Ghostbusters movie by Paul Feig

[The Terminator]

:facepalm :lol

Oh this just gets better. It's like they aren't even trying.

Oh they are, they really are.... trying and doing their best to make a turd of a film.

This thread needs more :facepalm

 

[AJTaliesen]

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."

This. While there are good examples, it's a VERY narrow knife blade to walk.


I actually don't dislike any of the photos. The proton pack isn't bad. I like the original better, but maybe thats because its the original. The hearse is a hearse. The older model is better, but...thats because the older models look better. Car companies have been in a 50 year race to see who can make the ugliest one.

Spoiler: Nissan Cube wins.

And unless you're in great shape, overalls are just not flattering. On men or women. stripes don't change that.

I don't even mind reusing the logo. It's a great logo.

It's just that remake is a fine line to walk and whatever his fans say, Paul Feig for me has one gimmick: remake old plots using women.

The reason I didn't care for the Heat had nothing to do with the Heat and everything to do with the fact that I've seen this movie before. I liked it the first time, even the second...by the third time it got a little old. Fourth and fifth were just silly and by the eighth time there was just no way I was going to sit through it.

In one respect Feig WAS revolutionary, in that it hadn't been done on film with two women. At least not successfully. That actually surprised me. I assumed that it had. Kudos to him for being the first. Massive oversight for Hollywood to miss such an obvious combo.

Becuase we had that same plot with every other combo imaginable, from the original: two white dudes, to the one white one black (once where the black guy was the reckloose, and once where the black guy was the by-the-book cop), two black guys, one guy one girl, One guy and a dog (again both ways...once where the dog is the reckloose, and once where the dog is the straight laced cop), and even once where the by the book cop was an alien. Looking back, it's almost unbelievable that no one ever thought to try with two women.

But the point is...that's his trick. It's not a bad trick, as they go, but it's not as groundbreaking as people seem to want to believe.

 

[niennumb1]

I haven't been following EVERY bit of news here, but I have to say that I really wish they didn't just name that car the ECTO-1. That is NOT the ECTO-1. I am not against the ride they chose for the car being used for the ladies, but they shouldn't have named it that. The original ECTO-1 looked soooooo much more bada## than that.

I guess this really is one of those middle finger goodbyes to the original and they want to shift our focus from that to this new version for us all to accept as THE Ghostbusters.

 

[jlee562]

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.

Stop making things up and pretending that they're true.

If you have concept art that demonstrates what you're talking about, show it.

If it's in the emails, link it.

But going back and forth between whining about how the studio talked about fan complaints, and then moving on to argue that they've now scrapped half their production plans to "appease" the old fans only serves to demonstrate how much you're projecting.

 

[KrangPrime]

I haven't been following EVERY bit of news here, but I have to say that I really wish they didn't just name that car the ECTO-1. That is NOT the ECTO-1. I am not against the ride they chose for the car being used for the ladies, but they shouldn't have named it that. The original ECTO-1 looked soooooo much more bada## than that.

I guess this really is one of those middle finger goodbyes to the original and they want to shift our focus from that to this new version for us all to accept as THE Ghostbusters.

doesn't it kind of remind you of the family truckster? painted white? don't make me turn this ecto around.

 

[Solo4114]

This. While there are good examples, it's a VERY narrow knife blade to walk.


I actually don't dislike any of the photos. The proton pack isn't bad. I like the original better, but maybe thats because its the original. The hearse is a hearse. The older model is better, but...thats because the older models look better. Car companies have been in a 50 year race to see who can make the ugliest one.

Spoiler: Nissan Cube wins.

And unless you're in great shape, overalls are just not flattering. On men or women. stripes don't change that.

I don't even mind reusing the logo. It's a great logo.

It's just that remake is a fine line to walk and whatever his fans say, Paul Feig for me has one gimmick: remake old plots using women.

The reason I didn't care for the Heat had nothing to do with the Heat and everything to do with the fact that I've seen this movie before. I liked it the first time, even the second...by the third time it got a little old. Fourth and fifth were just silly and by the eighth time there was just no way I was going to sit through it.

In one respect Feig WAS revolutionary, in that it hadn't been done on film with two women. At least not successfully. That actually surprised me. I assumed that it had. Kudos to him for being the first. Massive oversight for Hollywood to miss such an obvious combo.

Becuase we had that same plot with every other combo imaginable, from the original: two white dudes, to the one white one black (once where the black guy was the reckloose, and once where the black guy was the by-the-book cop), two black guys, one guy one girl, One guy and a dog (again both ways...once where the dog is the reckloose, and once where the dog is the straight laced cop), and even once where the by the book cop was an alien. Looking back, it's almost unbelievable that no one ever thought to try with two women.

