GB Why so many Critics want to see GHOSTBUSTERS AFTERLIFE fail!

[geektalk]

Why so many Critics want to see GHOSTBUSTERS AFTERLIFE fail!

 

Ghostbusters Afterlife is upon us, and by all indications, it is going to be a crowd pleaser. While audience word of mouth has been stellar, reviews from professional critics have been a bit more mixed, with some seemingly review bombing the movie for dismissing Paul Feig’s 2016 remake, and for catering to the built in fans. It would appear that to some, the Ghostbusters hits a nerve. @AndreEinherjar will begin this editorial by recapping how Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters remake became a cultural touchstone in 2016, and why its failure caused a residual bias against any other Ghostbusters iteration; and finally, what to do about it.

 

Midnight’s Edge

 

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ghostbusters afterlife is upon us and by

all indications it is going to be a

crowd policer both professional viewers

and fans who attended the wright

conventions have already seen it and the

word of mouth emanating from those early

screenings is stellared director jason

reitman an established filmmaker in his

own right who is also the son of

original ghostbusters director ivan

reitman would appear to have knocked it

out of the park but as we shall see that

rubs some professional critics the wrong

way while word of mouth from the

audience is stellared reviews from

professional critics is a bit more mixed

to be clear critic reviews are by and

large also positive and the reviews that

are positive tend to be overwhelmingly

positive at that

what is interesting though is the

negative reviews

the recurring theme in them is that the

complaints about the movie itself are

mostly pedantic the real issue appears

to be that the movie exists in the first

place

because these critics would rather have

had a sequel to paul vega’s

female-centric ghostbusters remake

instead

as pointed out by that park place it’s

almost as if the critics are the ones

review bombing ghostbusters afterlife

over ghostbusters 2016

some would argue that critics review

bombed marvel’s eternals as well but

unlike what happened there we won’t see

other critics scrambling to eat

themselves to get back in anyone’s good

graces this time not over ghostbusters

usually fans are the ones accused of

review bombing why would critics do such

a thing aren’t they supposed to be

professional

you serious well for some critics this

is a case where being professional is

going to be difficult because

ghostbusters hits a nerve we’re about to

dig into why as i will begin this

editorial by recapping how paul feig’s

ghostbusters remake became a cultural

touchstone in 2016

and why its failure caused a residual

bias against any other ghostbusters

iteration and finally what to do about

it

throughout this video we’ll be comparing

the ghostbusters movies of ivan reitman

paul feig and jason reitman all of whom

are accomplished filmmakers but with

wildly different approaches to the

material that is after all what

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up and then we’ll get into why the

