We could've had the First Asian Female Captain, but no....

"Ghostbusters" failed because it was a bad movie,sexism and yet another needless reboot all combined. Sometimes things fail for multiple reasons. That doesn't even factor in the terrible adds and the horrible CGI being used in those adds were the ghosts looked very lame. Would have helped also if they at least set it in the same universe as the first movies and had the cameo's be from the characters people already loved.

Jason

 

They didn't look.

 

But I'll bet you didn't think the original movie was sexist with it's all male leads, right?

 

No, they just wanted a big name, thus hiring a blond woman of nordic descent to play a Japanese character didn't strike them as problematic at all.

 

I'm confused by the question. Do you think some people disliked the movie because it was sexist or because the audience was sexist? As for the orginal movie it is somewhat sexist simply because your most prominent female character is relegated to just being a love interest for the most part. Some will say Vekman but that is part of the character. Bill Murray is suspose to be a little smarmy. Bill Murray can make that stuff work. Overall it's not that bad for 1984 standards. As for the modern movie I think some people didn't like seeing a all female cast but that wasn't me. I am a fan of all the women in the cast, especially Wiig and McKinnon. Melissa McCarthy tends to work better in small does but she is okay and seems to be a okay fit for this kind of movie. I had no problem with the cast and was looking forward to it actually and I was even unaware of the backlash because this was during the time when I was away from the internet. I didn't have internet venting to influence my opinion going in. On;y reason I know it wasn't any good was that it was just boring to watch. Granted I saw this recently after seeing the new "Independence Day" movie which even sucked harder so this movie combined with that one sort of was a breaking point of remakes. I think that was when I had enough of them. At least comedy remakes or sequels past their prime. "Dumb and Dumber 2" was another disaster. I assume other people disliked the movie as well because of it being boring.


Jason

 

Dumb and Dumber 2 was mediocre. The prequel that didn't even involve Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels was much, much worse. It's like choosing between room temperature enchiladas and the Turbo Lax that Daniels drinks in the original film.

 

I hated that prequel as well though I will say the actors they got at least sort of looked the part. As for the sequel it might have not been so bad but they made the characters so mean spirited compared to how they were in the first movie. PLus they repeated all the same jokes which is the death move made by all terrible sequels. I did find it funny though that Jim Carrey was faking a coma for over two decades just for a joke. That was the one funny gag.

Jason

 

Oh, I think most of us know that. I just get tired of the "SJW Hollywood writers forcing diversity on us" sludge that makes every series lead who isn't a white male into a political statement to push a liberal agenda on an unwilling audience that just wants fun, exciting stories and cool space battles with aliens. That was a poke at the authors of that spiel more than anything else.

 

Did people have probkems with Brooks not being a captain at first? I thought it was clear they were just trying to do something different and basically do something kind of like they are doing with Burnham and not have the lead to be just another captain. They wanted people to relate to him better by not making him some special superhero type which is kind of where KIrk and Picard sometimes fall into. KIrk and Picard can do no wrong. That doesn't work well with the type of show DS9 was going for.

I do think it might have hindered some people's respect for the character because of course you had people get angry that he yelled at Picard and the station "didn't go anywhere." TNG was still the most popular Trek thing going at the time so that makes sense that some people weren't ready for a new kind of show even though it was still very connected to everything TNG had created.

One thing that has always bothered though was something I read years ago here on the Trekbbs. Someone who had inside info talked about how Berman refused to let Brooks shave his head because it would make him "to black." I don't know if it was true. This guy also I think talked about how Arnold Swartzeneggar was going to be in "Insurrection" but he seemed knowledgeable so that bit of info has never left my brain.

Jason

 

I may have misunderstood the above sentence. I interpreted it to mean that you considered casting women in all of the lead roles in Ghostbusters, sexist. If that's not what you meant, my apologies.

 

That's who I was thinking about. Though it's hard to sometimes to separate honest dislike for the movie and people who hate it for the wrong reason because who end the end really knows what most people are thinking on the inside. I'm kind of glad that I think I was able to be fair simply because I wasn't exposed to the internet. This movie also happened pre-Trump were things have somehow become even more hostile in the world. It would really be interested to see how people perceive lots of modern shows and social issues if they were seeing them like people did back before the Internet became so important to everyones lives.

Jason

 

The overreaction to Ghostbusters was absurd. The movie itself a decent if forgettable modern comedy, like most recent comedies.

 

Most recent movies for that matter. Obviously it’s down to ones opinion but most movies seem void of a story, they just focus on visual candy, explosions galore and there’s not very much to remember. Bring back the movies of the 80s and 90s, strong character building stories that left you wanting more.

 

Most movies in the 80s and 90s sucked too, we just remember the good ones. The same will happen to recent movies.

 

It might have been another studio head. Here's the excerpt from an interview with Ira Behr.



Once and for all, describe your relationship with Rick Berman.

Behr: If I saw Rick Berman on the street today I would hug him. We ran into each other during the writers’ strike and we hugged. Did we agree all the time? No. Could we talk about that? Sure, we could, but what’s the point? Given the fact that we were part of this monolithic franchise, DS9 pushed the envelope as far as we could at that time in that situation. Could we have gone farther? Sure. Would the fans have gone with us? Not all of them, clearly. On a day-to-day basis I would say over the course of seven years we had a pretty good working relationship. We disagreed on lots of small and large things, but he went in there with me to fight for Avery Brooks, to shave his head and keep the goat. We walked across the lot together to the executive offices. We were jazzed and we had this disk of how he looked, and we were a team to do that. We got there and they immediately gave up, which was funny after three years. We were all set to go in with guns blazing and they said, “OK.” So it was a little anticlimactic, but we were a team at that moment. It’s one of the things that profoundly confuses me about the whole Star Trek (experience), is my relationship with Rick Berman, why people care or what that even means, what my relationship was.

http://www.startrek.com/article/ira-steven-behr-remembers-ds9-part-2

 

Well the overreaction can have lots to do with how beloved the movie it's being remade from, was. "Ghostbusters" is a much beloved movie and it also has that long history of where people have been wanting it to come back for years and years and nothing ever happened, mostly because Murray wouldn't do it then Ramis died and so you are already going into the movie with the fact that your not seeing the version you have been wanting to see for years. I actually think you still do a good "Ghostbusters" movie with the last cast. You already got the stinker out of the way. Just do something new with the concept and it could work. I've always felt like that if they ever do another one they should take it out of a New York setting. I would love to see the "Ghostbusters" fighting ghosts in LA and then bring in Holllywod stuff into the comedy mix.

Jason

 

The most interesting thing about that was who requested more diverse casting. Not just on Star Trek but across the board. Not the producers or writers. But the advertisers.

 

I read that as well. I've been reading the Trek book "The Fifty-Year Mission The First 25 Years." Adds more credence to the idea that Majel Barrett wasn't allowed to be the first officer because Roddenberry was having affair instead of because the audience wouldn't accept a woman first officer. I mean we know Trek was created in the 60's but it was also the late 60's I think women's lib had started by then or am I a few years off? At the very least Mary Tyler Moore on "The DIck Van Dyke" show was on tv and lets not forget Trek was made possible in part because of Lucille Ball. I would imagine she would be okay with a strong female character on the show.

Jason

 

Trying to appeal as many different kinds of people as possible does tend to make more people wanting to buy things.

Except for crackers.