GhostBusters 3 is Finally Being Made. (2020 Release)

There's way too much here to even get into but I'll hit the highlights:

1. This isn't about saying GB16 is an amazing movie that does no wrong. It's humor is too extreme for most people. But that doesn't mean it's disrespecting some mythical balance of 'realism' or 'believability' that the original had. It's not all that different from the original, except people thought the original was funny and didn't think this one was.

2. You seem to have missed a great deal about the McCarthy/Wiig relationship. It didn't just magically get better when the movie got started, it was a major story thread through the entire film and a pivotal aspect of the climax. The climax was them overcoming their issues (in addition to saving the day).

 

If I've misinterpreted your point I apologize.

 

No worries.

 

Yes. He is a thoroughly believable character, sadly.

 

There is a balance, though. Some things are believable because they're true to things you really encounter and experience and some things are not because they go beyond what you really encounter and experience. You really encounter and experience people who are corporate, bureaucratic, stooges or people who are clingy social outcasts with no sense of boundaries or decorum.

You do not encounter people who are constantly make humorous jokes, quips, and gags. Like constantly. All. Of. The. Time. Doing. These. Things! Where you talk to them and they want you to go away so they go at you with a long series of gags with the middle finger.

It didn't really "get better" when they started the business but it seemed to mostly go away and they started working together on some level or another. And then there was supposed to be the moment at the end where they're friendship is rekindled when she saves her from the portal or whatever. They weren't constantly butting heads or at odds with one another when it came to things other than the bit where they both said "let's go" but that seemed to be more them just stepping on one another and not some dynamic of them clashing with who was "in charge" because they both reacted to it in almost a "1, 2, 3, you owe me a Coke!" kind of way.

 

Making them Egon's family is a great way to make Egon a part of the movie even though Harold Ramis is dead.

 

I work with a bunch of Walter Pecks and a lot of our customers are Louis Tullys.

Not to pile on the realism vs. silliness too much, but the part that I've heard here makes Peck so "unbelievable" is when he tells the cop if they interfere again shoot them. The cop actually brings that back though with his response, from memory, "you do your job pencilneck and I'll do mine" So even though that was a ridiculous thing for him to say, everyone else there thought so to. I thought it was a good comedy moment and also forwarded the story. Peck really is what everyone else has said here, a government employee that let his small amount of authority go to his head.

 

I agree, it makes him part of the story even though he can't be. Much better than some kind of tribute photo or reference in an otherwise unrelated storyline.

 

it's amazing to me how deftly written Ghostbusters (1984) is. The dialogue just rings.. even lines that are not "jokes" add much to the humor, and most of them come form the characters. "We got the tools.. we got the talent," makes me smile every time, yet, while it's not a joke.. it's not.. NOT a joke either.

 

Exactly. Many of the characters in the original films are just amusing and interesting to watch even when they aren't being funny. And their interactions feel real, like Peter's reaction when Ray slaps his head. Or Egon motioning to Peter how much to charge the Sedgewick. Or the way all three turn when the bookcase collapses and then they quietly react to it instead of going crazy banana-pants. It's a classic for a reason, it's just such a finely-tuned movie full of skilled performers and directed with a confident hand. Even GB2 is a lot better than it usually gets credit for. (It can be lesser than GB1 and still a great movie.) IMO.

 

It's also subversive in it's themes (and I've seen people debate on whether it HAS any themes at all, which, if it didn't, is not a bad thing necessarily)
1) these guys actually found a ghost, found a way to somehow measure it using ionization rates or whatever, they then designed the equipment, put up the capital to make the equipment, started their own business.. and the result is.. they wind up becoming exterminators or kind of garbage men (the trash being spirits).. doing basically grunt work around the city?
2) the fact that in most stories with a supernatural bent, the hero needs to use the same supernatural abstract to fight it.. they need an artifact, or wand, or be the son of some magical person, or be the chosen one...etc or at least fight supernatural entities using supernatural means on the same level. Nope.. with these guys.. it's science vs. the supernatural, but with the tools and the talent anyone can be trained on this stuff (maybe this is why kids love this movie, that even THEY can fight the monster under the bed and not be afraid)

 

It's just fun how they start thinking this is going to be glamorous and make them rich and they become overworked, blue-collar workers needing beer and a bed.

 

I've been prompted to watch the original so I stuck in the DVD and fired away, just moments in I'm reminded of another comparison I saw made between this movie and the 2016 reboot/make.

In the original it's a couple minutes from the first shot to the opening title, in that we get a tone and mood set with the librarian and the library ghost. This creepy scene with her in the basement, the card-catalog drawers opening and the cards flying out, she gets scared and screams, boom opening title.

In the remake it's several minutes before you get the opening title. And in those several minutes we get a lot of a dialogue and establishing information that is completely unimportant to anything going on in the rest of the movie (other than we see the summoning device under the table.) And that's just something to think about when it comes to it all. In the original it's somewhere around 20-30 minutes from the beginning to when then Ghostbusters enter the Sedgwick Hotel on their first call.

In the remake it's an hour into the movie before we get to the similar scene (them at the theater.)

That's just a really good show of the incompetence and failure of the remake when it comes to something as simple as time management.

(Ah! It was in the Plinkett review about 20:49 into it.)

2 minutes and change between the quick opening establishing shot of the NYC Public library and the title card. In the new one over 5 minutes and we know all about this mansion, the family, the daughter, her being locked in the basement, etc. And none of it matters to the rest of the movie.

 

This job is definitely not worth $11,500 a year.

 

Using an inflation calculator, damn, that's nothing to live on. Though, I suppose his living expenses would be fairly "cheap" if he got to live in the firehouse.

 

That's one of the things I've always loved about the whole section of the franchise based off of the original movies, the team aren't big monster slaying action heroes, they're just a bunch of average joes doing a job.

 

This is displayed nicely in the movie in a scene, also pointed out in the Plinkett review, before they go into Dana's apartment building before the climax of the movie. They're outside being cheered on by the crowd treated as these great heroes there to save the day (also nicely showcased by the song during the scene during their drive from the Mayor's office to the apartment building) they enter the building with these cheers, cut to...

Their out-of-shape, tired, bodies about to pass out, and throw-up, climbing the stairs of the apartment building.

Most other movies would've just cut right to them entering Dana's apartment or just getting to the temple itself but because the comedic beats of this movie are so well done it's much better played to show this contrast between them being herald as heroes between the mayor's office, the trip to the site, the gearing up in front of the crowd, the cheers after the street collapses, I mean we're going to the climax of a movie here! Let's build this up! We've been building up this heroic moment for several scenes now!

Boom. Them about to pass out climbing the stairs. (Granted, 30 flights of stairs which would exhaust anyone, but still.)



I just got done watching this a little while ago and, damn, I still just love this movie.

(Though I still want to know why Peter apparently had a LOT of Thorazine (like a LETHAL amount) on him when he went to meet Dana on this date. )

 

Peck was from the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency. The NRA is the National Rifle Association, and they aren't a part of the government. I don't know what they have to do with it. The NRA wasn't even mentioned in the film, as far as I know.

 

I think that was just him pointing out how dangerous the proton packs were and how Peck was "right" to want to know more about them. He's just saying that they're so powerful no one could defend the Ghostbusters' "right" to have them unencumbered. Not even the NRA.

 

That is acurate. That level of tech seems to beyond anything even the EPA should handle. You would think this is something the FBI would show up and some top level experts. Of course in real life they would have shut down the ghostbusters from day 1 and they could have even be arrested just for owning that quipment. If people can't even own Bazkoos you know you couldn't own ray guns. Even in a open and cary state. Jason