Ghostbusters movie by Paul Feig
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oblagon
Sr Member
Few more pics of the new Ecto for those interested.
Not sure if it's been posted before but here's a synopsis of the basic plot that was posted online.
In the new Ghostbusters reboot, Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy are rumored to play Erin Gilbert and Abby Bergman, “a pair of unheralded authors who write a book positing that ghosts are real.”
Not sure if it's been posted before but here's a synopsis of the basic plot that was posted online.
In the new Ghostbusters reboot, Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy are rumored to play Erin Gilbert and Abby Bergman, “a pair of unheralded authors who write a book positing that ghosts are real.”
“Flash forward a few years and Wiig lands a prestigious teaching position at Columbia U. (Like the original, the story takes place in New York City, even though it’s being shot in Boston.) Which is pretty sweet, until her book resurfaces and she is laughed out of academia. Wiig reunites with McCarthy and the other two proton pack-packing phantom wranglers, and she gets some sweet revenge when ghosts invade Manhattan and she and her team have to save the world.”
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KrangPrime
Master Member
I guarantee you they probably where. for sponsorship most likely. now they are just trying to appease the old fans.
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it looks like a fan car who just couldn't find, or afford a 59 hearse...
jlee562
Sr Member
Oh? Is that in the emails? Do share your evidence.
Endless Wonder
Sr Member
Don't love the new Ecto, don't hate it either but MOTHER OF GOD, shrink down the logo on the doors and get rid of the molding down the center!! :facepalm Seriously, who thought running that right through the center of the logo was a good idea?
Yes, but he had to work within the existing framework with the original actors in the same timeline. Not exactly apples to apples.
From what I've read here the majority of complaints seem to be at least partially tied to the fact that this is a reboot and not in the same "universe". Because of that you can't help but directly compare it to the original (which I'm going to flat out say they won't even approach, if only due to the originality of the first) instead of letting it rest on it's own merits.
If Meyer had taken the directing job on ST2 and rebooted the franchise you not only wouldn't have as good of a film (what makes the old Trek films work is the tonnes of established backstory) but you also wouldn't have had a lot of the Trek that followed like TNG, DS9, and Voyager. Because the continuity was maintained they were able to create a vast universe where many crews could shine and although people have their preferences of one crew or character over another, none of them were REPLACEMENTS for other crews. In the ST universe each crew exists and does it's own thing without interference.
That is until JJ Trek... HATE that they did that. That's why I can understand the visceral reaction to this new GB film.
KrangPrime
Master Member
aaaand... every big announcement gets trending on facebook. I just KNOW this turd will be a hit no matter how many naysayers. just like TMNT.
sigh.
sigh.
Westies14
Master Member
call me a hater, I'm not feeling it
Haha I'm sure they will.
The orange stripes bump up against the sleeve logo; the car's molding goes right OVER the door logo? Is ruining the logo as much as he can Feig's way of saying he wished he'd been allowed to scrap that as well?
The respect I had for Feig insisting things be done his way of they hire him (despite my disdain for Sony's capitulating to his demands) is lost with every new image he releases.
"No, Amy, if I'm to Ghostbusters it can't be a sequel to the original or even take place in the same continuity. I need total separation to execute MY vision of Ghostbusters. It's wholly original."
And then he goes on to slightly shift every element of the original film one or two notches. This, to me, is a worst-possible outcome for a 3rd GB approach.
KrangPrime
Master Member
I ws thinking of what a third movie could have been like if you wanted to show peoples fresh reaction to ghosts, have the old team, and set up a new team...here is my rough idea...
TEXT: 25 years later
shot: Exterior NYC. zoom in on rooftop. A lone cloaked figure keeps watch over a boarded up firehouse.
We see something moving. a lone person with a camera sneaking up to the boarded up firehouse.
Zoom in on person.
'hello, and welcome to the live stream of 'The Forgotten'. locations that used to be famous but now long forgotten by the public and boarded up, or abandoned. Today, we are going to try and break in to the famous Ghostbusters firehouse.....20 years ago, they vanished without a trace. And since the general public STILL doesn't belive in ghosts.....and no activity has flared up since they vanished...no one CARES what happened to them. That all changes today'
He climbs the construction fence, over the barbed wire (not without a few choice words), and lands safely in front of the front door..as he walks up to it.
