Discuss Ghostbusters: Afterlife, released on November 19, 2021 and directed by Jason Reitman.
#4952122
I felt that was very thorough and fair. It explored the plot details of some of the failed scripts beyond my admittedly elementary knowledge. You can really tell how much Jason’s vision is outside the box compared to what was pitched before. In hindsight, I’m glad most of those weren’t made.
#4952128
I didn't listened to it yet, but being the one who lands an hand to the Ghostbusters III blog, I remember at least 3 main pitches:

- Ghostbusters Hellbent: the only one where the Ghostbusters are still active. They loose Peter and start recruiting. 1999-2005

- Ghostbusters 3: various drafts from Stupnitsky and Eisenberg. This one, I don't know the main plot. 2008 - 2011

- Ghostbusters Alive Again: various drafts from Ethan Coen. The last one (Alive Again) sees the Ghostbusters disbanded with Egon and Ray dead, they are in the movie as ghosts. There are bits of the plot in the leaked Sony mail, the Ghostbusters 3 blog made a summary of it. 2012-2014.
#4952129
It's a fun listen, nothing much I didn't know before, but one thing I really forgot is a possibility: the movie will be released in 3D.

I'm actually excited for that because this movie seems to be a perfect candidate for it and it's been so long since I've experienced a 3D movie.

The only problem it has: colors have to be bright for 3D to work best. While I liked the colorful approach in ATC, I'm worried the more serious tone in GBA might lose some of the impact because of the bright colors.
#4952131
Watched the GB3 sequels video yesterday. I hated every single script idea. All the characters were bland or simply not fitting into the GB movie universe. Granted these were first drafts or pitches, glad none of that ever made it further. I'd still be interested in reading the Hellbent script.
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#4952133
Ecto24601 wrote: July 24th, 2021, 3:58 am Watched the GB3 sequels video yesterday. I hated every single script idea. All the characters were bland or simply not fitting into the GB movie universe. Granted these were first drafts or pitches, glad none of that ever made it further. I'd still be interested in reading the Hellbent script.
If there is one takeaway that's always constant concerning Gbscripts, it's that the first draft is always terrible.
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#4952139
Davideverona wrote: July 24th, 2021, 12:09 am I didn't listened to it yet, but being the one who lands an hand to the Ghostbusters III blog, I remember at least 3 main pitches:

- Ghostbusters Hellbent: the only one where the Ghostbusters are still active. They loose Peter and start recruiting. 1999-2005

- Ghostbusters 3: various drafts from Stupnitsky and Eisenberg. This one, I don't know the main plot. 2008 - 2011

- Ghostbusters Alive Again: various drafts from Ethan Coen. The last one (Alive Again) sees the Ghostbusters disbanded with Egon and Ray dead, they are in the movie as ghosts. There are bits of the plot in the leaked Sony mail, the Ghostbusters 3 blog made a summary of it. 2012-2014.
Also not technically a GB3, but there is the Channing Tatum crew script that ties in with ATC.

Would love to read all of these.
Alphagaia liked this
#4952140
Heres the thing. I have yet to watch the video in its entirety but i'd love to read all the various unproduced scripts including Dan Aykroyd's original outline with them being in the future and all these things.

I don't know why Sony doesn't collect all these scripts and release them as special books with various concept art and the like. I really feel that this is a huge untapped market for film fans, where studios can basically unload various unproduced "Junk" cluttering their archives (in the form of screenplay's and concept art, etc) and still make some sort of profit off of them!

I mean, imagine a whole series of unproduced Ghostbusters Screenplay's complete with concept art, etc. I know id love to buy that bookset.

