Ghostbusters reviews are...positive!

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

Normally, I'm not an especially spiteful person.

But now that this movie is "Certified Fresh", I have melted into a giddy pile of spite for the dedicated hatefans.

Take THAT. And THAT. And THAT.

But it's only certified fresh if you don't filter to show the "real" critics and cut out any of the non-top critics. Granted, doing that still shows more positive reviews than negative, but it still proves the point that the movie is crap...somehow.

 

[starbear]

So far bill murray had refused every time, but now they got him to agree. Of course neither they nor bill murray will admit as such.

In simpler words: no there is no evidence that Bill Murray or any of the cast were actually threatened with a lawsuit, and we have Bill Murray on camera explaining why he decided to cameo in the movie. But you are not going to retract your claim, because "neither they nor bill murray will admit as such."

Just another conspiracy theory. THERE WAS NO LAWSUIT.

Besides, you can absolutely see the enthusiasm (read: forced smile) when he was out promoting the movie. You can hear how hard he finds it to get it out of his throat and how he frames it like cheering at a sporting event. He makes it sound like a parent cheering for his kid, regardless of whether they'll do well, they'll love it. But hey, believe what you want to believe.

Oh for gods sakes, when the hell has Bill Murray ever sounded enthusiastic about something?

But hey, if you want to believe in non-existent law suits feel free. Just stop claiming that it actually happened unless you happen to have any proof.

 

[Hawki]

True, each JP film has had a different theme and explored it with varying levels of success, but JP ends with the knowledge that Hammond's system can't work, JW's entire foundation is that it can, and things only go awry because of the I-Rex. JP1 has the theme of "the illusion of control," JW has the theme of "the want of more," but even so, it's a noticable divide.

Jurassic Park tries to have the theme of 'the illusion of control', but it really doesn't succeed at it. In the first movie everything also works fine (apart from certain bugs that the movie explains every major theme park and zoo has) until Nedry screws up the system.

It doesn't actually back that theme up with any sort of proof of a flawed system.

Don't forget that Grant and co. discover eggs in the wild, proving that the dinosaurs are breeding despite the scientists' efforts to keep them mono-gendered. Also, they can't make the diloposaurs turn up when they want, nor make the T-Rex show up for the goat at the right time, or even keep a triceratops healthy. I'd say the theme rings true because while Nedry does sabotage the park, a lot of it is based on Hammond's hubris, the idea of them knowing how these creatures will act and what that means in the wider scientific and ethical context. The film pretty much nails this over and over again (Malcolm's "life finds a way," Grant's "you can't suppress 65 million years of gut instinct," etc.

With the release of Jurassic World, the theme of the 'series' now is that greed spoils everything. The first attempt to bring dinosaurs into the world is ruined when Dennis sells out the park, which starts off the whole sorry affair, and he's only in the position to do so because Hammond refused to pay for a properly cleared security engineer, going with the lowest bidder.

Jurassic World fails because of the park is constantly pushing for more corporate money, throwing caution to the wind to make a new form of brand advertisement - Literally making new animals for corporations to stamp their name on. Which also opens the way up for the military to come along and fuck things up.

Probably not intentional, but all things considered, it holds up better then what they were originally aiming for I think.

"Greed spoils everything" certainly applies to JW, but for the other films? I dunno. First film, true, Nedry's greedy and Hammond isn't paying him well (granted, we only really have Nedry's word for that), but the others? Maybe you could argue that it applies to The Lost World (InGen trying to bring the dinosaurs to San Diego), but how does that factor into JP3?

I'll specify now that I see the theme of each film being:

*JP: "The illusion of control."
*JP2: "The separation of Man and nature."
*JP3: "Evolution" (albeit with very botched execution)
*JW: "The want of more" (Or "greed spoils everything")

I found JP 3 the only good movie out of the sequals.

I mean really why is that movie hated?

Speaking personally, "hated" is a strong word, but it's easily my least favorite. And I can sum it up as the following reasons:

-It's unnecessary. First film exists fine on its own. The Lost World isn't a necessary sequel, but it does feel like a sequel that rings true to the original while also exploring its own theme and ideas. JP3 is basically "people are stuck on Isla Sorna again, dinosaurs chase them, cue running and screaming." JP3 is mostly an action movie. Not that the other JP films lacked action, and JW is certainly largely an action movie, but JP3 just feels tacked on.

