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No one really expected Citizen Kane though. They expected a tense action thriller (with some campy bits) of man vs. alien cat and mouse, where the alien is largely winning.

GB2016 is similar. It didn't need to be a mirror to the first one. But it needed at least some of the following:

- to build on what it was presenting (the initial 'haunted house' up ate a ridiculous amount of screen time, with a wokrkable premise for a ghostly villain, then was outright abandoned in favor of a non-entity)

- the director needed to learn how to pattern the dialogue and jokes on the right timing, rather than encourage them to ramble on long past the sell by date.

- the whole entire 30 minutes of 'finale' needed a point and purpose beyond 'show off really boring CGI and time-slows'

Nothing, but nothing, in the film 'closed the deal' in any way. Every scene just lingered on uncomfortably, then was jettisoned and no longer relevant.

----
The new one is going to live or die based on the chemistry between the actors (especially if they go with a bunch of youngsters in a new generation). If they can't banter or get too caught up in overly-indulgent romantic subplots it's going to choke. They need to focus on the people (as authentic-seeming people) and punctuate with the supernatural, not get hung up on the tech or weird action shots.

Do you think it's become so easy to do CGI that some directors prefer that to the mess and expense of actual shoots with real actors?

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Do you think it's become so easy to do CGI that some directors prefer that to the mess and expense of actual shoots with real actors?

I wouldn't say CGI is an easy process, but when you have the resources to allocate multiple vfx houses it becomes much faster.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Do you think it's become so easy to do CGI that some directors prefer that to the mess and expense of actual shoots with real actors?

Hmm. I'm not sure its a matter of ease. I do think some directors don't know how to direct it or integrate it well, and it just becomes its own weird bubble that happens according to the animators' collective whimsy, rather than central to the plot or characters.

That certainly happened in the Hobbit movies, where the story was just barged aside at random points for half an hour of cartoon antics.

A lot of modern films I just find myself checking out during the CGI sequences, and wander back when the action stops and actual people start talking to each other again.

One of the best things about films from the 80's and 90's was practical, in-camera effects. That includes the original Ghost Busters. CGI just can't recreate the same authenticity (or hilarious campiness) in the same way. I think that when you had to plan a film around physical effects shots involving the actual actors it made everything more of a cohesive whole than constituent parts.

 Luciferian wrote:
One of the best things about films from the 80's and 90's was practical, in-camera effects. That includes the original Ghost Busters. CGI just can't recreate the same authenticity (or hilarious campiness) in the same way. I think that when you had to plan a film around physical effects shots involving the actual actors it made everything more of a cohesive whole than constituent parts.

What about the FX in Highlander 2?

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Do you think it's become so easy to do CGI that some directors prefer that to the mess and expense of actual shoots with real actors?

I'd bet dollars to doughnuts Big George does.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Luciferian wrote:
One of the best things about films from the 80's and 90's was practical, in-camera effects. That includes the original Ghost Busters. CGI just can't recreate the same authenticity (or hilarious campiness) in the same way. I think that when you had to plan a film around physical effects shots involving the actual actors it made everything more of a cohesive whole than constituent parts.

What about the FX in Highlander 2?

Now THAT is one of the worst movies I've ever seen.

 Luciferian wrote:
One of the best things about films from the 80's and 90's was practical, in-camera effects. That includes the original Ghost Busters. CGI just can't recreate the same authenticity (or hilarious campiness) in the same way. I think that when you had to plan a film around physical effects shots involving the actual actors it made everything more of a cohesive whole than constituent parts.

Just finished leadbelchering a reaver while watching The Fly...incredible movie.

The 80s'n'90s were amazing times for vfx movies. Stopmotion found its technological peak while make up artists such as Rick Baker, Stan Winston and Rob Bottin were running away with the faries and delivering awesome work. CGI was emerging as the next big thing...

Happy times I'm sure we all have some experience of.

Using the Fly as an example, do you remember the bit where Seth smashes the door frame with his bare fist? Great example of the entire movie - all done practical. And unlike most other vfx movies of the 80s/90s everything was done in shot. None of this matt compositing work which doesn't quite work in many movies from that era. Even the awesome Empire Strikes Back had some noticable transparency in the film where one wouldn't mind some digital touching up. But the Fly...holy crap - amazing.

