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Ghostbusters


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I saw the movie a few days ago. I liked it well enough. Of the main cast, the only one that didn't really click for me was Wiig, but she wasn't horrible. McCarthy had enough moments eventually where they allowed her to play things somewhat straight, which is when I like her the best (as in Spy, which I thought was quite good). McKinnon was just all around interesting, which I was hoping for. Jones was also quite good outside of the her moments that they kept showing in the trailers, which I didn't think were funny due to the writing, not her.

 

I am glad that they let each of them be their own new characters and not just ape the original four. The story wasn't anything great, but it didn't really need to be. I enjoyed the various cameos, including the way they managed to work in Ramis.

 

Everything involving academia was pretty terrible, but that's pretty much par for the course in most movies.

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I really don't understand the "childhood ruination" thingy. I mean, I WAS a child, and now I'm an adult (some of the time). The stuff I enjoyed way back then STILL happened. They didn't send a T-1000 back in time and prevent the original from ever existing, I can still watch the original whenever I want. Can someone explain this viewpoint to me? And if you can't, how about telling me if you liked this movie or not?

See, I can't understand why people don't understand the basic psychology of this. I'm sure it feels perfectly logical, but it really doesn't make much sense when you realize that we view things like entertainment subjectively, and the experience surrounding something does make a difference.

 

Let's say you and your family went out about once a year on special occasions to dinner and you all found that you loved the red snapper they prepared for you. So it's that time of year again and your family goes out... and someone messes up in the kitchen with the preparation and your whole family comes down with a nasty case of food poisoning.

 

How does that effect your memories of the original dishes? Chances are, your memories of the good meals are now tarnished by spending 48 hours afraid of getting more than 50 feet from the toilet. Yes, the original meals haven't been objectively changed by the unfortunate experience, but are you really going to look at people like there's something wrong with them if they tell you that they can't look at a red snapper again without feeling a bit queasy instead of having their mouth water at the memory of the good meals like it once did?

 

So much of our enjoyment of various forms of entertainment is intricately wrapped around the totality of our feelings for a subject. Driver once basically told me I was imagining wrong because I said that the Star Wars EU being erased from existence changed the way I felt about it. To me, it made perfect sense that being told that the stories I'd read no longer mattered and were no longer the fates of Luke, Han, and Leia made me sad and has tinged the way I remember them. Yes, to a large extent, the EU deletion from Star Wars did cause me to lose a piece of my teenage and early adult years when I knew those stories backwards and forwards.

 

You may not believe that it's logical, but dammit, you need to accept that it is the way I feel and anyone who lets subsequent experiences tinge their feelings about something does not need someone else coming along and pointing out that the original material is unchanged. It just comes across as patronizing when that argument is made, and I guarantee that there are experiences in your life ranging from your taste in movies to former loves that you can no longer stand to think of despite once experiencing some of the greatest highs of your life their arms.

 

We're all human, we all have emotions that tinge our views on subjective matters.

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That's not the problem. The problem comes when you combine the inability to accept things change with the fact that large swaths of fandom assume ownership over franchises they love. So when it changes, they lose their damn minds.

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That's a somewhat separate topic, but I'll tackle it.

 

Fandoms assuming ownership is generally a wonderful thing. Without that, most of the beloved franchises would have died long ago. You seem to have become rather antagonistic towards the very lifeblood that supports these IPs. And they're usually right. Hollywood generally sucks at converting these properties. Misunderstanding them, and then force feeding the new vision onto the audiences.

 

You can look at your own comments about the opening scroll in the trailer thread, which basically was met with an "Aw man" from a few of us.

 

Crawl, I see merits either way, but the sheer fact that fandom always seems to fear change makes me cool with them ditching it. -Driver

 

I get that you were somewhat joking when you made that comment. But, then again, I think you'll admit that part of you was also being serious. Why would I want someone with that attitude towards the people that care playing with my toys? Sometimes having to make decisions that upset the fans I get that. I understand why Disney went ahead and axed the EU in favor of a fresh start. If the choice is between keeping the EU for the aging fanbase that doesn't even really read the books anymore or making several billion dollars continuing the franchise in the medium it was made for... it's not really all that difficult a decision. But being adversarial towards the audience that is disappointed I don't get, and I suspect that this sort of an attitude is prevalent in the field. This despite it being bad for business as the very nature of relying on known IPs stems from fans providing a built-in audience.

 

And, yes, I get that you're frustrated by the small group of people that take things too far. They are miserable people and, frankly, I doubt they even care all that much about their cause more than they care about spreading their misery. In the case of Ghostbusters in particular, thanks to it becoming its own weird front in the culture wars, it really has little to nothing to do with the actual fans of the original material. Sticking it to the extremists probably does feel good. But, in the mean time, they're also sticking it to the folks that make the IP financially safe and desirable in the first place.

