The Technodrome Forums - View Single Post - New Ghostbusters movie in OG movie universe Jason Reitman directing 2020

~~Leo656~~ · 10-12-2021, 09:45 PM

Seeing a lot of good reviews but some of the stuff I'm hearing seems kind of... eh.

- Allegedly, this movie follows the currently popular trend of "Only the movie(s) which were unanimously praised are what counts," therefore Ghostbusters II essentially did not happen. This is annoying.

I get the "why" of it; for this movie's plot to work, the whole "Gozer Incident" and the Ghostbusters saving New York needs to be an isolated incident which has become lost to history. If they'd saved NYC TWICE in very public fashion and had a long-running successful business, it would be a lot harder for this new movie to be all like "Once upon a time there were some guys called Ghostbusters, nobody remembers them and everyone thinks they were a fraud."

Ever since they announced this movie, a lot of folks have been asking "So if the Ghostbusters are an urban legend, how will they explain that time the Statue of Liberty marched through Times Square and everyone saw it?" Easy: They're just gonna pretend that whole movie never happened.

From what I gather, it's not as explicit as they outright say Part II never happened, but more like, it's never mentioned at all and you're supposed to just not acknowledge it. You can if you want to but if you do then it sort of breaks THIS movie's story.

I know that the internet has been insisting for 20 years that Ghostbusters II is bad and nobody liked it. But both of those things are lies. I had a feeling that they'd just ignore Part II because it's just easier that way, but I was really HOPING that they'd at least put some work into making it fit, not just handwave it. Ah well.

- Lots of talk about how this movie is all about "wiping the slate clean and setting up the future of the franchise, specifically parts II and III of a trilogy". Allegedly, several plot points go nowhere at all and are clearly only there as sequel bait; this is a bit annoying as well as presumptuous. Pretty much EVERY time a movie does this sort of thing, their prospective "franchise" self-destructs on the launching pad. And we already know this movie will lose money because of the theater situation, so even if it's "successful" by whatever the current metric is, it could very well be another 5+ years before we even get a sequel, just because of the logistics of it. It might be longer than that, even. Or they just might never get made. It still remains to be proven that this franchise is still "popular" in 2021.

- Some of the ways in which the "slate" is to be "cleaned" have been called "emotionally manipulative" and "openly designed to tug on the heartstrings of longtime fans". I would not be shocked if at least one of the original Ghostbusters gets killed off. When I hear terms like "clearing the slate for the future", I do not envision a series of films where the originals and the new kids co-exist and go on adventures together; that's not what "clearing the slate" means. "Clearing the slate" means "get the old guys out of the way so the kids can completely take the lead." Which implies that some of those characters won't be on the table anymore after this movie.

I think maybe Ray will stick around as like the team's mentor but I wouldn't be shocked if Peter, specifically, bites the dust, especially since Murray's been begging for that to happen for decades. Remember how for decades Harrison Ford said he was done with Star Wars, and would only come back if he was to be killed off, and then sure enough he agrees to come back and gets killed off immediately? I'm not going to be shocked if that's what happens here. I can totally see Reitman's kid caving to Murray's demands just for the sake of getting him involved.

- Supposedly, the movie is sort of like "The Force Awakens", in that the filmmakers were so desperate to wash the bad taste of the most recent film(s) out of peoples' mouths that they play things SUPER safe, to the point where huge chunks of this movie are dedicated to, essentially, remake and call back to scenes from the first movie. Doesn't mean that will be a bad thing, specifically, but it's a thing people have complained about before in other series so I can see it being an issue here as well.
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I don't know. Sounds pretty good, and definitely heartfelt if nothing else. But I can already tell there's at least a few things I'm going to sigh about. But I guess that was unavoidable.

10-12-2021, 09:45 PM	#644
~~Leo656~~ Banned Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: nWo Country Posts: 27,703	Seeing a lot of good reviews but some of the stuff I'm hearing seems kind of... eh. - Allegedly, this movie follows the currently popular trend of "Only the movie(s) which were unanimously praised are what counts," therefore Ghostbusters II essentially did not happen. This is annoying. I get the "why" of it; for this movie's plot to work, the whole "Gozer Incident" and the Ghostbusters saving New York needs to be an isolated incident which has become lost to history. If they'd saved NYC TWICE in very public fashion and had a long-running successful business, it would be a lot harder for this new movie to be all like "Once upon a time there were some guys called Ghostbusters, nobody remembers them and everyone thinks they were a fraud." Ever since they announced this movie, a lot of folks have been asking "So if the Ghostbusters are an urban legend, how will they explain that time the Statue of Liberty marched through Times Square and everyone saw it?" Easy: They're just gonna pretend that whole movie never happened. From what I gather, it's not as explicit as they outright say Part II never happened, but more like, it's never mentioned at all and you're supposed to just not acknowledge it. You can if you want to but if you do then it sort of breaks THIS movie's story. I know that the internet has been insisting for 20 years that Ghostbusters II is bad and nobody liked it. But both of those things are lies. I had a feeling that they'd just ignore Part II because it's just easier that way, but I was really HOPING that they'd at least put some work into making it fit, not just handwave it. Ah well. - Lots of talk about how this movie is all about "wiping the slate clean and setting up the future of the franchise, specifically parts II and III of a trilogy". Allegedly, several plot points go nowhere at all and are clearly only there as sequel bait; this is a bit annoying as well as presumptuous. Pretty much EVERY time a movie does this sort of thing, their prospective "franchise" self-destructs on the launching pad. And we already know this movie will lose money because of the theater situation, so even if it's "successful" by whatever the current metric is, it could very well be another 5+ years before we even get a sequel, just because of the logistics of it. It might be longer than that, even. Or they just might never get made. It still remains to be proven that this franchise is still "popular" in 2021. - Some of the ways in which the "slate" is to be "cleaned" have been called "emotionally manipulative" and "openly designed to tug on the heartstrings of longtime fans". I would not be shocked if at least one of the original Ghostbusters gets killed off. When I hear terms like "clearing the slate for the future", I do not envision a series of films where the originals and the new kids co-exist and go on adventures together; that's not what "clearing the slate" means. "Clearing the slate" means "get the old guys out of the way so the kids can completely take the lead." Which implies that some of those characters won't be on the table anymore after this movie. I think maybe Ray will stick around as like the team's mentor but I wouldn't be shocked if Peter, specifically, bites the dust, especially since Murray's been begging for that to happen for decades. Remember how for decades Harrison Ford said he was done with Star Wars, and would only come back if he was to be killed off, and then sure enough he agrees to come back and gets killed off immediately? I'm not going to be shocked if that's what happens here. I can totally see Reitman's kid caving to Murray's demands just for the sake of getting him involved. - Supposedly, the movie is sort of like "The Force Awakens", in that the filmmakers were so desperate to wash the bad taste of the most recent film(s) out of peoples' mouths that they play things SUPER safe, to the point where huge chunks of this movie are dedicated to, essentially, remake and call back to scenes from the first movie. Doesn't mean that will be a bad thing, specifically, but it's a thing people have complained about before in other series so I can see it being an issue here as well. ----------------- I don't know. Sounds pretty good, and definitely heartfelt if nothing else. But I can already tell there's at least a few things I'm going to sigh about. But I guess that was unavoidable.