The Ghostbusters Franchise

You can agree or disagree with whether or not it was a factor, but belittling the allegation of sexism as a conspiracy theory betrays one's actual position on the matter of equal rights.

The allegation that Ghostbusters 3’s creation is inherently right wing is strawmanning. That’s the issue here. Leslie Jones has legitimate complaints, this is so far away from them it taints her other issues. Her legitimate complains feel less legitimate because of the nonsensical correlation.

Edited by Beatman1 on Jan 22nd 2019 at 12:05:46 PM

Don't you know? The reason why Hilary lost and Trump became POTUS is all because Ghostbusters reboot failed.

Of course, if you look at how much of a miserable box office flop it became and nearly caused it to permanently dead, it clearly never really mattered that much to begin with.

Hey, small wonder why Sony wants to pretend the reboot never happened, because why wouldn't they?

Yeah, none of those remakes listed was hit with anywhere near the amount of vitriol that the 2016 Ghostbusters was. Like, there was plenty of people who just didn't like the movie, but the idea that there was no sexism factor involved in the backlash is silly.

And none of them repeatedly shot themselves in the foot by rashing at every criticism, insulting, alienating, and driving away significant portions of potential audiences.

Honestly, alt-right had it really easy here, Ghostbusters pretty much killed itself.

If they had it so easy, why did they feel the need to spew their usual vitriol before the movie even came out?

I consider the quality of the movie completely separate from what those people did. I can understand her thinking the Alt right had something to with it considering the constant shit she took, or her feeling like this new movie may be giving them what they want (essentially telling them they won). It may be hard for her to separate her personal feelings due to the harassment from any other factors.

The reaction might be knee-jerk as well; she found out that something she'd worked hard on (and took a lot of race based heat over) is being replaced and she lashed out. Not the best move, but something I could see a lot of other people doing.

Yes, thank you. We can multi-task here; we can say that Leslie Jones is making more problems by strawmanning the opposition too much while also acknowledging that what she's saying is hardly baseless. Focusing on the (very real) mistakes Jones is making and largely ignoring the serious sexism and racism the movie faced just feels like victim blaming to me.

Yeah. End of the day, Ghostbusters 2016 was a mediocre film, nothing special one way or the other so far as storytelling and basic film structure. It deserved to come out to a lukewarm reception with a handful of sales from diehard fans, and then promptly be forgotten by the annals of cinematic history like so many other such films.

But it became notable for the truly insane level of zealous hate it inspired merely by existing. Ghostbusters 2016 sparked a culture war by inadvertently shining a light on the ugliness that dwells in the heart of many fandoms.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Jan 22nd 2019 at 11:12:31 AM

The internet as a whole is a self-promoting echo chamber, a place for people to scream with little real world backlash for the average person. On occasion this stuff spills out into the real world but the confrontational tone Jones, McCarthy and Feig took only amplified it.

Speaking of Feig, he elected to stick his foot in his mouth again, defending Leslie Jones’ rant while giving Reitman a backhanded compliment.

And so, it begins again

I doubt it. I don't think anyone in the production would like to kick that hornet nest, the fans will worry more about whether the teenage successors can live up to expectations.

EGB set the example, but that also faced opposition when it began, and although today it stands on its own and is respected by most fans, it will undoubtedly cast a shadow on this new take.

If Feig and Jones and whoever elsw in the 2016 production wants to continue this fight, it will ultimately only hurt them I feel.

Again, probably the biggest reason why I didn't give the 2016 film a chance. They could have been more mature about this.

Frankly, I don't think Feig or Leslie are in any way wrong. They're perfectly right to be upset about this and there's nothing wrong with Leslie expressing her dislike through a joke at the expense of the Trump and his ilk.

Edited by Chariot on Jan 23rd 2019 at 3:45:20 PM

They’re both idiots in this as far as I’m concerned, equating liking the idea of a proper GB 3 to supporting Trump. That is a massive leap in logic.

