Discuss the Ghostbusters movie that was released in 2016.
By RichRyan1507
#4914639
timeware wrote: February 21st, 2019, 5:34 pm
RichRyan1507 wrote: February 21st, 2019, 2:21 pm I'd invent a time machine, kidnap Amy Pascal, and send her to a desert island. That way, Paul Feig and Kate Dippold would have never been a part of it. So many bad decisions on that project from top to bottom.
These kind of comments do come off as over the top. I'm not shy about discussing my dislike for how ATC was handled or Mr. Feig but let's steer clear of stuff that may come off as threatening?

FFS, I was being sarcastic. Threatening? Lol

And would it hurt you less if I were to just say that, in my opinion, there's nothing you can do to fix it?

This is a forum. It's a place where people come to express their opinions. Mine happens to be that this film can't be fixed with small tweaks. You'd have to start from scratch.

If you don't want to hear other people's opinions, don't ask the question. You're not entitled to only hear opinions that you agree with.
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By timeware
#4914641
I get the sarcasm. I use it on a daily basis.
First your comments didn't come off as a joke. Making comments like wanting to kidnap someone and hoping something happens can land you in a heap of trouble. I was looking out for you. Second I can handle someone else's opinion while your bull shitting. Third, I didn't ask you ask you any questions.
By RichRyan1507
#4914642
timeware wrote: February 21st, 2019, 6:16 pm I get the sarcasm. I use it on a daily basis.
First your comments didn't come off as a joke. Making comments like wanting to kidnap someone and hoping something happens can land you in a heap of trouble. I was looking out for you. Second I can handle someone else's opinion while your bull shitting. Third, I didn't ask you ask you any questions.

I mean the thread in general when I say questions.

And, honestly dude, how could anyone possibly take a comment about building a time machine, traveling backward THROUGH time, and kidnapping someone as an actual threat? I can't even...
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By timeware
#4914651
You said it yourself,your posting in a public forum.
We know your joking. You know most celebrity's don't have a sense of humor, especially Barbra Streisand.
It's not the time machine bit it's the kidnapping bit. We can keep things classy. GBFANS doesn't actually encourage the kidnapping of celebrity's.
By RichRyan1507
#4914664
Timeware... I... Just... Wow. Nevermind. I'll just be polite and refrain from saying what I'm thinking.

I'm just going to stay away from all GB 2016 related discussions.
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By SSJmole
#4914674
GBfan77 wrote: February 19th, 2019, 6:47 pm Looking back on it. I probably wouldn't have made Kevin so stupid. Stupid can be funny, but if you don't know the difference between your eyes and your ears how do you function? How do you feed yourself, dress yourself, bath, walk , breath, if you don't know the difference between your ears and eyes?
He's a comedy character. Likely Joey in friends was that dumb as is homer Simpson. It's just for laughs. It's ok.
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By timeware
#4914690
RichRyan1507 wrote: February 22nd, 2019, 5:21 am Timeware... I... Just... Wow. Nevermind. I'll just be polite and refrain from saying what I'm thinking.

I'm just going to stay away from all GB 2016 related discussions.
You can still participate in gb 2016 discussions. I'm not a moderater, were just asking you to watch that kind of humor.
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By signeddiamond
#4922996
Bit late to this party as I only just watched the film. Right off the bat the I didn't have an issue with the story at all or the fact it was a reboot. In fact those aspects worked for me. The humor is what killed it. Every scene had humor no way relating to the plot. Wonton soup issues have nothing to do with pushing the plot forward. Mike Hat the is not important to the story. The original had humor but never at the expense of the films pace. 2016 basicly would stop everything to riff on some joke. I feel like having someone like Joss Whedon on the script and focusing less on improv. Whedon is pretty great at quipy dialogue that keeps things moving.
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By Macktacular
#4925572
So here I come in 3 years after the movie comes out and finally having seen it. I'll admit, I went into it a bit biased thanks to reviewers and the drama surrounding it, but I tried to remain impartial. I'm fairly certain a lot of these points have been brought up by others in this thread before, so I apologize if I'm opening old wounds or beating a dead horse. And while I'd call myself a fan, I'm not what you'd call a die-hard fan of Ghostbusters. I like too many things to really dedicate myself to any one hobby or franchise (and frankly I think if you do delve down that rabbit hole far enough that's when things can get a bit scary).

Overall impression? I didn't love it, I didn't hate it. I think I came out of it disappointed. There were things that I really liked and I saw potential, but other things just soured it. But I do want to at least point out some of the things I liked about this movie.

The early proton pack: I do like that their first foray into the field isn't with the final wearable packs like in the first film, but with a big clunky awkward thing on a cart. That made it more believable to me and it made for a nice progression; prototype leads to better prototype. None of them seemed too concerned that the nuclear device got struck by a train but eh.

