Ghostbusters 2016

[Elomin Sha]

That's Bjorn. Does anyone remember me talking about Bjorn? It's been 5 years. Bjorn's the optimist I'm the arsehole.
Also I'm jaded to anything positive happening in my personal life.

[Bebop Man]

I think nowadays people are iffy-er about going full on "Yeah, we're making a remake". It's always part remake, part reboot, part whatever's convenient. Like how Ep VII is technically a sequel, but at the same time feels like a remake of Ep IV, and also a sort of reboot (the whole plot is basically Back To Square One).

I think the whole concept of remake has taken a negative turn, a kind of "let's fix it even if it's now broken". By making it into a reboot, you're wiping your hands and going "Okay, new canon". But the "new canon" is always 75% identical to the original canon. It's one gigantic compromise. In the end you're paying to watch the same thing again, now to a slightly different tune.

[Darkflame]

TV seems more onball to me recently. Theres a lot of late sequals.
Not always that great. But "Minority Report" I gave a shot at because it was a squeal series. I dont think I would have wanted just a retelling.
"Limitless" was also a squeal series, and that was utterly brilliant. (RIP Limitless )
Prison Break's getting another series (somehow), also Twin Peaks.

I am infinitely more interested in them all because they are not reboots.

Some universe's are rich enough to build on. In fact, most are. See the characters influence over longer periods, or other perspective or points in the same world. New stuff. In some cases they might even be prequels or midquals. (The previous non-Bourne-Bourne film I enjoyed the fact it run concurrently with the third one.) By not doing a reboot, you instantly have a richer world to build from.

Or, to put it another way; Give me Legend of Korra over a Avatar reboot anyday.

[Elomin Sha]

Sequel. No a. I tried to watch Minority Report and I noticed a running plot issue in the second episode. There's a clue that leads to a miss guess at the perp. I gave up assuming that they were going to keep on doing that every episode.

[Darkflame]

Yes. Minority Report wasn't great for more or less that reason. They didn't do that every time, but it was common enough.
Its strengths were far more in its depiction of the future and ongoing plot.
The little details to the world were nice. Arguably it was too conservative in its future tech at times, showing us things that we have now but arnt yet on sale (ie. a tiny drone that flys off your wrist to take selfies - WE HAVE THAT NOW!).
But it still felt a depiction of a real future - not a utopia or a distopia. Not bladerunner or star-trek or a post-apocalypse. Its oddly rare to get that on a tv show.

But, yes, the individual episode plots wernt great.
My point was merely the only reason I watched it *at all* was it wasn't just retelling the films story with different actors. (Especially as it addressed my one issue with the film - that a precog might still want to stop murders even if they cant convict them for it)

[AdmiralMemo]

...we are aware that the "original" Ghostbusters film was itself a remake of a television show, right?

No it wasn't.

[Arclight_Dynamo]

Once again, if it has the same name and the same general concept, I'm comfortable calling it a remake.

[Darkflame]

So "Jurassic Park:The Lost World" is a remake of Sir Arthur Conan Doyles "Lost World"?

[Bebop Man]

Once again, if it has the same name and the same general concept, I'm comfortable calling it a remake.

A more versatile method is, are the original writers credited? If not, it's not a remake.

[Arclight_Dynamo]

So "Jurassic Park:The Lost World" is a remake of Sir Arthur Conan Doyles "Lost World"?

Of course not.

I suppose I should qualify my statement by saying that if the names are the same by coincidence, it's not a remake. In the case of The Lost World, then, it wasn't a remake. But in the case of Ghostbusters, where the name was consciously chosen and paid for, it was a remake.

There needs to be an intention to remake.

[Elomin Sha]

But they picked the name not knowing of The Ghost Busters, then paid for it. Archlight, you're wrong in this.

[Arclight_Dynamo]

Ah, they coincidentally had the same name, and just paid to get around legal issues? Then, yes, I'm wrong - I thought they paid to use the IP. Not a remake, in that case.

Though... all of this is a huge tangent. My original point was that remake/not-remake doesn't tell you anything about the final quality of a movie, and complaints that "Hollywood is making too many remakes" thus entirely miss the point.

[Bebop Man]

I'd say the vast majority of remakes suck. Then again so does the vast majority of movies.

[Elomin Sha]

I already addressed that argument.

