The Ghostbusters Thread (Old, New, Animated, Whatever)

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This is very encouraging, and I mean that unironically. Keep in mind, it was precisely the reverse for Fembusters. Am seeing it tonight, will update the thread with my thoughts
 
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Vyse Inglebard said:
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This is very encouraging, and I mean that unironically. Keep in mind, it was precisely the reverse for Fembusters. Am seeing it tonight, will update the thread with my thoughts
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I mean despite the reviews, box office analysis are still claiming that the movie is set to still be placed number one this weekend as Thursday's nights previews have doubled its predecessor so far. I'm still planning on seeing it sometime this evening and I'll hope to give out my two cents on it
 
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Hardly anybody is talking about this movie. Not a very good sign.
I didn't really like or hate the last one. It was just Stranger Things. I like Stranger Things, but that's not really what I want in a Ghostbusters movie.
This new one looks like more of the same.
 
I thought 2 was okay.

I thought the 2016 film was a creative and comedic failure in just about every way.

I never bothered with Afterlife and I completely forgot this one was coming out.
 
I thought Afterlife was just "okay." Neither bad nor great. Still better than the 2016 abortion and a smidge better than Ghostbusters 2 in that I would give Afterlife a 7/10 whereas Ghostbusters 2 I would give a 6/10 or maybe a 6.5 depending on my mood.

All I wanted to see is the remaining 3 guys in the suits doing one last ghost chase and I get that. Movie 3 happened. We got it. It was satisfactory and that's all it needed to be. No reason to keep going and spin the wheels.
 
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Travoltron said:
Hardly anybody is talking about this movie. Not a very good sign.
I didn't really like or hate the last one. It was just Stranger Things. I like Stranger Things, but that's not really what I want in a Ghostbusters movie.
This new one looks like more of the same.
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Well I've got good news for you - Frozen Empire definitely feels more like a Ghostbusters movie than Afterlife did. The older Ghostbusters actually have a bigger role to play in the story this go around, and they're not just sad old men, either - all 3 of them operate a paranormal research facility. Also a poo-in-the-loo is portrayed as a money-grubbing deadbeat, which, uh, based and redpilled?! Are there problems? Yeah, definitely. I feel Phoebe's arc was resolved a bit too quickly. I also would've appreciated a bit more of the Spenglers transitioning to life in NYC. The way it's handled it's like, oh hey, they're in New York and Ghostbusters now. But those are nitpicks at worst. Overall though, Frozen Empire was the movie I wanted Afterlife to be. A solid 8/10.
 
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It just sounds like they're leaning on the old talent to trick people into thinking its good. Kind of like how Star Trek: Picard did that for its third season, and for some retarded reason people gave it a pass. Ignoring that the first two seasons fucking happened and retroactively demolish this one.

I lost interest in this series due to Zombie Harold Ramis, and from what I'm seeing it's still clinging desperately on all the memberberries it can possibly gather. Sounds very mid and forgettable tbh. I will grant at least they weren't retarded enough to just do Gozer again from the synopsis I saw. That would've been lame.
TVB said:
I mean despite the reviews, box office analysis are still claiming that the movie is set to still be placed number one this weekend as Thursday's nights previews have doubled its predecessor so far. I'm still planning on seeing it sometime this evening and I'll hope to give out my two cents on it
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That's not a hard bar given that theaters are somewhat desperate for any new film that might do well. 2023 was so bad for them they've preemptively done retro screenings to fill screens and make money.
 
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Adamska said:
That's not a hard bar given that theaters are somewhat desperate for any new film that might do well. 2023 was so bad for them they've preemptively done retro screenings to fill screens and make money.
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This is why I don't go to theatres as much. Plus, 2023 has been considered to be a rough year for American cinema, as despite having some heavy hitters, were still met with flop after flop that even giant corpos such as WB or Disney couldn't figure out why. Some may believe that the Hollywood strikes were the reason for why it was an unprofitable year, but there hasn't actually been a full concrete story. 2023 was the also the year films such as The Boy and His Heron and Godzilla Minus One were better hits than any of the modern American movies coming out that specific year
 
Frozen Empire had a lot of fun individual scenes and concepts, but they could have used more time to develop them, or just to breathe. About 3/4 of the way through I decided it would have been a better TV series than a movie. The technobabble has reached magical levels and now feels more like plot convenience than nifty sci-fi solutions that follow a vague but consistent set of rules--though to be fair, the original Ghostbusters did plug an NES Advantage into the Statue of Liberty, so I might have been expecting too much. I like the new Spengler family (and their hangers-on) and wish we had more of them. They had to share so much screen time with the antagonist, the legacy characters, and several new characters, that they felt like an afterthought sometimes. Overall, fun was had but it's not an instant classic.

