Ghostbusted!

            Once again we must traverse into the land of fake outrage and make believe problems that magically come along every 12.7 minutes in today’s society.  Some are angered so much by these pseudo-issues that they dare to show their solidarity by retweeting a blog post based off an Instagram meme that was originally part of a Facebook share that originated from a DOS file found on a 3.5 floppy disk back when dinosaurs ruled the earth and the Lakers ruled the court.  As you might divine from my subtle cues, I find social media to be nothing but a whiny mob that can’t wait to light their torches chasing down the fabricated Frankenstein monster of the week.  This whole time they could be reposting and sharing these blog posts of mine instead.  Priorities, people!

            One such cause celebre amongst the clinically indignant revolves around the Ghostbusters reboot that is coming out this summer.  I haven’t seen a frame of film beyond two lackluster trailers, but heaven forbid I dare to criticize or have a bad feeling about it or just have overwhelming apathy that might just lead to vehement indifference at best.  Yep, at the end of the day, I just don’t really care.

Here is Dan Aykroyd with his storage cabinet for the Ghostbusters 3 scripts.

            (Well, I care enough to bother you all with this drivel, so that must ultimately mean something, and if not to you personally, then perhaps to science in general.  The research team from the University of St. Copious of Western East Prussia has yet to reveal their findings to me, despite the voluminous grants.  When I queried their team leader as to the results, I was given the following phrase which I shall translate from the original German, “Back off man, I’m a scientist.”  So my hopes are high.)

Anyway, somehow by not endorsing this film that I have not seen, this makes me out to be a sexist misogynist dinosaur, a relic of the Cold War.  Oh, wait.  No, that is M’s description of James Bond in GoldenEye.  Hm.  Nevertheless, I’ll take it.  Pierce Brosnan is above all one damn charming human being, which is more than I can say about the critics that demand one needs to take a hyperbolic stand on this reboot.

            This dynamic surrounding this Ghostbusters noise is interesting because it ultimately shows a contrived war between fanboys and social justicers.  The fanboys are just plain irked because this is not the movie they signed up for and have waited since 1989 to see.  The social justicers are taking any kind of criticism as being an affront towards women as the reboot has recast the original roles with female characters.  The nerds and the slacktivists are going at it and frankly it is rather astounding to watch.  Both groups have so much in common: an aversion to sunshine, an immeasurable amount of time spent in front of a screen of some variety, and an unwillingness to enjoy actual life outside of their mom’s basements.

            Do I have a dog in the fight?  Not really, as any hope for a Ghostbusters movie that I might have conceivably wanted to see ended with the death of Harold Ramis.  The studio hemmed and hawed way too long in-between movies and could have restarted this franchise with the original cast back in the mid-1990s through mid-2000s…but didn’t.  Bill Murray’s acting star continued to rise despite movies like Larger than Life, Dan Aykroyd kept carrying on the fight with multiple drafts in development hell, Harold Ramis kept directing other movies, Rick Moranis became far more selective, Sigourney Weaver kept doing progressively worse Alien movies, and Ernie Hudson just wanted a phone call.     

Sometimes, one just wants to be the Keymaster.  And yes, I know Sigourney is the Gatekeeper.

            However, everything became moot when Ramis died.  Without his participation, I just didn’t care about any kind of new Ghostbusters movie.  I might have been possibly slightly interested at best had the surviving cast gotten together, but at the end of the day, far too many remakes, reboots, reimaginings, sequels, and prequels elsewhere have sucked my interest well completely dry.  Besides, Ghostbusters in 1984 worked because it had an original idea and an original script and great casting.  Ghostbusters in 2016 is anything but original beyond the novelty of casting the roles with women.  The bottom line: preying on my nostalgia is not an original thought whatsoever.

He once had part of a Slinky, but he straightened it.  Yeah, I miss him too.

            That first trailer was such a downer as well.  The footage was meh, the jokes were mostly hackneyed with just a hint of racism, and the theme song was a lone melody line slowly played by an obviously sad pianist.  And I’m not a complete elitist snob when it comes to the nostalgia factor a trailer can bring if done properly.  Was I happy to see Indiana Jones in a trailer when Kingdom of the Crystal Skull came out?  Oh, yes.  Was I overjoyed and kind of misty-eyed when I saw Chewbacca and Han in The Force Awakens trailer?  You bet!  Were there any non-Harrison Ford related trailers that made me take notice in the past decade?  Not really.  Perhaps if they cast Ford as Indiana Solo in the new Ghostbusters movie, I would’ve taken notice.  (Can’t you just imagine Harrison Ford with a proton pack?  The mind boggles!) 

            Do I even care about the gender aspect of this movie?  You could have recast this with the Seth Rogan/James Franco/Judd Apatow cast of male faces that seem to permeate every single new comedy of the past decade and I would have just as much ennui.  Even if they had a good script, a new cast was placed in a no-win situation regardless of gender because of the love of the original film that has existed for over 30 years. 

              Is character of Walter Peck in the reboot?  As he doesn't have a dick either, he'd fit right in.

Are there some that use the female cast as a reason for a preconceived dismissive attitude towards this movie?  Yep, but that is such a mindlessly easy low denominator.  Why grasp at such imbecilic low hanging fruit as a reason in hating this project when there are so many other good reasons to not like this.  What reasons, you say?  Well, I’m glad I had me ask this question for you!

