"The third film is going to be the make-or-break factor deciding if Ghostbusters will be looked back on as great-though-uneven franchise or a single great movie with some increasingly ill-conceived follow-ups."
I can't really conceive of a lower-stakes scenario than that. Ghostbusters II was worse enough than the original to take any pressure of another flick, imo.
As hard as I've tried over the years to give Ghostbusters II a break, it's just awful. The awfulness starts immediately in the opening frames and just never lets up.
The first movie is just wonderful beyond words, not just for all the obvious reasons but because, despite the absolute insanity of the premise, it takes place in a recognizable, comfortable, beloved New York City.
The second movie, by contrast, is based on the ridiculous premise that New York is a "mean place," and, in the opening sequence, as Dana Barrett argues passes "mean" pedestrians and argues with her "mean" building superintendent ("That ain't my job, Miss Barrett; I'm just the super"/ "You're also a human being") you can just feel all the reality draining away. By the time the Ghostbusters are pretending to be Con Ed men drilling into the ground, you're just like, "What the hell am I watching, anyway?" It's like a really bad television sitcom, and you have to blink to make sure that it really is Aykroyd and Murray delivering these bad lines. (Murray doing a bad accent? Really?)
The ridiculous fake museum doesn't help either. Nor does the fact that the movie can't figure out, between Venkman and Dana, which one is pining after the other, or who broke up with whom, so when they reuinite, it's just boring. The whole thing is a classic example of everything that can go wrong with a sequel even when you re-unite exactly the original cast and crew and give them complete freedom to get it right.
May 28, 2009 1:31 PM
[Image] From iwatchstuff, Dan Aykroyd, I'm begging you now, please don't ruin Ghostbusters. I watched Ghostbusters 2 for the first time in years this weekend, and although it certainly had its share of walking-Statue-of-Liberty-controlled-by-Nintendo-controller and characters-somehow-in-the-Renaissance-painting-at-the-end moments that had me rolling my eyes, I wouldn't say it ruined Ghostbusters. It just didn't help Ghostbusters very much, and now the series is in a dangerous spot. The third film is going to be the make-or-break factor deciding if Ghostbusters will be looked back on as great-though-uneven franchise or a single great movie with some increasingly ill-conceived follow-ups.
I'd love to believe Ghostbusters 3 could still somehow be great, but then Dan Aykroyd says this to The Guardian:
There'll be a whole new generation that has to be trained and a leader that you'll all love when you meet her," says Aykroyd. "There'll be lots of cadets, boys and girls who'll be learning how to use the neuron splitter and the inter-planet interceptor - new tools to enable them to slip from dimension to dimension." The inter-planet interceptor, a new tool that enables them to slip from dimension to dimension. Oh, brother. Obviously I have no idea how that might play out in the script or on screen, but that sounds terrible. That's sounds like one of the lesser episodes of the Ghostbusters cartoon. "Slimer runs away from home and back to Dimension Ghost, and the guys have to use Egon's inter-planet interceptor to teleport over there and save Slimer from the ghost bullies that won't accept him being a friend-of-humans." I'm pretty sure that was an episode.
Anyway, please don't ruin Ghostbusters. That's all.
"What Are You Doing, Ray?"
2 Comments -
"The third film is going to be the make-or-break factor deciding if Ghostbusters will be looked back on as great-though-uneven franchise or a single great movie with some increasingly ill-conceived follow-ups."
I can't really conceive of a lower-stakes scenario than that. Ghostbusters II was worse enough than the original to take any pressure of another flick, imo.
May 28, 2009 10:06 AM
As hard as I've tried over the years to give Ghostbusters II a break, it's just awful. The awfulness starts immediately in the opening frames and just never lets up.
The first movie is just wonderful beyond words, not just for all the obvious reasons but because, despite the absolute insanity of the premise, it takes place in a recognizable, comfortable, beloved New York City.
The second movie, by contrast, is based on the ridiculous premise that New York is a "mean place," and, in the opening sequence, as Dana Barrett argues passes "mean" pedestrians and argues with her "mean" building superintendent ("That ain't my job, Miss Barrett; I'm just the super"/ "You're also a human being") you can just feel all the reality draining away. By the time the Ghostbusters are pretending to be Con Ed men drilling into the ground, you're just like, "What the hell am I watching, anyway?" It's like a really bad television sitcom, and you have to blink to make sure that it really is Aykroyd and Murray delivering these bad lines. (Murray doing a bad accent? Really?)
The ridiculous fake museum doesn't help either. Nor does the fact that the movie can't figure out, between Venkman and Dana, which one is pining after the other, or who broke up with whom, so when they reuinite, it's just boring. The whole thing is a classic example of everything that can go wrong with a sequel even when you re-unite exactly the original cast and crew and give them complete freedom to get it right.
May 28, 2009 1:31 PM