But the point is...that's his trick. It's not a bad trick, as they go, but it's not as groundbreaking as people seem to want to believe.

I mean, in a way, yeah, it's "groundbreaking" in that it tends to take typically male-dominated genres/plotlines and put women in it and have it do well at the box office. It's already being imitated (with less success -- e.g., Hot Pursuit). In that sense, it's socially groundbreaking, and economically groundbreaking, but story-wise, not so much.

But it's also becoming his "thing" the way M. Night Shyamalan films are all basically supernatural/paranormal "twist' movies.

I'll admit that I still haven't seen his films. (And again, remember that my objection to this film has been primarily based on the process by which it is being made, rather than on Feig himself or the end result). A big part of why I haven't seen his films is because, frankly, they just don't interest me that much. Mostly because of the very phenomenon that you describe: I've seen these movies. I've seen them a bunch of times. I've gotten to the point where they don't interest me that much anymore. I didn't really like The Other Guys, so why would I be interested in The Heat? Because now it's women instead of men? Meh. Just not that interested.

I guess we'll see how different this ends up being, but for me, it just really illustrates the issue with all these kinds of rehash/remakes.

 

[Riceball]

Disregard. Looks like I skipped a page in this thread.

 

[DaddyfromNaboo]

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?

Exactly. I think we had this mentioned here in the thread already, but I get not tired to repeat it A reboot or a reimagination should bring something new to the game. Examples: Superman, Batman, Monster of Frankenstein, King Kong, Spiderman, Dracula. All core elements usually make it into new versions, with a lot of different elements created for each version, making them very unique with different takes on the same story. Those examples revolve around iconic characters. There are other examples of remakes like Cape Fear, or "Gone with the wind" (the tv series), retelling the same story.

Bad examples: Miami Vice, Green Hornet, Dukes of Hazard, Starsky and Hutch (okay, I like that one, but ...). Taking iconic elements that define the characters and changing almost nothing about them, trying to tell a new story around those elements, changing the tone of the original, that recipe IMO never really worked. Especially for the fans.

So the car ... well that is the last most important iconic element. The props have the iconic importance of e.g. lightsabers, the Ecto-1 (it has a name!) is as iconic as the Enterprise or the Millenium Falcon. We did get reimaginations of those examples, with the Prequels, and most of those designs are pretty popular, since they are new takes on iconic designs.

The iconic designs of Ghostbusters did IMO not get the proper artistic re-imagination they deserve. The designs are sloppy, the Ecto-1 is a continuation of showing sloppy design work.

What irritates me is that the art directors have a lot of experience in genre films, contrary to the production designer who has a lot of TV work under her belt, and ALL of the other members of the art department seem to be experienced in their fields. EXCEPT for the guys who are listed as "prop makers". Their second movie in that position, according to IMDB. And most of the other artists seem to be "young blood", too. But most of them already worked on all of those films that I would have given an arm and a leg to work on if I had had their talent and had been 20 years younger. So, how come that the results for some of the most iconic film prop, costume and vehicle designs come across as so weak?! Is the production on a cheapie comedy budget? Are they going to pump all of the money into CGI post production? Are we going to see an art book for that movie, someday?!

 

[joshvanrad]

Just seeing MM's face makes me want to put my hand in a running garbage disposal.

 

[KrangPrime]

Just seeing MM's face makes me want to put my hand in a running garbage disposal.

reading some of the comments online....wow....things are heated.
I may not care for mellisa mcarthy's hollywood career......but some people seem to hate her as a person. wow.

then you got comments like this. a guy in a ghostbusters group supporting the new movie and doesn't even know where the above modified image is from. smh.

 

[Riceball]

What irritates me is that the art directors have a lot of experience in genre films, contrary to the production designer who has a lot of TV work under her belt, and ALL of the other members of the art department seem to be experienced in their fields. EXCEPT for the guys who are listed as "prop makers". Their second movie in that position, according to IMDB. And most of the other artists seem to be "young blood", too. But most of them already worked on all of those films that I would have given an arm and a leg to work on if I had had their talent and had been 20 years younger. So, how come that the results for some of the most iconic film prop, costume and vehicle designs come across as so weak?! Is the production on a cheapie comedy budget? Are they going to pump all of the money into CGI post production? Are we going to see an art book for that movie, someday?!

It's not entirely all their faults, at the end of the day they all answer to the director, so if anyone is to blame it's Paul Feige because he's the one who gave all of the artists and artisans their marching orders and he's the one that signed off on the designs in the end. To me, his directions to the art team was to make things the same, but different, and really didn't seem to allow his team to really stretch their imaginations by making things recognizable as proton packs and the Ecto-1 yet very noticeably different from the originals.

