Re-Evaluating Ghostbusters 2016 and why it needs a bunch of sequels.

So when I first watched this film I didn’t like it.

I loved the cast and didn’t mind about the idea of an all female Ghostbusters film at all - here is an article I wrote back when it came out - but I just thought it shouldn’t be a remake and it shouldn’t have played so heavily with fan service - it’s better than that. 

Also, when I first watched it, if I am honest, I didn’t think the Paul Feig/Melissa McCarthy style comedy (which I love elsewhere - Spy, The Heat etc.) fit the Ghostbusters.

Then there was the shitty looking CGI, all the internet ballyhoo - which was all insanely wrong, stupid and, if truth be told, those voices started in the minority until, as always happens, the news media grabs the tree and starts to shake it till all the leaves fall off (see Donald Trump) - and then eventually, maybe inevitably, the so-called “proper sequel” GB: Afterlife - which started like it meant to be a good movie and then just fell off the rails around the 45 minute mark and crashed into the canyon.

Also there was that feeling watching Afterlife of “ewwwww this is the movie we got because all those pathetic bros whined on the internet but the studio wasn’t ready to give up the Ghostbusters cash cow yet”. urgh.

Anyway, back to “Ghostbusters Answer The Call” - Now I have rewatched it and, actually, this time, I enjoyed it a whole lot more. I watched the Extended version on the Blu-Ray too and apart from some pacing issues (because of, no doubt, putting some cut stuff back in) and all the pointless remake/fan service stuff it’s a funny, well acted, inventive and exciting movie.

Even the CGI is fine now. I just can’t get that upset about it anymore.

The whole film though hangs on the four main cast whose chemistry is infectious and just a joy. 

They’re all great characters, the film is as messy, weird, intelligent, silly and stupid as the original and when the film does its own thing, it sings. Please go back and watch it again, get the original Ghostbusters out of your head for a moment and just watch it for what it is - a big franchise comedy with females leading the charge - it’s a blast.

I remember seeing photos of the premiere of the movie - after each of the cast had been sadly and mercilessly shit on by arse hole reviewers, misguided, bigoted fan boys and the raft of sewage that is our news media - and really loving seeing the little girls, teenagers and grown women, meeting the cast and finally having a Ghostbusters style film that spoke to them. It’s seeing photos like that, and fandom now in general, that makes your realise that apart from the odd Ripley, Xena, Buffy or Foxy Brown (all solo icons, not groups I might add) there aren’t a whole lot of female pop culture icons and the world definitely needs a trillion more of them. I got that part of it back then and watching the film now, a few years later, it’s the female camaraderie that really and truly holds it up. Without being all pushy or preachy either. Just get a great group of hugely talented comedians, who all happen to be friendly off screen too and send them on an adventure.

I also remember saying this after watching Booksmart - there was nothing particularly new in the concept but watching a teen/young adult comedy that actually centered on female protagonists was a breath of fresh air. Same then, with the 2016 Ghostbusters. The concept is, obviously, nothing new but watching it devoid of it even being a Ghostbusters movie, seeing a group of women doing their thing, being hilarious, cool, different and leading their own movie is fantastic and something the world needs a whole lot more of. Enough with 30-40 something schlubby guys - man we’ve had 40 or 50 years of that… anyone else bored?

“This cast deserves to exist long enough to get away from the stigma of the original and the internet BS and just be this cast and tell the ghost stories that they want to tell.”

The film shoots itself in the face by being a remake while also doing an endless and often cringy barrage of fan service. I’ll say it again and loudly for the cheap seats: This should’ve been a sequel. The women should’ve been in another city but New York. You get your OG GB cameos by having this take place in the world where they exist but mostly you focus on the women. You get rid of all the crap about people not believing in ghosts, because it’s happened before and you just tell the story about the creepy dude trying to open the portal. 

In the post credit sequence - which illustrates my point about remakes and why they are bad in a nut shell - despite being almost out from under the shadow of the original and finally poised to tell their own stories, they can’t resist dropping a Zuul reference.

Nooooooooo you were almost out and they pulled you back in!!

I assume, the studio thought process goes “People love the original, they’re iffy about a female reboot, so just keep dropping references to the first one and we’ll get the cheer of recognition at least.” It’s the studio and filmmakers babying the grown men in the audience who, for some warped reason, never let go of their security blankets. It has the opposite effect in a film like this though. It has the effect that you very quickly get reference fatigue and think, I wish I was watching this other movie they’re making but they keep pulling me out of it with non-sequiter references that make no sense in the world of this film.

It’s so frustrating because there’s a really great sequel, and franchise reviver, lurking in here somewhere.

Now I am not a “this remake rapes my childhood guy” - people think I am but then people don’t really listen to what I actually say - I have the originals on my shelf and nothing that comes after them removes my love for the originals, it’s more how by being a remake you handcuff and restrict what you can do and you feel forced to redo, or redo with a slight change, a bunch of stuff we’ve already seen when, actually, when you look at the meat of this movie - it doesn’t want to do that. It’s not committed to being a remake, it wants to be its own thing and it works best when it is. All the remake stuff just comes across as awkwardly crowbarred in or, at its worst, horribly meta and knowing.

Great example! This wasn’t needed. The fans of the original will be annoyed at the reference, it doesn’t make sense to the plot because this is a reboot/remake and the Stay Puft Marshmallow man technically doesn’t exist in this universe and none of the younger generation new audience get the reference. So remove it, do your own thing, when you do - it shines!

However once this film finished, remake or not, alternative universe or whatever, I was genuinely sad that we probably won’t get a sequel. It deserves a sequel. It deserves two or three sequels. This cast deserves to exist long enough to get away from the stigma of the original and the internet BS and just be this cast and tell the ghost stories that they want to tell.

Like the Fast and Furious franchise in a way - you need those bumpy first 4 movies to get to part 5 and the real meat of what makes it a ridiculous yet hugely successful formula.

Baby Geniuses - a franchise which no one anywhere likes AT ALL got a sequel and a TV series that was then re-edited into 3 more sequels!!

But because of the internet, cowardly executives, shitty timing and jaded, fuck monkey reviewers it’ll most likely never happen.

If they announced a sequel to Ghostbusters: Answer The Call (2016) tomorrow I’d be infinitely more excited than I am for whatever and whenever they’re following up Afterlife.

In the same way Afterlife was the film that the original timeline needed to get passed the original cast and concept, this reboot/remake was, I guess, what they thought they needed to do to establish these new characters and push the franchise forward with Abby, Jillian, Erin and Patty.

At the end of the day, honestly, I would just prefer more films, with this cast, doing stuff. People were always clamouring for an Evil Dead 4 and instead we got a shitty remake, a compromised TV Show and now a random sequel/reboot that takes place “in the world of…” and I was always off in a corner and saying “I don’t need more Evil Dead just please give me another film Directed by Sam Raimi with Bruce Campbell in the lead, produced by Rob Tapert.” So I guess I’ll say that, if they won’t give you money for more Ghostbusters, give us something else with the four of you…