  

For instance:

·         Again, the trailers haven’t dazzled me for the aforementioned reasons.  Beyond that, swirly CG ain’t enough to impress/frighten/humor me.  Why are the effects from 1984 or even from the 1989 sequel looking way better to my ever-increasingly elderly eyes than this new stuff?

·         I’ve heard nothing but turmoil was involved behind the scenes including fights among the main cast.  (No, thank you, North Korean email hackers!) This never results in an awesome final product.

·         According to reports, the script never really came together for the director and stars.  Certain cast members realized this wasn’t the movie they signed up for in the first place.

·         The cast really haven’t come out endorsing this movie even as the release date looms ever closer, aside from feebly attacking individual tweet trolls.

·         The promotional items have been met with irrelevance if you can even find them.  Compare that attitude with the new Star Wars movies or Batman Vs Superman.  Mark Hamill’s face was on posters back in 2013 and the new Batman was seemingly being pushed on the public back when Jimmy Carter was in office.  Yes, Affleck is that old.

·         The original cast from 1984 was apparently threatened with legal action if they didn’t film cameos for this movie.  Yeah, that brings a lot of good will when you have to subpoena Annie Potts to show up.

·         Ramis is still dead.  This is still the saddest aspect of this whole thing.  It feels as if the dirt was still fresh on the coffin and studio greenlights suddenly appeared out of the woodwork.

·         Ivan Reitman has been completely screwed out of the process, despite being a producer and director of the original movies.   

·         And the franchise opportunities appear to have been whizzed down the respective legs of the now-removed studio brass that created this nonsense in the first place.  Damage control is in full effect.  Batten down the hatches.  Seal the bunker.  Find that pill we gave to you should you be captured.

On the flipside, I refuse to say that I’m all for this movie just because it has an all-female group of Ghostbusters.  Sorry, but just because you switch a cosmetic aspect of the original for your remake, doesn’t automatically engender my wholehearted support.  Let’s say just as a hypothetical example, there was a remake of The Honeymooners but they just changed the race of the protagonists.  Oh, wait.  That did happen?  Was it any good?  Oh, really?  Yikes.  Let me rethink and change the scenario, but what movie?  I got it! 

What if there was a reboot of Caddyshack II but they changed the race of the protagonists?  There, that would be a foolish endeavor to say the least!  Hm?  What’s that you are saying in this fictional one-on-one conversation?  Who’s Your Caddy?  Nah…really?  Not again!  Not that I’m against the idea of remaking a bad movie in trying to make it good, but human beings actually went ahead and remade this thereby making Happy Gilmore a more original golf movie idea at the end of the day?  Should we really give Adam Sandler these kinds of accolades for originality?  Is this where we’ve finally ended up?  Argh.

       It hasn't been cheap, but in order to ensure that no one will ever have to watch Caddyshack II again, I've transferred all existing copies over to Betamax.

          (And yes, don’t tell me that Who’s Your Caddy? was a pastiche on the original Caddyshack, because it wasn’t!  Al Czervik never bought Bushwood, he only threatened to buy it.  The final tournament in that movie was for cash, not the country club.  However, Jack Hartounian in the sequel did actually buy Bushwood via Ty Webb’s stock in the club.  So the parallels are closer to the second movie rather than the first.  And yes, I thought about this more than I should have and yes, this is my logical way to remove the original Caddyshack away from having anything to do with this.  Ahem, moving on…)

Now could this Ghostbusters surprise everyone and be actually funny and actually make money?  Stranger things have happened.  No one really knew if the original movie was even going to be a hit, let alone break even.  From that film alone, aside from making a boatload of cash, we got a best-selling soundtrack, tons of merchandising, a couple of cartoon series, a unfairly bashed sequel, toy figures, model cars, and a lot of fond memories. 

Ah, to be back in the day when the only person ticked off about Ghostbusters was Huey Lewis.

So far the best thing I can say about this rebootmakemagining is that it should push the fans back to appreciating Ghostbusters 2 as being a quite funny movie and a worthy sequel.  That was the best thing about the Star Wars prequels: it gave fans a newfound gratitude for Return of the Jedi.  The best thing about Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: going back to show some much-belated love to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. 

            At the end of the day, I am not the biggest Ghostbusters aficionado on the planet.  Bill Murray did some of his best work in Groundhog Day and Caddyshack.  Dan Aykroyd was great for bringing us The Blues Brothers and starring in 1987’s underappreciated Dragnet and The Great Outdoors.  Harold Ramis gave us Caddyshack and National Lampoon’s Vacation, co-wrote National Lampoon’s Animal House, and was hilarious in Stripes, which National Lampoon had nothing to do with.  Rick Moranis on SCTV was incredible and he was the soul of the Spaceballs.  Sigourney Weaver will always be Ripley to me. 

Ghostbusters is not holy ground for me.  I am a fan, but not a diehard one.  However, I think an opportunity was lost and a maligned reboot now exists.  Think I’ll watch Ghostbusters 2 again to cheer myself up, which you all should do anyway.  Right?  Promise me.  Go give it another whirl.  Seriously, Bill is firing on all cynical cylinders in that one.

P.S.

The saddest part of all this nonsense aside from the passing away of Harold Ramis: the fact that they are bringing back Hi-C Ecto-Cooler as some sort of cross-promotional item, thereby leaving more shattered memories in their wake.  Damn you Sony, because you are now affecting the children.  And by children, I mean me.  Haven’t you any sense of decency? 

Hey, I wanted it back too...but not at such a pop-cultural price.