Why Is Ghostbusters: Afterlife Immune to Criticisms of the 2016 Reboot?

[Morpheus 02]

Of course, it doesn't take a previously existing interest to make a film a hit. People had been asking for more Ghostbusters for decades (of course they thought they were asking for part 3). If Charlies Angels had been good, it would have been a hit. Look at the new Jumanji movies. No one was asking for a sequel, and when announced everybody said "No Robin Williams, and it's a video game? Pass" But the movie was good and was a huge hit.

I definitely went into it with eyes rolloed, but had 2 kids, so they wanted to see it.

i wound up REALLY liking it. A couple of things with it

1) They DEFINITELY honored and connected the PREVIOUS movie. Now, they updated it for sure (board game turning into video game), but made it feel smooth, so that and the initials carved into some wood showed the respect

2) They did a good job of making ALL the characters important, and making their bonding feel "realisitic"


3) If this was the only choice if they found out STar Wars was sold out, people wound up loving it.

4) When people saw it, they shared their thoughts

I'm not sure this is true, but I need more time to do the research on recent female led movies. There are definite high profile cases, but it's the ones that didn't make headlines that we would naturally overlook in this discussion.

Yeah... i know. I am drawing a blank. But the excitement over WOnder WOman, Captain Marvel and Black Widow shows the appetite is there.

Two reasons why I avoided the 2016 remake despite being a fan of the original...

1. The previews. Gobs of snarky verbal exchanges, and almost no scenes of ghosts getting zapped. I wanted to see Ghostbusters, not a sitcom.

2. Four very capable female characters, and a male doofus for comic relief. If you want men to watch your movie, don't have your movie castrate them.

1. I guess so... that didn't turn it off for me as the lack of previous connection. Heck with the orginal's talk of dimensional rifts... maybe Zuul or something could have been pushed in by the original crew, sent tumbling though dimensions until finally stopping in the 2016 universe (if they just HAD to make the women that universe's "original" Ghostbusters)

2. I don't think Hemsworth was the problem. Guys would still find him funny .

3. My daughters liked the movie, and i did too. But i think i wold have loved it if there was a tie-in to the original. I definitely like 2016 over Ghostbusters 2. But like i said, i think what Afterlife seems to bring back to the table is why it isn't getting the pre-hate the 2016 movie did. My minor gripe would be since this is really 3rd generation at this point, they could have easily made the characters mixed (like Storm Reid portrayed in A Wrinkle in Time), and created diversity much more naturally.

 

[Paul Weaver]

...You don't think that remaking an all cis male film written and directed by cis white males with four female leads, one openly gay playing a gay character, directed by a gay man, written by a gay man and a woman, was intended to target a female, LGBTQ audience?

No more than any other demographic. It was a mass market summer blockbuster.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

^ AFAIK & FWIW, Feig isn't gay, either. (or is this one of those *wink wink* of course he's not deals?)

 

[Oddish]

Doesn't matter if he is. What matters is the movie's message.

 

[FlyingLemons]

I... didn't enjoy the Ghostbusters 2016 reboot. I discounted a lot of the internet garbage because well, it's the internet, but when I went in it left me cold. The thing about the movie is it takes some of the most talented members of the SNL cast (especially Kate McKinnon, who is a chameleon and one of the most versatile comedians I've ever seen) and makes them go through a script that rehashes the first film, badly, but also just doesn't give the cast much to work with and makes them unfunny. I had one or two moments where I laughed at McKinnon's character, but yeah, it wasn't good.

I'm hoping Ghostbusters Afterlife will be better, but unless the writers and crew are supremely talented I feel it might well fall to the faults that plagued the 2016 reboot, i.e. the script sucks and the cast are wasted. I'd like to be proven wrong, but reboots and long time sequels generally tend to fall victim to the curse of trying to put lightning back in the bottle.

 

[Owain Taggart]

f Charlies Angels had been good, it would have been a hit. Look at the new Jumanji movies. No one was asking for a sequel, and when announced everybody said "No Robin Williams, and it's a video game? Pass" But the movie was good and was a huge hit.

Yeah, I feel that if a movie has good direction and they stick to the landing, then most likely it will turn out a hit. Unless it's a victim of too much competition at the box office, in which case, sometimes you get cult classics out of them, as movies that are great but never received the attention they deserved when they first came out. An example would be the Clue movie, which I think flopped, but later became a cult classic when people rediscovered it.

the curse of trying to put lightning back in the bottle.

