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Ghost Leviathan posted:I think a key problem is that improv-heavy works for romantic, screwball and/or gross-out comedies where everything's supposed to be silly, but sci-fi needs to be tightly shot and written to present the story and themes in a consistent and compelling way. The original Ghostbusters treated the supernatural elements entirely seriously, even when people make fun of them it's presented clearly as a coping mechanism and/or characterisation of how the characters have gotten used to weird poo poo. If you want to really appeal to kids you have to do this. When I was 5 years old Ghostbusters was really very serious business, it was scary and the jokes were a necessary comic relief from the horror elements that scared the crap out of me. But I loved it, I wanted to be scared! GB16 doesn't even attempt to be that kind of movie. And that's really the genius of Ghostbusters, it works on multiple levels and can be enjoyed completely differently depending how old you are.
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May 23, 2020 17:12
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Improv truly is the greatest crime of our modern world.
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May 23, 2020 17:34
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Basebf555 posted:If you want to really appeal to kids you have to do this. When I was 5 years old Ghostbusters was really very serious business, it was scary and the jokes were a necessary comic relief from the horror elements that scared the crap out of me. But I loved it, I wanted to be scared! GB16 doesn't even attempt to be that kind of movie. And that's really the genius of Ghostbusters, it works on multiple levels and can be enjoyed completely differently depending how old you are. This is why I have hopes for the new one; I think Jason Reitman gets that. Everyone was complaining about lack of jokes from the trailer, but really? That's definitely not what I want from a GB film. Scary and serious first, jokes over top of that,based on that.
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May 23, 2020 17:35
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Basebf555 posted:If you want to really appeal to kids you have to do this. When I was 5 years old Ghostbusters was really very serious business, it was scary and the jokes were a necessary comic relief from the horror elements that scared the crap out of me. But I loved it, I wanted to be scared! GB16 doesn't even attempt to be that kind of movie. And that's really the genius of Ghostbusters, it works on multiple levels and can be enjoyed completely differently depending how old you are. Yeah, there's a reason popular kids media is generally incredibly self-serious in tone outside the jokes and frequently involves high stakes and overacting even in obviously childish scenarios- kids know and respond to tone even if they don't understand all the context. And it works for adults too! Kids don't like being obviously talked down to, and they immediately recognise it. A giant ghost robot going on about how silly he is will bore them instantly, a giant ghost robot giving them a grand speech on morality will have their enraptured attention. And the adults will too, once they get used to the giant ghost robot.
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May 23, 2020 17:55
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Guy A. Person posted:I've said this before but Kristen Wiig's arc is one that makes sense but is just directly undermined by all the ad libbing/improvisation. Her backstory is that she saw a ghost and nobody believed her so now she is obsessed with being taken seriously. In all the major plot beats this carries through: she is timid until she finds proof, then her confidence swells, then she comes crashing down when faced with scrutiny. But then there's extended scenes where she's like, doing a bit with McCarthy about the plot of Dirty Dancing or whatever which just doesn't jive with what should be happening with her characterization. They could have paired the jokes with her upswings of confidence but it really just happens in whatever scene regardless of context, so even when she is supposed to be feeling defeated and resentful she's still just goofing off. It dawned on me I don't actually remember a thing about Melissa McCarthy's character aside from the wonton soup bit.
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May 23, 2020 20:44
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text me a vag pic posted:Improv truly is the greatest crime of our modern world. The original Ghostbusters had a handful of ad-lib, most known is the drill-thru-the-head bit and response, it just needs to be consistent with the characters.
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May 23, 2020 21:44
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Dawgstar posted:It dawned on me I don't actually remember a thing about Melissa McCarthy's character aside from the wonton soup bit. Yeah her character seems to have been conceived to mostly be a direct foil for Wiig's; like the end of Wiig's arc is that she realizes she should care more about the people who do believe and care about her than freak out about what the average person thinks, whereas McCarthy is the person who already valued loyalty and felt betrayed by Wiig who abandoned her previously. So when Wiig's arc collapses McCarthy's fares even worse because there's nothing to compare/contract it with and you're left with...wonton soup.
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May 23, 2020 21:57
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I mean you talk about arcs, but it's not like the original film had a strong arc for anyone. Egon and Ray decide to be Ghostbusters, and then they bust ghosts. As a team, they have an arc of going from schlubs to successful businessmen to heroes, but personally the only one who grows at all is Peter, and his arc is to care slightly more than not at all about what goes on around him.