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I was most definitely being serious. My feelings on it are somewhat complicated, and I've avoided fully explaining it, because honestly it makes me sound like a total douchebag... but I'll try...

 

I certainly was, and am still, a part of fandom for most of my life. I'll use Star Wars as the easiest example. I was a huge fan, always had toys well into adulthood, still own lightsabers, and when the PT wasn't what I wanted I may have spent 15 years on this site voicing my complaints.

 

So that said, I know I can't fully remove myself from the behavior I am pointing a finger at.

 

Now let me tell you about my friend Jeremy. He grew up as a big SW fan too. Toys, costumes at cons, read every SW book... etc. I recently posted pics of my new place in the Cantina. Aside from my office, there is not one hint of fandom in my house. As much as I love Star Wars, it doesn't define my taste or lifestyle.

 

Jeremy and his wife have Star Wars art in every room. Toys on every shelf. Their entire house is an adult shrine to Star Wars. Every vacation they save up for is to go to a fan-based experience. I slowly realized as big of a fan I was, there was a ceiling to my love. After going to comic-con for 7 years straight first in the capacity of working, then as a creator, I started to realize something. And this is where the douchey part comes in.

 

As a creator, there is always a part of me that is hyper-critical. I can't help but take stories apart, so in the case of the age-old PT lover attack YOU THINK YOU COULD DO BETTER!? a lot of times, yes, I think I could. I slowly started to see that professional level creatives, 99% of the time, aren't capable of loving anything so unequivocally as a fanboy.

 

There are exceptions of course. I have a friend who has been a TV writer for decades and has worked on a lot of scifi shows-- and yet he always cosplays at Dr. Who conventions. There's lots of actors who claim to be comic geeks, and to an extent they are, but it all comes down to one word: PRECIOUS.

 

A skilled creative knows that they cannot be precious about their work, otherwise they'll never be able to handle scrutiny. NOTHING is precious if you want to work. Even an introvert novel writer has to get past their editor, publisher, and ultimately their audience.

 

Working for CBR, I shot interviews with pretty much every a-list comic creative there is. And while all of them were geeks to the extent that they were working on properties they'd been reading as a kid, NONE of them held their beloved characters in a precious space where they couldn't change things up.

 

That fear of change is something that I quickly grew very very annoyed by when it comes to fandom. Add in social media, conservative "pandering" comments, and general nerd-rage, I have without a doubt become way more critical of fan culture. Being on the inside, and recognizing the business models hasn't helped. And while it has ruined some of the movie magic for me, I'm also excited by the challenge to not just be creative in a vacuum-- cause anyone can do that.

 

In the Power Rangers thread you had some disdain over the fact that I had read a script for a movie ahead of time and ruined that magic. Despite it being my job to be aware of what is in development, that made me realize further the distinction between fandom and professional creativity.

 

I didn't want to be the person in the audience being wow'ed by a magician. I've always wanted to see the wires, look behind the mirror and know how the trick was done.

 

And also, frankly, the amount of hatemail I've gotten from hardcore fans of the franchise I'm working on, angry over something they haven't even seen cause it hasn't come out yet, has been an interesting perspective to add in. I definitely no longer see myself as a fanboy, and the whinier fandom is about something, the less I feel inclined to listen to them.

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What you're describing is a common phenomenon I've found across all professions: Everyone hates their customers.

 

You go into any break room in this country and you'll find complaints about how customers are whiny, needy little things that make demands on you that sometimes don't make sense and that inconvenience to your work day. They're rude, obnoxious, and entitled, yet the customer's always right and, much as you'd like, unless you work in a government office, you can't fire them. Heck, your line of work actually allows you more leeway than most people to ignore the wants of the customer than most due to creativity. Oddly enough, as far behind the magic as you're describing, the proper answer is, "Welcome to the real world."

 

Also, I get where it's a pain to constantly have to deal with a group that insists things have to be this certain way. And that certain way isn't even consistent from customer to customer. I also get that several someones out there really thought the Deadpool of Origins: Wolverine was an idea that would fly. Jesse Eisenberg somehow made it past the first day of filming of Batman v. Superman without the entire creative team asking themselves what they were thinking and desperately scrambling for a replacement.

 

Fans have been crapped on from above many a times. These days, we even feel sorry for Jem fans that we didn't even realize still exist. Is it any wonder that there's a level of mistrust on their end as well? Nerd rage is sometimes justified after all.

 

In the end, the desire to just say "screw the fans" and get enjoyment out of their discomfort only makes this worse. They are the people who are purchasing your product.

 

In the Power Rangers thread you had some disdain over the fact that I had read a script for a movie ahead of time and ruined that magic.

