Ghostbusters Afterlife Upsets The Critics And Fans Of Ghostbusters 2016

Ghostbusters Afterlife is finally out, and the critics seem to want to cry about it. They are using buzzwords like "fan service" and "nostalgia" as if they are bad things. Once upon a time, movies used to be made to entertain people. Movies that made a bunch of money generally did so because they entertained the people enough to make them want to spend money to see them. Over the last decade or so, beloved franchises have been used to push narratives and ideas that were never part of the franchise to begin with.

Some will cite the Ghostbusters 2016 movie as ground zero in the trend of woke remakes. Others will say it started before then, but there was certainly much controversy surrounding the 2016 Ghostbusters movie. For the record, I enjoyed the movie, although I avoided it like the plague when it was released. I didn't like the idea of swapping the gender of the lead characters, because it's my belief that it wasn't done to make a good movie but rather to earn woke points. I dislike that notion in the strongest possible way.

I didn't pay attention to what was happening on social media back then, although I heard bits and pieces of it. With the election happening in the United States at that point, the Ghostbusters movie seemed to be used to make political statements. If you liked the idea of this movie, you supported Hillary Clinton. If you didn't like it, you were a Donald Trump supporter. I don't particularly care for breaking it down that way, but that's the way it seemed. I also don't believe all of the criticism of the movie was fair, but the way the movie was marketed gave the fans of the first two movies the ammunition they needed to put it down.

In my opinion, if you can go into the Ghostbusters 2016 movie without paying attention to any of the noise surrounding it, you'll see it wasn't that bad of a movie. Yeah, some of the jokes didn't land, but overall the movie wasn't that bad. I gave it a positive review. When I say that, I still believe that the original Ghostbusters and its sequel were superior movies to this one, but that doesn't mean the movie wasn't enjoyable. However, all of the talk on social media surrounding this movie just served to make it about more than what was happening on the screen.

 

My Original Review Of Ghostbusters 2016

To understand how we got to that movie, we have to look at the efforts to make a sequel. Multiple scripts were written, but generally there was one holdup that kept the original cast from getting back together and doing it one more time. Bill Murray wasn't on board with it. They kept going back to the drawing board until the studio executives decided to reboot it and go with an all-female cast. Rather than acknowledging the first two movies, this movie was its own thing. Nobody who loved that movie seemed to be bothered by that fact, but many of those fans are crying over the fact that their movie isn't being acknowledged by the new movie.

When Ghostbusters Afterlife was announced, there were some negative things said on social media about it. It's just fan service was one thing that was said. Another popular complaint was the idea that the fans who wouldn't give Ghostbusters 2016 a chance or who were critical on social media were being rewarded for their "bad" behavior. 

Leslie Jones came out on social media and slammed the idea of this movie. While I understand people coming after her for expressing her opinion on the matter, I firmly believe that she and her cast mates have every right to say what they will. Some of the criticisms against them in 2016 crossed the line, in my opinion.

That not withstanding, Jason Reitman was the one directing Ghostbusters Afterlife. This movie can be seen as a love letter to the first two movies. He's picking up the directorial duties from his father (Ivan Reitman), and he's continuing where the storyline left off after the second movie. Obviously, this means introducing new characters who have a connection to the original characters. The movie isn't set in New York, and there are other changes. However, it's done in the spirit of the first two movies. This is a direct sequel to Ghostbusters Part 2, and long time fans will maintain that this is all they wanted from the franchise.

The sad reality is the third movie should have been made years ago. The feud between Bill Murray and Harold Ramis obviously didn't help. However, Murray had a love/hate relationship with the franchise as it was. While he seemed to enjoy the first movie, he wasn't particularly fond of the second one. At that point, he moved on to other things and wasn't even thinking of returning. Because of that, the window to making a proper third movie closed. It's impossible to get the original cast back together with the passing of Ramis. Furthermore, Rick Moranis hasn't been too keen on doing much acting due to things happening in his own life that necessitated him focusing on family. 

The bottom line is money talks. If it's not profitable, most Hollywood studios aren't keen on making a movie in the first place. They obviously felt like there was money to be made from the Ghostbusters name, so the geniuses at the studio went with the 2016 reboot and the all female cast. They had an opportunity to make a big enough profit to warrant a return with a sequel to that movie. Unfortunately, they didn't make enough money. Given enough time, it might have been possible to return to the Ghostbusters 2016 movie with a sequel, but the movie Jason Reitman is directing was never going to be that movie.

