I’ve seen better film in soap dishes.
Built into the very foundation of Into the Spiderverse is the idea that there are multiple dimensions and multiple Spider-folks. It’s not really the same unless at some point in this nebulous 3rd movie (seriously, they don’t even know what this movie is–they are talking animated now apparently) a portal opens and at least one of the 2016 Ghostbusters showed up.
Without Forrest Tucker, it will never be as good as the original.
Even the Forrest Tucker version suffered from the absence of Bob Hope.
And all of them were merely limping along without Goofy.
Here’s how to handle the 2016 movie in-universe. That one occurred entirely in an afterlife realm. The ghostbusters were ghosts. The “ghosts” in that world are from a “death for the dead” region like in Beetlejuice. A token crossover is allowed.
So the new sequel isn’t “killing off” the 2016 characters. They were already dead.
Funnier than Ghostbusters II, but that’s a low bar to clear. Not funnier than the original.
…and that’s why the 2016 movie sucked. By the time they shoehorned in cameos for all five of the original main cast (excluding Moranis but with a double helping of Ramis), the logo, the catchphrase and the Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man, there wasn’t much time to squeeze in an actual plot or much in the way of original jokes. (That said, McKinnon was particularly brilliant and Hemsworth’s coffee bit made me laugh way more than it should have.)
But I can’t see Ghostbusters III being remotely funny, and frankly I too would rather see a sequel to the 2016 now that all the homages are out of the way.
Eh, I’ll agree that the 2016 film wasn’t as funny as the original, but it was still funny enough (especially in any of Chris Hemsworth’s scenes). And in every other way, it was a better movie, especially in the characterizations.
She should have made a better film then.
…and yet making a sub-par film doesn’t seem to have been an obstacle for a sequel to Ghostbusters II, which frankly was awful. I mean, Peter MacNicol doing that thing he does was mildly entertaining but everything else about the film was stupid and the cast were phoning it in.
Well, it took around 30 years to happen so maybe the answer is to wait patiently. We’ll have a Ghostbusters Reboot-Reboot between then and now!
It’s worth noting that the (original) Ghostbusters universe goes beyond the two movies. You also had the cartoon, a number of comics and a video game which was written with Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, had the original cast all returning to voice act it (and give their likenesses) and is considered by Aykroyd to be the third Ghostbusters movie. I don’t know if the cartoon is “canon” but the video game and comics should be. Point being, there’s a deeper well to draw on than just one well-loved first movie and the admittedly mediocre second.
The 2016 reboot was incredibly confusing to me. I’m actually on board with the “female remake” concept, or at least more female-centric blockbusters. I like the original, but don’t consider it precious and think it’s totally fine to reboot it. I really liked the new cast, except generally finding Leslie Jones a bit obnoxious. I went in expecting to thoroughly enjoy it, except to probably find Jones a bit irritating.
Instead, I found it remarkably dull and formulaic and unfunny, with the exception that I think Jones was fine. I assume there’s an excellent version on the cutting room floor somewhere, but it was killed by rewrites and tweaking and a need to shoehorn in a bunch of stakeless action sequences.
I’ve been really surprised by its defenders. It’s totally fine to disagree, it just always feels like they’re describing a different movie than I saw.
All that being said…this seems pointless. There’s NO need to make a new sequel now. “Passing the torch” stories are almost always crap, since you’re going to have a bunch of self-congratulatory fluff for the old guard and an overly pregnant introduction of a new cast. Ignoring the 2016 reboot feels like a slap in the face to the folks who DID like it while throwing a bone to the worst MAGA-hat contingent of people who rejected it.
The only way this actually gets me interested enough to go to the theater is if they announce that all the ghost effects will be done with 80s-style practical VFX.
Well, the guy spearheading it (and directing it) is the son of the original director (who is now producing it) so my guess is that he’s far more interested in the world his father helped create than the reboot of “Thanks for the idea, we’ll take it form here with a new world”. I don’t think it’s intended to be an “insult” or anything, just that the reboot isn’t the product he’s invested in. Had the 2016 film been part of the original ‘universe’, it would probably play some sort of role – or maybe this movie wouldn’t be getting made at all because we would have already had a ‘passing the torch’ and the originals as themselves instead of actor cameos, etc.
I’ve no idea if it’ll be good or not but the reboot was nothing special and I assume a sequel to the reboot will be worse (as these things tend to be) so it’s hard to be worried about who is going to upstage who or be worse than who.
I suspect a certain percentage of defenders got a bit tetchy from arguing with the noisy and toxic “It sucks because WIMMEN” brigade and felt obligated to defend it on all grounds. I am somewhat sympathetic.
I agree that much of it was dull, formulaic and unfunny and have indicated above one of the big reasons this was so. But the main cast was solid and a second movie with better writing could easily work, especially if they try something new and not the Zuul plotline hinted at at the end of the last one, which will run into the same “hey look - here’s all your old favorites!” problem the first one had.
If you find this confusing, don’t even bother with the Star Trek franchise, which decided to reboot by creating a new narrative universe but still connected to the original ‘continuity’ (such as it was) and then a new show that completely breaks any prior canon and is thematically and stylistically completely different from any previous movie or show. This is just another artifact of trying to wring as much money out of a franchise property whether it has any creative merit whatsoever.
”I am an EEE PEE EEH agent!”
The only thing actually funny about the 2016 film was Kate McKinnon doing improvisation (because Kate McKinnon is always a win) and Chris Hemsworth playing a himbo secretary. The rest of the movie was Leslie Jones doing the same loud, obnoxiously-oversexed black woman stereotype she plays in every role and Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy—both talented not only at sketch comedy but in a wide range of dramatic roles—playing off a gender-twisted version of the sexual harrassment and creepiness that makes the original Ghostbusters often awkward and uncomfortable to watch.
The original Ghostbusters was mostly novel because it combined horror with comedy in a not-purely slapstick fashion (like Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein or Love At First Bite) or an open parody (like Young Frankenstein or Attack of the Killer Tomatoes) with the combined talents of Bill Murray’s gonzo character with Dan Akroyd’s straightman, Harold Ramis’ deadpan nerdism, and Sigourney Weaver’s damsel less-than-in-distress (and side characters like those played by Annie Potts, Rick Moranis, and William Atherton) in creating a world in which humorous apocalyse seemed plausible. It isn’t really a very good movie by any objective standard; the pacing is uneven, the last minute pressures shows in the editing, none of the characters has any kind of development arc, and even for the day the effects are mediocre. There is certainly room for a sequel (with new actors in new roles taking over or reviving the business) or a reboot that feeds into a larger Ghostbusters-connected universe of comedic horror, but the 2016 film was just not very good; nor would I have much confidence in a sequel that just tries to recreate the je ne sais quoi that made the original film appealing in 1984.
Stranger
I think that ultimately this will fail for the same reason the last one failed: No Harold Ramis script.
I agree about Jones. I only sometimes find her funny and often obnoxious. The trailers is all seemed to try to make her out to be as obnoxious as possible and a bit of a stereotype. I was surprised when I saw the actual movie and found her to be probably the best character in it and not at all obnoxious. Really bad piece of marketing there.
I liked the reboot OK in the movie theater. Everything is more enjoyable in the theater. Individual parts were OK but in reflection the whole thing fell apart. It was just not a very good movie. Maybe the biggest problem was using too much screen time to shoehorn in all the original caste cameos. It would’ve worked better I think if it was set in the same universe and just had some cameos of the characters as the originals And then move on.
Reitman (the younger) promises to “hand the movie back to the fans.”