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May 23, 2020 22:25
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OB3279Vt8Y
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May 23, 2020 22:47
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That’s true but there’s characterization, like Ray being the overeager team mascot. Wiig is the only one with an actual arc, McCarthy’s at most is like “was hurt by being abandoned but becomes friends again”. In either case it’s all thrown out the window when it’s time for a gag, which you really don’t see in the original.
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May 23, 2020 23:10
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No, but you see... Hmmm... But the theme is clearly... something... well, the EPA is the... Huh.
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May 23, 2020 23:15
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8one6 posted:No, but you see... Believe me, I have thought and thought about what Ghostbusters, the film I've seen the most and it's not even close, is about underneath the surface for longer than I'd care to admit, and I've got nothing. Your thought process is mine, exactly, every time.
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May 23, 2020 23:35
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Oh boy, another "Indiana Jones doesn't actually accomplish anything" stunner.
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May 23, 2020 23:57
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8one6 posted:No, but you see... Don’t, you’ll bring SMG in with his ‘clearly didn’t watch or really listen to the actual film’ reads.
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May 24, 2020 00:03
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ghostbusters is about making money off filtering dan aykrod fever dreams into a script
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May 24, 2020 00:44
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Guy A. Person posted:That’s true but there’s characterization, like Ray being the overeager team mascot. Wiig is the only one with an actual arc, McCarthy’s at most is like “was hurt by being abandoned but becomes friends again”. In either case it’s all thrown out the window when it’s time for a gag, which you really don’t see in the original. Yeah, the guys don't have arcs but they do have roles.
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May 24, 2020 00:52
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Ghostbusters '16 isn't unwatchable, but I don't hate the idea of forcing Paul Feig to direct a shot-for-shot remake of Nothing But Trouble intended for permanent shelving as penance.
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May 24, 2020 01:06
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Lurdiak posted:I mean you talk about arcs, but it's not like the original film had a strong arc for anyone. Egon and Ray decide to be Ghostbusters, and then they bust ghosts. As a team, they have an arc of going from schlubs to successful businessmen to heroes, but personally the only one who grows at all is Peter, and his arc is to care slightly more than not at all about what goes on around him. Their character arcs occur externally and not internally, like any good power fantasy movie. Peter Venkman's "arc" is almost exactly the same as John McClane's arc in Die Hard: - The guy everyone wrote off as a smug smartass loser is hailed by the entire city as a hero and proven to be Right All Along - The smart & successful frizzy haired woman he'd been horndogging after the entire time finally realises that he's actually perfect exactly as he is and she totally wants to bone him now - The hero's foil (an uptight guy in a suit & tie who goes by the book and desperately wants to tear down the hero because he's a devilmaycare risktaker) is shown to be an idiot for not letting the hero just get on with it and therefore was Wrong All Along (Walter Peck/Richard Thornburg) - All the authority figures were shown to be too incompetent to handle the villain's intricate scheme and the hero was the only one smart enough to figure it out, and the only one crazy enough to do what it takes to save the day There's also a whole bunch of related iconography between the two movies (John's movement of pulling the hidden gun from behind his back is pretty much the same movement as the GBs pulling their proton wands, both movies end with the hero teetering on the edge of a skyscraper which blows up and rains debris over everyone below, Stay Puft roaring as the GBs shoot him is in almost the same pose and framed from almost the same angle as Hans Gruber looking up at John and Holly as he falls, both movies end with the black sidekick getting the final line and everyone piling into a beat up stretched car and driving off through the chaos) but whether you want to read much into that is up to you. Snowglobe of Doom fucked around with this message at 04:37 on May 24, 2020 |
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May 24, 2020 04:25
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And they both have Reggie Veljohnson and the dude that played Vigo! (gb2, but whatever)  Anyway, good post, I liked it (seriously).
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May 24, 2020 11:30
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Carl Winslows in Ghostbusters?
