Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)

[JediJones77]

Originally Posted by BluCollector13

If the boards were archived, anyone would see the YEARS of toxicity that was already being built up against the film from the moment Feig was announced as a filmmaker, the moment the main cast was announced, the moment returning actors from the original films confirmed cameos that weren't gonna be the original roles.

I already said in this thread I was against the film from the day it was announced to be a remake. It was exactly what fans didn't want. And we knew it wasn't what Dan Aykroyd really wanted. Rebooting it threw out a carefully crafted universe with beloved characters that had been nurtured and developed through decades of movies, cartoons and comic books just to feed the ego of a clueless director and hopelessly out-of-touch studio executives. You don't even have to talk to the fans to know that remakes of 1980s movies are almost always failures. The choice to remake Ghostbusters showed complete ignorance of the fan base and the general marketplace. Once Feig announced that was his premise for the movie, he gave up his privilege to be given a chance. Fans would've reacted the same way if Disney's first announcement of a new Star Wars movie was a remake of A New Hope.

[BluBonnet]

Originally Posted by Jennifer Lawrence Fan

Gotta love her!

[GuruAskew]

Originally Posted by JediJones77

I already said in this thread I was against the film from the day it was announced to be a remake. It was exactly what fans didn't want. And we knew it wasn't what Dan Aykroyd really wanted. Rebooting it threw out a carefully crafted universe with beloved characters that had been nurtured and developed through decades of movies, cartoons and comic books just to feed the ego of a clueless director and hopelessly out-of-touch studio executives. You don't even have to talk to the fans to know that remakes of 1980s movies are almost always failures. The choice to remake Ghostbusters showed complete ignorance of the fan base and the general marketplace. Once Feig announced that was his premise for the movie, he gave up his privilege to be given a chance. Fans would've reacted the same way if Disney's first announcement of a new Star Wars movie was a remake of A New Hope.

Ghostbusters has never been a “carefully-crafted universe.” The plot of the second movie has absolutely nothing to do with the cartoon* or even the plot of the first movie and. It was also notoriously rushed into production after a regime change at Columbia and almost entirely rewritten after the cast signed their contracts, and also was subject to numerous reshoots and rewrites after the initial screening. If I brought that up while talking about ATC you’d pile on like it was proof that ATC was ineptly executed, but GBII went through all the same troubled production and it’s “carefully crafted.”

And even if Aykroyd, Ramis and/or Reitman were involved in a 3rd movie during the ATC timeframe or earlier then they wouldn’t have acknowledged the shitty comics or cartoons* nobody had watched for decades. The video game may have been acknowledged, but that’s it.

And bringing this up in a thread for a movie that seems to ignore almost everything from the “carefully crafted universe” is not an effective argument.

*it should also be noted that the films are film adaptations of the exploits of the animated Ghostbusters thanks to some shitty, groan-inducing meta-humor in The Real Ghostbusters. How’s that for carefully-crafted? A spin-off that de-canonizes the original source material.

[JediJones77]

What do you mean Afterlife is ignoring the universe? It's making tons of nods to the original movies.

Just like with Star Wars, Lucas didn't GAF what was in the Star Wars comics, books or cartoons, at least until he got involved with Clone Wars. But the point is those things were all exploring and developing the universe on their own terms. Fans have to pick and choose what's canon in their head, but each project is intended to be set in the same universe and, most importantly, usually features the same characters from the movies, or their relatives.

The behind-the-scenes way the movie is made is nice trivia, but has nothing to do with how you judge the end result. Most major movies go through rewrites and reshoots, and a surprising amount make things up and change major things during shooting or in editing...even the classics from Star Wars to Indiana Jones to Superman.

[kylor]

Circus - Theme Song - YouTube

[mwynn]

Originally Posted by kylor

Circus - Theme Song - YouTube

Don't forget this as the music plays.

[JediJones77]

Unfortunately, I'm seeing a lot of comments like these. The common person just doesn't grasp the fact that this movie and the last one were made by completely different people.