Or in this case, trying to put the ghost back into the trap

 

[UssGlenn]

I think it's clear that as a general rule, audiences don't have a problem with female action/sci-fi heroines.
You can trace the timeline:
Emma Peel
Princess Leia
Ellen Ripley
Sarah Connor
Beatrix Kiddo
Selene (Underworld)
Katness Everdeen
Jyn Erso
Black Widow

and those are just the highlights

also throw in all the action leads played by
Angelina Jolie
Milla Jovovich
Charlize Theron
Michelle Yeoh

The worst you usually see is people skeptical about actresses first action role until they establish their credentials, see Gal Gadot for this.
This of course happens with male actors as well, Bruce Willis and Chris Pratt are easy examples.

Contrast this with the occasional high profile exception Ghostbusters 2016, Captain Marvel, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy. I'm not going to give the Charlie's Angels reboot the satisfaction of calling it high profile. By the way, Barrymore's Charlie's Angels goes on my list of good female led action movies.

Original Properties are easier, franchises have lots of emotional baggage you can get tripped up in.

 

[Tim Thomason]

From @Shamrock Holmes in another thread, but I presume intended for this thread:

My take is that Ghostbusters: Afterlife is "immune" to criticism at the moment because based on the trailers is potentially the sequel that fans have been anticipating for decades so fans are reserving judgement until they see if it's any good... if it isn't, I expect it to be slated at least as badly as Answer the Call.

Ghostbusters: Answer the Call on the other hand, put off a lot of people by clearly being a "reboot with an agenda" from day 1, based only on the trailers, so lost a lot of fan goodwill from the outset.

 

[JD]

The thing is, the original movie could EASILY set up the GB multiverse... they talked about interdimensoinal rifts...so easy way to connect the past and present, and create buy-in. Kinda like Abrams did with Star Trek.

They played around with multiple realities in the comics, they did a big crossover with the original team, the 2016 team, the Real Ghostbusters team, and the Extreme Ghostbusters team, with all of them coming from their own separate realities. They also had the movie team expand into a franchise, with different teams in different cities, which is also something I've thought would have worked for a sequel to the original movies.

That isn't to say good films can't get screwed by external factors. Flubbed marketing being common. The Shawshank Redemption had an opaque title and famously flopped, crowded out by Pulp Fiction and Forrest Gump The Rocketeer had a similar problem with competition. But I also subscribe to the idea of "If you build it they will come". Eventually when people find your film later, and it's good, they will become fans, see Firefly. Ghostbusters 2016 had no shortage of publicity, plenty of people knew about it, and they didn't come.

John Carter is another good example of a movie screwed over by bad marketing. It's a great movie, and most of the people who've seen it like it, but they just weren't able to draw enough people into the theater when it came out. I think I even remember seeing some of the people who worked on the movie, admitting that the marketing sucked and that hurt the box office.

 

[Turtletrekker]

The title "John Carter" could have been a movie about your neighbor across the street running for office.

 

[DonIago]

^It might have been more successful too.

 

[UssGlenn]

John Carter is a great example of a confluence of all the factors that can conspire to make a good movie flop. 1st time live action director who didn't shoot scenes in the right order in order for there to be time to make good special effects shots for the trailer, they wouldn't let them call it "Princess of Mars" because they didn't think boys would go see a movie with "Princess" in the title, and the Studio made them remove "Mars" from the title completely because "Mars needs Moms" flopped. This is on top of it being a late adaptation so it looks derivative even though the books created most of those tropes. You could write a paper on this topic.

They also had the movie team expand into a franchise, with different teams in different cities, which is also something I've thought would have worked for a sequel to the original movies.

This idea is so blindingly obvious, that ignoring it made me doubt the competence of the filmmakers from the beginning. Is no one knowing ghosts are real at the beginning that important? Couldn't they set in in LA have the authorities just dismiss the "mass hysteria" in New York 30 years ago, and move on?

I have this scene in my head for a later movie that echos the News-Team Fight in Anchorman, with different teams of Ghostbusters made of different sets of comedians/actors. It would be the climax where every Ghostbuster franchise has to come together to defeat the big bad. I'm definitely not the only person to have imagined this.

 

[Shaka Zulu]

This is BS.

Big, stinky BS, and then some; the fault in all of this lies with Bill Murray, and his refusal (due to his being on an 'ahart' kick with all of those Sundance/Telluride-orientated movies he made in the 2000's, including this so-called 'classic' that makes people of color look like clowns); had he not been a dick, and simply decided to be in a third movie when Ramis was healthy and not yet suffering the illness that would eventually claim his life. Instead, we all get a video game with the four, and that's it; thank you, ladies and gentlemen, and goodnight!