-By extension, its theme is botched, and has some bizzare pacing issues. When they're sailing down the river and the "da dum daaa...da dum daaa" theme plays, it's too little, too late. We've spent all movie running from dinosaurs, you can't just say "look at all the nice herbivores now. Likewise, when the ending theme plays and it shows the pterasaurs flying away...this isn't moving, this is terrifying. Who are they going to attack now?

-This doesn't bother me as much, but it arguably resets Grant's character development. JP1 confirms that there's a 'thing' between him and Ellie, but by film 3, she's married some other guy, and he's back to being commited to his work. I'm not that peaved off, because the real world doesn't always allow 'true love' to work, but I can understand why some people would. And while Grant's character arguably changes (e.g. "I'm evolving," per the theme), I feel that I'm giving the writers too much credit.

-The characters are...mixed. The Kirbys for instance outright lie to Grant to get him to the island, and they get multiple people killed while looking for their son. Understandable actions, true, but still, y'know...It doesn't help that there's a lot of screaming and whatnot.

-Minor point, but what's up with the raptors? Officially their look was changed to better reflect what we understand about raptors today, but that goes against the first film, that they're not going to look like actual dinosaurs because a) inserted DNA, and b) I think it's stated in the novel that the dinosaurs are designed to look how they 'should be,' rather than they actually were.

-The Spinosaurus isn't that great a villain. JP1, there was no real central villain, but it did highlight the raptors specifically, how intelligent they are, and how they can outthink the very people that made them. JP2, it was the T-Rexes - retrieving their child, Roland Tembo's desire to hunt them, cue the theme. JW, it's the I-Rex, highlighting the "greed ruins everything" motif by creating an absolute monster. The Spinosaurus is just...there. It shows up, and keeps showing up for...reasons. This is a nitpick, true, but the other films worked better in conveying certain dinosaurs as adversaries in certain ways.

At the end of the day, is JP3 a bad film? No, not really. But I do find it a very average, unnecessary, and just plain uninteresting film. Even though JW skewed more towards the action side, it had far more likable characters to be invested in.

 

[Stewie Plisken]

Normally, I'm not an especially spiteful person.

But now that this movie is "Certified Fresh", I have melted into a giddy pile of spite for the dedicated hatefans.

Take THAT. And THAT. And THAT.

Yeah, time to un-melt. The reviews for this thing are entirely unreliable, simply because there are people who really want you to get spiteful. Top Critics is at 52%, average rating is a little over 6/10 and even in the top critics, there are at least three reviews referencing "brobabiez" (very professional), GamerGate and "angry nerds". That's not even accounting for past articles on the same outlets that may or may not have run with "not liking the trailers makes you a misogynist" (such as the Salon, which does belong to "Top Critics").

This isn't the mark of a good movie, it's the battlefield for shit bloggers to peddle their narrative. Which, in turn, HURTS the movie, because it makes the reviews unreliable. Which in turn hurts movie criticism as both a business and an art, which is bad through and through.

There is not a single reason to find pleasure in this mess. It's bad for everyone involved.

 

[Baresark]

I'm not surprised it's getting a fresh rating of 75% (52% from top critics, whatever the hell that actually means). I figured it would be least a decent movie. Paul Feig stuff is hit or miss for me. Hated Bridesmaids, love Spy, for example. I personally can't stand how some reviewers clearly gave it a good review as some sort of payback for the perceived slight against women (that for the most part did not exist in the minds of pre-release critics).

 

[lacktheknack]

Normally, I'm not an especially spiteful person.

But now that this movie is "Certified Fresh", I have melted into a giddy pile of spite for the dedicated hatefans.

Take THAT. And THAT. And THAT.

Yeah, time to un-melt. The reviews for this thing are entirely unreliable, simply because there are people who really want you to get spiteful. Top Critics is at 52%, average rating is a little over 6/10 and even in the top critics, there are at least three reviews referencing "brobabiez" (very professional), GamerGate and "angry nerds". That's not even accounting for past articles on the same outlets that may or may not have run with "not liking the trailers makes you a misogynist" (such as the Salon, which does belong to "Top Critics").

This isn't the mark of a good movie, it's the battlefield for shit bloggers to peddle their narrative. Which, in turn, HURTS the movie, because it makes the reviews unreliable. Which in turn hurts movie criticism as both a business and an art, which is bad through and through.

There is not a single reason to find pleasure in this mess. It's bad for everyone involved.

Not even addressing your horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, HORRIBLE understanding and mangling of statistics:

Over half the Top Critics thought it was good? I thought it was going to be a Hindenburg with no redeeming qualities. Sorry, still brimming with spite.

