Sorry, you're not allowed to talk about it. You weren't old enough.



(By the way, awesome anecdote!)

Of course you are.

But you agree, though, that it pales in comparison to the original, right? And it lacks the wit and charm of the original, wouldn't you agree?

I mean, fart and queef jokes? Really?

I would have been against this movie had Adam Sandler and his ilk starred in it. I just don't have the time or (especially) money to waste on a movie that is far less than it should have (and could have) been.

But am I allowed to think (based on what everyone - even it's supporters - have said) that this movie was a wasted opportunity and that they should have done much better? I mean, the low end of OK isn't exactly scintillating praise. The original is a classic - a great movie. No one is arguing that this one is.

I'm not going to claim the new one is a classic, either. But hear me out.

For kids that are 5 to 15 right now? Kids whose parents aren't necessarily huge fans of the original but casual fans, if that?

I don't know, but time will tell on which film these kids revere more. I'm not saying it'll be the new film, but it could be for some/many of them.

And if they DO love this one more than the original, what does it matter to any of us?

As I recall, there was one of each in the film. Maybe two fart jokes total. Maybe. There was definitely a missed opportunity for a great fart joke, and I hate fart jokes.
GB1984 had a dude nibbling on a woman's ear while she was unconscious.

Different humor for different folks, right?

Let me put it to you this way...

Ghostbusters (1984) was one of only a couple comedies that my dad liked. He took my brother and me to go see it and we all loved it. It was one of those great bonding moments. He may have liked it even more than I did. He was 42 at the time, and I was 16. We haven't seen a comedy together since then.

Over a 10-12 year span I kept reading about Aykroyd and Ramis working on scripts for Ghostbusters 3. Each time there is optimism from them that it will get made. I keep hoping that this will be something that my dad and I can enjoy together. So when this whole thing was announced, I knew it wasn't going to be a movie that either one of us would enjoy. So my hopes for a GB3 for the two of us to share were dashed pretty much forever.

Ironically, while I was bitching about this movie my stepmother dragged my dad to see it and he hated it. (She did, too, by the way.)

So the loss of an opportunity to share GB3 with my dad was another thing that made me rather unhappy with this movie. He may or may not be around to see a better Ghostbusters movie in the future that both of us can enjoy together. I hope it gets made, and I hope he's still able to go with me to see it, but I just don't see anyone at Sony making that movie.

It is not as good, yes. I wouldn't say "pales". It's a different style of movie. It's not trying to recreate the original. It's a better "sequel" than GB2 because all GB2 tried to do was up the first one. This at least tried something a little different.

Slimer makes a fart noise when Ray first encounters him.

I understand, but you've probably spent more time typing posts about this movie than the runtime. If I'm not interested in a movie, I just don't go and see it. And I certainly wouldn't argue about the quality of a movie I haven't seen with people who have seen it.

Considering that a some big reasons that the original Ghostbusters was a success were a) the time it came out and b) the career points of the three main stars, I don't think ANYTHING could have come anywhere close to the original.

What I do think is that the group behind this movie tried something different and the reaction to what they did is WILDLY out of proportion to what was actually on the screen. And I do think that sexism plays a big part in that reaction, because it's so far beyond "eh, the movie isn't very good" that something else needs to be at the core of it.

And when you start saying things like the proton packs are too heavy for women to carry, there aren't any "noble" male characters and that picking four women to lead the movie "alienates" 50% of the audience, it makes it seem like there is more going on than just the level of humor.

Draven (and Dan)... see my post above to better explain my emotional ties to the first movie and my unhappiness with the new one.

Yeah, they're doing the exact same thing that they are bitching about.

I'm glad you have that connection with your father. It's a great movie to share like that.

But I guess for me, I knew there was no way Akroyd could have pulled off a quality GB3 because they tried and failed already with GB2. If they were going to do it it would have been then. So I was ready for a different take from a different team.

