Why Is Ghostbusters: Afterlife Immune to Criticisms of the 2016 Reboot?
- Thread starter Shaka Zulu
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The problem with that is that people most certainly didn't wait to see the last one before criticizing it. They were hating on it from literally the day it was announced, long before there was even a trailer (and some were praising it even before the trailer came out, too, but they were heavily outnumbered).
Well, in addition to some bois objecting to the idea of a female cast, you're dealing with the essentially conservative nature of hardcore fandom as a dynamic of its own: fans want more of what they already like, exactly the way they already know they like it. You don't mess with Mom's Macaroni & Cheese.
The only reason I still haven't seen the '16 movie, is because the trailers just didn't make it look funny to me. Anybody who has paid even the slightest attention to my posts here would have to know by now that I have no problem with women as the lead in these kinds of movies.
I really Paul Feig accuse anyone who didn't like the movie of automatically be sexist, probably did a lot more harm than good for it's reputation.
As a general rule Melissa McCarthy annoys the hell out of me, so it would have had to be really good to get me to go see it, and judging from the trailers and clips I've seen it wasn't.
I really Paul Feig accuse anyone who didn't like the movie of automatically be sexist, probably did a lot more harm than good for it's reputation.
As a general rule Melissa McCarthy annoys the hell out of me, so it would have had to be really good to get me to go see it, and judging from the trailers and clips I've seen it wasn't.
Yep. The toxic online reaction from the misogynists and MRA loser types had precisely nothing to do with the quality or lack thereof of the actual movie (because nobody had seen it yet); it was all about woke cooties in their boys' club.
A big difference to a small number of people.
One thing she did that I just remembered looked like it could be pretty good was the AI movie Superintelligence.
I'll be honest, I'm kind of indifferent about Melissa McCarthy as a comedy performer.
I mean full disclosure: we don't get SNL over here (or if we do, it's one some random channel in the dead of night, either way, I don't watch it) which I gather is what she's mostly known for in the US, so all I've really seen of her is a handful of movies over the last half decade or so. I find her style very hit and miss as it seems to lean heavily on improv, so if the scripted material is good it doesn't matter if the improv sometimes falls flat. But if the material is weak, the improv is under undue pressure to support the whole thing and that almost never works out.
I think the only movie I've seen her in that I actually quite liked was 'The Heat'. Even that was mostly because she had Sandra Bullock to bounce off of, and the script at least had some substance to it. Everything else I've seen her in (Ghostbusters included) have all seemed to be forgettable gimmicky star vehicles with paper thin plots, some light prop comedy mostly depend on her improv abilities to play out the 90mins. That's not an inherent knock against McCarthy; there are VERY few comedians that can support a movie on their improv skills alone (pretty much only Robin Williams comes to mind.)
I actually thought she did as well as could be expected in Ghostbusters, it's just that Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones were both SO much funnier and entertaining (seriously, I'd take a Patty and Holtzmann spin-off in a heartbeat) that Wiig and McCarthy were rather left in the dust.
Again, not the actors' fault there as it's an inherent problem with how the movie was designed. While the original four Ghostbusters each had a clearly defined role and set of character traits (the heart, the head, the mouth and the everyman), the remake defined them as "the black one", "the crazy one" "the funny one" and "the funny one". Now Patty and Holtzmann managed to carve out likable character niches for themselves, but Gilbert and Yates wound up coming off as deeply unlikable and grating as their characters attempted to out mug each other. And what the hell was going on with Kevin? Who thought "Phillip J. Fry level dumb but with no sympathetic traits" was a good replacement for Janine, Louis AND Dana all in one?
One of the most notable things about the original Ghostbusters for me, is that they intentionally dialled back on the overt comedy-even cutting a few scenes-to make the movie feel more grounded and let the comedy come out in a more natural way.
I mean full disclosure: we don't get SNL over here (or if we do, it's one some random channel in the dead of night, either way, I don't watch it) which I gather is what she's mostly known for in the US, so all I've really seen of her is a handful of movies over the last half decade or so. I find her style very hit and miss as it seems to lean heavily on improv, so if the scripted material is good it doesn't matter if the improv sometimes falls flat. But if the material is weak, the improv is under undue pressure to support the whole thing and that almost never works out.
I think the only movie I've seen her in that I actually quite liked was 'The Heat'. Even that was mostly because she had Sandra Bullock to bounce off of, and the script at least had some substance to it. Everything else I've seen her in (Ghostbusters included) have all seemed to be forgettable gimmicky star vehicles with paper thin plots, some light prop comedy mostly depend on her improv abilities to play out the 90mins. That's not an inherent knock against McCarthy; there are VERY few comedians that can support a movie on their improv skills alone (pretty much only Robin Williams comes to mind.)
I actually thought she did as well as could be expected in Ghostbusters, it's just that Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones were both SO much funnier and entertaining (seriously, I'd take a Patty and Holtzmann spin-off in a heartbeat) that Wiig and McCarthy were rather left in the dust.
Again, not the actors' fault there as it's an inherent problem with how the movie was designed. While the original four Ghostbusters each had a clearly defined role and set of character traits (the heart, the head, the mouth and the everyman), the remake defined them as "the black one", "the crazy one" "the funny one" and "the funny one". Now Patty and Holtzmann managed to carve out likable character niches for themselves, but Gilbert and Yates wound up coming off as deeply unlikable and grating as their characters attempted to out mug each other. And what the hell was going on with Kevin? Who thought "Phillip J. Fry level dumb but with no sympathetic traits" was a good replacement for Janine, Louis AND Dana all in one?
One of the most notable things about the original Ghostbusters for me, is that they intentionally dialled back on the overt comedy-even cutting a few scenes-to make the movie feel more grounded and let the comedy come out in a more natural way.
Oh, come.on. That's bullshit.
Was 2016 attacked by red pill MRA asshats?
Absofuckinglutely.
Was everyone who thought 2016 looked bad from the trailers a red pilled MRA asshat? Fuck no. That was marketing spin by Sony, Feig etc as they tried to weaponize the film into some kind of proxy culture war, complete with Hilary Clinton busting a slimey Donald Trump ghost on a morning show.
"If you're a good liberal you will spend your money on this movie to prove the MRA MAGIDIOTS wrong! Nothing says social progression like giving your hard earned dollars to a multinational corporation!"
It was pandering. You don't think our movie looks good? You're a misogynist. Give us your money to prove otherwise.
I'm glad the movie was made. I've discovered over the years it has a huge LGBTQ following to whom it is super important. I wish they had got their sequel. I can say that and still say that IMO it was a trainwreck of a film. I'm also pretty "meh" about Afterlife.
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Good lord I haven't even seen the 2016 movie, is it worth the bother?
It's really popular among the younger LGBTQ community, if you're in that demographic, sure, give it a go.
Not young, and not in that group, so not sure how to approach that one.
Then you're not really the targeted audience for it and I'd advise skipping it.
So the movie wasn't made for everyone, but a small target audience, I thought they make movies to make as much money as possible so wider audience?
? Every movie/piece of art/commerce in general has a target audience. That's not a criticism. It's an acknowledgement.
Eh, I'm an middle-aged, straight, white dude and I enjoyed the movie well enough when I saw it in theaters. The cast is pretty good (especially Kate McKinnon) and there's a few scenes that made me chuckle. I wouldn't go out of my way to watch it, but there's worse ways to spend two hours.
I wasn't saying people outside the targeted audience can't like it, just that it's not made for us. Which is fine, we've no shortage of films that are targeted at us.