Also...while i got you all, is their any word on the new Afterlife trailer on the 26th? Last time they made an official announcement, think they will just drop it this time around, or will we even get another trailer?
seekandannoy liked this
#4952143
Alphagaia wrote: July 24th, 2021, 4:52 am
Ecto24601 wrote: July 24th, 2021, 3:58 am Watched the GB3 sequels video yesterday. I hated every single script idea. All the characters were bland or simply not fitting into the GB movie universe. Granted these were first drafts or pitches, glad none of that ever made it further. I'd still be interested in reading the Hellbent script.
If there is one takeaway that's always constant concerning Gbscripts, it's that the first draft is always terrible.
Forgot to add that of all the ideas concering the story outline of a GB3 direct sequel I heard and read about, the video game story is the strongest of them all, hands down. It has weaknesses and shortcomings, but as an overall story arch tie-in to GB1 and GB2, it's the best of them lot. Afterlife/Legacy I'd consider as the best idea (of what I know about the story so far) we could get TODAY, 30+ years after GB2.
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#4952144
Alphagaia wrote: July 24th, 2021, 4:52 am
Ecto24601 wrote: July 24th, 2021, 3:58 am Watched the GB3 sequels video yesterday. I hated every single script idea. All the characters were bland or simply not fitting into the GB movie universe. Granted these were first drafts or pitches, glad none of that ever made it further. I'd still be interested in reading the Hellbent script.
If there is one takeaway that's always constant concerning Gbscripts, it's that the first draft is always terrible.
100%.
Honestly, the shooting drafts aren’t even that great. It’s amazing reading the Ghostbusters shooting script, and the GB2 script, and seeing how much changed. Comedy scripts can be hard to gauge. Take Janosz. Peter Macnicol just brought sooo much to that role. Same with Rick Moranis in GB1. Those roles don’t read nearly as funny as they are in the actual film. Or the end. Both films don’t end the way the scripts do. Just imagine if those horrible bum characters has been left in? Oh man. It would’ve ruined the movie.

Ghostbusters is a miracle. I don’t say that lightly. Every decision, every choice, was the right one. Imagine if Ivan Reitman uses that awful Elmer Bernstein funk/disco theme instead of the Parker Jr song or the Bus boys. Or imagine if the GBs had lame helmets and wands that eject out of their sleeves instead of the much cooler proton packs. Or if the Ecto 1 was black with purple lights. Or Gozer was Pee Wee Herman in a business suit. Or, again, if they include those bums…all those choices were avoided and probably could’ve made the film something not nearly as special.

I know I’ve said it again and again on here but Ivan Reitman doesn’t get enough credit for what he brought to this movie. The energy, the editorial choices, the pacing, it all could’ve been so different. And not in a good way. Same with GB2. As poorly as that movie was received when it was released, had it been released as scripted? Yikes. Instead he fought down to the wire, adding shots and scenes. It’s amazing how wrong it all could’ve gone.

It’s like..Indiana Jones. When I read any of the Indiana Jones script, it’s mostly there on the page. Ghostbusters? Man. It could’ve been so different.
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#4952148
It all depends on the director and talent involved. Some screenplays are shot word for word and the director will give the actors hell if they change anything in it! Others, are more starting points for the cast and crew to discover the film while shooting it or even in editing!

Heres the problem with Ghostbusters...It was lighting in a bottle. For me, it and Titanic are PERFECT films! You cant possibly do those two films any more flawless IMHO then they allready are.

Not to bash ATC as my view on that film has changed over the years (i still will never think its a good movie) but every single person involved with that film from Paul Feig to the ladies in the cast, are EXTREMELEY TALENTED when given the right material.

Same thing with the original cast from the original film.

The original Ghostbusters played to all their strengths and gave them all plenty of original material to work with and develop into something special.

ATC just dident jell together. They relied on improve way to much with no solid story or foundation outside iconography from the orignal.

That film IMHO was fatally flawed from its concept as a reboot. Had nothing to do with women being ghostbusters, it was like demolishing a perfectly good foundation for a house and putting an near exact same one up to build your home on, but not as well planned!

Even Ghostbusters 2, which i adore, is a weak script. You arent doing anything drastically different, its yet another going into business opening and the ending is near a carbon copy of the first film (Ghostbusters have to save the city, giant creature is involved, send the bad guy back to his/her realm etc.

IT WAS THE CHEMESTRY OF THE ORIGNAL CAST THAT SAVED GB2!

Ghostbusters 2 is rewatchable because we all want to hang with the original team again!

You can write all sorts of scrips and stories for ghostbusters, but its up to the talent involved to make it plausible and relatable.

All of these rejected scrips from what little i know of them, have their likable elements! Its how all those elements would have come together to make a film is what matters.

For all we know, Afterlife could be horrible! I doubt it very much, its in very capable hands but it is a possibility. We wont know until we see it! It all depends on multiple things.
#4952150
yourbigpalal83 wrote: July 24th, 2021, 9:43 pm It all depends on the director and talent involved. Some screenplays are shot word for word and the director will give the actors hell if they change anything in it! Others, are more starting points for the cast and crew to discover the film while shooting it or even in editing!