 

I thought we cleared this up? I was making a flippant comment about how Power Rangers sucks. As I said over there, I do some light beta reading duties on the side (it's actually what I should be doing right now instead of writing on this thread). It'll shock you to learn, I'm sure, that I can be a nit-picky son of a ***** and half the time I'm wondering when the authors will call me an ass**** after I send them 15 pages' worth of criticisms about one chapter and never talk to me again.

 

There's no fear from me about going behind the magic. And, yeah, it's placed me somewhat outside the fandom.

 

 

 

As a creator, there is always a part of me that is hyper-critical. I can't help but take stories apart, so in the case of the age-old PT lover attack YOU THINK YOU COULD DO BETTER!? a lot of times, yes, I think I could. I slowly started to see that professional level creatives, 99% of the time, aren't capable of loving anything so unequivocally as a fanboy.

 

Hey, I don't hold much for that defense either. As noted above, I've got a mindset of ripping things apart as well. When I'm casually reading a book these days, I'm constantly making little criticisms in my head for how this or that could have been done better, how something is cliched, little continuity errors, pacing, characterization, word choice, climax issues, etc. Once you start thinking that way, it's difficult to turn it off.

 

I don't see that as being inconsistent with being a fan though. Heck, anyone who watches a series will run across the occasional bad episode of something that they will rightly criticize. Part of being a fan is caring enough to criticize in the first place. And I don't think there are many fans whose glasses are rose-tinted enough to find the first season of TNG or several episodes of TOS to be high art.

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  • 2 weeks later...

You may not believe that it's logical, but dammit, you need to accept that it is the way I feel and anyone who lets subsequent experiences tinge their feelings about something does not need someone else coming along and pointing out that the original material is unchanged. It just comes across as patronizing when that argument is made, and I guarantee that there are experiences in your life ranging from your taste in movies to former loves that you can no longer stand to think of despite once experiencing some of the greatest highs of your life their arms..

Whoa,..no need to get all pissy. It wasn't my intention to be patronizing. A but wise-ass yes, but it's only because I really don't understand this. I appreciate you taking the time to try and lay it all out like that, and I understand your associative psychology point...but I STILL don't understand exactly how it applies. Sticking with your example:

 

Let's say you and your family went out about once a year on special occasions to dinner and you all found that you loved the red snapper they prepared for you. So it's that time of year again and your family goes out... and someone messes up in the kitchen with the preparation and your whole family comes down with a nasty case of food poisoning.

 

How does that effect your memories of the original dishes? Chances are, your memories of the good meals are now tarnished by spending 48 hours afraid of getting more than 50 feet from the toilet. Yes, the original meals haven't been objectively changed by the unfortunate experience, but are you really going to look at people like there's something wrong with them if they tell you that they can't look at a red snapper again without feeling a bit queasy instead of having their mouth water at the memory of the good meals like it once did?.

I totally empathize with never looking at snapper or going near that restaurant ever again. If you had told me the movie sucked so bad you wanted to throw up, and will never see any more Paul Fieg movies, Melissa McCarthy movies or Ghostbusters movies ever again for as long as you lived, i'd say.."Wow, okay then. Thats terrible...but I get it."

 

However, When you say..."That awful red snapper gave me the ultimate case of food poisoning! That restaurant was central to so many great family vacations...it RUINED my childhood!"...I would probably chuckle a bit thinking you were exagerating and trying to be funny. At this point, if I'm told "You are 100% serious, and your childhood is now ruined", I become puzzled. I wonder if, in addition to some rotten snapper, this restaurant was put on too high a pedestal.

 

That's a somewhat separate topic, but I'll tackle it.

 

What the hell is it with you and fish
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  • 11 months later...

Finally saw it.

 

It was okay. I don't understand why anyone cares about it either way, but especially don't understand the hate. Except some people just don't get enough hugs.

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  • 5 months later...

Just watched this:

 

As far as remakes go, Id give this a solid C. The cast was fun, the ghosts looked cool and the gadgets were neat.

 

I feel like with minor tweaking the film could have been related in story to the past Ghostbusters rather than just in premise.

 

I feel like Patty should have been more than an average person, perhaps a paranormal trivia nerd if not a scientist.

 

This film falls into the same problem as many do for me in regards to it being so pretty and clear, I like my adventuring stories to feel like films and so I miss the grain.

 

My kids liked the movie, my daughter saw it opening weekend, I just watched it with the boys thanks to Starz streaming. When the credits stopped rolling my wife said, This was a horrible use of my Saturday night. lol She did appear to enjoy some moments however as I saw her smiling at McKinnons and Thors jokes.

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Guest El Chalupacabra

 

 

I feel like with minor tweaking the film could have been related in story to the past Ghostbusters rather than just in premise.

I didn't bother with this movie, and for this reason, I didn't. It TOTALLY should have been a sequel to the original films. They even went to the trouble of having cameos from original cast members....so why NOT relate it to the original films?

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