Ghostbusters — OFFICIAL THREAD

[Ben]

Interesting...obviously some kind of ploy by Sony to see who's still interested in the franchise...

Then again, it's nice to see these films getting proper reissues through their new HD digital prints, like Back To The Future. They may be limited releases, but it's the best way to see 'em.

And at least it's not been 3D-upgraded, the way Ivan Reitman always originally wanted to shoot it, probably...

[GeorgeC]

Lost interest in Ghostbusters a while back...

The films haven't aged well for me and the last animated TV series (which has more than a few parallels with what I've heard about the new film's story concepts) killed off the last of my enthusiasm.

Between all the hype -- nothing new other than videogames has been made for years -- and all the talks of luring people back into old roles, I've lost interest.

One other thing is that I generally HATE the introduction of new generations into films. The new characters rarely connect as well as the originals and why oh why do the new guys have to be written as wise-asses and more competent than their predecessors 95% of the time??? For that matter, I've never cared for replacements/successor characters in comics, too.

(It's the problem of the "genius child" versus "clueless parents/adults/older characters." It's just not true-to-life... Even when I was younger and the same age as "genius children", I never cared for them. I hated smart alecks back then, too. The only "genius kid" character I ever liked was the original Will Robinson played by Bill Mumy. That's probably because Mumy played the character so well (as more of a regular, behaved kid) and never came off as a brat or know-it-all to me. I hated Wesley Crusher and the 1997 LIS movie Will Robinson because they were the terrible le infant terribles I've come to expect in film and TV.)

It's all about the money and business. After 20-odd years, does anybody really think anyone's interested in making this film for any other reason???? Has any other film series ever gone back into production after 20 years for ANY reason than to make money off nostalgia?

The final product will never live up to the hype.

It may make Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of Crystal Skulls look like a classic by comparison!

Besides, most film comedy series get ridiculously awful after film one in the series. Can't think of one comedy series that actually saw the films get better with each installment. That's rare enough for other genres and just completely unseen (at least as far as I'm concerned) in comedy for this lifetime.

There's also the fact that comedy date worse than any other film genre I can think of... It's topical generally because of the writers need to relate to today and most current writers' relatively short life experience and general immaturity. Most screen writers are rarely great historians/forward-looking at any rate (in any period of Hollywood/film industry in general) and most are so in-the-moment emotionally that making scripts timeless is the last thing they're thinking of. Just ends up making the comedy that much more horribly dated and irrelevant decades later. Airplane and Caddy Shack are two of only a handful of comedies I've seen in my lifetime that have become timeless and still make me chuckle the eighth, ninth, tenth time I've seen them. Everything else -- including classics like the Marx Brothers' films -- is just horribly dated and doesn't connect with me at all anymore.

[Ben]

Wow...you've only seen Airplane around ten times!?

I'm racking my brain to come up with one comedy that has really dated for me and, I have to say, I can't think of a single one. Funny, for me it's the opposite: I don't think comedy dates at all like dramas, thrillers or other kinds of films do.

Those kinds of films can date merely because of when they're set, how they're made, etc (even a serious thriller from the 50s or 60s can come off as kitcsh nowadays), but funny is funny. The Marx Brothers make me laugh just as much now as when I first saw them when I was a kid, and just as much as how the original audiences probably reacted back in the 20s and 30s.

Back on topic, and I saw the original GhostBusters not too long ago. As well as being amazed at hoe well the VFX held up, there wasn't anything in there that felt old at all, and it was great seing Murray, Aykroyd and Ramis looking so young and healthy.

My fear now is that we'll get them old and fat and they may as well call a third film GhostBusters 2000...

[GeorgeC]

Yep,

Blues Brothers 2000 is what I'm expecting!

(Although to be honest I've NEVER sat through and watched the entire original Blues Brothers film, either... The few minutes I've seen of it made me go "meh"; what I've seen of the 2000 follow-up confirmed its crappiness to me.)

Jokes in general just aren't that funny by the 100th time you've heard them. (Sure, there's stuff that will always make me laugh but when I know something TOO well or it's based on events that are several centuries old and I know nothing about...!) Comedy dates badly IMHO unless it's about something timeless that's relevant to the past, present, and future. Relations between the sexes, old versus new, and good versus evil will never date. Topical humor (politics, fashion trends, fads, personalities) by its nature becomes arcane and miscellaneous trivia to everybody but history buffs within a few decades. There are very few people in general who are history buffs!

[Ben]

Blues Brothers '79 is a comedy classic, pure and simple. It used to play at mine once every few months and never got old.

BB2K is a steaming pile of dog turd, which I unintendedly bestowed upon my friends and family when we were in LA one time and wanted to see something cool. It was my choice (though, it has to be said, everyone was in agreement), but we just sat there dismayed through the whole thing. More a "fat and old remake" than a sequel, I advise anyone against ever watching it!

[EricJ]

Blues Brothers '79 is a comedy classic, pure and simple. It used to play at mine once every few months and never got old.

BB2K is a steaming pile of dog turd, which I unintendedly bestowed upon my friends and More a "fat and old remake" than a sequel, I advise anyone against ever watching it!

Agreed, judging Blues '80 by Blues 2K is like...well...judging the original Ghostbusters by watching ten minutes of Ghostbusters 2!
The first BB has the makings of "Funky instant classic" all over it, the 2K remake was put on the Beverly Hills Cop 3 pile of "Post-Twilight Zone John Landis scares me... "
(He hasn't really been able to film a coherent thought since "Coming to America", we can tell the kid's a last-minute replacement for a director-indulgent Macaulay Culkin, and the voodoo stuff was "...Are we still watching the same movie??")

Although think George was accidentally referring to Dan Aykroyd never letting any of his own script/character franchises go, even after he really, really should.

[Dacey]

Weaver says that there will be no Ghostbusters III without Bill Murray:

http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Sigourne ... 26839.html

[Ben]

Where the heck did I get that BB was from '79!?

At least it was shot in 79 - I'm not as bad as the filmmakers who made a sequel called BB 2000 and released it in...1998...

[GeorgeC]

......

[gaastra]

http://movies.msn.com/movies/article.aspx?news=854233

Movie is still a go! Why don't they just make it animated and use the video game voice track? They had all the actors right there and they can make them as young as they want.

[gaastra]

Film starts filming in 2015. Reitman out but gives them his blessing. Will only produce.

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2014/03/18/ ... -the-helm/

[Dacey]

Hmmmm. I might actually have faith in the project if this happens...

http://collider.com/ghostbusters-3-dire ... is-miller/

[gaastra]

Looks like ray and winston may be training an all female team of new ghostbusters! Maybe.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/04/showbiz/m ... index.html

[Ben]

However this turns out and whatever age they go with for the cast (as in too young or the usual crowd the director works with), this is just going to be baaaaad. I don't know why, and I'm certainly not against a bunch of Girl-Busters, but it's started to remove itself too much from the original intention.

I wait...with much pessimism...to be pleasantly surprised...

[EricJ]

Girls AREN'T geeky dorks enough to be Ghostbusters. Not even the wisecracking secretary.

Sorry, Sony, playing the Next Karate Kid card is not going to work here, and let's not even get into "no Harold Ramis".