Due to this unneeded emotional/legal malarkey, and Harold Ramis also going into a 'thank you, everybody, and goodnight' in 2014, it was not a question of if Columbia was going to reboot the franchise (partly also to satisfy the ceaseless demands of fans for a third movie), but when the company would do so; what did the fans expect at that point in time? The company decided to do it with women, because of the perceived need of there not being enough representation for women in films, and because it would be amazing to see how four women (three of them scientists, one of them a smart everywoman [representing the average person, but better executed, IMHO, than the original similar male character she's based on with decent research skills) team up to capture/trap and research ghosts. There was nothing wrong with it or unfunny about it other than it wasn't the exact same humor as the 1984 film, and that's subjective at best; plus, as shown by the critical acclaim and the love it got from women and girls, it did have love and support. But of course, all of that didn't/doesn't matter to most of the (male) fandom, who had to have their guys back, by hook or by crook, so they sabotaged it, because (let's be frank) 'Eww! Girls! In our clubhouse! We don't want no bitches busting ghosts!' So what happened in 2016, happened, all because the first male lead of the 1984 movie had to be a dick and couldn't do the one (last) obligatory movie that would have concluded his playing the lead character of the franchise while (possibily) passing on the torch to newer characters who would take up the mantle if Columbia wanted to make a (prospective) new movie.

I hope that this new movie is good and (due to how the concept of an all-female Ghostbusters was treated) the (now) one female character featured so prominently in the trailer is actually given a lot to do in this movie equal to the other male characters and as much as the female 'Busters of the 2016 did, because if not, I predict that there will be a mass outpouring of anger equal to the (mostly male) nastiness heaped upon the 2016 movie, only it will be a 'fair is fair/what's good for the gander is good for the goose' reversal of women (women bloggers, women film critics, and women movie goers-who because of the reach of the Internet, will truly have their collective roar heard) angry that the all-female movie they liked/loved with the female cast they liked/loved was shafted and destroyed just so that there could be a new movie with a new team of younger 'Busters that had only one token female in it who doesn't get much focus compared to the females in the 2016 movie-a calamity that might see this movie flop and then (possibily) kill the franchise-and the idea of the Ghost Corps production company-dead.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

The obvious reason, the 2016 was one not only all women, it was specifically Leslie Jones. Someone who on SNL played an aggressively sexual 40 year old black woman. Part of it is legitimately not liking the character because it's frankly not that funny, but all that is also the epitome of what incels hate.

 

[JD]

Big, stinky BS, and then some; the fault in all of this lies with Bill Murray, and his refusal (due to his being on an 'ahart' kick with all of those Sundance/Telluride-orientated movies he made in the 2000's, including this so-called 'classic' that makes people of color look like clowns); had he not been a dick, and simply decided to be in a third movie when Ramis was healthy and not yet suffering the illness that would eventually claim his life. Instead, we all get a video game with the four, and that's it; thank you, ladies and gentlemen, and goodnight!

Due to this unneeded emotional/legal malarkey, and Harold Ramis also going into a 'thank you, everybody, and goodnight' in 2014, it was not a question of if Columbia was going to reboot the franchise (partly also to satisfy the ceaseless demands of fans for a third movie), but when the company would do so; what did the fans expect at that point in time? The company decided to do it with women, because of the perceived need of there not being enough representation for women in films, and because it would be amazing to see how four women (three of them scientists, one of them a smart everywoman [representing the average person, but better executed, IMHO, than the original similar male character she's based on with decent research skills) team up to capture/trap and research ghosts. There was nothing wrong with it or unfunny about it other than it wasn't the exact same humor as the 1984 film, and that's subjective at best; plus, as shown by the critical acclaim and the love it got from women and girls, it did have love and support. But of course, all of that didn't/doesn't matter to most of the (male) fandom, who had to have their guys back, by hook or by crook, so they sabotaged it, because (let's be frank) 'Eww! Girls! In our clubhouse! We don't want no bitches busting ghosts!' So what happened in 2016, happened, all because the first male lead of the 1984 movie had to be a dick and couldn't do the one (last) obligatory movie that would have concluded his playing the lead character of the franchise while (possibily) passing on the torch to newer characters who would take up the mantle if Columbia wanted to make a (prospective) new movie.