While people can complain about it, the bottom line is this was the only way forward if the studio was going to attempt to make any money from the Ghostbusters brand. At the end of the day, that's why they make most movies. It's too early to know whether Ghostbusters Afterlife is going to make money, and I'm not even sure what the story will be about as I write this. From the things I've been hearing, I think there's a good chance that this movie will be profitable, and that might even spark talks of a sequel with the new stars and even some of the original stars coming back again.

I know the Ghostbusters 2016 crowd will lobby for the ladies to come back, and long time fans of the franchise will gleefully say that this is never going to happen. To them I respond that never is a long time. While I don't think a movie that focuses only on the ladies will be made anytime soon, that doesn't mean that their characters couldn't be included in a Ghostbusters sequel if Ghostbusters Afterlife proves to be a success. In this day where we talk about alternate universes and those types of things, anything's possible. Somebody In Hollywood may even be drafting ideas to make it happen.

I don't hide the fact that I'm not enamored with the woke Hollywood trend and the damage it's done to long time franchises that I've enjoyed. I don't think it's a good thing. I don't believe that Ghostbusters has been damaged enough to ruin it, but Ghostbusters Afterlife needs to be a hit. I'm hoping this movie is successful. I don't care about fan service or nostalgia, because if it's written well enough, it adds to my enjoyment. All I really want from a movie is to sit down and enjoy it and not feel like I'm being preached to or treated like I'm a bad person if I don't enjoy the story.

Kathleen Kennedy's Disney Contract Quietly Renewed?

It's being reported through various sources that Kathleen Kennedy's contract at Disney has been renewed. Kennedy was pretty much the hand-picked successor of George Lucas to guide the Star Wars franchise into the future. I don't believe that George would have wanted Kennedy to be in charge of Star Wars had he known what direction she would take things. This has been the source of a bitter divide in the Star Wars fandom. Whether you are on one side of that debate or the other, I think most people would agree that the rift in the fan base is not a good thing.

There are fans of the original Star Wars trilogy who feel very strongly that the storyline has been ruined thanks to Kennedy, and there are those who feel the Disney Star Wars trilogy sequel did justice to the franchise. Again, this is a matter of opinion. It could be correctly pointed out that the profit margin of those three movies as well as Rogue One were huge and signaled success, but others will maintain that the storyline has been severely damaged.

Whether you like the Disney era of Star Wars or not, it's successes and failures can be put squarely at the feet of Kennedy. She might not have been involved in every creative decision, but she's the one who made the ultimate decisions. Give her credit or give her the blame, whatever your view might be. There are going to be people who claim that the renewal of Kennedy's contract is an endorsement of all of her efforts. That may be true, but it may be more nuanced than that.

Kennedy is not just some Hollywood chump. She's been involved in some of the biggest movie successes in the history of cinema. I don't care that some of those successes might have been attributed to other producers. She was involved in those projects as well. In the business world it would be disrespectful to say that she never brought anything to the table. It would also be disrespectful to publicly fire her, shame her or otherwise because a segment of fans weren't happy with the Star Wars trilogy sequel.

What's the point here? If she has been renewed, that can mean several things. Based on the successes she's had throughout her career, she's earned the respect of going out on her own terms. Therefore, one final renewal of her contract isn't a big surprise. Does that mean she's being rewarded? This depends on your perspective. Financially, the Star Wars trilogy made money. That's a fact, whether you liked the stories or not. Facts exist despite your feelings.

On the other hand, the storyline of Star Wars has been damaged, and there's no getting around that fact. You can like those movies. That's a matter of opinion. Same can be said if you hate those movies. The original six Star Wars movies told the story of the Skywalker family in which Palpatine was ultimately defeated when Darth Vader came back to the light and joined his son. At that point, the story was done. One can even argue whether the prequel trilogy needed to be made or not, but one can't argue against the fact that the story fit into the larger story.

It's basically been shown that there was no road map to where the Disney sequel trilogy was going. From one movie to the other, the directors seemed more interested in doing their own thing and one upping each other. Therefore, you had plot threads established in the first movie that were basically ignored or destroyed in the second movie. To try to save the trilogy and make an attempt to stick the landing, Palpatine`s character was brought back as the main bad guy in the third movie. The ending served to upset the long time fans as well as some new fans.

Long time fans were upset because Palpatine had been killed at the end of Return of the Jedi. The story was over. By bringing him back and having all of the Skywalker family dead, it's pretty much shown that Palpatine won. His granddaughter lived, but the Skywalker family was all dead. Newer fans were unhappy, because they enjoyed the romantic undertones of the Kylo Renn/Ray relationship. They didn't get the payoff they wanted in the end, and that led to some very unpleasant scenes witnessed in some movie theaters.