One example of concepts that needed more development, there is Winston's machine that sucks ghosts out of haunted objects and imprisons them. Phoebe asks if this can be used on possessed people and the question is kind of brushed off. It felt like they were setting something up with the possessor ghost, but that was a red herring. Instead, Phoebe decides to use it to suck her own soul out of her body so she can make out with a 150-year-old ghost woman who feels 16. (Still a better story than Twilight.) And the machine has a timer, so her soul will go back into her body, which will still be alive and waiting for her after two minutes. It's not been established that this will actually work; she doesn't try it with an animal model to see if the animal will survive, or even try to put a ghost back into a haunted object. Nor is it established how the timer still functions after ghost-Phoebe leaves the apparatus. So Phoebe is basically committing suicide. There's no reason to think she will survive this process. I get the character arc here--she's smart but has become conceited and makes terrible decisions, just like her grandfather with his autotrepanation. But this is a major plot point, not a throwaway joke. We need a reason to believe this rational character would undertake such a drastic action; hormones and "you're not my real dad" aren't enough. Anyway, after Phoebe separates body and soul, Tall Dark and Horny (TDH) possesses ghost-Phoebe and makes her speak, causing Phoebe's vegetative body to repeat the words. This seems to contradict the entire purpose of the machine, which is to sever the connection between psychic energy and its physical host. Maybe she's still slightly connected to her body because she's not in a containment unit, I don't know. But a soul-separating machine is big enough to carry an entire movie by itself, or a plot thread through several episodes of a TV show.

Strange callbacks and references:
  • The EPA guy is now the mayor of New York. It's not a completely unbelievable career progression, but very unlikely. He'd have a Federal pension by now, and in the current environment he could make a lot of money doing compliance work from home. I know obstructionist bureaucrats are part of the Ghostbusters formula, but most of his scenes could have been removed.
  • The library employee is still around. Apparently his job now is to stand outside the library and tell Ray not to come in. He should have played Patton Oswalt's part as keeper of the rare books.
  • The Real Ghostbusters product line apparently existed, which doesn't seem to mesh with the Ghostbusters' downward trajectory between the first and second films. Maybe they sold off the rights to pay their legal bills.
  • When dickless shut down the power in the first movie, that apparently created a cross-dimensional rift and the firehouse is holding back all the ghosts. Or something. I can't wrap my head around this or why it mattered.
  • It looks like Ray was right: Mr. Stay-Puft would never ever hurt us. He's just kind of a funny pest now. But who knows what they'll do with the industrial quantity of marshmallow they stole at the end?
  • There's a crowd outside the firehouse to cheer the Ghostbusters after they defeat TDH, just like the crowd outside Spook Central in the first movie (but much smaller). How did they know the climax of the movie would occur there? Do people just gather outside the Ghostbusters HQ whenever strange things happen? I guess they are the ones to call. Or maybe Janine has enough media savvy to summon a flash mob and reporters at key moments.
Good callbacks and references:
  • Slimer. That was satisfying.
  • Venkman using negative reinforcement to tease out psychic ability.
  • The library evidently decided it was easier to live with a ghost than invite the 'busters back. But it's not clear why she hulks out at Ray; he's not trying to get her this time.

And Alamo Drafthouse lied about selling collectible pint glasses.
 
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TVB said:
I still think Afterlife is a nothingburger movie. It's nice and the acting is very good, but it's not enough to justify itself as a return to form
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It felt more like they were trying to overcorrect from the deconstructionist, "subversive" nature of GB2016 and went all the way into the sorts of nostalgia projects with a weirdly reverent tone the original projects did not have. Imagine if they restarted say, the Austin Powers franchise like this, a trailer dropping that features a slowed down rendition of "Soul Bossa Nova", a group of people in a garage pull a tarp off of what turns out to be Power's "Shaguar" and gawp in reverence at it, a garment bag is slowly unzipped by a pair of hands, the person off-screen removes a crushed purple velvet suit with a frilly shirt, echo-y sound clips of Austin from the previous movies playing the whole time "yeah baby-y-y-y-y-y", the voice of Michael York heard saying, "He was more than a man of mystery, more than MI6's best agent, more than...(dramatic pause)...your uncle. He was truly...shagadelic." Cue awkward appearance of a CGI Verne Troyer that some commentators say is in bad taste.
 