Heres the problem with Ghostbusters...It was lighting in a bottle. For me, it and Titanic are PERFECT films! You cant possibly do those two films any more flawless IMHO then they allready are.

Not to bash ATC as my view on that film has changed over the years (i still will never think its a good movie) but every single person involved with that film from Paul Feig to the ladies in the cast, are EXTREMELEY TALENTED when given the right material.

Same thing with the original cast from the original film.

The original Ghostbusters played to all their strengths and gave them all plenty of original material to work with and develop into something special.

ATC just dident jell together. They relied on improve way to much with no solid story or foundation outside iconography from the orignal.

That film IMHO was fatally flawed from its concept as a reboot. Had nothing to do with women being ghostbusters, it was like demolishing a perfectly good foundation for a house and putting an near exact same one up to build your home on, but not as well planned!

Even Ghostbusters 2, which i adore, is a weak script. You arent doing anything drastically different, its yet another going into business opening and the ending is near a carbon copy of the first film (Ghostbusters have to save the city, giant creature is involved, send the bad guy back to his/her realm etc.

IT WAS THE CHEMESTRY OF THE ORIGNAL CAST THAT SAVED GB2!

Ghostbusters 2 is rewatchable because we all want to hang with the original team again!

You can write all sorts of scrips and stories for ghostbusters, but its up to the talent involved to make it plausible and relatable.

All of these rejected scrips from what little i know of them, have their likable elements! Its how all those elements would have come together to make a film is what matters.

For all we know, Afterlife could be horrible! I doubt it very much, its in very capable hands but it is a possibility. We wont know until we see it! It all depends on multiple things.
I’ve always fought against the notion that GB2 needed to be drastically different from the first film. Why? I mean, I love James Bond & Indiana Jones movies. And they are all pretty much the same. The Statue of Liberty walking is a great visual(and not played for a joke the way Stay Puft is). I love the concept of the negative energy & Vigo is pretty original from a villain stand point. No one praises Ghostbusters 2 for the restraint it shows. There’s very little actual Ghostbusting. Usually when sequel are made the stakes are always raised, but Ghostbusters 2 actually feels smaller. And I don’t mind that. At all.

Yes the improv was an issue with ATC but it would’ve been so much better if they had all started out as friends. Patty too. The forced “fractured friendship” trope is used so often is female comedy movies and I don’t know why. The better idea is Kristen Wiig does her ghost investigation/hobby on the side & hides it from her normal life. She has to balances those two parts of her life. The villian was also really, really bad. One thing I love about Ghostbusters is the made up mythologies of Gozer & Vigo & all the animated series stuff. ATC had none of that. The bad guy is…just some dude.

You know what might’ve been cool? So in the end of ATC the Ghostbusters have to close a portal. And they cross the streams to close it, but right before it closes they catch a glimpse of something…4 men dressed in similar gear as them. The OGB’s! We just see a glimpse of them doing what looks like the exact same thing(crossing the streams to close a portal). So after the day saved they are all like…did you see that? Those guys? Who were they? Then we CUT and it’s the original GB universe. The Ecto 1 drives into the firehouse, the GB’s get out. They are quiet. Ray finally breaks the silence Ray:“So is no one going to mention what we all saw?”
Venkman: “Yes, Ray. We know. We saw it too. All you can eat tacos for 6.99. I’m sure it’ll be the main story on the 6 o’clock news”
Winston “I think they saw us too. I think the one even winked at me”
Venkman: “which one? The weird looking one, the schlubby one, the cute one or the uh…”
Winston interrupts
Winston: “black one?”
Venkman “There you go again Winston, bringing race into it. I mean, I was going to say the “tall one” but sure, now that you mention it, I did happen to notice a similar make up of racial diversity”
Winston: “Right. Anyways, no. It’s was the blonde one that winked. With the hair. What do you think Egon?”
Egon turns around and faces the GB’s and smiles. In his hand is a container of Pringles. He takes one out and eats it. “I think…we should say hello”. Fade to black.
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#4952152
Ectojeff88 wrote: July 22nd, 2021, 10:37 amNearly all the others have had more revisions and updates but GB has taken 32 years. We want to see it everywhere like Batman or Marvel, and the marketing is now just a very short wait.
You might just be talking about the marketing rollout, regardless of how the movie does, but I still think it's in everyone's best interest to hope that this new movie is a solid success. I'm not expecting this to be a smash hit, I just want it to be well-liked and successful enough to maybe continue the series, and then we can see where it goes.
yourbigpalal83 wrote: July 24th, 2021, 1:21 pmI don't know why Sony doesn't collect all these scripts and release them as special books with various concept art and the like. I really feel that this is a huge untapped market for film fans, where studios can basically unload various unproduced "Junk" cluttering their archives (in the form of screenplay's and concept art, etc) and still make some sort of profit off of them!