If this was viewed as a success, it's a certainty that an Episode 10 would have been planned. It would be on the drawing board, and we'd be getting updates. Weather a 10th movie was announced or we were just getting hints and rumors, the ball would be in motion. Why wasn't it? Kennedy was at the helm of this ship. She's deserving of any credit when it comes to the profit margin, and she's also deserving of the blame for storyline issues that have damaged the franchise.

This brings us back to the question. Why is she being rewarded if it was a failure? One should consider that her lifetime of work in the industry and the fact that each of the three trilogy sequel movies made 1 billion dollars or more at the box office is reason enough. Even if the storyline didn't go where a segment of the fan base wanted it to go, the cash registers were functional and profits were made. We are talking billions of dollars of profits from the billions of dollars of investment Disney made to buy Lucas Films from George Lucas. It wasn't a financial failure.

That's not to say that Disney itself is happy with her leadership. They may not want Kennedy to be making the big decisions in regards to the Star Wars franchise, but they can't publicly shame her and call her out on the problems with the story itself. What they can do is halt production of a 10th movie as long as she's the one in charge. Some will say her contract renewal is rewarding failure, and some will say she deserves it. The bigger question to ask is one that the people who didn't enjoy the sequel trilogy are asking right now.

Does this mean that Kennedy is in charge of Star Wars going forward for the next few years? At the moment, some projects are being canceled and others are being delayed. It's almost as if Disney wasn't happy with the direction the franchise was being taken. Kennedy may be back, but that doesn't mean she's going to be making the big decisions concerning where this franchise goes in the future. The indicator of what sort of power she holds is simple enough. When the 10th movie is announced that continues from where The Rise of Skywalker leaves off and Kennedy is the one making the calls, you'll have your answer. Until that time, everything is talk.

It's a sad time that we live in where people who are fans of long time franchises are not happy. They've looked at several different IPs and watched them get taken in a direction that goes contrary to what made these things popular in the first place. This has caused a divide in the fan base of these franchises, including Star Wars. People are picking sides and hurling insults at each other. People are trying to position themselves to be the ones who are right in the argument. It's sad that the majority of the people aren't just sitting back and talking about the product that was produced. It's almost as if being a fan doesn't just mean enjoying something anymore. You have to take sides and almost get political about it.

Kennedy had an opportunity to do good things with the Star Wars franchise. George Lucas even handed her a treatment of where the sequel trilogy would have gone under his leadership. Suddenly, people are pointing out how George was so wrong about everything. The reality is we wouldn't be talking about Star Wars in the first place if not for George. He must have done something right, but everybody now thinks they know better. Kennedy chose to use Star Wars as a platform to make her own political and social statements, rather than telling a story that united the fan base.

Therefore, this is more credit that she deserves. She might deserve credit for the profits being made at Disney via the Star Wars franchise. She might also deserve blame when it comes to where the story ended up going. Unfortunately, you have to point a finger at her when it comes to the divide in the franchise. She stirred the pot on this. Some will label the people who don't like the current franchise with negative political descriptions. This has nothing to do with politics. It's about whether people enjoyed the movies or not. Love it or hate it, Kennedy was in charge, and she deserves the blame here as well.

What The Sequel To Ready Player One Could Have Been

I'm aware that Ready Player One is a book, and it's a book I haven't read. I saw the Steven Spielberg movie, and I definitely approved. Movies about virtual worlds and artificial intelligence are interesting to me, and it has a lot to do with the idea that we're heading in that direction with the technology we have. Ernest Cline rose to prominence as an author because of this book, which immediately got optioned as a movie. In fact, there was immediately interest in a sequel to the movie, and Cline started writing the book. 

The book came out, and critics haven't been very kind to it. I'm not going to comment on it as I haven't read the book. It would be unfair of me to negatively review content of a book I haven't read. I'm basically coming into this franchise via the movie, and I'm also aware that sometimes movies don't follow what's written in the book. It's those pesky creative changes that are made sometimes in the name of the belief that what's written in the book won't translate to the screen. I have read a synopsis of what took place in the sequel book, and to me I can't help but think there's a missed opportunity. 

At this point, I'm going to give the warning of spoilers. Most likely, anybody who cares enough has already seen the movie or read the books or both. However, if you intend to and haven't, there might be spoilers beyond this point. I also advise you to check out the movie, the book or both if you haven't. I can vouch for the movie, and it's definitely good. 

After our heroes achieve their final goal in the quest and get control of OASIS, there is an important scene where Wade meets a representation of OASIS Creator James Halliday in his childhood bedroom. I'm pretty sure it's been explained that this is just a computer-generated program. He has long since passed away. I'm a fan of artificial intelligence stories, although I don't think AI has any role in this particular movie. One could argue, however, that the James Halliday Avatar is AI.