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HOMO FOR LIFE RETURNS said:
Is this good. What's the kiwi consensus
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If you like Ghostbusters you will like this movie.

Its a bog standard 4th entry movie, 6 to 7 out of 10 and delivers what it said it would.

Im pretty sure someone at Sony hates these movies and is still mad about 2016. If they had dropped this in what is looking like a dead summer it would have sold more, also zero marketing and deliberately putting it next to Kong.
 
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Ok so I watched the movie yesterday (I was supposed to watch it Saturday, but something else came up), and I was surprised here, this was pretty good. It's what Afterlife should have been, as the pacing was way better this time around.
Commander X said:
It felt more like they were trying to overcorrect from the deconstructionist, "subversive" nature of GB2016 and went all the way into the sorts of nostalgia projects with a weirdly reverent tone the original projects did not have. Imagine if they restarted say, the Austin Powers franchise like this, a trailer dropping that features a slowed down rendition of "Soul Bossa Nova", a group of people in a garage pull a tarp off of what turns out to be Power's "Shaguar" and gawp in reverence at it, a garment bag is slowly unzipped by a pair of hands, the person off-screen removes a crushed purple velvet suit with a frilly shirt, echo-y sound clips of Austin from the previous movies playing the whole time "yeah baby-y-y-y-y-y", the voice of Michael York heard saying, "He was more than a man of mystery, more than MI6's best agent, more than...(dramatic pause)...your uncle. He was truly...shagadelic." Cue awkward appearance of a CGI Verne Troyer that some commentators say is in bad taste.
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I don't wanna picture WB/New Line trying to greenlit that trailer for a fourth Austin Powers movie
 
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Crocodylus Acutus said:
Did anyone even know that Frozen Empire was coming out, until days before its box office opening? Maybe the marketing algorithms of the Internet just hate me (or maybe love me, considering the quality of the film), but I saw absolutely no advertising for this movie whatsoever.
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A lot of people in the Red Letter Media thread were talking about how badly this movie was marketed.

This is anecdotal, but I first became aware that there was a new Ghostbusters movie because I saw it advertised as part of a marketing tie-in on a box of frozen pizza at my local supermarket. And I just felt... Well, not even despair. I think I just sighed.

Honestly, it just put me in mind of that bit from Plinkett's Ghostbusters 2016 review, about all the gratuitous product placement (up to and including a literal commercial for Papa John's Pizza being incorporated as part of the film) and how even the blu-ray release of the film was stuffed with ads.

Slightly off topic, perhaps, but I genuinely hate how Sony Pictures does shit like this. I know that every big blockbuster movie has tie-ins and promotions with other brands, but there's just something about how Sony does it that seems especially blatant, unsubtle and whorish. Whether it's Papa John turning up with pizza and getting attacked by Slimer or Paul Rudd pausing the plot of the film to go and walk around WalMart and look at all their great products at affordable prices, I hate it and it just makes the movie seem cheap and tacky.

Commander X said:
Imagine if they restarted say, the Austin Powers franchise like this, a trailer dropping that features a slowed down rendition of "Soul Bossa Nova", a group of people in a garage pull a tarp off of what turns out to be Power's "Shaguar" and gawp in reverence at it, a garment bag is slowly unzipped by a pair of hands, the person off-screen removes a crushed purple velvet suit with a frilly shirt, echo-y sound clips of Austin from the previous movies playing the whole time "yeah baby-y-y-y-y-y", the voice of Michael York heard saying, "He was more than a man of mystery, more than MI6's best agent, more than...(dramatic pause)...your uncle. He was truly...shagadelic." Cue awkward appearance of a CGI Verne Troyer that some commentators say is in bad taste.
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OK, but honestly? Reading that really made me laugh. I can imagine Mike Myers genuinely extracting a lot of comedy out of exactly this conceit.

I miss Austin Powers and would sincerely love another sequel. *sigh*
 
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