New Ghostbusters Afterlife trailer

[Jack Daniel]

I've always liked the idea of a new film further exploring the mythos of Ghostbusters.

Ooh, I don't know about that. Part of the joke that makes Ghostbusters work is the sly way that it implies a sprawling Lovecraftian mythos without actually having one.

Like, my biggest criticism of the Ghostbusters video game was the way that it tied the two movies together, reducing Vigo the Carpathian and the river of slime to just a side-effect of Ivo Shandor's supervillain machinations. That was terrible and stupid and absolutely the wrong way to go, and I seriously hope that Afterlife doesn't mention Shandor at all or treat the video game as canon.

 

[Imaculata]

I seriously hope that Afterlife doesn't mention Shandor at all or treat the video game as canon.

Then I have bad news for you.

I really liked the Mandala-node plot in the videogame, and I liked that it tied the two movie plots together.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

So because there are people on the internet hating on a film because there are women in it, I can't criticize the same film and need to distance myself from those groups of people? I'm not in those groups and I don't behave as they do. That should be enough. Yuck!

That would be offensive if that's what I said, I agree.

But if you have spent any time in Ghostbusters fan spaces -- and your reference to "everyone" hating on the movie certainly suggests it -- you cannot be unaware of the sexist and racist elements of the critiques.

Dislike the film on your own -- that's fine; you are entitled to your wrong opinion! Don't try and refer to the masses that hate the movie, because those masses include a lot of people you don't want to be identified with once they're better defined.

 

[Jack Daniel]

Then I have bad news for you.

Ugh. I guess that in the canonical Ghostbusters universe, it's a small world after all.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Ugh. I guess that in the canonical Ghostbusters universe, it's a small world after all.

To put it mildly. I don't believe the lore of the first movie really merits the three-movie treatment. Surely there are other ghosts and supernatural horrors out there. The cartoons and comics are full of them.

 

[payn]

That slide out seat for shooting from Ecto-1 looks incredibly dangerous!

 

[CleverNickName]

The hyperbolic criticism of this movie from certain quarters of Ghostbusters fandom is something to see.

Ugh, ain't that the truth. I'm still not on speaking terms with a couple of my friends from high school, because of how they reacted to the reboot and the rhetoric they were throwing around on social media. Certain things can't be unseen, once they're brought out into the open.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

That slide out seat for shooting from Ecto-1 looks incredibly dangerous!

Very in-keeping with the engineer who brought us unlicensed portable nuclear reactors!

 

[Umbran]

They just had their actors improvize for an hour, kept the camera rolling, and then slapped it together. It is an insult.

You think they kept Bill Murray to a script? Aykroyd, Ramis, Murray, and Moranis all got their starts in IMPROV comedy - Saturday Night Live and SCTV - not scripted comedy.

 

[BookTenTiger]

Ghostbusters is an extremely silly movie. It has like three total (and brief) moments of genuinely spooky tension, and nearly every other second of its running time is Bill Murray doing his meta-comedy thing, as an actor in a movie he doesn't seem to make sense in, playing a character who thinks everything he's doing and almost everyone he's around is beneath him. It's a very strange comedy.

I loved the concept of "working schlubs" solving supernatural problems from the first film.

I also think Ghostbusters fits into this really niche comedy genre of Characters Who Don't Belong in the Setting. Bill Murray's character acts like everything is a plumbing problem or something and it's just wonderful. My favorite part is when Sigourney Weaver's character turns into a demon dog and Bill Murray goes, "So, yeah, she's a dog." As if they explains it.

There's an Eddie Murphy film called The Golden Child that's very similar in tone. A lot of the comedy comes from the fact that Eddie Murphy's character doesn't belong in a fantasy epic. He's almost like Bugs Bunny, mugging to the camera and commenting on everything.

Big Trouble in Little China fits into this as well!