The Ecto-1: A hearse is a great vehicle to be an Ecto-1, and certainly more realistic to find these days. Though honestly I probably would've been happy with an old UPS van as well.

Leslie Jones: Patty was probably my favorite character in the entire film, and I really liked her role in the group; while the others were the science experts she knew all about the history of the city, where as in the original movie that fell more to Ray - and Winston was just a hired hand. I found her the most believable (IE: nope not going into the room full of mannequins) and the most endearing.

The Chinese Restaurant: Yup, I liked that location, and it makes sense from a modern perspective. No way they'd be able to afford the firehouse, they've all been fired (well except for Patty but whatevs). It made for an interesting location with some nice set pieces.

Onto the fixes.

1st fix: The script gets another looking over, bring in a script doctor, whatever. In general I thought the script was pretty solid, but it failed in a few areas. There was a bit too much crass / gross out humour, though I know the original wasn't without it's crassness, like Ray's erotic ghost dream or Peter's sailor comment - perhaps I'm being unfair in judging these elements too harshly. In general it seems like lines about characters crapping their pants, eating Pringles, etc. - they just weren't necessary. But of course a lot of that comes to my second fix....

2nd fix: Less improv, more practiced dialogue. I generally don't really like improv comedies, they tend to have a lot of people talking over each other and pop culture references. When the busters are being interviewed by the cop about Bill Murray's demise, that was painful. I really don't see how they didn't get arrested there. Improv can lead to some great witty dialogue, but it seems like it was less building on a script and more "and you say something aaaaaaaand action" style direction. I know that the characters are nerds and we geeks love to babble but it was a bit much at times. And it leads to failures. Like McCarthy's line about Rowan getting his virginity from the lost and found - I'm legit surprised that made it into the final cut because it's so bad and makes no sense. Or again, McCarthy's line about the Dean spelling science with a "y" and that he doesn't know that it's wrong - if he knew it was wrong, why would he spell it that way?

3rd fix: Ghost Chasers / Bill Murray's character. Both of these were great potential story elements that were wasted. Murray's character should have been an ongoing antagonist during the GB's rise - that would give Kristen Wiig's character actual incentive to want to prove their legitimacy to him, that he's been a thorn in their side for awhile or they have some past connection. Establish him as a skeptic beyond one segment before he appears on their doorstep. As for the ghost hunters shows, wouldn't that have made for a great plot point if they were both inspecting the same place and calling each other frauds?

4th fix: the Montage. In both the original Ghostbusters and the 2016 film we really only see them capture one ghost before they fight the big bad (by all means correct me if I'm wrong), but the original has a montage sequence of the GBs responding to and coming from various calls, appearing on late night tv, etc. That's how we know that they become part of NY's consciousness and are gaining a reputation. In the 2016 movie they catch 1 ghost in the entire film, and then end up saving the city. The montage also implies a fair bit of time has passed between the start of their business and the events that lead to Peck shutting off the containment unit, etc., where as the 2016 movie it feels like only a week has passed between the GB's starting their own business to saving the day. And how long had Rowan been planning this? It only took 5 decides plus his basement thing to break the barrier, and he got it done in a week? Well it's a good thing Erin found out about Aby's book when she did - if a few weeks or a month had passed Rowan would have succeeded before they even knew anything was happening.

5th fix: The upgrades. These came way too early in the film. At this point they'd only caught one ghost and Holtzmann is already got 4-5 new toys to play with. These really should have come about as a response to something, them meeting a threat they couldn't defeat and having to retreat, only for Holtzmann to reveal some very dangerous prototypes she'd been toying with, or hell just slapping stuff together out of necessity and hoping they'd work.

6th fix: Hitting below the belt. Okay, we know from the leaked emails that Sony intentionally tries to skew things to make criticism of the film a gender-related issue. But there were some lines there that really felt ham-fisted. The comment on their Youtube video or the "you shoot like girls" comment, without the context of the drama outside the movie, was funny on it's own - the drama soured that for me but I recognize that if I went into this blind it wouldn't have. But lines like "warning lights are for dudes" or shooting a ghost in the crotch and such just seem so blunt, like they're put in there intentionally as if to say "this is what people are mad about, isn't that dumb?" when that wasn't why most people who disliked the film felt that way.

7th: The mayor and his assistant. Their acting was pretty bad, total ham. Like frontpage of Youtube "content creators" bad. They needed to dial it down a notch. Steve Higgins' flipping the bird bit really should have been cut as well to be honest, it wasn't funny.

8th: Dance sequence goes back into the main film. Yes it's silly and dumb, but that segment is just as silly and dumb without it (and Patty's line would still work since they'd be arriving after it was all said and done).

9th: Kevin. Oh Kevin. Why are you so dumb Kevin? No one in the original GB was this dumb. As much as we dislike Peck he wasn't dumb, he had logical reasons to do what he did. I think his character could have been a bit naive or awkward, but really he was dumb as a box of rocks and that doesn't really make for an endearing character.

