polkanator In reply to mistermike1419 [2019-08-13 16:47:35 +0000 UTC]

I'll check.  What's your e-mail?

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mistermike1419 In reply to polkanator [2019-08-14 01:26:32 +0000 UTC]

Sorry for the late reply, it's mikeyrbeaulieu@gmail.com.

Thanks

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polkanator In reply to Nonagesimal [2016-08-05 13:15:53 +0000 UTC]

Hi Jack.  Saw it opening night.  I went in with an open mind and tried to block out all the negative BS that's been spewing for the last year (very hard to do) and I really liked it.  I thought it kept the premise and did new and interesting things with it.  I loved how:
~ they showed how hard it is to start-up a business in New York
~ How the whole ghost-catching process evolved / equipment constantly upgraded / updated. 
~ Holtzmann stole the show

Only things I didn't care for / thought were weak:
~ I don't like the car.  
~ I kept waiting for the bad guy to appear.  I mean, the real boss.  I thought Rowan felt more like a henchman and I figured the mayor or somebody would turn out to be the real villain. 

How about you?

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Nonagesimal In reply to polkanator [2016-08-15 18:27:04 +0000 UTC]

Ghostheads was a good precursor to seeing the movie. The documentary does build up the wish fulfillment that another dip into that universe could provide but lacks the feminist approach it needed.

Because there wasn't any. It isn't even a proper gender swap at all.

The problem is that it is ignoring the expanded universe.

It's okay for the Star Wars fans to be pissed twenty years of novels meant nothing. Fans who adore characters like Mara Jane or Talon Karrde shouldn't be felt like they were lied to or lead astray. That's present in this reboot setting too. Eduardo might as well be Remy LeBeau. Those follow-ups never mattered because a reboot says that chapter is over. So having feelings about losing your copy of Ghostbusters: The Return back in college? Really pointless. No one cared that this was a tame Bridesmaid: Ghostbusters edition. They cared this wasn't continuing the story.

My daughter is in love with Holtzmann. We're in the middle of a junk build of the reboot pack.

I first noticed the difference with ghost-catching in the new theme song. It goes 'They come busting in, kill all them ghosts.' I didn't like that. I didn't like the ghost bodies lying toasted at the end of the recycled RIPD ending (food for thought, though, Ryan Reynolds - the Chevy Chase ghostbuster we never had). I never felt like they were struggling as a business or they were having to make personal cuts as much as the original did but I loved that there were more toys -- I mean tools because the pocket monster Ghostbusters toys at Walmart are odd. I wish they had expanded the 'we're back from the Dead Zone with gray hair' at all.

I said to my wife after the show what the fuck was up with Rowan. It was never revealed the exact reason or cause of the character. We get hints and we get clues... but aside from "he's a little weird and wants to rule the worlds" falls flat. You don't make the movie about the cephlapoid. Will Smith chases him down and then joins the Men in Black. At best - the guy looks like an Albanian gypsy - which sort of steals the spotlight from Slimer since that would be a nod to Belushi.

I liked it but didn't love it. What hurt most is the next week I saw The Boss with Melissa McCarthy (while not a fantastic script) her improv in it is outstanding. The reboot Ghostbusters pulled too many punches for me.

At the start of production, I was almost hoping they would go dark and add more horror elements into it. I wanted to question if my seven year old should see it, you know? Because you normally can't let kids see Paul Feig stuff -- Spy was awesome example of that.

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polkanator In reply to Nonagesimal [2016-08-16 12:49:26 +0000 UTC]

(I've been waiting to discuss this movie with a like-minded individual....My wife can only take so much.   I'm shocked the marriage held up in the weeks leading up to the film)

Sure, the movie had it's down points and I think Rowan's a good starting point.  With Rowan, I agree, it wasn't until I saw it a second time I picked up on the blink-and-you'll-miss-it awards / diplomas / proof of intelligence that hung on the wall of the workshop he used.  I'd have almost appreciated a brief flashback to his youth to justify his actions.  He seemed a little forgettable, and he had the makings of a lackey or henchman. I started to suspect that the Mayor was the real bad guy and Roland the puppet, but I suppose that would have been to GB The Video Game...  They really needed to make the bad guy believable.  Gozer and Vigo, they were at least formitable and had some backstory.  He's easily forgettable and that's a shame.  They could have done a lot with the bullied kid.

Funny you focus on Missy Elliot's line in the song.  I did too the first time I heard it.  "Kill all them ghotsts?"  Really?  OK.....  I thought it was a bad sign that here you have the flagship song for the movie and no music video.  The ones they did make a video for, well....not a fan but in my old age I accept those videos are for the kids more than half my age.