And the original lives on too, so getting upset about this movie seems silly. You can absolutely not like it and not see it, but pages of comments about how the women involved wouldn't be able to handle it or would alienate men is on a completely different level from "I really wanted to see a new one with the original cast with my dad". That I understand. The weight of their proton packs I do not.

Just because GB2 wasn't great (I still say it's a decent movie with some great characters) doesn't mean that Aykroyd and Ramis couldn't have learned from the mistakes they made with GB2. They are/were very intelligent guys and talented writers. I would never give up on them because of one mediocre movie that followed a great one.

And I think that Aykroyd's idea of a passing the torch movie would have appealed to everyone. My dad, being an older guy, could have TOTALLY related to getting too old to do the physical stuff. And as a retired teacher he would have LOVED seeing the older guys teaching the new Ghostbusters how it's done.

And younger fans could have latched on to the new, multi-ethnic, mixed gender team of Ghostbusters. It could have been a movie that truly showed equality with men & women, blacks, whites, and maybe hispanics working together as equals, but Pascal and Feig didn't want to go there.

It could have been a movie to take my dad to had they gone with the idea above. And I'd bet my life savings that it would have gone over much better than what Pascal and Feig did.

I was just saying that none of it made sense. They had an opportunity to do something cool, and instead did something that was at best just kind of OK, or at worst was absolutely terrible.

Erik, that's a very real, very emotional anecdote. I appreciate the fact that you've shared it with us.

I had another novel of a post written up, but I'm done.

I don't care if people like or hate the movie. I sincerely don't. I don't even care if people see it, per se.

But I think spending countless hours and effort posting thousands of words over the course of at least eight months, about the perceived "anti-male agenda" of a movie you haven't seen is on a level of absurdity and obsession that I've never quite witnessed on this forum before. It's impossible to have a meaningful discussion when that's the case.

I'm not saying you have to see it. For your sake, don't. You'll hate it. This movie clearly isn't for you.

I'm saying I'm done trying to discuss the finer details of the content with you.
You have IDEAS about how each scene plays out, and how the characters interact in the film, but you really have no direct frame of reference to the actual source material. It's like reading the lyrics to a song, and concluding that it has a terrible beat. Someone else might say the beat is terrible, but that doesn't validate the opinion of someone who hasn't heard it.

And when you do see it, IF you do see it, you've already built up this months-long katamari of disappointment and anger towards the filmmakers, that it might be impossible for you to look at the film with a clear mind, without warping every minute detail to fit your "this film hates men" narrative.

No disrespect intended. I'm just moving on (finally, he says).

Finally.




I'm sure I overreacted to the whole thing, and I am pretty stubborn, so when someone disagrees I'm going to stand my ground. I'm not wishy-washy. I still think the movie has an agenda, and I still believe it engages in man-bashing, but if someone enjoys it I can't say then that's fine for them. I'm sure I would hate it regardless of any agenda or man-bashing because of the style of humor employed and because of the casting and characters, and it isn't the movie that I hoped to see with my dad for the last 15 years, but I'm pretty much over that part of it. For me in the long run it will just be another in a long line of disappointments.

But if anyone else enjoyed it, more power to you. I can't share that enjoyment, but I'll respect it.

So ... Yeah ... Um ... This is awkward ... Does that mean the internet is over?

Glad to see the peace pipes are out... honestly, I'm just looking forward to moving on. I likely will never even watch this movie... and my enjoyment of GB1 & 2 will be no different than it was a yr ago. We can all dream about what a GB3 would've looked like, but that is likely all it will ever be. Who knows, maybe the new animated series will be good...

Movie sucked. Just like all the people involved in making it.

The one who gave this the green light has already been fired. "Justice" has already been served.

Star Trek 2 opens with a training sequence. I'm the furthest fucking thing from a Treker and I know this. Get with it.

I'm sure I'll end up liking this more than I should (when it comes on cable). I just can't stand this Hollywood trend of gender switching. I wonder what the reaction to this movie would be if it was an original idea and we hadn't had the two previous movies.

