Yet another Ghostbusters movie

[trappedslider]

We get it...what was funny then not so much now

EDIT: remind me of this http://www.cracked.com/article_25354_uh-venkman-from-ghostbusters-was-probably-sexual-predator.html there feel better?

For all those who aren't buzz kills there's too many pages devoted to fan theories on reddit https://tinyurl.com/yaqo55o3

 

[lowkey13]

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[billd91]

5. It was clearly a "line," and to the extent there is any commentary from the people involved afterwards (I believe Reitman) it was treated as a joke without further explanation, which means that-

a. In the most favorable light, it was for Venkman (iow, he was a partier).

b. In the most unfavorable light, he was ... a womanizer. Ahem. It wasn't like "jokes" about that sort of thing were unheard of at the time.


Regardless, it's kind of orthogonal to the other issues no matter how you look at it. Even without that, there's still a lot that's uncomfortable; but, again, it is an 80s movie, and it's not the worst.

Keeping in mind this was the first half of the 1980s and drug humor was better known than date-rape humor, I always assumed it was for recreational use.

However, since it's also used to suppress psychoses and hallucinations, it could make sense for a parapsychologist with a loose relationship to strict regulations to carry it around.

 

[billd91]

I'm not sure if I agree.

I'd argue that those afore mentioned things were always wrong, regardless of the changing social mores.

Depends. Some things may be always wrong, but the interpretation of a situation may depend on a certain cultural assumption that has changed over time. It's how you get from "Baby, It's Cold Outside" from being an Oscar-winning song written and originally performed as banter to being considered date-rapey. Same, probably, with Venkman's thorazine which may have shifted from being assumed to be for personal recreation to, again, being date-rapey.

 

[lowkey13]

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[Satyrn]

b. In the most unfavorable light, he was ... a womanizer. Ahem. It wasn't like "jokes" about that sort of thing were unheard of at the time.

I recently watched a couple seasons of Taxi. There were an awful lot of jokes about Louie raping Elaine.

 

[Zardnaar]

I recently watched a couple seasons of Taxi. There were an awful lot of jokes about Louie raping Elaine.

Try Watching Married With Children as well.

I was around at the time for a lot of these shows. Missed a few jokes as I was young but at the time it generally wan't a big deal or it was so over the top people knew not to get offended by it (Blazing Saddle). Gay jokes were very much a staple of 80's comedies. Married With Children was designed to offend but the context of it was Al is a jackass and things like racism are not OK. One of Al's infamous lines that was controversial at the time was "And they wonder why we call them queens" in reference to drag queens. They also refused to screen an episode which was basically a sex tape (it screened here but not in the USA).

Animal House seemed to have started the frat boy type comedies as well. Anything that National Lampoon was doing was deliberately designed to offend, there is a decent show on Netflix about it. Early Bond movies as well where Bond strikes a women are shocking now. The only places you see male on female violence is usually in shows making a point (its not OK), or the female in question is so powerful its considered fine (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, super heros).

 

[Zardnaar]

Watched in interesting video on youtube. The movies where they are taking beloved franchises and replacing men with women seem to be underperforming (Ghostbusters, Oceans 8) or they are changing course (Star Wars).

Those movies that are more original with a female/minority lead seem to be doing fine ( Black Panther, Wonder Women). Basically if you push the diversity thing to hard and make a bad movie it can blow up. Do it cleverly and make a good movie its fine.

 

[Deset Gled]

Watched in interesting video on youtube. The movies where they are taking beloved franchises and replacing men with women seem to be underperforming (Ghostbusters, Oceans 8)

Ocean's 8 returned $297M on a $70M budget and was the #1 movie the week it was released. Likewise, Ghostbusters may not have knocked it out of the park, but still managed to make about $85M over its budget before home video, and clearly made enough money to justify another movie in the franchise. Don't confuse "underperforming" with "heavily criticized".

 

[Zardnaar]

Ocean's 8 returned $297M on a $70M budget and was the #1 movie the week it was released. Likewise, Ghostbusters may not have knocked it out of the park, but still managed to make about $85M over its budget before home video, and clearly made enough money to justify another movie in the franchise. Don't confuse "underperforming" with "heavily criticized".

Oceans 8 earned a lot less money than other films in the franchise. Adjusted for inflation its alot less. Oceans 11 was $450 million adjusted for inflation its 638 million. Star Wars revenue is also down as those figures also came out recently.

Ghost busters (2016) made 229 million, GB 1984 made 295 million ( 712 million inflation adjusted).

And marketing costs are a lot higher now. Dress it up how you like the remakes are making about half to a third of the originals. Punters are voting with their feet, hell Disney probably lost money on Solo and TLJ made 30% more money than Rogue One and sales of the toys are down as well. That is not opinion its fact its in their annual report a few weeks ago. Disney Marvel is in a good place, SW not so much.

Put simply the fans of a lot of these franchises are not happy and he numbers seem to backing them up. 5 Star Wars film cancelled, Rian Johnson go bye bye, Kathleen Kennedy promoted to a role removing her from Star Wars. The Terminator franchise could be another example. At the end of the day they have to make a good movies regardless of what type of story they are trying to tell and its not a SJW/diversity thing either (Black Panther and Wonder Women were big hits). Its basically stop butchering classic movies. They are basically doing the same thing 4E did, not giving the fans what they want/living up to expectations. Hypothetical new fans are not as good as your baked in loyalists spanning decades although ideally you want both.

All these franchises at the end of the day have similar problems. 5E is a good counter example, way more diverse but its fundamentally good at least for most people.