True, CGI became the all-in-one method of vfx, but the classic methods are starting to make a welcome comeback. For example, From Morningside Productions and the Harryhousen Foundation is the forthcoming Force of the Trojans which will be using stopmotion in the style of Ray and Charles' "monster movies while using CGI for compositing and effects where it is needed.

The new Star Wars movies are using more practical effects than ever before, making good use of locations in and around the UK. Directors prefer a practical effect to a CGI one - something they can see and shoot on set...

 Luciferian wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Luciferian wrote:
One of the best things about films from the 80's and 90's was practical, in-camera effects. That includes the original Ghost Busters. CGI just can't recreate the same authenticity (or hilarious campiness) in the same way. I think that when you had to plan a film around physical effects shots involving the actual actors it made everything more of a cohesive whole than constituent parts.

What about the FX in Highlander 2?

Now THAT is one of the worst movies I've ever seen.

Many refuse to admit it exists.

Although the lore bit is really funny...

Love Highlander 2. It deserves to be savaged but somehow its entertaining.

The fan scene is awesome! Makes no sense at all but damn - AMAZING GRACE! With Sean Connery's super cheesey dialog!

I must go lie down now....

 Luciferian wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Luciferian wrote:
One of the best things about films from the 80's and 90's was practical, in-camera effects. That includes the original Ghost Busters. CGI just can't recreate the same authenticity (or hilarious campiness) in the same way. I think that when you had to plan a film around physical effects shots involving the actual actors it made everything more of a cohesive whole than constituent parts.

What about the FX in Highlander 2?

Now THAT is one of the worst movies I've ever seen.

Highlander 2 - one of only two movies I ever walked out on...

Hopeful that Ghostbusters 2020 will be decent though!

SamusDrake wrote:

 Luciferian wrote:
I haven't seen the Predator, but I agree with the sentiment that none of the remakes or reboots in the recent cultural wasteland have been very good. It just brings me back to the question I asked earlier. How long are people going to keep paying to see these movies?

I'm going to do my part and skip this one.

The Predator is a sequel and feels like its aim is to celebrate the previous movies rather than replace or compete with them. There are nods to all three previous films and even sets itself aside by being a bit of an A-Team tribute.

I won't lie, its not Citizen Kane but at least a good laugh.

It utterly failed to celebrate anything. That movie got everything good about any predator movie incredibly wrong. It did have 1 good scene though. The breaking out of the lab massacre. From the moment the pred wakes up it's good while that pred is on screen.

 Lance845 wrote:

It utterly failed to celebrate anything. That movie got everything good about any predator movie incredibly wrong. It did have 1 good scene though. The breaking out of the lab massacre. From the moment the pred wakes up it's good while that pred is on screen.

Ah, thats cool beans. Personally, I felt they had done a much better job than Predators where it felt like a fan fiction preaching on "why the first movie is the best" only to miss the mark completely. At least with The Predator the A-Team theme( escaped military prisoners who should be harded criminals but are really a bunch of muppets ) allowed for a somewhat connected team once again like in the first two movies, and when each one got whacked there was at least some loss to be felt.

Regarding celebrating the previous movies; as much as Predators was disappointing it wasn't ignored. You had the pred-hounds and the two different classes of Predator. With Predator 2( criminally underrated sequel ) Gary Busey's son, Jake, is in the lab. Obviously the first movie got its fair share of nods...

Which leads me back into the thread topic of Ghostbusters. What could have strengthened GB16 was keeping within the world established in the first two movies. True, they had the original cast present in one form or another, but not their actual characters. I didnt mind it being a reboot, so to speak, but films like The Thing 2011 and The Predator, they don't just wipe the slate clean - they at least make an effort to acknowledge the films they are born from. They had part of it in place already; Ernie Hudson plays - briefly - the uncle of Patty...why not just make him Winston Zedmore already? How about Bill Murry had gone back to teaching and lecturing again, and Abby and Erin were his students. Ray somehow had horded all their old equipment...

The grumpy old men could have had a "get out there and do it yourself, like we had to" attitude to the girls...the possibilities were great, but for better or worse they made the bold move to just reboot instead.

SamusDrake wrote:

Which leads me back into the thread topic of Ghostbusters. What could have strengthened GB16 was keeping within the world established in the first two movies. True, they had the original cast present in one form or another, but not their actual characters. I didnt mind it being a reboot, so to speak, but films like The Thing 2011 and The Predator, they don't just wipe the slate clean - they at least make an effort to acknowledge the films they are born from. They had part of it in place already; Ernie Hudson plays - briefly - the uncle of Patty...why not just make him Winston Zedmore already? How about Bill Murry had gone back to teaching and lecturing again, and Abby and Erin were his students. Ray somehow had horded all their old equipment...