 

[Solo4114]

It's not entirely all their faults, at the end of the day they all answer to the director, so if anyone is to blame it's Paul Feige because he's the one who gave all of the artists and artisans their marching orders and he's the one that signed off on the designs in the end. To me, his directions to the art team was to make things the same, but different, and really didn't seem to allow his team to really stretch their imaginations by making things recognizable as proton packs and the Ecto-1 yet very noticeably different from the originals.

"Make it the same, but different" seems to be the overarching goal here, and it's such a vague concept that it strikes me as an impossible target to hit. Make it different so that people don't say "Why'd you bother?" but make it the same, so that people don't say "Why'd you bother?"

Again, the curse of the remake. It all just calls into question why they didn't just do a sequel, since that allows for so many of these issues to be resolved. More and more, it strikes me that a sequel would've been the lesser of two evils here, and it makes less and less sense that Paul Feig would've wanted nothing to do with the original....but only if he could basically re-do the original story with reminiscent-yet-different production design throughout.


I wonder if this will end up being the equivalent of Gus Van Sant's Psycho? I mean, it won't be a shot-for-shot remake, but it'll be one of those "Seriously, what the hell was the point here?" remakes. I don't see this turning into the sprawling franchise Sony hopes for it to be.

 

[Riceball]

"Make it the same, but different" seems to be the overarching goal here, and it's such a vague concept that it strikes me as an impossible target to hit. Make it different so that people don't say "Why'd you bother?" but make it the same, so that people don't say "Why'd you bother?"

Again, the curse of the remake. It all just calls into question why they didn't just do a sequel, since that allows for so many of these issues to be resolved. More and more, it strikes me that a sequel would've been the lesser of two evils here, and it makes less and less sense that Paul Feig would've wanted nothing to do with the original....but only if he could basically re-do the original story with reminiscent-yet-different production design throughout.


I wonder if this will end up being the equivalent of Gus Van Sant's Psycho? I mean, it won't be a shot-for-shot remake, but it'll be one of those "Seriously, what the hell was the point here?" remakes. I don't see this turning into the sprawling franchise Sony hopes for it to be.

I agree, this is why I think that making it a sequel would have been a better course of action, it's been enough time passed that there's a ton of believable reasons for little to no involvement of the original cast, explain the similarities in art design, and allow them to take the franchise in another direction along with new territory. It's sort of like JJ Trek where they tried walking the fine line of making it a reboot without actually calling it a reboot by setting it in an alternate timeline and failed since it was so different that they might as well have just called it a reboot and be done with it.

 

[KrangPrime]

"Make it the same, but different" seems to be the overarching goal here, and it's such a vague concept that it strikes me as an impossible target to hit. Make it different so that people don't say "Why'd you bother?" but make it the same, so that people don't say "Why'd you bother?"

Again, the curse of the remake. It all just calls into question why they didn't just do a sequel, since that allows for so many of these issues to be resolved. More and more, it strikes me that a sequel would've been the lesser of two evils here, and it makes less and less sense that Paul Feig would've wanted nothing to do with the original....but only if he could basically re-do the original story with reminiscent-yet-different production design throughout.


I wonder if this will end up being the equivalent of Gus Van Sant's Psycho? I mean, it won't be a shot-for-shot remake, but it'll be one of those "Seriously, what the hell was the point here?" remakes. I don't see this turning into the sprawling franchise Sony hopes for it to be.

at least I could see a shot for shot remake so long as you allowed some variation in the performance or line reading to make it stand out a little from the original. Shoot one and two back to back, fix a few things wrong with two while you are at it. Release at the same time, and then start shooting three immediatly. Then, the original movies HAPPENED. but you'd have them all with the new actors so it doesn't feel like alot of time has passed...

still a terrible situation. but if it was done well and lovingly, I'd rather be more curious about that than this.

 

[Westies14]

Again, the curse of the remake. It all just calls into question why they didn't just do a sequel, since that allows for so many of these issues to be resolved. More and more, it strikes me that a sequel would've been the lesser of two evils here, and it makes less and less sense that Paul Feig would've wanted nothing to do with the original....but only if he could basically re-do the original story with reminiscent-yet-different production design throughout.


I wonder if this will end up being the equivalent of Gus Van Sant's Psycho? I mean, it won't be a shot-for-shot remake, but it'll be one of those "Seriously, what the hell was the point here?" remakes. I don't see this turning into the sprawling franchise Sony hopes for it to be.

Absolutely. They invite the scrutiny by ditching the continuity. It's not asking us to add new elements to our lexicon, but to replace beloved characters, props, vehicles with inferior versions.

BTW, these girls will also have ecto-cycles...

- - - Updated - - -

And before I'm dragged to the gallows, that refers to motorcycles and not green menstruation.

