-
Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!
Ghostbusters (2016) Trailer #1 (Feig, Wiig, McCarthy, McKinnon, Jones)
- Thread starter Rootbeer
- Start date
- Status
Other then the chance for obvious callbacks, what does this sort of loose sequel functionally do to help tell a good story with a completely new cast without any of the old members?
Even in that loose sense you are now having to concoct some sort of cohesion and connection, even if not outright stating you are having to work around the groundwork the awful sequel laid. And movie goers aren't stupid, you make a sequel and the nostalgia people want gaps filled, call backs and the new movie goers start asking questions.
A reboot gives you a clean slate. You get a much blanker canvas with less anchors. It seems almost self evident why you would want to go the reboot route in this scenario.
WordAssassin
Member
Aside from being handed technology, AND the giant "mass hysteria" plot problem, Feig really wanted to explore "humans discovering ghosts for the first time" which is 100% impossible to do with a sequel.
Almost every original cast member is making a cameo in this. I'd rather see them in their old roles one more time than sprinkled in as random characters. It always sucks when reboots/remakes do that.
MrCunningham
Member
Oh yeah, there is a definite time shift thing going on... Taxi Driver was 1976. Actually there seems to be multiple time shifts happening at once. Look at the Boris Karloff poster on the bottom right.
I saw Spy and liked it for what it was.
Hero_of_the_Day
Member
Every Ghostbusters thread needs "It's a Reboot" in the title.
bananafactory
Banned
I guess it's just down to personal preference. Id rather see things just start fresh without clutching on to the past. And with Ramis gone (who I consider the heart of the original) it just wouldn't feel right to me to have the other 3 and not him. But I can understand your point of view, too. Nostalgia is powerful and fun when used properly.
So you want the new cast to have a direct family connection to the old cast. To pick up the mantra, to show the old cast in their old roles.
To me you are advocating for more then a loose sequel, you want a straight up continuation set 30 years later. Given Murray's apprehensions to getting too deep with another Ghostbusters, the death of Harold Ramis, and everything else, do you not see the amount of anchors and knots that begin to emerge that must be worked around, unraveled or given precious plot time to explain and justify?
If Paul Feig had a vision for that, fine, roll with it, but he doesnt. I would rather the guy be given the freedom to do what he thinks is best then cater to nostalgia at the expense of story. That ship sailed with Ramis's death.
Frankly it seems like this reboot may be going with some sort of alternate dimension plot that may just give you some of what you wanted though.
Gordon Shumway
Banned
Not sure about all the male vs female stuff, personally. Wife and I really didn't care for it. Not too surprising..our farts COMBINED are older than your *grandparents
. My daughter, on the other hand LOVED it! So I told her to enjoy the movie with her grandparents lol..
*no.
Seeing slimmer was awesome, tho..
excelsiorlef
Member
Yes, I wanted a continuation. Jurassic World did it successfully. Star Wars did it successfully. Gremlins is thankfully going to go this route.
Reboot/remakes on the other hand, especially of 80's classics, have been uniformly terrible. Robocop. Total Recall. Point Break. You name it. All terrible. EDIT: I forgot Creed! Creed was amazing! A Rocky reboot would have sucked donkey balls!
Maybe this will be decent, maybe not. Seeing that trailer, I'm leaning on not, and that it's a reboot is icing on the disappointment cake for me.
excelsiorlef
Member
HP_Wuvcraft
Banned
That would not have made a difference. People would still complain it's not the original group.
Oh, also that it's girls.
excelsiorlef
Member
Oh yeah, there is a definite time shift thing going on... Taxi Driver was 1976. Actually there seems to be multiple time shifts happening at once. Look at the Boris Karloff poster on the bottom right.
I saw Spy and liked it for what it was.
Woah kickass
And fuck this movie looks beautiful
Every GB video has that. There's an organized group dedicated to shouting it down
It presents it like Ghostbusters 2.
WordAssassin
Member
The difference here is that in those reboots they just remade the first movie. This isn't doing that. There will undoubtedly be homages but this is taking "team of people hunt and capture ghosts" and going in a new direction with it, not "four people hunt ghosts here comes Gozer now Stay Puft is all over the place movie's over but that time with women". Robocop even went out of its way to shit talk the original movie.
So what? It's 30 years later. Say all the old tech is old and broken and have the characters reinvent it.
It's painfully easy to work around any of these issues. How Feig couldn't figure it out(this is what he's said, that he couldn't make it work) is beyond me.
excelsiorlef
Member
You should have seen the difference in reaction when that then described as all guys other Ghostbusters movie with Channing Tatum was announced.
People literally started being like now this I want to see. It was hilariously transparent
He also wanted to play with everyone discovering ghosts are real
la flama blanca
Banned
Much less, but just simply dismissed. Instead you have a clear case of whiny bitch man-babies on a crusade.
Speaking for myself, that's a non issue. I like Wiig and I don't mind McCarthy. I liked Bridesmaids.
I hate reboots.
Really?
You're going to rob your daughter of the experience of seeing a movie that could be as defining for her childhood as the original was to others with her dad because you don't "care for it"?
excelsiorlef
Member
He's not stopping her from seeing it...