The grumpy old men could have had a "get out there and do it yourself, like we had to" attitude to the girls...the possibilities were great, but for better or worse they made the bold move to just reboot instead.

When I heard of the all female cast, the idea I had was having Venkman lose control of the company to his ex-wife and she hires an all female crew.

I do understand why they choose to reboot, since passing the torch stories are harder to do. There is always the problem of the audience siding with the older characters and seeing the new ones as usurpers. Happens in comic books all the times. Take the Flash for instance. I thought the passing of the Flash mantle from Barry to Wally was really well done, but not everyone agreed and ultimately DC choose to undo it 20+ years later. A similar situation in Green Lantern was done quick and poorly and the fans revolted over it. Couldn't go to any comicbook forum without hearing "Hal Jordan is the only true Green Lantern" bullgak. The better characters don't always win.

 Crimson Devil wrote:

When I heard of the all female cast, the idea I had was having Venkman lose control of the company to his ex-wife and she hires an all female crew.

Yeaaahhh they could have done that!

SamusDrake wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:

It utterly failed to celebrate anything. That movie got everything good about any predator movie incredibly wrong. It did have 1 good scene though. The breaking out of the lab massacre. From the moment the pred wakes up it's good while that pred is on screen.

Ah, thats cool beans. Personally, I felt they had done a much better job than Predators where it felt like a fan fiction preaching on "why the first movie is the best" only to miss the mark completely. At least with The Predator the A-Team theme( escaped military prisoners who should be harded criminals but are really a bunch of muppets ) allowed for a somewhat connected team once again like in the first two movies, and when each one got whacked there was at least some loss to be felt.

Predators is great. As a movie taken out of the time of each predator movie it might even be the best predator movie. Because those movies are not about cohesive teams that suffer losses. It's about a vicious alien killer who hunts for sport. The game preserve element is a good twist.

Regarding celebrating the previous movies; as much as Predators was disappointing it wasn't ignored. You had the pred-hounds and the two different classes of Predator. With Predator 2( criminally underrated sequel ) Gary Busey's son, Jake, is in the lab. Obviously the first movie got its fair share of nods...

The new pred hounds were gross. And not in a way where a monster on screen is gross and thats cool. But gross in that the implication that the preds genetically engineer their own people into dogs is one of the dumbest things I have ever seen. Predators WAS ignored. Regular Preds are at war with a bigger meaner variant of their species. That could be as simple as they are the Bad Blood clan from the comics given a new form on screen. Instead, Preds hunt people to collect DNA to mutate themselves. That ignores everything from every previous entry. The freshly blooded younger predator going on full safari in the 2nd movie makes no sense in the context of The Predator. Jake Busey being in the lab would have been great if his character had anything to do. He was 100% non essential to the plot and could have been played by anyone and named anything. He was generic lab scientist #4 who got killed just like generic Lab Scientist 1-3. How do you call Predators a fan fiction when all this lowest hanging fruit nods to the previous movies exist in The Predator? THIS was the fan fiction hack job.

Which leads me back into the thread topic of Ghostbusters. What could have strengthened GB16 was keeping within the world established in the first two movies. True, they had the original cast present in one form or another, but not their actual characters. I didnt mind it being a reboot, so to speak, but films like The Thing 2011 and The Predator, they don't just wipe the slate clean - they at least make an effort to acknowledge the films they are born from. They had part of it in place already; Ernie Hudson plays - briefly - the uncle of Patty...why not just make him Winston Zedmore already? How about Bill Murry had gone back to teaching and lecturing again, and Abby and Erin were his students. Ray somehow had horded all their old equipment...

The grumpy old men could have had a "get out there and do it yourself, like we had to" attitude to the girls...the possibilities were great, but for better or worse they made the bold move to just reboot instead.

If anyone is intelligent on any level when making another Predator movie they will either reboot from the begining and patch up the inconsistencies that exist in every movie except Predators or they will ignore that The Predator exists at all.

Ernie, Bill, and Dan didn't want to do another ghost busters movie. It's been off their table for a long long time. They are on recorded being VERY done with the movies. Doing brief cameos as a go ahead to the new cast was all anyone could get them to do.