ghostbusters of all things will stir up

such deeply felt emotions

doing that however requires establishing

some context

contrary to popular belief the original

ghostbusters is not a comedy that is

it’s a comedy too but it is far more

than a mere comedy if that’s all it was

the movie would have been a mere

footnote in history by now not the

undisputed classic it has become

so if not the comedy then what was the

original ghostbusters

well for dan aykroyd and harold ramus

both of whom were into the occult it was

a passion project and an earnest dive

into a subject matter they took very

seriously and that came across on screen

now i can’t claim any expertise about

the topic myself but apparently if you

ever find yourself in a position where

you need to obtain information from a

demonic entity without being cheated out

of your soul in the process then talking

to it the way that venkman did to zul in

this movie is the way to go about it

also emphasizing this the movie is

filmed and color graded as a horror

movie not a comedy beyond the occult the

movie is also about entrepreneurship as

it is about three men who lose their

jobs start their own company and despite

red tape getting in the way

they are successful enough that they

eventually can take on more staff and

overcome the speed bumps in their way

and then on top of that there were some

jokes and funny moments along the way

but those were not what the movie

fundamentally was about

the sum of all of that though is what

made the original ghostbusters a classic

for a variety of reasons the sequel

didn’t fire on as many cylinders but the

fanbase was there and they wanted more

the 2009 ghostbusters video game

demonstrated how big the fan base was

and that there was a pent-up and growing

demand for a sequel featuring the

original cast

the momentum was such that development

of a third movie actually begun under

original director ivan reitman and with

the original cast but as midnight’s edge

exclusively reported at the time

development on the would-be ghostbusters

3 ended when then sony pitcher’s head

honcho amy pascal hijacked the project

and wrestled it away from ivan weitzman

do check out that vintage video for

further details link is in the

description to make a long story short

though amy pascal did not believe that

ivan reitman was the right director for

ghostbusters 3. instead she believed

that paul feig had what it took

actor turns director paul feig was known

for taking familiar tropes and genres

and subverting them by making

female-centric parodies

like how spy is a female-centric parody

of tropes associated with james bond and

other similar derivatives by movies

that is fig’s particular schtick

subversive parodies that happened to

star women as it turned out paul feig

didn’t know how to make a third

ghostbusters movie featuring the

original cast he did however know how to

remake the original namely as one of his

subversive female-centric parodies

that is what he pitched to amy pascal

and that is where she should have called

security and had him escorted from the

zombie lot which would have saved him

the trouble later on alas she didn’t do

that

instead she loved his pitch and gave him

the green light to proceed

the moment she did that was the moment

where the titanic struck the proverbial

iceberg

they might not have noticed right away

but from that moment the ship sinking or

losing the allegory the movie flopping

was a mathematical certainty

what amy pascal and the yes men

surrounding her did not understand was

that the fan demand ignited by the 2009

game was very specifically for a

continuation of the original

ghostbusters saga fans wanted to see the

original cast return to their signature

roles a passing of the baton movie would

be fine as long as it continued the

original story kobrakai’s style of

course kobrakai wasn’t out at the time

but the demand was for a movie that

would do for the ghostbusters with

kobrakai eventually did for the karate

kids namely continue the original story

when amy pascal’s sony instead proceeded

with a remake that literally no one

asked for it was instantly rejected and

make no mistake about it the movie was

rejected because it was a remake not

because there were women in it

even if the remake had an all-male cast

or if it had been a shot for shot remake

like the psycho remake it would have

been equally rejected because no one

wanted a ghostbusters remake

also had that remake open just one year

earlier that’s all it would have been

another failed remake franchise doctor

which would end its days in the dvd

clearwind spin right next to other

failed remake franchise daughters

such as the karate kid child’s play

conan the barbarian robocop the mummy

the a-team and many many others and that

would have been the end of that

the point i’m making is that if it had

been any other year a creative and

financial failure like paul fix

ghostbusters would have been but a

footnote today but it isn’t is because

it opened in 2016

and in so doing it became embroiled in

something far greater than itself

in 2016 there was an election going on

in the us and it turned out to be

between hillary and the orange man or in

hollywood terms it was an election

between what they considered good and

what they considered the ultimate evil

and through a series of events and

coincidences covered in detail from our

videos at the time paul feig’s

ghostbusters became so associated with

hillary clinton that it became symbolic

of the election to the point where

seeing the movie became akin to a

political act almost as important as

voting in the actual election itself yes

this was as stupid then as it is to even

say the words out loud now but that’s

what happened

the entirety of the entertainment media

complex furthered the narrative that if

you weren’t an enlightened thinker of

high models in support of the movie well

then you must be a toxic man baby and

evil trump supporter i think that to

begin with this was just some fun

clickbait that not even those writing it

took seriously but as it was repeated

over and over by more and more outlets

while the actual election was dividing

the populace many both in the media and

involved with making the movie must have

come to internalize and believe the

messaging of course the problem with

choosing this particular movie as a de

facto champion for a political point of

view is that the movie simply wasn’t

worthy of the importance placed upon it

and it was always going to fail because

it was the wrong ghostbusters movie and

no matter which metric you compare it

with the movie did indeed fail and

spectacularly at that for those who

believe the messaging surrounding the

movie will have some very weird ideas on

exactly why it failed as late as last

year paul feig blamed the movie’s

failure on the quote anti-hillary

movement he saw as raging at the time

not everyone agrees with that of course

reluctant producer of the movie dan

aykroyd seems to think the movie failed

because of director paul feig himself

but it just costs too much making it

economically not feasible to do another

one so it’s too bad i i you know the

director

he spent too much on it and he he he

didn’t shoot scenes we suggested to him

several scenes that were going to be

needed and he said no we don’t need them

and then we tested the movie and they

needed them and he had to go back and

about 30 to 40 million in reshoots so

yeah so uh he will not be back on the

sony line anytime soon

akroyd’s understanding that the movie

failed because paul feed blew it is

significantly closer to reality than

feek’s excuse

namely that his movie failed because

trump supporters campaigned against it

that’s an emotional and utterly

irrational response

but because it is an emotional response

it sticks and that’s the problem facing

ghostbusters afterlife right now

to many of those who became emotionally

invested in the messaging surrounding

the 2016 movie its failure at the box

office emotionally hurt nearly as much

as how the actual election in the end

turned out

donald j trump is now president of the

united states

because the entertainment media complex

created such a tribal emotional

association between the movie the

election and its eventual outcome the

association became permanent it left

some suffering from a ghostbusters

derangement syndrome if you will as

there are those out there who can’t look

at the ghostbusters now not even the new

female lead team from afterlife without

seeing the orange man in their place we

first saw this when ghostbusters

afterlife was announced

leslie jones one of the stars of paul

feig’s ghostbusters did not take kindly

to the new movie bypassing her movie the

same way her movie bypassed the original

describing it as something trump would

do because that is the perception that

some hold ghostbusters fans did not come

out to see the paul feige movie

therefore ghostbusters fans are women

hating trump supporters and giving them

the movie they want which ghostbusters

afterlife is is something trump would do

this of course is false logic but sadly

there are many who appear to believe

that subconsciously if not consciously

and many of them are part of the

entertainment media complex

which is something we see in how the

movie is being i guess review bumped by

some professional critics

case in point in their one star review

the guardian wrote

consider the casual cowardice of a

script that uses its own mythology to

subtly erase 2016’s all gals reboot from

the canon giving the rage choked trolls

carpet bombing imdb with zero star

ratings the vindication they’ve always

craved

similarly in their rotten review vulture

wrote the true recipients of this

largesse are the fans who are presumably

being given what they want after the

turmoil surrounding paul feig’s

female-led ghostbusters in 2016.

which for all its weaknesses was a

shambling comedy that’s closer in spirit

to the original ghostbusters than

afterlife yeah right

while afterlife is technically

female-led too it seems unlikely to stir

up the same kind of misogynistic wrath

in part because it’s less intent on

branding itself this way and in part

because it’s so outrageously

differential to what it believes the

fans want as you may have noticed by now

ghostbusters afterlife being the movie

that the fans want is something of a

recurring complaint in the negative

reviews

there is nothing the regular moviegoer

can do about professional critics

deciding to review bump any given movie

outside of actually reading reviews and

see if the movie is given a bad review

for something in or something outside of

the movie if it is for something

actually in the movie consider if you

agree with the specifics of the

criticism or if the reviewer just

trashed the movie for the high crime of

it being made for you the moviegoer

rather than being made for the

professional critic

it would appear critics don’t take

kindly to movies made for movie goers

will you let these negative reviews

deter you or are you looking forward to

ghostbusters afterlife

let me know your thoughts in the

comments and before you go if you feel

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