Friti
9 hours ago
I'm reserving judgement till I see the movie. We were burned BAD by the last farce of a Ghostbuster's movie so I can only hope this one has learned from it. Thus far the previews and such I've seen seem to indicate maybe we'll be pleasantly surprised, but you know the old saying - Once Bitten, Twice Shy.

This looks like a little new Mini Puft action:

Nothing Like A Labor Day Weekend Barbeque With Friends. 👻 #Shorts - YouTube

[GuruAskew]

I think the fact that tons of people worked on both ATC and Afterlife is the main reason why people are having a hard time grasping that.

[HD Canuck]

Originally Posted by GuruAskew

I think the fact that tons of people worked on both ATC and Afterlife is the main reason why people are having a hard time grasping that.

I don't think the tons of Calgary locals that worked on Afterlife, worked on ATC.

[Martoto]

Originally Posted by JediJones77

It is not a reboot. It's a sequel. Read this article if you're confused about the definition of the terms:
s.

I don't give shit about terms. They are rebooting it. It doesn't matter that there will be fan service allusions to continuity with cameos from the original cast. They are resetting the plot (everybody has forgotten about ghosts and the Ghostbusters) and having a new cast of main characters.

I'm sure the idea of a new generation stumbling on the history of some forgotten heroes and picking up where they left off has been used to reboot things in the past. But I can't think of a specific case right now.

I am enthusiastic about this movie. I'm just not building castles made of sand predicting all these wonderful things this movie is going fulfill that some people are.

I love GBs but I don't put it on a pedestal or subscribe to any of your ludicrous notions of what can or can't be made or by whom.

[JediJones77]

Words matter. Accurate terminology matters. It's a sequel, not a reboot. Resetting things in the plot doesn't make it a reboot. Ghostbusters 2 reset almost everything in the plot too.

I already posted recently in this thread that Tron: Legacy used a very similar concept for a sequel as this one. Technically, the original Star Wars retroactively used a similar plot as a chronological sequel, with the previous generation's equipment and knowledge being passed on to a new generation, or even the descendants of the previous movie's character.

[Martoto]

No they really don't for stuff like this. It's just a movie. The main cast of GBII is the main cast of GB. Yes they reset the plot. (so much for the carefully crafted universe). So why did it get so many knickers in a twist when they remade it? The original cast were unable or unwilling to reprise their roles. So they just repeated the GBII trick with a new cast. Afterlife is no different.


Why isn't it called Ghostbusters III? Everybody wanted GB3. So why aren't they calling it that.

Tron Legacy has Jeff Bridges reprising both his characters from the original movie and is the second and third main characters in the movie. He's not a cameo. However. Tron Legacy is also an intended reboot.

[JediJones77]

Jeff's the villain in Legacy right? It's sort of like Anakin becoming Darth Vader to be the villain in Star Wars. The key of this type of sequel is that a younger generation inherits the weapons and abilities of the previous generation, and takes the lead role in the movie. We can see that Tron: Legacy and Star Wars: A New Hope followed this story structure. Some or all of the original, now older characters may appear. To say I need to come up with a movie where the old characters appear in exactly the same way and for the same running time is an unnecessary standard to set for me to make the comparison I'm making. Ant-Man may be another story with a similar structure, but harder to compare since the original story is only a flashback, and not its own movie.

[Martoto]

Originally Posted by JediJones77

Jeff's the villain in Legacy right? It's sort of like Anakin becoming Darth Vader to be the villain in Star Wars. The key of this type of sequel is that a younger generation inherits the weapons and abilities of the previous generation, and takes the lead role in the movie. We can see that Tron: Legacy and Star Wars: A New Hope followed this story structure. Some or all of the original, now older characters may appear. To say I need to come up with a movie where the old characters appear in exactly the same way and for the same running time is an unnecessary standard to set for me to make the comparison I'm making. Ant-Man may be another story with a similar structure, but harder to compare since the original story is only a flashback, and not its own movie.