That's a very specific problem to have with him.
Zantetsuken
Member
Just doesn't look interesting. The cast is great, but I think this is one series they should have left alone.
A lot of movies that I love wouldn't have been nearly as great if I didn't have the experience of seeing them with one of my parents. It's a bonding thing.
But whatever. That's just my take.
I know my dad sat through some absolutely horrible movies because I wanted to see them as a kid. You gotta take one for the team.
Sorry for Mario Bros dad
Admiral Woofington
Member
even if it was an all guys cast, no amount of a cast of actors would make me like these scenes presented to me. I'm keeping away from this.
Indeed, so much color. Glad to see this instead of gray and grayish so common nowadays.
I would debate that Jurassic World did it successfully.
Creed and Star Wars have a large level of support from their original cast and creators. Ramis is dead and the star has no interest in being a major contributor.
Robocop and Total Recall were Verhoeven masterpieces of satire. They were then taken and "Hollywoodized" and sanitized into safe, empty, mindless PG-13 action films.
And none of those sequels have the challenges a direct Ghostbusters sequel would of faced. you aren't organically creating a story so much as concocting a series of nostalgia points and working around the various issues such a route faces like Murray, Like Ramis, like the plot elements of GB2.
But it can't be denied a lot of the vitrol spewed at this film is due to the all female cast
AHA-Lambda
Member
I loved Spy, this still looks awful.
excelsiorlef
Member
It makes me think of the cartoon.
That's because of the trailer. All of the advertising made it look like a bumbling spy comedy centered around fat jokes.
If you're a fan of the original, the character parallels are pretty obvious.
Melissa McCarthy = Venkman
Kristen Wiig = Stantz
Kate McKinnon = Spengler
Leslie Jones = Zeddemore
It's not surprising that the producers would try to mold the four characters after those in the original, as it is a reboot that starts from the same basic beats.
That's not a bad thing. Ghostbusters 2 had its moments, but was largely forgettable.
If I were to craft a direct sequel, it would be set in a world where the original happened, but GB2 never did and after the SPMM incident ghosts were gone and forgotten.
Admiral Woofington
Member
Chances are that yes, but it doesn't help that it's a reboot and 99% of all reboots get a lot of hate to begin with.
I watched this trailer this morning while on my break at work and again a few minutes ago now that I'm home.
I consider Ghostbusters to be one of the (if not THE) best films of all time but I was also born in 1983 , late enough to see it on home video and enjoy the cartoons and sequel (which has it's moments but is ultimately a mis-step) but not early enough to enjoy the film first run in a theater.
From the beginning of this announcement I've held out some hope that a reboot is preferable to a sequel , the original cast tried a sequel once and it didn't quite work and they got a second chance with the videogame a few years back. As awesome as those guys are playing those characters , the time has past. A ghostbusters 3 should have made it out before 2000 if at all and well, Harold Ramis also died last year which to me , also killed any chance of a regular sequel or even a "ghostbusters the next generation" type deal.
So I'm glad that we live in a time when a director can make a reboot with a rule 63'd cast and it gets greenlit. There is an unfortunate side effect though, most of the people in my age group and a little older view ghostbusters as a sacred cow in so many ways that there's no reason to go back to it. I disagree with that assessment and feel that making a new film with women in it is a fantastic way to con-temporize the idea. It feels like a side effect of the mysogonists and vocal super nerds is that you aren't allowed to criticize anything about this film without being seen as a non-progressive hater by the tumblr crowd.
All that ranting out of the way , I feel like this trailer did it's job for better or worse. It's literally set up as "hey remember ghostbusters ? no ? well now they're women and hey here's a bit you remember from the 80's film followed by the myriad of ways in which this new film is different". I really had no problems with it at all and I'm still looking forward to seeing it. Go back and try to watch the trailer for the original ghostbusters and you'll find it wasn't exactly the greatest thing either and remember - if you've seen the film you might laugh at the half jokes showcased in that trailer but if you hadn't seen the film ? you wouldn't get the context.
So what we have here with Paul Fiegs Ghostbusters ? This shows a couple of kind of dumb jokes (a one liner and a couple of physical comedy bits) because they have higher appeal with a mass audience but really, you don't get the context of the scenes they represent nor any setup for the gags in question and despite that the 4 women clearly represent the original team , they are NOT the original team - you don't know these characters yet. Doing trailers for comedy isn't easy so most of this trailer focuses on the supernatural / action elements because fancy visual FX (and nostalgia) are easier to sell to people then good jokes. You want to save the best jokes for the movie itself. Again, parallels to that original 1984 trailer for ghostbusters - it shows you a few bits of the overall film but none of them are the best bits in the movie.
Basically, I'm saying if you hate this on the principle of it's existence - grow up. If you hate this film because it's got women in it - well it's 2016 , deal with it. If you hate this film after seeing it because it sucks ? hey that's awesome.