I mean, imagine a whole series of unproduced Ghostbusters Screenplay's complete with concept art, etc. I know id love to buy that bookset.
While I think pretty much all of us would love this, I suspect the reason they don't do this is there are so many legal hoops to jump through. Do any of the writers want their work-in-progress drafts published? What about people like Harold Ramis, who we can no longer ask? How do writers, artists, and collaborators negotiate pay for a published compendium of ideas that never made it into a film?

Writers also often return to unpublished material and rework it into something else. So if any of those writers ended up re-developing concepts or plot arcs originally created for a Ghostbusters sequel into something else, then that might be another can of worms to untangle, especially if that thing got made.
RichardLess wrote: July 24th, 2021, 10:36 pmI’ve always fought against the notion that GB2 needed to be drastically different from the first film. Why? I mean, I love James Bond & Indiana Jones movies. And they are all pretty much the same. The Statue of Liberty walking is a great visual(and not played for a joke the way Stay Puft is). I love the concept of the negative energy & Vigo is pretty original from a villain stand point. No one praises Ghostbusters 2 for the restraint it shows. There’s very little actual Ghostbusting. Usually when sequel are made the stakes are always raised, but Ghostbusters 2 actually feels smaller.
I half agree with this and half disagree: the river of slime and possessed painting don't get enough credit for being original ideas developed for the sequel, but I do think returning the Ghostbusters to underdogs is a real mistake, because overall I think the repetition of the general plot structure, including a bureaucratic villain, makes the movie feel more similar to the original than it needs to.
RichardLess wrote: July 24th, 2021, 10:36 pmYou know what might’ve been cool? So in the end of ATC the Ghostbusters have to close a portal. And they cross the streams to close it, but right before it closes they catch a glimpse of something…4 men dressed in similar gear as them. The OGB’s!
Still my absolute most-loathed idea. I'm sure we've talked about it before, but the whole joy of the reboot for me was getting a new take with a complementary flavor of this thing I like. It also just rubs me the wrong way because even if it's not a conscious intent, it feels like an attempt to reiterate in-universe that the original Ghostbusters came first. I never wanted the new movie to be a sequel, I never wanted it to be a multiverse, I just wanted it to be an entirely alternate version that exists as its own thing.
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#4952153
ATC deserves another shot, one without so much Improv and maybe IDW handling the script. I'm not saying Paul doesn't deserve to throw any input in but a very minor role of ihis nvolvement would be ideal. It would be less drama the next time around.

If they wait to long on this the original actresses more then likely will not be interested in reprising their roles. All that depends on largely what Afterlife makes at the box office.

The question being do we get a reboot of ATC, or do we get a sequal to afterlife? I have no doubt in my mind this film is going to make bank.
#4952155
An ATC sequel won't happen folks. It bombed at the box office which prompted Afterlife's very existence.

So has anyone here bought any of the new toys that have gone out yet?
Hairy Biker liked this
#4952157
deadderek wrote: July 25th, 2021, 12:42 am

So has anyone here bought any of the new toys that have gone out yet?
Not yet, but I intend to. My friends just splorted out a child, so it's my intent to indoctrinate the wee lad as soon as possible by stocking up on some of the kid friendly toys and role play gear... minus the ghost whistle because I don't want to torture my friends that badly.
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#4952158
Good call. I warned all my friends and family that anything that produces sounds will go straight to the bin.

Speaking of ATC, last time I heard about an continuation was a tvshow that centered on multiple dimensions like the IDW as Ivan liked that idea. I wonder if that is getting greenlit.
#4952159
Alphagaia wrote:Good call. I warned all my friends and family that anything that produces sounds will go straight to the bin.