I honestly think a Predator remake could actually do quite well. If you break Predator down to it's most basic elements, its First Blood except the cops are the heroes and Rambo is an inhuman monster. Or Commando, but you're rooting for Val Verde instead of Matrix. It's a subversion of classic action movies movies. That's kind of a timeless formula, and I think the inability to even try at replicating it is a big sign that movie makers don't really understand what made Predator so good while the sequels have been wildly inconsistent in quality.

It's a slasher movie, except the girls are Special Forces

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
It's a slasher movie, except the girls are Special Forces

Another decent way of putting it, but more Halloween than Friday the 13th.

I have been thinking about the claim that GB2016 is the victim of some kind of special or weird level of criticism. I don’t think that argument is very compelling.

A few years back, Fox informed us the Alien franchise was coming back with Sir Ridley at the helm. There was a lot of excitment. But the initial audience reaction to Prometheus upon release was hyperbolically negative — especially among long-time fans. Perhaps it might be said that Prometheus was the victim of some kind of weird fanboy hateboner?

Well, probably not. Over a decade before Prometheus was released, we were also told that Star Wars was coming back. Again, huge excitement. And then the aptly-named Phantom Menace was unleashed upon the world. Never has their been so much wailing and gnashing of teeth about movies, and it echoes down to this very day despite there being a whole new raft of disappointing Star Wars films currently underway.

Again, in 2011, we were told that the cinematic magic of Peter Jackon’s Middle-earth would once again delight moviegoers. The Hobbit films were increasingly derided as they released until by the third installment what might have been a triumphant conclusion was barely even relevant.

We could go on and on. I haven’t even mentioned Star Trek (too painful). GB2016 is just another failed attempt, among so very many, to capitalize on existing, beloved IPs by people who don’t understand or care about why they are enduring. There is nothing at all special about the disappointment and criticism surrounding GB2016. It will hardly be surprising if GB3 is also a disappointment.

The notion that GB2016 is a unique victim strikes me as another sly attempt to stop us from talking about the sub-par quality of the film and instead draw a line in the sand between an imaginary right side and wrong side of history, demanding that everyone pick — i.e., something that has absolutely nothing to do about a movie where some comical shlubs hunt ghosts.

You forgot the Sony Spiderman reboot.

If we discount the organized threats and harassment against the Cast and Director. As well as the hacking of Leslie Jones' website with racist pictures and the theft of her nude pictures. Then yes you could make that argument.

Oh right I forgot no celebrity had ever been harassed before then.

 Manchu wrote:
Oh right I forgot no celebrity had ever been harassed before then.

If an organized effort run by Milo Yiannopoulos doesn't count, then what does?

 Manchu wrote:
I have been thinking about the claim that GB2016 is the victim of some kind of special or weird level of criticism. I don’t think that argument is very compelling.

A few years back, Fox informed us the Alien franchise was coming back with Sir Ridley at the helm. There was a lot of excitment. But the initial audience reaction to Prometheus upon release was hyperbolically negative — especially among long-time fans. Perhaps it might be said that Prometheus was the victim of some kind of weird fanboy hateboner?

Well, probably not. Over a decade before Prometheus was released, we were also told that Star Wars was coming back. Again, huge excitement. And then the aptly-named Phantom Menace was unleashed upon the world. Never has their been so much wailing and gnashing of teeth about movies, and it echoes down to this very day despite there being a whole new raft of disappointing Star Wars films currently underway.

Again, in 2011, we were told that the cinematic magic of Peter Jackon’s Middle-earth would once again delight moviegoers. The Hobbit films were increasingly derided as they released until by the third installment what might have been a triumphant conclusion was barely even relevant.

We could go on and on. I haven’t even mentioned Star Trek (too painful). GB2016 is just another failed attempt, among so very many, to capitalize on existing, beloved IPs by people who don’t understand or care about why they are enduring. There is nothing at all special about the disappointment and criticism surrounding GB2016. It will hardly be surprising if GB3 is also a disappointment.

The notion that GB2016 is a unique victim strikes me as another sly attempt to stop us from talking about the sub-par quality of the film and instead draw a line in the sand between an imaginary right side and wrong side of history, demanding that everyone pick — i.e., something that has absolutely nothing to do about a movie where some comical shlubs hunt ghosts.

You have a few things wrong here.

1) Promethus was just bad. Any hate for promethius came after it's release and viewing. Not before.