My only real nitpick is something that others have pointed out and someone who is more clever than I mentioned "it's still 3 white people and their black driver". This isn't far off the mark and one of the 3 gags the trailer shows involves the black woman going into a stereotypical sassy tirade. As far as we've come , I think we still have a ways to go , it's not a deal breaker by any stretch but again this trailer was built and probably approved by more then a dozen people in marketing to make it as "safe" as possible and as appealing as possible. On a personal level my only worry for the film itself honestly is that I'm not big on Melissa McCarthy , she was my least favorite part of Bridesmaids and I feel like her source of humor always plays up the fact that she's a large woman and therefore angrier and wackier than she needs to be on screen.
I remain faithful in this film overall and I'm glad it exists whether it turns out a dud or a hit.
I consider Ghostbusters to be one of the (if not THE) best films of all time but I was also born in 1983 , late enough to see it on home video and enjoy the cartoons and sequel (which has it's moments but is ultimately a mis-step) but not early enough to enjoy the film first run in a theater.
From the beginning of this announcement I've held out some hope that a reboot is preferable to a sequel , the original cast tried a sequel once and it didn't quite work and they got a second chance with the videogame a few years back. As awesome as those guys are playing those characters , the time has past. A ghostbusters 3 should have made it out before 2000 if at all and well, Harold Ramis also died last year which to me , also killed any chance of a regular sequel or even a "ghostbusters the next generation" type deal.
So I'm glad that we live in a time when a director can make a reboot with a rule 63'd cast and it gets greenlit. There is an unfortunate side effect though, most of the people in my age group and a little older view ghostbusters as a sacred cow in so many ways that there's no reason to go back to it. I disagree with that assessment and feel that making a new film with women in it is a fantastic way to con-temporize the idea. It feels like a side effect of the mysogonists and vocal super nerds is that you aren't allowed to criticize anything about this film without being seen as a non-progressive hater by the tumblr crowd.
All that ranting out of the way , I feel like this trailer did it's job for better or worse. It's literally set up as "hey remember ghostbusters ? no ? well now they're women and hey here's a bit you remember from the 80's film followed by the myriad of ways in which this new film is different". I really had no problems with it at all and I'm still looking forward to seeing it. Go back and try to watch the trailer for the original ghostbusters and you'll find it wasn't exactly the greatest thing either and remember - if you've seen the film you might laugh at the half jokes showcased in that trailer but if you hadn't seen the film ? you wouldn't get the context.
So what we have here with Paul Fiegs Ghostbusters ? This shows a couple of kind of dumb jokes (a one liner and a couple of physical comedy bits) because they have higher appeal with a mass audience but really, you don't get the context of the scenes they represent nor any setup for the gags in question and despite that the 4 women clearly represent the original team , they are NOT the original team - you don't know these characters yet. Doing trailers for comedy isn't easy so most of this trailer focuses on the supernatural / action elements because fancy visual FX (and nostalgia) are easier to sell to people then good jokes. You want to save the best jokes for the movie itself. Again, parallels to that original 1984 trailer for ghostbusters - it shows you a few bits of the overall film but none of them are the best bits in the movie.
Basically, I'm saying if you hate this on the principle of it's existence - grow up. If you hate this film because it's got women in it - well it's 2016 , deal with it. If you hate this film after seeing it because it sucks ? hey that's awesome.
My only real nitpick is something that others have pointed out and someone who is more clever than I mentioned "it's still 3 white people and their black driver". This isn't far off the mark and one of the 3 gags the trailer shows involves the black woman going into a stereotypical sassy tirade. As far as we've come , I think we still have a ways to go , it's not a deal breaker by any stretch but again this trailer was built and probably approved by more then a dozen people in marketing to make it as "safe" as possible and as appealing as possible. On a personal level my only worry for the film itself honestly is that I'm not big on Melissa McCarthy , she was my least favorite part of Bridesmaids and I feel like her source of humor always plays up the fact that she's a large woman and therefore angrier and wackier than she needs to be on screen.
I remain faithful in this film overall and I'm glad it exists whether it turns out a dud or a hit.
Obviously Ramis is a huge blow, but I think there was a possibility to handle Egons death within the film. I don't to derail this with my pitch for Ghostbusters, but I don't see any of the problems you've stated as unworkable or deal breakers.
I'm disappointed and that's all I'm really trying to say.
WordAssassin
Member
It may not be the case, but it would not surprise me at all if they put a lot of easy gags into the trailer just to attempt and get people on board for this beyond the stupid female cast bullshit. They have a huge hurdle to get over with that. So what better way to show people "Hey look still funny, funny ha ha see the jokes?" then by putting the lowest brow stuff in the trailer? It's not like this is the first movie to ever do that.
If that's not the case though, doesn't bother me. Ghostbusters and GB2 both have their share of low brow and gross out jokes too. Venkman getting slime on his hands and then all over his face and books and handing it off as "Egon, your mucus"? The execution may have been different (different actors and directors and 30 years of audiences developing and changing tastes in comedy will do that) but at its core it's still a snot joke.
la flama blanca
Banned
So you know for sure that those 3 white women are accomplished scientists? And that the black woman is only really just simply a subway worker? What if I actually felt ok with the black woman in her role but felt like the boring, corny white woman stereotype was my problem?
stufte
Member
It's almost as if people can be equals no matter what job they do.
- Status