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May 24, 2020 13:41
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banned from Starbucks posted:Carl Winslows in Ghostbusters? Prison scene: "Ok, the Ghostbusters! The mayor wants to see you guys; whole island's going crazy." And then Peter says the thing about needing to split, the mayor wants to wrap (rap?) with him about some stuff. Edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwodC-VDnkw Ron Jeremy's in GB, too, though as an extra. Rupert Buttermilk fucked around with this message at 13:56 on May 24, 2020 |
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May 24, 2020 13:53
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Snowglobe of Doom posted:Their character arcs occur externally and not internally, like any good power fantasy movie. Peter Venkman's "arc" is almost exactly the same as John McClane's arc in Die Hard: On a hunch I went and checked through Reitman's 2001 film Evolution and it almost exactly fits this meter except the "smart & successful woman [who] he'd been horndogging after the entire time finally realises that he's actually perfect exactly as he is and she totally wants to bone him now" has straight hair, not frizzy hair.  Also I forgot the soundtrack featured Powerman 5000, I'm guessing they wanted Limp Bizkit but didn't have the budget?
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May 24, 2020 14:41
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You gotta admit that the victory of the fringe-science hucksters is pretty gauche in the age of COVID-19
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May 24, 2020 17:52
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The_Doctor posted:Don’t, you’ll bring SMG in with his ‘clearly didn’t watch or really listen to the actual film’ reads. poo poo, sorry.
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May 24, 2020 18:45
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Ghost Leviathan posted:I think a key problem is that improv-heavy works for romantic, screwball and/or gross-out comedies where everything's supposed to be silly, but sci-fi needs to be tightly shot and written to present the story and themes in a consistent and compelling way. The original Ghostbusters treated the supernatural elements entirely seriously, even when people make fun of them it's presented clearly as a coping mechanism and/or characterisation of how the characters have gotten used to weird poo poo. just in general point A doesn't ever lead to point B in the movie. it's "here's a scene of them talking about won tons, now a scene where they try equipment, then a scene of them hiring, now they have to go to a concert?" and, inside that, the world just...doesn't exist. no characters seem to exist outside of them. it makes it feel like a series of skits instead of a story. it makes it feel disjointed. i don't know what any of these people are like outside the very narrow scenarios they are put in, but here's ten more minutes of hemsworth hearing through his eyes? i'm not...100% sure what any of the character's motivations are...but let's watch them set up a dance sequence that got cut and put into the credits without altering ANY of the footage. i think a talented editor could have used the existing footage to make a decent comedy
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May 24, 2020 19:55
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Inkspot posted:Ghostbusters '16 isn't unwatchable, but I don't hate the idea of forcing Paul Feig to direct a shot-for-shot remake of Nothing But Trouble intended for permanent shelving as penance. I think the movie was made to be a sunday afternoon cable tv movie. its colorful, you don't really need ot pay attention to it, but whenever you do, something is happening. Low impact viewing.
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May 24, 2020 20:30
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text me a vag pic posted:I think the movie was made to be a sunday afternoon cable tv movie. its colorful, you don't really need ot pay attention to it, but whenever you do, something is happening. Low impact viewing. The kind of movie that has increasingly few reasons to exist?
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May 25, 2020 02:30
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:You gotta admit that the victory of the fringe-science hucksters is pretty gauche in the age of COVID-19 The fringe-scientist-as-hero/protagonist trope is old as balls (although the huckster element was never quite as pronounced as in GB), going back to at least Dr Serizawa in '54 Godzilla in cinema but going way further back in literature via Jules Verne and similar authors. It was also pretty widespread in early 50's B movies before it became a lot more common for them to be cast as villains/antagonists. And of course there a whole bunch of real life examples like Tesla and Galileo. Whole lotta brave scientists willing to stick it to The Authorities and go it alone. To be honest I think the fact that the trope has been kicking around in the zeitgeist for so long has been a big contributing factor in conspiracies being so popular these days.