Speaking of ATC, last time I heard about an continuation was a tvshow that centered on multiple dimensions like the IDW as Ivan liked that idea. I wonder if that is getting greenlit.
I’d be down for this. I loved the ATC cast they were easily best part of the film. And I always wanted a live action GB show
Alphagaia liked this
#4952160
droidguy1119 wrote: July 24th, 2021, 11:38 pm
Ectojeff88 wrote: July 22nd, 2021, 10:37 amNearly all the others have had more revisions and updates but GB has taken 32 years. We want to see it everywhere like Batman or Marvel, and the marketing is now just a very short wait.
You might just be talking about the marketing rollout, regardless of how the movie does, but I still think it's in everyone's best interest to hope that this new movie is a solid success. I'm not expecting this to be a smash hit, I just want it to be well-liked and successful enough to maybe continue the series, and then we can see where it goes.
yourbigpalal83 wrote: July 24th, 2021, 1:21 pmI don't know why Sony doesn't collect all these scripts and release them as special books with various concept art and the like. I really feel that this is a huge untapped market for film fans, where studios can basically unload various unproduced "Junk" cluttering their archives (in the form of screenplay's and concept art, etc) and still make some sort of profit off of them!

I mean, imagine a whole series of unproduced Ghostbusters Screenplay's complete with concept art, etc. I know id love to buy that bookset.
While I think pretty much all of us would love this, I suspect the reason they don't do this is there are so many legal hoops to jump through. Do any of the writers want their work-in-progress drafts published? What about people like Harold Ramis, who we can no longer ask? How do writers, artists, and collaborators negotiate pay for a published compendium of ideas that never made it into a film?

Writers also often return to unpublished material and rework it into something else. So if any of those writers ended up re-developing concepts or plot arcs originally created for a Ghostbusters sequel into something else, then that might be another can of worms to untangle, especially if that thing got made.
RichardLess wrote: July 24th, 2021, 10:36 pmI’ve always fought against the notion that GB2 needed to be drastically different from the first film. Why? I mean, I love James Bond & Indiana Jones movies. And they are all pretty much the same. The Statue of Liberty walking is a great visual(and not played for a joke the way Stay Puft is). I love the concept of the negative energy & Vigo is pretty original from a villain stand point. No one praises Ghostbusters 2 for the restraint it shows. There’s very little actual Ghostbusting. Usually when sequel are made the stakes are always raised, but Ghostbusters 2 actually feels smaller.
I half agree with this and half disagree: the river of slime and possessed painting don't get enough credit for being original ideas developed for the sequel, but I do think returning the Ghostbusters to underdogs is a real mistake, because overall I think the repetition of the general plot structure, including a bureaucratic villain, makes the movie feel more similar to the original than it needs to.
RichardLess wrote: July 24th, 2021, 10:36 pmYou know what might’ve been cool? So in the end of ATC the Ghostbusters have to close a portal. And they cross the streams to close it, but right before it closes they catch a glimpse of something…4 men dressed in similar gear as them. The OGB’s!
Still my absolute most-loathed idea. I'm sure we've talked about it before, but the whole joy of the reboot for me was getting a new take with a complementary flavor of this thing I like. It also just rubs me the wrong way because even if it's not a conscious intent, it feels like an attempt to reiterate in-universe that the original Ghostbusters came first. I never wanted the new movie to be a sequel, I never wanted it to be a multiverse, I just wanted it to be an entirely alternate version that exists as its own thing.

See, that’s why I wanted a sequel. Ghostbusters, for me, is all about the characters. I just love them. I want to spend time with them, see them ply their trade, interacting. Ghostbusters deals with the Supernatural and so that lends itself well to a multiverse. If you are going to play in the Ghostbusters sandbox, have fun. I’ve always been iffy about the passing the torch idea. Let’s be honest, as much as you wanted a new non OGB adventure, I think most people would get a kick out of seeing the OGB’s and handle it in a way that J.J Abrams handled Nutrek where they didn’t reboot the series, they co-exists within the same “continuity”. I think that might’ve helped with the negative fan & audience reception—to some degree. I think the scene I presented would be a very cool after credits stinger and would’ve taken some of the big issues of the film away, especially the random and distracting cameos by the original cast—playing new characters. Everytime they show up the film just falls flat on its face. Some of it is cringeworthy. Just imagine the reaction of audiences watching the entire GB ATC thinking it’s a reboot and then bam, at the very end we are hit with this idea & promise of something more. Sony could’ve even done something cool where the next film made is the OGB adventure and at the end we see them seeing the New GB’s on the other side of the portal. And a third film involves cutting between both OGB and NGB and the portals/worlds colliding. That way fans could have it both ways. We get a new group of Ghostbusters, no one bitches & moans about the females replacing the males or a GB3 not getting made. It solves a lot of issues the fandom and a lot of regular folk had. Of course it never would’ve happened but in my minds eye I can see it working.