Also, 75% positive (60%+ rating) reviews averaging in the 60% range shows a general appreciation, with very few glorifying it but also very few truly panning it. That's not what the angry nerds (because they ARE out there, whether they want to be called that or otherwise) said was going to happen. >

EDIT: Put simply, here are your scenarios.

1. Everyone kind of disliked it:
RT: ~40%. Average: ~40%

2. Narratives are getting pushed (this requires abnormally high and abnormally low scores from the relevant critics) but the film is generally poor:
RT: ~40%, Average: ~50%

3. Narratives are getting pushed, but the film is pretty good:
RT: 70%, Average: ~50%

4. Film is all right, but a bunch of bloggers HAAAAAAAAATE it:
RT: ~80%, Average: ~40%

5. Film is poor, but a bunch of bloggers LOOOOOOOOVE it:
RT: ~40%, Average: ~70%

6. Everyone kind of liked it:
RT: ~70%, Average: 70%

Allowing outliers, which one best reflects reality? Apply Ockham's razor and drop your conspiracy theories.

 

[Wintermute_v1legacy]

This is a very important issue.

 

[Buffoon1980]

I have no particular interest in seeing the film, and the trailers were objectively terrible. But it has been interesting to see the lengths that some people will go to in order to maintain the charade that their hatred of the film had nothing to do with misogyny. For many, many people, it did. Not everyone, sure, probably not even for the majority. But there was undeniably a significant number of people whose thought process went something like this: 'An all female reboot? Therefore I hate it. It looks like it's going to be a disaster of a film? Therefore my hatred can be justified by socially acceptable standards. It's not a disaster? I must rapidly find a new socially acceptable reason to hate it.'

 

[Casual Shinji]

Jurassic Park tries to have the theme of 'the illusion of control', but it really doesn't succeed at it. In the first movie everything also works fine (apart from certain bugs that the movie explains every major theme park and zoo has) until Nedry screws up the system.

It doesn't actually back that theme up with any sort of proof of a flawed system.

Don't forget that Grant and co. discover eggs in the wild, proving that the dinosaurs are breeding despite the scientists' efforts to keep them mono-gendered. Also, they can't make the diloposaurs turn up when they want, nor make the T-Rex show up for the goat at the right time, or even keep a triceratops healthy. I'd say the theme rings true because while Nedry does sabotage the park, a lot of it is based on Hammond's hubris, the idea of them knowing how these creatures will act and what that means in the wider scientific and ethical context. The film pretty much nails this over and over again (Malcolm's "life finds a way," Grant's "you can't suppress 65 million years of gut instinct," etc.

Yeah, but how's that not applicable to any other regular zoo that runs relatively fine? Animals don't show themselves, animal get sick; seems pretty normal to me.

Grant finds the eggs, but it's almost shoved in at the last minute and it's never mentioned after the fact. And Grant's line of 'The T-Rex doesn't want to be fed he wants to hunt... You can't just suppress 65 million years of gut instinct.' is probably one of the dumbest lines in the film, because animals don't care about hunting they care about eating. And later on we see the T-Rex just eat the goat with no qualms whatsoever.

It tells you that control in the park is an illusion, but it never actually shows you why or how. Unlike the book, where the park is already pretty fucked by the time Grant and his crew show up, and Nedry is simply the straw that breaks the camel's back. Or maybe not even, since after the initial outbreak most of the dinosaurs get rounded up in the pen quickly enough.

 

[Hawki]

Jurassic Park tries to have the theme of 'the illusion of control', but it really doesn't succeed at it. In the first movie everything also works fine (apart from certain bugs that the movie explains every major theme park and zoo has) until Nedry screws up the system.

It doesn't actually back that theme up with any sort of proof of a flawed system.

Don't forget that Grant and co. discover eggs in the wild, proving that the dinosaurs are breeding despite the scientists' efforts to keep them mono-gendered. Also, they can't make the diloposaurs turn up when they want, nor make the T-Rex show up for the goat at the right time, or even keep a triceratops healthy. I'd say the theme rings true because while Nedry does sabotage the park, a lot of it is based on Hammond's hubris, the idea of them knowing how these creatures will act and what that means in the wider scientific and ethical context. The film pretty much nails this over and over again (Malcolm's "life finds a way," Grant's "you can't suppress 65 million years of gut instinct," etc.

Yeah, but how's that not applicable to any other regular zoo that runs relatively fine? Animals don't show themselves, animal get sick; seems pretty normal to me.