Aaaaaaaaand that's about it. I honestly believe that it would have only taken a few changes to make the movie go from alright to good, and only a few more to make it great. That's what made it so disappointing; there were so many easy and cheap fixes that someone chose not to do. Whether it was because they didn't care, or weren't challenged by others, I don't know. But I feel the movie suffers because of it.
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By RichardLess
#4925690
Macktacular wrote: October 12th, 2019, 9:14 pm So here I come in 3 years after the movie comes out and finally having seen it. I'll admit, I went into it a bit biased thanks to reviewers and the drama surrounding it, but I tried to remain impartial. I'm fairly certain a lot of these points have been brought up by others in this thread before, so I apologize if I'm opening old wounds or beating a dead horse. And while I'd call myself a fan, I'm not what you'd call a die-hard fan of Ghostbusters. I like too many things to really dedicate myself to any one hobby or franchise (and frankly I think if you do delve down that rabbit hole far enough that's when things can get a bit scary).

Overall impression? I didn't love it, I didn't hate it. I think I came out of it disappointed. There were things that I really liked and I saw potential, but other things just soured it. But I do want to at least point out some of the things I liked about this movie.

The early proton pack: I do like that their first foray into the field isn't with the final wearable packs like in the first film, but with a big clunky awkward thing on a cart. That made it more believable to me and it made for a nice progression; prototype leads to better prototype. None of them seemed too concerned that the nuclear device got struck by a train but eh.

The Ecto-1: A hearse is a great vehicle to be an Ecto-1, and certainly more realistic to find these days. Though honestly I probably would've been happy with an old UPS van as well.

Leslie Jones: Patty was probably my favorite character in the entire film, and I really liked her role in the group; while the others were the science experts she knew all about the history of the city, where as in the original movie that fell more to Ray - and Winston was just a hired hand. I found her the most believable (IE: nope not going into the room full of mannequins) and the most endearing.

The Chinese Restaurant: Yup, I liked that location, and it makes sense from a modern perspective. No way they'd be able to afford the firehouse, they've all been fired (well except for Patty but whatevs). It made for an interesting location with some nice set pieces.

Onto the fixes.

1st fix: The script gets another looking over, bring in a script doctor, whatever. In general I thought the script was pretty solid, but it failed in a few areas. There was a bit too much crass / gross out humour, though I know the original wasn't without it's crassness, like Ray's erotic ghost dream or Peter's sailor comment - perhaps I'm being unfair in judging these elements too harshly. In general it seems like lines about characters crapping their pants, eating Pringles, etc. - they just weren't necessary. But of course a lot of that comes to my second fix....

2nd fix: Less improv, more practiced dialogue. I generally don't really like improv comedies, they tend to have a lot of people talking over each other and pop culture references. When the busters are being interviewed by the cop about Bill Murray's demise, that was painful. I really don't see how they didn't get arrested there. Improv can lead to some great witty dialogue, but it seems like it was less building on a script and more "and you say something aaaaaaaand action" style direction. I know that the characters are nerds and we geeks love to babble but it was a bit much at times. And it leads to failures. Like McCarthy's line about Rowan getting his virginity from the lost and found - I'm legit surprised that made it into the final cut because it's so bad and makes no sense. Or again, McCarthy's line about the Dean spelling science with a "y" and that he doesn't know that it's wrong - if he knew it was wrong, why would he spell it that way?

3rd fix: Ghost Chasers / Bill Murray's character. Both of these were great potential story elements that were wasted. Murray's character should have been an ongoing antagonist during the GB's rise - that would give Kristen Wiig's character actual incentive to want to prove their legitimacy to him, that he's been a thorn in their side for awhile or they have some past connection. Establish him as a skeptic beyond one segment before he appears on their doorstep. As for the ghost hunters shows, wouldn't that have made for a great plot point if they were both inspecting the same place and calling each other frauds?

4th fix: the Montage. In both the original Ghostbusters and the 2016 film we really only see them capture one ghost before they fight the big bad (by all means correct me if I'm wrong), but the original has a montage sequence of the GBs responding to and coming from various calls, appearing on late night tv, etc. That's how we know that they become part of NY's consciousness and are gaining a reputation. In the 2016 movie they catch 1 ghost in the entire film, and then end up saving the city. The montage also implies a fair bit of time has passed between the start of their business and the events that lead to Peck shutting off the containment unit, etc., where as the 2016 movie it feels like only a week has passed between the GB's starting their own business to saving the day. And how long had Rowan been planning this? It only took 5 decides plus his basement thing to break the barrier, and he got it done in a week? Well it's a good thing Erin found out about Aby's book when she did - if a few weeks or a month had passed Rowan would have succeeded before they even knew anything was happening.