As far as them pulling their improve punches, I remember re-watching Ghostbusters 2 ten years ago and thinking how different a movie it was than I remembered.  It was such a watered down film, and you could tell that they knew a bunch of kids were going to see the film and you had to be more careful.  There was no big scares in it, no bad language, no smoking (really).  The ghosts were a bit more cartoony and even Ecto 1A (although I still love it so hard) was a characature of itself.  The GB2 Logo doesn't make sense to me either.

As far as cannon goes, I thought GB2 was insulting to 2 things:  Janine and Egon went nowhere.  I know Harold never was thrilled with the couple but everybody watched 4 years of cartoons and Janine and Egon was a HUGE part of the pair.  To drop it entirely without explanation was sacrilege.  The other part that I found bad (as an adult) was how they treated Winston. He showed up for the kids party, then effectively disappeared until the Montage.  He wasn't brought in to help the investigation, the digging, the river of slime, nothing.  He barely contributed to the story in the 2nd movie, just like the first movie.  Now people have said a LOT about the Patty character in GB2016 but at least she contributed and had more lines by the half-way point than Winston did in both movies.  When Louis Tully has more to do with the film than Winston there's something strange (in the neighbourhood....).  When people try to defend Winston in the movies I love to pose the following questions:  In a movie about scientists who catch ghosts, when did Winston, on screen ~ ever catch a ghost?  When did anything he say or do ever effect the outcome of the film?  Could everything he said have been easily passed on to Janine?

I also had to calibrate myself for this film.  Sure, it can be debated that you shouldn't have to lower your expectations for a film, but this could be a good argument for why you have to:  We've been waiting 30 years for a GB film.  That's a LOT of time to build up expectations, plan our own plot ideas, visualize what we'd do.  We all wanted to see the original's pass a torch and imagine what kind of lasers and equipment and cars and ghosts and what-not would appear, but imagine what kind of unobtainable expectation you're looking at there.  Nothing could live up to our standards.  However, you give that film to some 5 - 10 year old kids and you reignite the passion we had, and then something new and beautiful can start. 

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Nonagesimal In reply to polkanator [2016-08-16 14:50:34 +0000 UTC]

At ten years in, if I'm enthusiastic about anything then it becomes a problem.

I was hyped about 2015 and Back to the Future so that became a problem with the wife.



Though, I still had my fun with my daughter about it.

So going into 2016 with Ghostbusters? It was eggshells.

This was going to be the actual passing-the-torch for me just as my daughter was totally into BTTF.

Only, Sony didn't put out a lot of hype outside of the community.

There just wasn't a good source for kids to jump on. Coloring books? Anything?

There wasn't a marketing campaign aimed for children or kids or otherwise.

Even the Dave & Busters game that is out isn't for this new film. It's a Best-Of round of moments from the first two films.

Also, you can never beat Stay Puft due to rigging.

Winston was a product like Venkman, I always saw, as they were meant to be improvisational. Eddie Murphy was at the top his game when this script was being crafted.

Or, rather, the early drafts. If you look at the Ghostbusters script -- Murray didn't have much to say. He made it come alive and added nearly everything. That's the room left open for Winston.

I grew up with Ernie Hudson. Oz was my father and I show back in the day. He was warden. Before he was warden, he was the beat cop in The Crow. Shit, even now?

He's dating Lily Tomlin on Frankie and Grace that I watch with my wife. So Ernie has always been there in one way or another. He just isn't an improv actor.

All the fans that love him, make him their favorite, don't actually like Ernie Hudon's Winston. At best, they have a lot of love for the cartoon character. They just love Ernie.

Which makes sense. Dude loves his Ghostbusters. I always saw some room for Winston's military past to be explored -- all the Ghostbusters Video Game did was make him a scientist -- and the cartoon focused on his father relationship.

I own a Real Ghostbusters Winston retro doll thing. I'm not sure where that puts me in the spectrum.

I think there is an homage to Egon and Janine in the reboot. Erin Gilbert is all over Kevin. Kevin, being just the dunce, misses all her advances.

Venkman -- she isn't.

A whole lot of explanation came from the Sony e-mail leaks about what happened:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPAklI…

I found that very enlightening.

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polkanator In reply to Nonagesimal [2016-08-17 12:22:16 +0000 UTC]

Y'know.  I noticed that they spent a CRAP load on advertising billboards, train wraps, bus wraps, all that sort of thing, and an endless string of different commercials on youtube, but you're right.  Very little kid-marketing.  Funny though, neither did the first movie.  There was nothing a kid who liked the GB movie back in the 80's could play with until the real ghostbusters toys came out about 2 years later.

Up here in Canada, I couldn't even find the toys.  Toys R Us, Walmart, and many other stores just didn't carry it.  Shocking really for a movie where lasers and ghosts are so easy to make toys out of.  I've heard comments though ~ they say girls don't play with toys where you can't change their clothes.  Funny, may girl likes to play with my old RGB toys more than ponies.