[Darkflame]

For reference Coming Soon:

BFG (remake)
Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie (late sequal to series)
Pete's Dragon (remake)
The Magnificent Seven (remake)
Beauty and the Beast (remake)
Power Rangers (reboot)
Ghost in the Shell (remake)
Baywatch (reboot)

(I am not 100% sure with which are remakes/reboots - I have used remake where its likely the basic story is the same, and reboot when its likely different story, but same premise)

So "Jurassic Park:The Lost World" is a remake of Sir Arthur Conan Doyles "Lost World"?

Of course not.

I suppose I should qualify my statement by saying that if the names are the same by coincidence, it's not a remake. In the case of The Lost World, then, it wasn't a remake. But in the case of Ghostbusters, where the name was consciously chosen and paid for, it was a remake.

There needs to be an intention to remake.

I would guess in the case of The Lost World it was probably a deliberately tribute name wise, but I admit thats not really relevant.

[Bebop Man]

For reference Coming Soon:

BFG (remake)
Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie (late sequal to series)
Pete's Dragon (remake)
The Magnificent Seven (remake)
Beauty and the Beast (remake)
Power Rangers (reboot)
Ghost in the Shell (remake)
Baywatch (reboot)

(I am not 100% sure with which are remakes/reboots - I have used remake where its likely the basic story is the same, and reboot when its likely different story, but same premise)

So "Jurassic Park:The Lost World" is a remake of Sir Arthur Conan Doyles "Lost World"?

Of course not.

I suppose I should qualify my statement by saying that if the names are the same by coincidence, it's not a remake. In the case of The Lost World, then, it wasn't a remake. But in the case of Ghostbusters, where the name was consciously chosen and paid for, it was a remake.

There needs to be an intention to remake.

I would guess in the case of The Lost World it was probably a deliberately tribute name wise, but I admit thats not really relevant.

BFG, Beauty & Beast and Ghost in the Shell aren't remakes, but new adaptations of preexistent stories.

[Darkflame]

Fair point.
==
TV Shows;

Twin Peaks (very late sequal)
Prison Break (slightly late sequal)
Lethal Weapon (reboot)
The Exorcist (reboot....I think)
MacGyver (reboot)
Training Day (not sure)
Lethal Weapon (not sure, reboot I assume).
Taken (reboot)


Most of these are films to tv, which makes them adaptions. But unless its the same continuity (like Stargate SG1 was) Id say its also a reboot.
However, in regards to above, this time I left of shows that I knew were adaptions from books. (or comics....Riverdale looks weird).

[Elomin Sha]

Guys at work went to see the film. They really enjoyed it, one of who didn't like the trailer said it was a lot better than he thought it would be. But, they told me that I would not like the humour, being below me.

[korvys]

Well, at least from the people I follow on twitter (and therefore, the people who's opinions I care about), their impressions of film have been overwhelmingly positive. So that's nice. I'll probably go see it this week some time.

[Elomin Sha]

Having polled more of the store their consenus was, nothing good, nothing bad, average. The film buff of the group did say there were some major plot holes.

[Genghis Ares]

My parents saw it over the weekend. My Father said it was "Pretty Darn Good". To give some context though he thought exactly the same thing about Deadpool and Pixels.

[korvys]

Well Deadpool was really good, and Pixels was... not. So I guess what we've learned is that Ghostbusters is somewhere in that range?

[Psyclone]

The more I hear about it, the more I'm actually really excited to see it. Everyone I've talked to says it's enjoyable and well done, and that the female characters are very three-dimensional and it doesn't feel forced. I think maybe we (or at least I) were worried over nothing.

And apparently there's like zero fat jokes in the entire movie? Which is not an indicator of quality but is still pretty cool.

[Genghis Ares]

I don't know if anyone follows RedLetterMedia, but they put up their Half in the Bag review of it. I enjoy their comedic take on reviewing movies, and often tend to agree with their reviews. Spoilers: They really didn't like it.


Also, I watched a video from Comic Book Girl 19 about the entire Ghostbusters 2016 controversy as well as some thoughts on the movie and why it was made which I found rather interesting.

Anyway, just thought I'd share them as most of the professional critic reviews I've read always seem to be positive compared to the general audience response. And with some reviews, I kind of get a feeling they're inflating their reviews in order to not get backlash. Not saying people didn't enjoy on it's own merits, but I think it's a shame that the controversy became more important for some.

[Elomin Sha]

I've bounced around some youtube reviewers: MundaneMatt didn't like it, neither did Angry Joe. Others liked it but said it was average. I don't like average, I want bad or good.