5th fix: The upgrades. These came way too early in the film. At this point they'd only caught one ghost and Holtzmann is already got 4-5 new toys to play with. These really should have come about as a response to something, them meeting a threat they couldn't defeat and having to retreat, only for Holtzmann to reveal some very dangerous prototypes she'd been toying with, or hell just slapping stuff together out of necessity and hoping they'd work.

6th fix: Hitting below the belt. Okay, we know from the leaked emails that Sony intentionally tries to skew things to make criticism of the film a gender-related issue. But there were some lines there that really felt ham-fisted. The comment on their Youtube video or the "you shoot like girls" comment, without the context of the drama outside the movie, was funny on it's own - the drama soured that for me but I recognize that if I went into this blind it wouldn't have. But lines like "warning lights are for dudes" or shooting a ghost in the crotch and such just seem so blunt, like they're put in there intentionally as if to say "this is what people are mad about, isn't that dumb?" when that wasn't why most people who disliked the film felt that way.

7th: The mayor and his assistant. Their acting was pretty bad, total ham. Like frontpage of Youtube "content creators" bad. They needed to dial it down a notch. Steve Higgins' flipping the bird bit really should have been cut as well to be honest, it wasn't funny.

8th: Dance sequence goes back into the main film. Yes it's silly and dumb, but that segment is just as silly and dumb without it (and Patty's line would still work since they'd be arriving after it was all said and done).

9th: Kevin. Oh Kevin. Why are you so dumb Kevin? No one in the original GB was this dumb. As much as we dislike Peck he wasn't dumb, he had logical reasons to do what he did. I think his character could have been a bit naive or awkward, but really he was dumb as a box of rocks and that doesn't really make for an endearing character.

Aaaaaaaaand that's about it. I honestly believe that it would have only taken a few changes to make the movie go from alright to good, and only a few more to make it great. That's what made it so disappointing; there were so many easy and cheap fixes that someone chose not to do. Whether it was because they didn't care, or weren't challenged by others, I don't know. But I feel the movie suffers because of it.
Yeah #5 is one that doesn't get mentioned a lot but I completely agree with. Great point.

Everything that's bad about GB16 can be boiled down to that middle finger bit. I hate, hate, hate IT.

The one line I did like in GB16 was delivered by the Andy Garcia as The Mayor. It's the Jaws mayor thing where he gets upset at being compared to the Jaws mayor. But it's an easy pop culture reference so it loses points for that.
By MOSUGOJI
#4927187
For me I would salvage the only element of the movie that I feel would be worth it. I think that Holtzmann would make a pretty good new member of the Ghostbusters. The team needs a physicist/theoretical tech member so she may be able to pull it off. Maybe she is messing around with some new prototype dimensional entity disposal system trying to re open a small portal to the ghost realm that all of the ghosts in ATC were sucked into. Instead sh winds up appearing in a different firehouse.
By MOSUGOJI
#4927191
Alphagaia wrote: January 29th, 2019, 11:59 am My point is they thought all it did was attract a ghost, they didn't know it was also charging the leylines, which allowed ghosts to slip through.

However, my point stands. If they knew Rowan had a weakpoint, why did he do nothing to shield himself, and how did Leslie and Holtzmann know where to shoot?

It's a joke. Not a pivotal part of the movie as you are making it out to be.
I agree totally. It was a generic kick him in the balls joke. And the dumb think even took damage at one point from an explosion on a building he was passing. His shoulder caught on fire. Unless someone has the damn Ghosts of our Past book are are able to directly reference a chapter,page,and paragraph content stating that "Shooting a giant ghost in it's crotch will immolate it". Then is just here say. Besides how much actual information regarding the exact nature of various ghosts,their power levels and ecto presence could be in that book?I can't really have alot of actual data regarding the composition,polarity and other attributes of ghosts. They had no PKE meters or anything to conduct analysis of ghosts. It looked to be a typical paranormal book giving opinions and guesses at the exact nature of ghosts.their realm and maybe anecdotes about encountering ghosts. No way was that any sort of technical manual on ghosts.
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By Fake Shemp
#4927563
The humour is the big problem for me. I'm still gobsmacked that it took hours of improv for Hemsworth to come up with the lame Mike Hat joke...and that's the main problem with the movie. Way too much improv. If you have a tight script you don't need to spend that amount of time coming up with "improvements" to scenes. If what we saw was better than the lines in the script, then it's no wonder audiences didn't respond well to the film.

As to how I'd fix it...a better script and leads with more chemistry as a team. Maybe actors who already have history together in comedy like the original trio did (National Lampoon, Second City, SNL) so they interacted more comfortably together.
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By TB3
#4928387
I don't think it would need massive amounts of work to 'fix', just a more sympathetic pass in the editing suite. There is so much character-based material that was just left on the cutting-room floor.
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