During the course of the movie, Wade pays visits to the museum that serves to document every moment in the life of Halliday. This is a way for people to get clues as to how to solve the quests and win the prize in the end. It's mentioned in the movie that most people don't even bother to go there. What would be the point? There's no coolness factor in going to a museum that shows moments that played out in the life of the creator of OASIS. Only his biggest fans would even bother, right? 

Let's stop and think about this for a moment. The movie takes place in 2045, which is only a little under 30 years from the time when the movie came out. Even a game such as the one depicted in this movie is going to be a big deal. It won't be treated like it's nothing. People are living their lives in this world to get away from the depressing real world. However, the fact that all of Halliday's big memories are meticulously recreated this way would still be a big deal 25 years later. Think of the technology involved.

Think about how much programming Halliday had to do to create this museum that shows his whole life for all to see? That's not some simple work. You're basically seeing the big discussions and decisions that were made in his life that led to the creation of OASIS. You see the triumphs and you see the big mistakes he made. It seems like near the end of his life, Halliday was more regretful of the decisions that led him where he ended up than he was proud of his creation.

In a way, OASIS is it's creator. His memories are all inside of the creation via the museum itself. I'm sure most people don't even think about that as they're watching the movie. It's just the backdrop of the story as a certain problem is being resolved. However, it's also a strong hint that all of the intelligence and maybe the very essence of the creator of OASIS is inside of this game. It may not be his actual spirit, but all of his memories are there. 

We move ahead to the end where Wade comes to get his prize. At this point, he's interacting with the avatar of the creator of OASIS. That avatar is answering his questions, and that has led to people wondering if he's dead at all. Obviously, he had a funeral and was buried. In movies, that can always be explained away that somebody faked their death to get out of the spotlight. We're not questioning that in this article. We will accept that at face value, but the real question is in regards to the avatar of James Halliday. 

Is he alive in an avatar? Without question, all of the memories of his life were uploaded into the program, and it wouldn't be a far stretch to assume that those memories are in that avatar. He's simply living a life of quiet solitude within his own game. Nobody cares to look for him, and he's probably hidden away from everybody at this point. However, I think it's a fair question to ask if he's alive in that avatar, and there are multiple ways of looking at it. 

The first is that he did upload at least a representation of his consciousness into that avatar. It is a part of him. He is in a sense alive. Or, the avatar is simply a collection of his memories without his consciousness. That still doesn't negate the possibility of artificial intelligence achieving consciousness and becoming alive. To me, that's the real follow-up story. It doesn't seem like artificial intelligence is much of a thing in the universe laid out in Ready Player One.

Before going to Ready Player Two, a sequel could have been titled Non Player Character or something of that nature. It could have explored what was going on with James Halliday. Was this his essence or a collection of his memories? Was this avatar alive within the computer program? At some point, it's determined that it is alive, and that raises big questions. OASIS is going to become even more popular with certain powers that be who would want to control this new discovery. 

Consider the possibility that consciousness is uploaded into a computer program. We're talking about a shot at immortality, especially to those who are not necessarily believers in life after death. They'd want want to cheat death. There are actually people seeking to upload their consciousness into computers, so this isn't a far-fetched discussion. People are having that discussion in the real world, and we also have shows like Upload that delve into this topic.

The sequel to Ready Player One could have gone this way, and I think it would have made for a much better follow up. People were already asking questions about Halliday when they saw the scene at the end of the movie. You could have had some entertaining game moments depicting game quests and cool graphics. You could have crammed in some fun nostalgia, as the books and the first movie liked to do. Then, you could have gotten to the heart of what's going to become an even bigger discussion in our world in the years ahead. This is the discussion that talks about the possibility of life being created inside of a computer program.

I find the story of Cline to be fascinating. Mostly because he's made a major splash, and it seems to have happened overnight. He had a very interesting concept with Ready Player One. I think at the time he started working on the sequel, there was pressure to create something that could be made into a movie. Sometimes an author needs a moment to breathe without pressure, allowing for the creative energy to flow through them naturally. 

From what I have read of the sequel book, there could still be a possibility of exploring some of this topic in another book, but there's the danger of the franchise running out of gas before they get the opportunity. I think the idea I'm talking about here would have been a better way to follow up the first book and movie. It wouldn't be about repeating everything done in the first movie and trying to put a new spin on it, but they'd still be working within the franchise framework. I'm still looking forward to seeing the follow-up movie, and I might pick up the books eventually.