I never said characters need to appear exactly the same way. Or anything else you say I'm saying.

A sequel ordinarily shows what the main characters did next.

Star Wars was not a reboot of the prequel trilogy or of the phantom menace. Anakin became the villain halfway through ROTS.


Why isn't this called Ghostbusters III?

[Wildcat2000]

So then what, the original main characters must be the focus again to count as a sequel?

It does not need to be titled or numbered GB3 either. Chucky stopped using numbers after Child’s Play 3. Every [Blank] of Chucky is still a sequel. Jurassic Park stopped using numbers and every “World” movie is still a sequel.

Any movie that continues the original storyline and/or characters IS a sequel. It does not matter if new leads or plots are introduced.

If someone didn’t know what Ghostbusters was how would you explain Afterlife? You’re gonna tell them it’s not the third part?

[JediJones77]

Only 3 of the MCU's 12 sequels used numbers in the titles. None of the Batman movies nor DCEU sequels ever used numbers. It's not in vogue to use numbers anymore. Of course James Bond has never used numbers, nor Indiana Jones.

[Martoto]

They didn’t use numbers after Chucky 3 because it was essentially rebooted. Likewise with Ghostbusters. “original storyline”? Gimme a break.

This is supposed to be the true sequel that everybody wanted all along. But it’s titled like it’s a spin off.

[Wildcat2000]

Originally Posted by Martoto

They didn’t use numbers after Chucky 3 because it was essentially rebooted. Likewise with Ghostbusters. “original storyline”? Gimme a break.

This is supposed to be the true sequel that everybody wanted all along. But it’s titled like it’s a spin off.

So now Bride of Chucky on are not true sequels either?

I know what you’re trying to say. The term you’re looking for is soft-reboot. Prior events are kept intact but the narrative has shifted focus.

The thing is those are still sequels and in the case of Ghostbusters and the other examples they’re hard-continuations.

There’s absolutely no way around Afterlife. The mom and kids are Egon’s family. They inherit his house and lab. At some point the original 3 get involved. Even the villain (which could have been different) is the return of Gozer. How do you explain to someone this is not GB3? You can’t.

Saying it needed to be told from the original characters point of view or whatever to qualify as “Ghostbusters 3” is ridiculous.

Let’s say this came out in the 90s when they were all young enough to be the lead characters again but didn’t and we still got some kind of pass-the-torch movie. That would not have qualified as GB3 either?

My point is, which I said before, nobody can say what a GB3 would have been back then, now or with Harold Ramis. If it’s a continuation it counts as part 3.

[CreasyBear]

Bride of Chucky is the best Chucky film. Ronny Yu kicks ass.

[Martoto]

Originally Posted by Wildcat2000

So now Bride of Chucky on are not true sequels either?

I know what you’re trying to say. The term you’re looking for is soft-reboot. Prior events are kept intact but the narrative has shifted focus.

The thing is those are still sequels and in the case of Ghostbusters and the other examples they’re hard-continuations.

There’s absolutely no way around Afterlife. The mom and kids are Egon’s family. They inherit his house and lab. At some point the original 3 get involved. Even the villain (which could have been different) is the return of Gozer. How do you explain to someone this is not GB3? You can’t.

Saying it needed to be told from the original characters point of view or whatever to qualify as “Ghostbusters 3” is ridiculous.

Let’s say this came out in the 90s when they were all young enough to be the lead characters again but didn’t and we still got some kind of pass-the-torch movie. That would not have qualified as GB3 either?

My point is, which I said before, nobody can say what a GB3 would have been back then, now or with Harold Ramis. If it’s a continuation it counts as part 3.

The term soft reboot was devised for movies which employ material continuity but restart the cycle with a new cast of equivalent characters or a shift in focus etc.

Movie series have begun with a big bad who has "returned" although we never saw the first encounter. Gozer is even said to have returned in the original film.

I guarantee you that nothing that matters in Afterlife will need to be explained to people who haven't seen GB or GBII.

A true sequel is what the main characters did next.