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May 25, 2020 03:49
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Snowglobe of Doom posted:The fringe-scientist-as-hero/protagonist trope is old as balls (although the huckster element was never quite as pronounced as in GB), going back to at least Dr Serizawa in '54 Godzilla in cinema but going way further back in literature via Jules Verne and similar authors. It was also pretty widespread in early 50's B movies before it became a lot more common for them to be cast as villains/antagonists. And of course there a whole bunch of real life examples like Tesla and Galileo. Whole lotta brave scientists willing to stick it to The Authorities and go it alone. Of course that's a trope, but the idea is typically just to illustrate the concept of a paradigm shift. The scientist works in the darkness, searching through some unexplored territory, and then makes a startling discovery with worldwide consequences (either good or bad). In Ghostbusters, though, the characters start selling their services before any testing or research is done. They bypass scientific institutions altogether, and the result is a very unscientific public debate. People tend to ignore this part, but there's there's widespread speculation that the ghosts are caused by the Ghostbusters' own (dangerous, experimental) equipment: "Hi, this is Larry King. The phone-in topic today: "Ghosts and Ghostbusting." The controversy builds, more sightings are reported, [and] some maintain that these professional paranormal eliminators in New York are the cause of it all." ...and that's never addressed. The concern is raised, then forgotten. Walter Peck of course goes one step further and insists that Spengler is involved in a conspiracy to drug the population of New York, which is obviously wrong - but that's based on the genuine widespread concern that all these unlicensed nuclear accelerators are having side effects. He's not just being a jerk; he genuinely believes Spengler's machines are hurting people. (And let's be honest: is the belief that the proton packs are the cause of "ghosts" really any different from the belief that the culprit is a skyscraper acting as a radio antenna?) As noted previously, the Ghostbusters movie is canonically a diegetic fiction with actors loosely reenacting the 'actual events' that affected New York - like Mac & Me, but with a fictional franchise instead of McDonald's. So: is this movie an accurate depiction of the 'actual events', or is it designed to rehabilitate the company's image? Note how the Ghostbusters are otherwise-inexplicably seen as frauds in the sequel, and their incredible discoveries have had absolutely no impact on the world.
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May 25, 2020 14:57
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I wonder if Ghostbusters is at least partly to blame for Elon Musk's popularity. Iron Man is a big part of it too, but there's a whole generation of nerds who grew up watching Underdog Scientists Saving the World with Ingenuity and Untested Technology and attribute that to Elon Musk. The reality of Elon Musk is a lot less noble, he's just a choade who was born into wealth who stole his roommate's work on PayPal and sold it to eBay, then turned himself into the next phony Steve Jobs techno-messianic figure. (Which would be a good Ghostbusters plot. A techbro steals the forgotten tech the Ghostbusters abandoned and then retools it and claims it as his own, sets up a billion-dollar industry)
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May 25, 2020 18:04
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Back to the Future? It long pre-dates Ghostbusters. Hell, Howard Hughes. Venkman seems underused as a trained bullshit artist who's uniquely positioned to filter the delusional from the genuine supernatural.
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May 25, 2020 18:45
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Back to the Future? It long pre-dates Ghostbusters. Hell, Howard Hughes. I'm sure one of the 80 thousand pages of the script that were cut dealt with that.
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May 25, 2020 18:47
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Ghost Leviathan posted:The kind of movie that has increasingly few reasons to exist? 2016 was a different time... it was 20 years ago.
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May 25, 2020 19:01
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King Vidiot posted:(Which would be a good Ghostbusters plot. A techbro steals the forgotten tech the Ghostbusters abandoned and then retools it and claims it as his own, sets up a billion-dollar industry) They did that in the comics I believe.
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May 25, 2020 23:58
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In an episode of Extreme Ghostbusters, some low level thugs stole a proton pack and started tearing through the town with it.
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May 26, 2020 00:35
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King Vidiot posted:Which would be a good Ghostbusters plot. A techbro steals the forgotten tech the Ghostbusters abandoned and then retools it and claims it as his own, sets up a billion-dollar industry The bullshit business speak at the core of some tech-bro startup is the closest thing in the modern day to the kind of Reagan-era con-man bullshit Venkman does in the original, so I agree with this completely. If Venkman was born in the 90's, he'd absolutely be trying to squeeze rich people for VC money to fund his non-business today.
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May 26, 2020 22:37
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The premiere ghost app service, we're going to revolutionize the paranormal industry for a nominal fee.
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May 26, 2020 23:44
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text me a vag pic posted:The premiere ghost app service, we're going to revolutionize the paranormal industry for a nominal fee. Peter's Pied Piper.
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May 27, 2020 00:16
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Uber, but for ghosts.
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May 27, 2020 05:21
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~Coxy posted:Uber, but for ghosts. Boo-ber. Wait, that's something else, probably.
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May 27, 2020 05:26
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