If Ghostbusters '16 made enough money, there would be no Ghostbusters 3. It's not like we're talking about low budget art movies, the studios don't even expect to break box office records and are some times made for the prestige rather than the money.

The big thing is 2016 didn't capture the spirit of the original which is why it really failed as a reboot. Ghostbusters was more situational sarcasm and comedic seriousness, a very 80s SNL thing, the reboot was more 'do something absurd and "funny"' of modern SNL. The very first trailer is what really set it off as the entire tone was off from being Ghostbusters.

I don't care who the new cast is really if this new one is going to attempt the more situational sarcasm style of the original then I am absolutely all for it.

EDIT: I still maintain that if they got someone who is sarcastic like Bill Murray to play the lead of 2016 like say Sarah Silverman with two Comedic Serious nerdy types the reboot would have been fine.

Edited by Memers on Feb 1st 2019 at 5:44:23 AM

Emma Stone was also considered at one point for the 2016 film, who I think would have been a far better choice than say, Kristen Wiig.

Honestly, I never had any problems with the actresses on screen. Off screen, it's a whole another issue.

Oh, and the currently planned release dste for the movie is July 10th, 2020.

That should be more than enough time for me to catch up with Stranger Things. Apparently this movie is influenced by that series.

Ever since I said I enjoyed 2017's IT, people keep telling me I should watch that series. I figured, eh, why the heck not.

Looking back, most of the hate for II is weird. It has faults, particularly it has pacing issues. But it has amazing scenes like the tunnel scene and kidnapping of the baby. Also I didn't get the "people forget about the ghosts" complaint. Like the point of the film is that by taking away Gozer, ghosts stopped.

I think it's more the ingratitude towards the ghostbusters, they stopped Gozer and yet the people of New York sues them and calls them frauds and at that point ghosts have been pretty much confirmed. Kinda hard to explain away all the weird crap that happened.

I'm going to say that 90% of the backlash against Ghostbusters (2016) came from "extremely online" angry man-boys who didn't want to share their toys with icky girls. And there was a major element of race-baiting when that prancing Nazi douchebag targeted Leslie Jones on Twitter. Yeah, there were some people who were opposed to the idea of a remake on principle, but they were in the minority. I don't see how one could have participated in the discourse and not picked up on that.

Of course, that doesn't mean that anyone who doesn't like the movie is automatically a misogynist. I don't think James Rolfe did anything wrong. And I feel bad that anyone who didn't like the movie for sensible reasons now has to specify that they're not a misogynist whenever they talk about it, but whatcha gonna do.

As for this new movie, I'm for it. I've wanted a proper Ghostbusters III since the day I saw Ghostbusters II. It's an absolute bummer that Harold Ramis isn't going to be in it, especially since Egon is my favorite Ghostbuster, but he's not the only reason the first two movies (or just the original, if you're so inclined) are so good.

I didn't like the reboot because I saw it as a nostalgic cash grab with subpar comedy but...yeah a lot of it was likely "meninists" who go up in arms whenever a women does anything in a movie.

Wonder if Rick Moranis will be in it. He was willing to reprise his role as Dark Helmet for an ep of The Goldbergs, so he may be wanting to get back into acting.

x2 Yeah I think the filme being a cash garb reboot is the real main reason nobody liked the movie. The misogynist was basically an unwanted addition to that fire that I can’t believe I have to admit that I am in the same camp as them in hating the movie.

Seriously, I know production of the movie was said to be only greenlitted by Amy Pascal as a way to have her feminist superheroe movie since her plans for an all female lead super hero movie isn’t going through (well we have to wait and see for that Black Cat/Silver Sable movie); but c’mon the fact that it has female Ghostbusters wasn’t the reason that film failed.Especially compare to like Mad Max Fury Road which also has a significant all female cast and the title character barely being the hero of the movie. Seriously its cringe that those guys even though females is the reason why the movie is bad.