: Ridiculous. He was, at the end of the day, an audience proxy who showed up for the paycheck and stayed on because he had a job to do.
Jones' character, by contrast, is intended to be humorous, and not for nothing, this kind of character is sort of what her comedy is. She played the same types of characters of SNL, and I think that might hurt the film because we don't have anyone to ground the rest of the cast. At the end of the day, she's another exaggerated character who shows up because it looks like fun and stays on because the script demands it.
3794814
The sexisim aspect has already been kicking in from my experience. The complaints about the movie have basically had that that feeling since it was first announced with an all female cast. And what sucks about all of those complaints, is that they kind of tar criticism of the movie with the same brush. How can you come across as raising legitimate issues about the film, when you got the "LOL, iz cause they're women!" crowd over there?
3794944
Maybe that's how things worked out in the retrospect, but I sincerely doubt it was actually intentional considering the original choice for the role was Eddie Murphy.
All that aside, Ernie Hudson's performance could have still been just as much a straight man while still also having an actual investment in the plot beyond just random guy off the streets looking for a pay check. That's what I appreciate, about Leslie Jones new character actually having something to contribute to the team, at least in her initial introduction. Though I will agree that if her overall performance is only played for laughs that would be a problem.
That said, I must dispute the notion that a comedy cast needs a designated straight man. We're presumably all pony fans here, so just look at the ManeSix for example. Every single one of the has their own funny quirks (even AJ) and all of then take turns being the straight man in different way (including Pinkie). That's what makes them such a dynamic cast, because they aren't solely defined by a singular role and can change it depending on the needs of the plot to keep things fresh and interesting.
3795015
The crux there is that there is still a straight man. Based on what we've seen from the trailer, there isn't one in GB16 at all.
3795407
I don't know about that. Melissa McCarthy's character as Abby Yates seemed to have at least a few straight man moments. Which would make sense as she seems to be the Egon Spengler counterpart who was more or less the group's secondary straight man, and primary before Winston came in midway through.
Plus the trailer only provides a small sampling of the films, and it's not uncommon for advertising to eschew the straight man bits of comedy in favor of cramming in as many non-contextual jokes as possible. It's still entirely possible that from scene to scene each of the cast wile their own turn playing the straight man.