Grant finds the eggs, but it's almost shoved in at the last minute and it's never mentioned after the fact. And Grant's line of 'The T-Rex doesn't want to be fed he wants to hunt... You can't just suppress 65 million years of gut instinct.' is probably one of the dumbest lines in the film, because animals don't care about hunting they care about eating. And later on we see the T-Rex just eat the goat with no qualms whatsoever.

It tells you that control in the park is an illusion, but it never actually shows you why or how. Unlike the book, where the park is already pretty fucked by the time Grant and his crew show up, and Nedry is simply the straw that breaks the camel's back. Or maybe not even, since after the initial outbreak most of the dinosaurs get rounded up in the pen quickly enough.

Animals get sick, true, but IIRC, Ellie and the vetinarian are in the dark as to what's actually causing it, along with questions of what the creature's been eating. And for a species that's long been extinct, it's presumptuous to assume that you can treat it in the same confidence as an extant creature.

The eggs aren't mentioned again, but they don't have to be, because there's been buildup to them - Wu's assertions of the dinosaurs all being female, Malcolm's "life will find a way," etc. As you said, animals will breed and get sick, but this is Hammond trying to control an entire ecosystem on an island, and with animals that are clones of extinct fauna, and aren't even exact replicas of that fauna either. It's even pointed out by Ludlow in JP2 how Hammond's goal was impossible. And while you could say the same for any island ecosystem, insert the hubris of control, and the lack of consideration for the wider ethics of cloning and bringing back extinct species (e.g. Malcolm's "they were so preoccupied as to whether they could, they didn't ask whether they should,"), and the theme rings tue.

As for Rexy, yes, she eats the goat. It isn't so much eating the goat in of itself, it's more the idea that they can get the T-Rex to show up when they want to.

I can't comment on the book, but I feel the film does show that while Nedry is the one that ultimately shuts down the power, how quickly things fall apart is testament to, again to quote Ludlow, Hammond's reach exceeding his grasp.

 

[Stewie Plisken]

I have no particular interest in seeing the film, and the trailers were objectively terrible. But it has been interesting to see the lengths that some people will go to in order to maintain the charade that their hatred of the film had nothing to do with misogyny. For many, many people, it did. Not everyone, sure, probably not even for the majority. But there was undeniably a significant number of people whose thought process went something like this: 'An all female reboot? Therefore I hate it. It looks like it's going to be a disaster of a film? Therefore my hatred can be justified by socially acceptable standards. It's not a disaster? I must rapidly find a new socially acceptable reason to hate it.'

Citation needed. If you're going to use a broad brush to paint an undetermined amount of people as misogynists, back it up.

And stop erasing women from the discussion. What are you, some kind of misogynist?

 

[Dizchu]

The film is probably okay, above-average at best (Paul Feig's not exactly a slouch) but I doubt it's a smash hit or a complete disaster.

People should just give the whole controversy a rest. Clickbait sites need to realise that it's an okay film and reactionary anti-SJWs need to realise that a) the film is probably not a complete atrocity and b) even if there's some feminist bias in reviews it's not exactly the end of the world and sites like Rotten Tomatoes aren't supposed to be taken as gospel. You don't trust the reviewers? Then don't read their reviews. You're always gonna have the miserable sods that hate everything and the mindless enthusiasts that'll praise everything flashy and exciting.

Honestly though, what's upset me most about the whole thing is how both sides have tried to politicise the movie far beyond what the film actually intends. You want films with good female comedians? Ghostbusters isn't a breakthrough when it comes to that, just watch Paul Feig's previous films.

 

[sXeth]

Honestly though, what's upset me most about the whole thing is how both sides have tried to politicise the movie far beyond what the film actually intends. You want films with good female comedians? Ghostbusters isn't a breakthrough when it comes to that, just watch Paul Feig's previous films.

Prettymuch my takeaway is that Sony tried to cover up a relatively weak cash-in sequel from the usual flare of dislike towards the many many many reboots by creating a politicized debate. Announcing the all-female squad and literally nothing else. Having the director and cast members label detractors as misogynists (some were, the majority probably aren't). The proven filtering they were doing with youtube comment deletion.

The irony being that while it is a weak cash-in sequel, it's nowhere near on par with disasters like Robocop or Total Recall, so their whole pre-emptive defense has mostly just drawn sour taste from people sick of the political debate.

 

[sky14kemea]

You ruined it, guys. I gave you a chance to have a nice ghostbusters thread, and you ruined it with statistical bollocks and petty filth.

Now I gotta start hunting ghostbusters.