2) Phantom Menace spent over an entire year when everyone collectively lied to each other and themselves saying it was good. It wasn't until about episode 3 when everyone finally admitted that all the prequels were gak.

3) Yup. The hobbit was obviously made into too many movies and the audience felt the fatigue from it.

And finally

4) Ghostbuster 2016 unlike all these other entries had hate BEFORE it was released. In fact it had hate before anyone had even seen anything about it when it was announced that it was an all girl cast. You are comparing apples to oranges. These things are not the same.


There is no right or wrong side. If you didn't like the movie then you didn't like the movie. But pretending that the movie wasn't being hated on before a single frame of footage was viewed is just pretending history didn't happen.

I think there are some unique situations in the examples you picked.

Prometheus: While Aliens is a beloved franchise, Prometheus came after 4 mediocre movies - Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection, AVP and AVP:R. I don't think expectations were very high for the movie, Sir Ridley or not. It was a distressed franchise.

Additionally while Prometheus was bad, it wasn't awful either. It cost $130m and brought in $400m, and the RT critic and reviewer score is close, they're both around 70%. It also was narratively seperated from the others Aliens movie, so it wasn't really a reboot. No one could claim it destroyed their childhood since this movie happened before Aliens and in a different place and the clear connections to the main Alien universe were always sort of tenuous until later.

The Hobbit is in the Prometheus boat. Not great, but not terrible, and seperated narratively.

Star Wars TPM: I think would surely have gotten the exact kind of hideous blowback and harassment and so on as GB16 got except by dint of when it came out: specifically, in a world when the ability to easily connect with a giant angry mob and start an epic monkey gak fling was very, very limited. Blogging was 3 years away. Youtube was 6 years away. Myspace was 4 years out. Twitter was 7 years away. If you hated the movie and you wanted to post Jake Lloyd's nudes to the world to teach him a lesson about... whatever (for example), you were very limited in how far you could spread it and you pretty much had to physically break into his house. Good luck finding said house by the way, Google wasn't big yet and he probably didn't list it in the Yahoo indexing request form.

Best you could practically do was put an angry screed up on your Geocities site next to the dancing babies and under construction spinning gifs.

I think there is something special about the kind of backlash GB16 has, but I also don't think it's like, unique to that movie forevermore. It came along at a perfect storm of many factors. You can see bits of it with TLJ too on this site - didn't every TLJ thread get locked because they turned into cesspools?

The problem with this discussion is it's sort of hard to avoid intermingling it with politics, but I will try to be oblique and brief: essentially, it came at a time where there was a resurgence of anger in the country about the perceived loss of dominance of some groups and the encroachment of other groups into new spaces (and the marketing to them, or pandering to them, pick whichever fits your level of cynicism). Look at the "feth your feelings" shirts. People were pissed. Part of why people hate the movie beyond how bad it was is what it represents - that's the only way I think I can really explain why people are so uniquely angry about such a meaningless mediocre movie. The most thumbed-down video on all of youtube; if that's not stigginit to the SJWs then I guess I dunno what is.

Nah, it’s just not convincing. No film has ever been hated like the SW prequels. Leslie Jones ain’t got gak on Jake Lloyd, or hell, even George Lucas. But anyhow it’s not to say that everything has always been the same at all times on this two-decade-and-counting reboot road we’re all barrelling down. Point is, by the time GB2016 waddled into the spotlight, good will had completely evaporated. Not because of politics. Not because of whatever your favorite talking head says is wrong with the world. It’s so much more obvious — we’d had this same Hollywood re-packaging shived down our throats since 1999 and the results were almost always gak. Utter gak. As discussed ITT, GB2016 isn’t even special for being a particularly egregious example. The only interesting thing about it at all is Sony decided to spin the massive cynicism with which audiences received their lazy, moronic movie, which of course just made people hate it more (also happened with TLJ).

Well, good for me I don't actually care if you are convinced or not.

The facts speak for themselves. Whether from some kind of reboot or rehash fatigue or whatever, the GB movie was trashed before it came out and everything else you were talking about was trashed after. GB 2020 doesn't appear to have the same hate bubbling under it that 2016 did and arguably it should be FARTHER into the reboot/rehash fatigue.

Make up whatever reasons you want. There it is.

LOL I dunno where you’ve been but many reboots were trashed as trailers. Many of them start getting trashed when they are announced. Some get trashed as they are filmed, presumably by people working on the production itself.

Literally the only interesting thing about GB2016 is the studio got caught trying to flip the script.