I hope that this new movie is good and (due to how the concept of an all-female Ghostbusters was treated) the (now) one female character featured so prominently in the trailer is actually given a lot to do in this movie equal to the other male characters and as much as the female 'Busters of the 2016 did, because if not, I predict that there will be a mass outpouring of anger equal to the (mostly male) nastiness heaped upon the 2016 movie, only it will be a 'fair is fair/what's good for the gander is good for the goose' reversal of women (women bloggers, women film critics, and women movie goers-who because of the reach of the Internet, will truly have their collective roar heard) angry that the all-female movie they liked/loved with the female cast they liked/loved was shafted and destroyed just so that there could be a new movie with a new team of younger 'Busters that had only one token female in it who doesn't get much focus compared to the females in the 2016 movie-a calamity that might see this movie flop and then (possibily) kill the franchise-and the idea of the Ghost Corps production company-dead.

There are two women, well one adult woman and one teenage girl, in the main cast, Carrie Coon and McKenna Grace. Carrie Coon was even one of the first cast members announced and a lot of the pre-trailer publicity focused on her.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

There are two women, well one adult woman and one teenage girl, in the main cast, Carrie Coon and McKenna Grace. Carrie Coon was even one of the first cast members announced and a lot of the pre-trailer publicity focused on her.

And it's not like there's a massive number of male roles in the movie either, based on the summaries it sounds like only four characters (Callie and her kids, Phoebe and Trevor, and the kid's teacher, Mr Grooberson [played by Paul Rudd]) are actually have any serious screentime, so essentially there's a fifty-fifty split, which is preserved if you add the unnamed classmates who may have substantial supporting roles but are being keep anonymous because... spoilers?

 

[Starkers]

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.

Yeah ditto, I was 45/46 when I saw it and while it's a mess, it's not an unenjoyable mess.

 

[FPAlpha]

I... didn't enjoy the Ghostbusters 2016 reboot. I discounted a lot of the internet garbage because well, it's the internet, but when I went in it left me cold. The thing about the movie is it takes some of the most talented members of the SNL cast (especially Kate McKinnon, who is a chameleon and one of the most versatile comedians I've ever seen) and makes them go through a script that rehashes the first film, badly, but also just doesn't give the cast much to work with and makes them unfunny. I had one or two moments where I laughed at McKinnon's character, but yeah, it wasn't good.

I'm hoping Ghostbusters Afterlife will be better, but unless the writers and crew are supremely talented I feel it might well fall to the faults that plagued the 2016 reboot, i.e. the script sucks and the cast are wasted. I'd like to be proven wrong, but reboots and long time sequels generally tend to fall victim to the curse of trying to put lightning back in the bottle.

Anticipation is sky high for such a beloved movie and it is extremely rare to be able to meet such expectations, even a modestly good movie will suffer and be called the worst thing since Hitler, when by all accounts it would be an otherwise perfectly fine movie on its own without that legacy around its neck.

That being sad i believe the movie failed on its own - you can't just assemble a movie out of parts and expect it to work well. It was an attempt to cash in on current socially aware Hollywood culture and have an all female cast as the leading gimmick. The movie bombed because it just wasn't very good or interesting and that's certainly not the actor's fault - i honestly couldn't explain the plot right now without looking it up whereas i could make a complete scene by scene replay of the original Ghostbusters.

It is a problem when Hollywood tries to use social changes to make some money, Oceans 8 ( the all female spinoff of Clooney's/Pitt's movie series) had the same problem - all star female cast, movie was just not that good.
If studios would just invest a bit more into good writers who manage to come up with an organic way to limit their cast that way the movies would do much better - i don't think the audience is that gender specific, they simply want to see a good movie.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

It is a problem when Hollywood tries to use social changes to make some money, Oceans 8 ( the all female spinoff of Clooney's/Pitt's movie series) had the same problem - all star female cast, movie was just not that good.
If studios would just invest a bit more into good writers who manage to come up with an organic way to limit their cast that way the movies would do much better - i don't think the audience is that gender specific, they simply want to see a good movie.

How was the cast of Ocean's Eleven (2001) organically limited to all male?

If you're thinking, "but Julia Roberts," then

Spoiler

Julia Roberts was not one of the 11.

 

[FPAlpha]

How was the cast of Ocean's Eleven (2001) organically limited to all male?

If you're thinking, "but Julia Roberts," then

Spoiler

Julia Roberts was not one of the 11.

It wasn't but it worked for its time when social conscience in Hollywood was not that much at the forefront, Oceans 8 started off with "We need the entire cast to be women" and then neglected the movie itself thinking it's enough to get some female A-Listers and high profile women like Rihanna.

If Oceans 11 was rebooted well today it most likely would have a mixed cast which is the way to go.