It really is a cheap gimmick, and it seems to be getting more and more prevalent as the years go by. It's like all it takes to get a movie greenlit is to go into a pitch meeting and say "It's Ghostbusters, but with women." Or "It's Oceans 11 but with women."

Erasing history ... It goes from a high concept film to ... The high concept film the original was. It certainly would not have garnered the backlash it received but also would not have gotten the attention it received. I think it would have toiled along in mediocrity since many would not have gone to see it based on the trailers.

Melissa McCarthy would have been the featured draw in the advertising and it would probably earn on par with previous Melissa McCarthy movies.

It would have been what it is: a middling comedy. I believe the name brand helped it, but without that it would have done OK. Here's a shake-up though: had the name brand not existed, Sony would not have spent as much on marketing and this probably would have hit the benchmark for a sequel.

Wrath of Khan? The training sequence is for Saavik, who's a woman. It's not for Kirk.

It's a simulation for everyone. And they do the kobyashi maru and then there's a great deal of discussion about Kirk's performance on the same test. It's been a few years but I believe that's the gist of it. It certainly demonstrates that training goes on and that Kirk has experienced this training and continues to grapple with the lesson.

I don't think that anyone in the audience thought Kirk didn't have training. But the argument is that, many times, female action heroes who are the leads usually are shown getting extensive training, or have a detailed origin story, in order to to explain their abilities or badassery. Male action heroes who are the leads, more often, are not shown in the training phase. That's why something like Batman Begins was a novelty, at least for the character in film, because we saw step-by-step how he became a crime fighter.

Yeah, it's mentioned how the male lead, Kirk, had to take the Kobayashi Maru test like everyone else. But audiences were introduced to the character (TV and film) without having actually seen him take the Kobayashi Maru test, or any other kind of training, unlike Saavik.

Also, the male lead was able to win the no-win battle simulation.

Also it took almost twenty years from the original air date of Star Trek to flesh out the training backstory of Kirk, and only then to highlight an important aspect of his character (and foreshadow events later in the film).

I'm sorry, are you serious? The training montage is one of the most overused tropes in Hollywood, regardless of sex. I would say in this case sex has nothing to do with it -- the training sequences serve to advance the story (albeit often as a clunky and lazy mechanism).

By the way -- spoiler -- Kirk cheated so your argument is invalid.

Maybe I'm having a brain fart or haven't watched the right movies. Name some training montages featuring a female character. I'm not saying there aren't any, I'm just saying I'm not thinking of any. I don't recall seeing Furiosa take her driver's education test. That lengthy segment of Ripley studying to gain her end loader' license, I missed it.

Batman Begins was not a novelty, the whole point of the movie was how Bruce Wayne becomes Batman -- the training, the emotional journey, etc.

It would only invalidate my argument if Kirk's cheating was portrayed to have a detrimental affect on his ability, or have it be a secret shame. Instead, his rigging of the Koyabashi Maru test is a source of pride, and is shown as an example of Kirk's ingenuity, his determination to win. Kirk's cheating on the test was even awarded with a commendation by Starfleet for "original thinking."

When I made that post I had assassins movies in mind: John Woo's The Killer, and Luc Besson's Leon: The Professional. The leads are both men, and right away they're shown to be assassins. No origin played out on screen prior to their introduction as killers. No lengthy training sequences to explain how these men are such capable killing machines.

Then there's Columbiana and La Femme Nikita. The first film shows the traumatic origin of Zoe Saldana's character as a child, and shows her asking her uncle to train her as a hired killer.

In Nikita, the title character is shown vulnerable and broken, and trained by a secret organization prior to her adventures as a hit woman.


Novelty as in "the quality of being new, original, or unusual," according to the dictionary definition. Batman Begins was the 5th Batman film from Warner Bros, but the first one to actually show in depth his origin and training, as well as showing these things prior to Bruce Wayne fighting as Batman.