"the world stopped belieiving in ghosts, but I know better. See, I'm a Shandor. My great grandfather apparently went nuts and tried to rule the world. shamed the shandor name for generations. But ever since then, our families been seeing things. strange things. like they are almost attracted to us. so, I've spent my lifetime getting smarter. doctorates mostly. and by the time I Was old enough to do something about it, the ghostbusters dissapeared. I tried to start things on my own...do what they did....but..things didn't go so well..."
Cut to scene of experimental proton pack shooting off like a firework and a constant beam going everywhere..then a small house bursting into flames...
"but all that ends today...today, we solve the mystery....'
he finally comes up on the door and sees it.
"there it is. the lock no one can break. a code so complex....only a ....huh. wait a minute..."
after pressing a few buttons, he notices something...
"it's also a musical lock as well as numbers... you've got to work out the tune as well as the code...I wonder..could they be that vein?"
Presses a few buttons....the ghostbusters theme plays and the door opens...
"yep".
the door opens, lots of DUST flies out. but, out in the middle of that dust....
"there it is...the Ecto one ladies and gentleman. got 20 years of grime on it, but still as georgous as ever! I wonder if it still runs..."
He gets in the car, turns it on, and the engine and lights roar to life...
"oh baby, you bet it does......."
turning off the car....he tours the office...see's peter's desk. and finally, comes across the equipment locker.
another musical lock. same code. but this one looks different.
He hits the keypad, and a small hologram of peter venkman comes out...
"greetings curiosity seeker. if you are smart enough to break that code......and old Egon garunteed at least 25 years before anyone figured it out....."
Egon off in distance "How far off was I?"
Peter: "Egon, you'll never know....anyway...as I was saying....you're smart enough to break the code.. you're smart enough to be able to know the story.
See, for the past 2 years, we've been under attack. constantly. Seems the ghosts don't care for us meddling, and have sent off class 8 bounty hunters
to make sure that we never do again. this is a first. usually we go after them. see, these ghosts need a tremendous amount of energy to cross the
dimensional barriers from the living world, into the dead world. both to and from. So, with the Vigo incident a few years ago, that's when they crossed
over. and they've been biding their time ever since. now, they apparently think the time is right to strike. and they've been very, very good at it."
In comes Ray into the picture.
"So, young adventurer. In case we go missing..."
Peter "Which in this case seems very likely.."
"It will be up to you, if you so choose, to carry on our legacy. All the equipment is here. we even left some instructions on how to maintain it. Hopefully you are a scientist and can figure it out on your own. but if not, no biggie...we won't hold that against you. we don't with Peter."
"In any case....should you choose to carry on our mantle, we have only one request. don't come looking for us. wherever these guys will take us, it won't be a picnic..and will be no place for some untrained...rookie.."
Ray "And, just in case you need some help, we've got that covered too....right Janine?"
The Hologram fades out of existence and everything goes dark.
the forgotten just kind of sits there in shock....but the shocks arn't over yet...
A voice from behind speaks...
"I really wish you hadn't done that."
he turns around in a start, and the cloaked figure reveals herself to be that of janine. keeper of the fire house.
"see, the ghosts have ways to detect our equipment. once they realize it's up and running, they'll be coming for you."
"your Janine melnitz..secretary...you're legendary!"
"It's nice to be remembered....now, come on.....we've got lots of work to do..."
The forgotten recovers long enough to remember that he still has a live stream going...
"So, you've heard the message....whose brave enough to answer the call?"....
camera zooms in on rusty proton pack...
Ghostbusters logo, theme song starts....
another text.... 5 years later.......
The boys are back in action. only a new team. leader, Janine Melnitz. second in comand, Shandor. Third and fourth in command, two people watching the live stream.
Solo4114
Master Member
Yeah, that's not how Hollywood works.
The whole point of this film is to use the no-ghosts logo.
But see, this just highlights the issues with doing a true reboot. It's what always ends up screwing things up, and why I view such projects as ultimately doomed to mediocrity, if not necessarily failure.
If you go too close to the original material, you get the "why'd you bother? Just watch the old one" argument. If you go too far away you get "why'd you bother? Just make your own movie."