What do you think about the characters being friends from the start? What I love about Ghostbusters is there is none of that forced character conflict stuff(minus a Slime induced fight). The GB’s get along, don’t argue or bicker. Is it realistic? Probably not. But it makes us really care for them. I just didn’t buy Erin & Abby as friends, it felt contrived. They use to be friends and then that business with the book? None it plays into the movie or is important later on. And Patty’s awkward entry into the story…why couldn’t she have been friends with them from the get go? I love the idea of them all being friends as the movie starts & Erin kind of hides this part of her life from other people. A sort of “worlds collide” Seinfeld thing(which then fits into the supernatural threat when it literally is worlds collide, or portals or whatever).

But the real problem is the villain. There’s no build up or mythology at play. And then the end where its just CGI ghost mayhem and…there’s no strong idea at play here. A true supernatural threat like a Demi God or Poltergeist or demon. It would’ve been interesting if something, or someone, was using Rowan. I get that they were trying something new. A “human” villain. But like so much of the movie, it just didn’t work for me. Sometimes I think GB ATC is almost a perfect textbook of everything I dislike about modern movies and comedies. So many movies now just feel so…digestible. They don’t have those moments that stay with you because they are trying to make all the moments so big. dont get me wrong, I enjoy comic book movies but how many times can I watch a city get destroyed by CGI robots or Aliens & still be entertained? It’s so hard to “Wow” audiences because they’ve seen it all.

I duno. This turned into a big anti GB16 thing that I didn’t mean to happen. I know that it’s still a risqué subject. But silver lining is everything happened the way it happened so we could get GBA. I’ve read the details about the other GB3 projects and we probably dodged a bullet or two there. They’d also probably have the big CGI fest finale. This film, from what we know, just feels more intimate and restrained. Small. And from the sounds of it the guys suit up again which was never going to happen in the other versions. But never getting another Ray & Egon scene. Man. That’s a huge bummer. I just love the idea of those two guys foregoing personal lives and investing themselves 24/7 into the science and investigation of the paranormal. That’s their ultimate pursuit. I love all the GB2 stuff with Ray & Egon just going about their business in the firehouse. It’s like in Back to the Future, the relationship between Marty & Doc Brown, that what makes Back to the Future work so well for me. This old crazy scientist and this cool, hip kid are best friends. Marty helps the Doc out in his experiments & they genuinely care for one another. Marty isn’t just making nice to the Doc so he can use Doc’s equipment, that’s how they’d play it today. All cynical like that.

But I digress…
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#4952163
I don't know about multiverses, seems way over the top for a property like Ghostbusters.

There was a much more interesting concept floated by Ivan Reitman: set in the near future the NY branch of Ghostbusters travel around the world helping other branches who have to deal with ghosts from their mythology.
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#4952165
Multiverse was baked in the first movie with the (door to the) ghost dimension, and the IDW comic together with the videogame did some great, awesome things with the dimensions.

It's no secret Dan wanted to do some funny things with dimensions, as evidenced with his first draft and Hellbent.

Trouble is, how far is an audience willing to go, and what kind of new story do you want to tell? I mean, it's a great idea and opens up many possibilities, but it depends on what story you want to tell.