I think they went a little crazy on their advertising.  It wasn't like anybody didn't know the movie was coming out, but the news and what-not focusing on all the negative things....sad really.  Say what you will of the movie, it's still our brand, and it hurt to see something get sh-t on so hard before people even saw it.  I wouldn't wish the abuse the director / cast got on anybody.  That wasn't fair.

There's also a slew if ignorant videos of people reviewing it and trashing it.  I've learned to hate the "trailer reaction" videos where some troll videos himself watching the trailer and we get the privilege of seeing his facial expressions.  is this what the internet is for?  Such pointless crap, and yet they've got hundreds of thousands of views.  Amazing how people cued up to see this thing fail.  And my girl, she loves the film.  It'll break my heart if she sees the negative side of the film and then gets pressured to dislike it.  She's only 4, but imagine if she was older, say 10ish, where peer pressure can effect what you like....

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Nonagesimal In reply to polkanator [2016-08-18 15:44:01 +0000 UTC]

It was slim here in Houston on stuff. I saw the proton pack once at Target. Toys R Us lumped the $20 figs beside the Batman merch.

I follow Videobob on Facebook. I don't know if you are aware of his infamous period with gbfans.com but there's quite a history there.

Ultimately, the fan community has some teeth. Not to say the the dude isn't a little weird but it does show that as a whole - the community really isn't all that friendly.

The internet has changed and their communities the same. I wasn't surprised by their reaction to the film or the tons of comments.

It wasn't fair but that sort of the demo. Aykroyd insulted the negative feedback/insult slingers by calling them Republicans but I think that only hurt the film.

When our daughters are older, I would hope all of this is buried and they can see the film as they do Big Hero 6.

Much like Big Hero 6, it looks like the sequel to Ghostbusters will be in cartoon format.

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polkanator In reply to Nonagesimal [2016-08-19 11:44:43 +0000 UTC]

I know that of my old school friends, I was the only one looking forward to the film.  the others were totally against it, sight unseen.  Even the ones with daughters were saying "Girls can't do that" and it really made me worry about the people I hung out with. 

Even if the execution wasn't perfect, I hope it's a stepping stone.

A recall Dan commenting on the trolls, and that's pretty harsh words, but they had to throw their support in.  I think everybody expects Dan to support the franchise, almost insanely, as he's been all about the GB for decades.  Now if Bill threw down on those trolls....that could have had some weight to it.  I think when bill talks people listen.  Sometimes when Dan talks people look at him like he's got a tin-foil hat on to keep the radio waves out of his head.

I've heard a lot over the years of "Don't read the comments" and frankly I never understood it until 6 months ago.

It'll be interesting to see where things go from here on.  If there's a cartoon, sure that'd be pretty sweet to look forward to.  But after 20 years of waiting I'll just be optimistic but not too hopeful.

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Nonagesimal In reply to polkanator [2016-09-07 17:34:07 +0000 UTC]

I wanted some distance from the Leslie Jones hacking to happen before I replied.

My original response was going to be about how I'm a Marvel kid. I witnessed the Clone Saga.

Where the author Howard Mackie was just brutally attacked by fans. Before the Internet.

So I've always understood the razor-blade nature of fandom. Maybe that's why I have no fans? Safer that way?

I then was going to address how the internet personas made it even further bitter and poisonous for comics.

All building to how each Kevin Smith, Warren Ellis and Joss Whedon (who, at one point, had rival fans) pretty much are off the internet grid.

Only showing up to promote items.

But then that Leslie Jones hack happened. That really changed the conversation.

It directly made it no longer "upset fans" but Milo Yiannopoulos groupthink comment bomb terrorists. Trolls with longer up-combed hair, I suppose.

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polkanator In reply to Rowyoshi [2015-01-27 12:57:25 +0000 UTC]

Yes actually.  A few years ago I bought $50 worth of commissions off him.  I haven't seen it yet even though he posts new content and solicits new commissions regularly.  The guy's a liar and a crook.  Don't trust him.

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Rowyoshi In reply to polkanator [2015-01-31 19:31:51 +0000 UTC]

Have you tried contacting him?

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polkanator In reply to Rowyoshi [2015-01-31 21:30:25 +0000 UTC]

Many times.  The guy's a flake.  He answeres 1 out of 4 and every time with false promises.

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polkanator In reply to AurionPride [2013-12-02 14:54:52 +0000 UTC]

I've never received a cookie heart.  Thanks!

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AurionPride In reply to polkanator [2013-12-05 13:32:14 +0000 UTC]

don't thank, just enjoy your meal ~! ( ﾉ^ω^)ﾉﾟ

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polkanator In reply to ScommeSexy [2013-09-06 12:57:37 +0000 UTC]

It's a wonderful gallery.  Very professional.

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polkanator In reply to Nonagesimal [2013-08-08 12:20:47 +0000 UTC]

Thanks JC

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