There are some instances where a reboot that includes a shift in tone or production design can make a big difference (e.g. Batman Begins from Batman & Robin), but in most cases, these kinds of reboots end up being kind of pointless except to basically cop the branding of the previous film and slap it on something you can run with in whatever direction you please, unfettered by continuity concerns. In the end, the only point of a reboot is capitalizing on the marketability of the brand, but being able to change details within the story without people saying "But that doesn't make sense, given what happened in the original films."
The more I see of this, though, the more it just seems like, basically, Paul Feig's Ghostbusters. Like, it's just Paul Feig doing his Paul Feig thing but within the general concept of the Ghostbusters films. It's really no different from Judd Apatow's Ghostbusters, starring Seth Rogen, Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, and Paul Rudd, and featuring Leslie Mann as the romantic lead. Or from Edgar Wright's Ghostbusters, starring Nick Frost, Simon Pegg, and Martin Freeman. Or whatever. It's all just paint-by-numbers BS to me, and it basically comes across as nobody really being interested in trying to make a film that continues the overall feel and style of the original movie -- you know, the thing that made the brand valuable in the first ****ing place? -- and just slotting in [Hot Director of the Moment] to do their typical stylistic thing.
Anyone ever see Robert Altman's The Player? That's basically what's happening here. You have a particular film with its own distinct style, which is essentially being railroaded into some other film with a more predictable style. Just as, in The Player, the film being made ends with Bruce Willis rushing in to save Julia Roberts at the last second and saying "Sorry, honey. Traffic was a bitch," in typical "Bruce Willis movie" style, you'll have Paul Feig doing a typical Paul Feig movie here.
Westies14
Master Member
Perfect analogies. Batman Begins was a reboot - and a reboot is a respectable endeavor whether it's successful or well-accepted or not. Paul Feig's Ghostbusters is apparently not a reboot, but a rehash. I can't see anything to indicate why he was so insistent on his vision being isolated. There's nothing really new about it. It's borrowing as much as possible, and it would have been so easy to just place it down the line in the Ghostbusters continuity.
Westies14
Master Member
How can the style of Ghostbusters in general be the style of (insert any other contemporary recurring filmmaking team here)?
The problem with everything we've seen so far is that its what we know, just tweaked. If you're not going to do something new or original, why bother? If it's going to be the same movie with slight variations and differences that the average person wouldnt even care about or notice, what's the point?
My first thought was go through this modern car conversion thread and see which fan had done it: http://www.gbfans.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=10949
Not bad. I knew they wouldn't use the original Ecto. This one...isn't terrible. Touches all the right buttons and I like they painted the roof red in lieu of taillights. Like the proton packs, it isn't great, but not bad either. Just...meh; sorta like how the movie might be.
I think my big problem with the props I've seen is they look like this was done by a bunch of fans. Because it was an 80s movie, the new one seems to be satiring the 80s tech. My issue is the ghostbusters' equipment was supposed to be high tech beyond what was around in the 80s. I really would have preferred an updated version rather than a satirical look of the original, but I can see what they are going with.
I won't hold judgement till I see it, but as a movie, on its own, the acting and story better be superb or at least funny.
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KrangPrime
Master Member
again, I am almost 100% certain that the only reason we are getting these 'nods' is to win back the old fans. if no one had complained, we'd be getting sleak iphone looking proton packs, or sexy ghostbuster uniforms, or a redesigned ghost logo. or any number of things to support feigs 'vision'.
I almost DREAD to hear the theme song. you can almost garuntee they'd change it up somehow.
Solo4114
Master Member
I'm interpreting Jeyl's question to mean "The style of Ghostbusters was not a unique thing, but rather was part of a general style of film that the various creative parties had all made in other cases." For example, Ghostbusters shares its DNA with Stripes and, to a lesser extent, Caddyshack and Animal House.
Your question is kind of vague, so I'll try my best to answer what I think you're getting at, as I described above.
If you're suggesting that Ghostbusters is a film that highlights the mid-to-late-70s/early-80s Second City DNA of its writers and actors, then, yeah, I guess that's reasonably accurate. The guys who made the original came from a particular approach to comedy, and you can see similar elements in their work in other films from that era. I'm not sure I'd go as far as to suggest that the films were what I'd consider to be part of a "style" of film that was quite as clearly defined as, say, the comedic films that you see in the decades that follow, where a particular stylistic approach is readily evident, and you know exactly what you're getting before you walk in the door.