But first I want to see if GBA can calm down the ruckus around the GBfranchise and set up some interesting new characters and storylines. I don't want it just to be an conclusion for the OGB, I want it to be an origin story / soft reboot for a new crew.
*NormalGamer* liked this
#4952171
RichardLess wrote: July 25th, 2021, 4:19 amSee, that’s why I wanted a sequel. Ghostbusters, for me, is all about the characters. I just love them. I want to spend time with them, see them ply their trade, interacting. Ghostbusters deals with the Supernatural and so that lends itself well to a multiverse. If you are going to play in the Ghostbusters sandbox, have fun.
A major factor here is that we are talking about a movie that was announced in October 2014. Ghostbusters 3 had stalled for 25 years, it didn't seem like Bill was going to do it, and Harold Ramis had already passed away, making a true reunion impossible. At a certain point, it seemed like you had to embrace the inevitable. Even this movie is still moving away from some of the iconography, taking the movie out of New York City and clearly focusing on a new set of characters. As I have always said, as much as I like the original two movies, I also want the series to change and grow. It needs to change and grow, or it will die. A brand-new universe fully driven by new characters was one way to do that, even if the audience didn't go for it.
RichardLess wrote: July 25th, 2021, 4:19 amI think that might’ve helped with the negative fan & audience reception—to some degree. Just imagine the reaction of audiences watching the entire GB ATC thinking it’s a reboot and then bam, at the very end we are hit with this idea & promise of something more.
For me, that would have immediately stunted the possibilities, and kind of ruined the movie for me, and I bet there are other people who liked the 2016 movie who would have felt the same way. I also wouldn't be shocked if the vast majority of GB fans who disliked the movie would not have been swayed by this as a stinger if the rest of the movie was the same, because it doesn't solve the fact that they didn't like the movie itself. Pleasing fans is not an easy target. As Kingpin just mentioned, there's a contingent of fans -- probably a small number, but I've seen plenty of them too -- who are now rejecting Afterlife simply because of the release delays, grousing that they won't bother seeing it anymore because Sony is "botching the release." They hate the things I mentioned, that it's about kids ("'Stranger Things' much?"), that it's not set in NYC, etc.
RichardLess wrote: July 25th, 2021, 4:19 amWhat do you think about the characters being friends from the start? They use to be friends and then that business with the book? But the real problem is the villain. There’s no build up or mythology at play. And then the end where its just CGI ghost mayhem and…there’s no strong idea at play here.
I will admit, my prevailing complaint about the 2016 movie is Feig's desire to get a 90 on the cards at test screenings, which prompted him to cut story for jokes. I think the Erin/Abby friendship thread is better developed in the extended cut, but even then, some crucial scenes are left out of both versions because they're not big laugh moments, namely the part where Abby confronts Erin at the college after they get fake arrested at the Mercado, and the part where Erin re-watches the last time they were together on her laptop, bailing on Abby on a college public access show). However, I like the idea that the movie is about Erin learning to be internally validated rather than externally validated, and coming back to Abby understanding that having each other is more important than the approval of the public.

I think the villain is okay, but the script doesn't flesh out the movie's concept for him, which is that he is a parallel to Erin and Abby -- two types of people who dug deeper into the paranormal and were laughed at by society. The difference is that Erin and Abby use their knowledge for good instead of evil. It's hinted at when they note the similarities between their equipment and his devices, confront Rowan in the basement and Abby says, "No, people pretty much dump on us all the time," and the fact that Rowan read their book, but this element isn't even developed much further than this in the deleted scenes, as far as I can remember.

My thought on how one would clean up the extended climax is simple: the portal Rowan opens should have a time element to it. The more it opens, the closer you get to the Dark Ages. This creates an actual explanation for why New York transforms to the 1970s. Then as they get closer to the Mercado, you get the 1920s/1930s parade balloons, and then the pilgrim ghosts.

Overall, I agree that Aykroyd, as the real ghost obsessive, gives the original movie a layer of mythology that the new movie just doesn't have, but it's also a movie, and what I want is for the movie to have certain elements I remember from the original movie while also being funny and entertaining, so I can live with the mythology being less important.
RichardLess wrote: July 25th, 2021, 4:19 amI’ve read the details about the other GB3 projects and we probably dodged a bullet or two there. They’d also probably have the big CGI fest finale.
I can also agree with this. I definitely think Afterlife is the most promising iteration of a third movie in the original universe, and if we're going to get one, I'm glad this is what it is.

Also, FWIW, while I hated the idea of a multiverse as a fan-patch back in 2016, I am less opposed to it in some kind of post-Afterlife thing given there is no chance of a sequel to the 2016 movie otherwise. Part of it is, if the new characters look through some dimensional portal and see Erin/Abby/Patty/Holtzman, that feels like less of a concession to fans of the original movies and more like a concession to fans of the 2016 movie.
#4952173
The issues with ATC may have been less magnified if only the characters were a tad more likable. I also feel like the whole "anti-bullying" theme is a mixed bag because the characters who were bullied, well, kinda contribute to the bullying that causes Rowan to do what he does. I think Afterlife will be much more relatable with its cross-generational unity theme. I can see a lot of kids walking out saying they wished they had a teacher like Mr. Grooberson.
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