Agreed there. I feel like with a clear-the-table reboot like this you end up wasting a lot of time with necessary stage setting and character intros, and end up with an often too-brief look at their personality. Especially with Patty, who came in late anyway. I’m hoping the inevitable sequel is way more skewed towards Patty and Holtzmann. A few fewer wonton soup jokes would help make the time.
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That…and I wasn’t a child then…ouch…
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It was fun seeing Dopinder get a bit more action though (the cab driver from Deadpool)
And yes, in my mind that was his other job, because he was saving up for a hit on his cousin.
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This encapsulates why I didn’t like the idea of a reboot versus continuation. It’s not like the Ghostbusters canon was particularly deep or complicated.
Here, I’ll give an entire backstory for a continuation in a single paragraph.
There you go. That’s about 1 hour of movie that can now be better used for things like character development and less recycling of gags and characters from the original film.
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I’m with you there. I would’ve really liked this to be part of the same universe as the original. It still would’ve needed some setup to introduce us to the new characters. But instead of a cameo, just give me a scene of old Venkman handing over a copy of Tobin’s Spirit Guide and we’re good to go.
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I tend to prefer dialog in service of plot rather than making people seem like “characters” by chatting about random things. I can enjoy banter, but it’s really tricky and usually not my thing. I prefer if the banter also serves the story by being especially satirical, insightful, or even deeply absurd. But most contemporary movies IMO don’t do much with it.
I would sort of like to check out the new characters, but I am not curious enough to go out of my way to see it. I probably will see it eventually, but it is not a priority for me.
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Have you seen Other Space? It’s a Yahoo original comedy sci-fi show in which he plays a starship captain. It’s also by Paul Feig, and a couple of the other actors from the Ghostbusters reboot are in it. Looks like it’s available for free on Yahoo TV: ‘Other Space’ Episode 1: Into the Great Beyond...Beyond
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Sorry that I disagree that giving money to a soulless corporation fights the patriarchy, but I do. It looks to me like it’s not so great, but the leads are women so I need to buy tickets? Sorry, but no. If it looked like it was a good movie, I’d plunk down my $15.
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Maybe I’m speaking out of turn, but imho that’s all right. IMHO Winston is the guy we’re supposed to relate to; he’s the working-class guy who’s there for the paycheck.
I think paying $15 for a movie staring four women that are not sexualized for the male gaze to demonstrate that there is a market for such things is pretty good…
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If you still think the backlash over Ghostbusters is just because of the female cast then you’ve been played by the Sony marketing team.
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I was actually chatting with my friends about this after seeing the movie; none of us particularly liked the banter moments between Wiig and McCarthy, but we’re all dudes. I realized that the comparable moment was the four original Ghostbusters sitting around, talking about the Twinkie while smoking. So I grant that different kinds of banter and humor play to different kinds of people.
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Eh, this looks more like rhetoric vs. rhetoric than an effective dismissal.
Misogyny exists, and we can’t do anything about, so it’s not really part of the problem. Right.
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Check out the video StrawBoss posted; when you do this–when you go see this reboot because reasons–you’re encouraging the big studios to make even more crappy remakes.
Oh, wait, I see you just dismissed it because it doesn’t fit your narrative. I guess I should have expect that.
So yeah, go see your shitty remake because girl power. Me, I’m avoiding the popcorn movie that has the trailer with Loud Fat Woman and Sassy Loud Black Woman.
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Can’t it be both? Can’t it be a movie that you don’t like, because of your dislike of remakes and because it’s a heavy handed corporate attempt to co-op feminism… as well as a film that women like because it has a strong cast of women?
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Yeah, but from your comments, it doesn’t sound like you like the movie; it sounds like you like that the movie has non-sexualized female leads.
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Well, it’s good that you’re not reducing characters to stereotypes or anything.
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Oh how I wish I could be shocked by this.
- somewhat related:
A couple of years back I was among male friends who I’d always assumed were of a similar mindset about feminism.
I was genuinely shocked when one made a remark to the effect that outspokenness was a negative trait in women. I asked for clarification, hoping I’d misunderstood him in that moment (rather than all along), but he’d meant that he didn’t like women being forthcoming with concerns about the world, their place in it, and (presumably) his role in that context.
To my utter dismay there seemed to be general agreement, even after I expressed that I wanted to know what the women in my life thought and were concerned about (they’re my friends and family FFS). The availability of my support on the pro-woman side didn’t elicit any positive noises.
- I lost respect for old friends that day.
I bet a lot of these man-babaies are undiagnosed by those around them. Some may always be loudly obnoxious about women, but many are likely lurking unnoticed among the friends of women’s allies.
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I haven’t seen the film, so I can’t comment on whether I like it or not. But completely dismissing misogyny out of hand because you don’t see it isn’t fair. My point is that there can be a real criticism of the film as well as some of that criticism being sexist.
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