In the mid-to-late 90s, the Farrelly bros. were successful with a particular approach to comedy. They made "gross-out comedies" which often included a kind of mean-spirited outlandish approach to comedy, often featuring actors like Jim Carrey and Ben Stiller. Judd Apatow has made a name for himself by directing and producing a range of films that all highlight a kind of manchild figure, or some awkward but fundamentally good-natured character who has some growing up to do. He's often worked with folks like Paul Rudd, Wil Ferrel, etc. When you walk into a Judd Apatow movie, or a Farrelly Bros. movie, you know what you're getting before you go. I'm less familiar with his oeuvre, but I gather Paul Feig's films have their own distinct style, including a favoring of Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, and some other common players.
What appears to be happening with Ghostbusters 3/NuGhostbusters is exactly what people talked about through the years it was in development hell. When people said "Oh, they should do a third one and cast [currently popular comedic actors] and have [currently popular comedic director] direct it," they were basically saying "Let's apply the general Ghostbusters concept to a predictable style that already exists."
To my way of thinking, once you do that, you're taking the film out of the style/vibe of the original (the thing that gave rise to any discussion of a sequel), and basically just slapping the name and basic concept overtop some other existing, predictable style. Whether it's the Farrelly bros directing this film c.2000, or Judd Apatow directing this c.2006, or Paul Feig directing this c.2015, what you're getting isn't a continuation of Ghostbusters '84 in spirit (er...no pun intended), but rather a [Hot Director and expected common players] film with Ghostbusters' concept applied to that style.
Particularly in the case of a reboot that essentially retells the origin story, it's basically just an exercise in "So, let's see what [Hot Director] would have done with this original idea."
To put it more succinctly, this film, and most rehash-of-original-film reboots, are the cinematic equivalent of a tribute album where the artists are encouraged to bring their own musical style to the interpretation of the source material. It's the bluegrass version of Snoop Dog's Gin & Juice. It's the Blink-182 version of Billy Idol's Dancing With Myself. It's the Atari's version of Michael Jackson's Smooth Criminal.
This stuff is mildly interesting to me as a novelty, but if I'm coming to it as a fan of the original material, and am actually more hoping for a continuation of the original style, it's disheartening. It also eventually gets boring. If record companies didn't do much more than crank out new bands playing their own stylistic spins on old songs, that would be equally boring. I'd rather hear new bands make more new, original music in their own style. Likewise, I'd rather guys like Feig or any other comedic director, continue making original comedic films in their own style, instead of putting their "cover band" spin on an existing property.
Again, I find myself asking "What the hell is the point of this movie?" and the only thing I can come up with is "Exploiting the brand by pairing it with the most current hot-commodity comedy team. End of discussion."
This is also, I should note, a big reason why I've been generally against a Ghostbusters 3 for ages now. To be honest, even though I think there are many more stories to be told in the original continuity, I don't really think there are too many people who could recapture the feel of the originals. I'd feel a lot better about any subsequent film, though, if I got the sense that the new creative team (A) respects the original material, (B) wants to try their best to capture the feel of the originals, at least in a general way, and (C) has shown stylistic chops that resonate with the DNA of the original material or at least are reasonably close to it.
I'd have been very vocally opposed to a Farrely Bros. take on Ghostbusters because, even if they respected the original material, I'd have had zero faith that they wanted to capture the feel of the originals and their stylistic approach had nothing whatsoever to do with Ghostbusters. Of the current comedic directors that I can think of, I'd say Edgar Wright is probably the closest, but even he's pretty different. His style, at least, sort of resonates with what I think the style of the original Ghostbusters is (a mix of horror elements and comedic elements; a love of science fiction, horror, and comedy as evidenced by his films; and a general sense of flipping the bowfinger to authority figures, or at least offering a kind of sardonic disregard for such figures and authority in general).
Saying "I'm not interested in making a Ghostbusters sequel unless I can do it my own way" makes me think that Paul Feig isn't really interested in any of the things I'm looking to see in such a film. Turning the film into a rehash-reboot only moves the project further from what I'm hoping to see. And none of that even begins to address how the pre-production/pre-release hype surrounding this film has come across as basically a cynical cash-grab focused on intersections of market demographics, rather than anyone being interested in doing any of the three things I said I'd hope to see in a future Ghostbusters film.
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