 

[Solo4114]

I agree, this is why I think that making it a sequel would have been a better course of action, it's been enough time passed that there's a ton of believable reasons for little to no involvement of the original cast, explain the similarities in art design, and allow them to take the franchise in another direction along with new territory. It's sort of like JJ Trek where they tried walking the fine line of making it a reboot without actually calling it a reboot by setting it in an alternate timeline and failed since it was so different that they might as well have just called it a reboot and be done with it.

Exactly. JJTrek should've just been a hard reboot. Kinda the way Casino Royale was basically a hard reboot (but not necessarily an explicit reboot) of the Bond franchise. Moreover, JJTrek should've taken advantage of that hard reboot by not, y'know, making its 2nd movie an aping of the prior continuity's 2nd film, but whatever. That's a separate issue.

A sequel -- even one that depicts the formation of a new team -- allows for designs to evolve, which in turn allows them to look "different but the same." It allows for the formation of a new team as the ever-so-obvious franchise, it allows for negligible involvement from the original cast, and -- to my way of thinking -- it frees you from having to "justify" why you're making the film in the first place. With the remake, especially given the razor's edge you have to walk between "different" and "same," it just seems like at every turn you're having to say why you're doing things differently or the same or both. There's just no winning. With a sequel, you're at least springboarding off of the existing film instead of basically copying it.

Bah. Humbug.

at least I could see a shot for shot remake so long as you allowed some variation in the performance or line reading to make it stand out a little from the original. Shoot one and two back to back, fix a few things wrong with two while you are at it. Release at the same time, and then start shooting three immediatly. Then, the original movies HAPPENED. but you'd have them all with the new actors so it doesn't feel like alot of time has passed...

still a terrible situation. but if it was done well and lovingly, I'd rather be more curious about that than this.

A shot-for-shot remake would be absolutely panned by critics. Just like what happened with Gus Van Sant's Psycho, which I hear was more like Alfred Hitchcock's Colorized Psycho With Modern Actors.

- - - Updated - - -

Absolutely. They invite the scrutiny by ditching the continuity. It's not asking us to add new elements to our lexicon, but to replace beloved characters, props, vehicles with inferior versions.

BTW, these girls will also have ecto-cycles...

- - - Updated - - -

And before I'm dragged to the gallows, that refers to motorcycles and not green menstruation.

The Ecto-Cycles thing just makes sense from a merchandising perspective. I'd expect no less.

 

[KrangPrime]

Exactly. JJTrek should've just been a hard reboot. Kinda the way Casino Royale was basically a hard reboot (but not necessarily an explicit reboot) of the Bond franchise. Moreover, JJTrek should've taken advantage of that hard reboot by not, y'know, making its 2nd movie an aping of the prior continuity's 2nd film, but whatever. That's a separate issue.

A sequel -- even one that depicts the formation of a new team -- allows for designs to evolve, which in turn allows them to look "different but the same." It allows for the formation of a new team as the ever-so-obvious franchise, it allows for negligible involvement from the original cast, and -- to my way of thinking -- it frees you from having to "justify" why you're making the film in the first place. With the remake, especially given the razor's edge you have to walk between "different" and "same," it just seems like at every turn you're having to say why you're doing things differently or the same or both. There's just no winning. With a sequel, you're at least springboarding off of the existing film instead of basically copying it.

Bah. Humbug.



A shot-for-shot remake would be absolutely panned by critics. Just like what happened with Gus Van Sant's Psycho, which I hear was more like Alfred Hitchcock's Colorized Psycho With Modern Actors.

- - - Updated - - -



The Ecto-Cycles thing just makes sense from a merchandising perspective. I'd expect no less.

Ever since Raphael got a Turtle Cycle, motorcycles have been a constant in the turtles franchise. I'd rather see the Ecto 2 helicopter.

But yeah, things are going to get panned by critics no matter which route they take.


And with JJ......The thing about the star trek reboot was there wasn't much thinking involved with it. at least compared to past trek where they tried to engage your brain a little with social commentary, or a mystery. It was just action shot, setup, action shot, throw away joke, more action shot. I actually liked the first one much better than the second one.. Even though I HATED them blowing up Vulcan. that just screamed "I really wanna work on star wars!".
The second one just seemed like 'OK, I don't know enough about star trek to really know where to take this next, so.....wrath of kahn was popular...lets just remake that'...

 

[Halliwax]

the jumpsuits remind me too much of a prison uniform..

 

[Rylo]

The ecto-cycles thing is a joke....right?

I mean, not that it requires much effort as it is, but I won't even have to try to convince anyone how much it's gonna suck if that's the case.

Cinematic suicide! Too good to be true! I literally won't have to type anything further about this film, except "I told you so" when the film finally comes out.

Please tell me the cycle thing is true.

Drowning in Schadenfreude!!! :love

 

[Rylo]

Wait, found a pic of the ecto-cycle!