Thoughts about Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

 

So, I watched Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, which is a totally fine movie, with a few too many “look at us call back to older movies haha” moments, but still hangs together as workable family movie. It’s looks fine. The actors, especially Mckenna Grace, Dan Aykroyd and Paul Rudd, sell all the plot points and make the moments work. Again, I am here to say the movie is fine. It’s a perfectly serviceable Ghostbusters movie, and I’d be down for another adventure with this crew.

However, there was a thought that occurred to me later in the movie, and this is where I will venture a bit into spoiler territory, but probably nothing you couldn’t find out from the trailer, and mostly just has to do with the number of characters, not their specific actions within the movie, so just beware.

There are too many damn characters in this movie, and this is a bigger problem within modern franchise filmmaker, and I’ve seen this happen a lot in anime, so I want to draw some connections. As Frozen Empire reaches it’s third act, the team comes together to face off against the big villain of the movie, and at that point the team includes 4 members from the original movies (played by Annie Potts, Ernie Hudson, Aykroyd, and Bill Murray) and then 6 members from the previous movie (as played by Rudd, Grace, Finn Wolfhard, Carrie Coon, Logan Kim and Celeste O’Conner) as well as two new characters played by Kumail Nanjiani and James Acaster. So there’s 10 characters running around in the finale, all of them trying to find time to do something, and in the end it comes down to two characters.

Now, I’ve seen this before a lot in anime, and I usually call it character bloat. This is in long running series like Dragon Ball, Naruto, One Piece, and similar shows where the number of characters grows and grows to a point where it can be tough to keep track or care about everyone. And this is where the current state of Ghostbusters stands. Too afraid to cut away from the past, unable to move forward with a full reboot or just advance the newer characters by themselves. So instead we get a bloated movie with not enough time for any of the characters.

Poor Finn Wolfhard gets to spend most of the movie not doing much of anything except setting up a resolution for one plot point and because his contract stipulates he has to appear. Outside of that, he may as well be the Ghostbuster not appearing in this picture. It felt like there’s a director’s cut out there where he has an actual presence in the movie, but as it exists now, he could have been written off to college. It’s a weird element.

Part of me wishes they would have included the ladies from Answer the Call, if only to piss off a certain brand of “fan.” But I don’t know where they would go in the already overstuffed script. I have to assume at some point they’ll find a way to call back to them if they make another movie in this particular series of Ghostbusters, because I’m sure they’d like to stuff more characters.

I did appreciate the mentions of Ghostbusters 2, because just between you and me, I like Ghostbusters 2. Or at least I Like Peter MacNicol in Ghostbusters 2.

Anyway, thanks for letting me vent about Ghostbusters 5, a decent enough movie if you’re looking to get out. Sorry if I don’t have a more fiery take on it, but it’s just kind of an okay movie, as a lot of movies are.

Swordtember Day 1

 I decided to write a short story based on this prompt. Let me know what you think. I could probably do a bit more on the atmosphere, but I just wanted to get something down and this is what came out.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The shire reeve trampled through the forest, sword in hand, he came upon his quarry after 3 long days of hunting. The last of 6 men that set out, he had finally found the hut of the witch who had killed his men, and 5 children as well. Oh, she would claim innocence, as they always did. But it was clear from the unholy nature of the murders that it must have been witchcraft at hand.

Lights shown in the window of the small hut, and smoke from the chimney showed that someone was preparing a meal. The man approached the hut and kicked in the door, with less effort than he would have thought, almost as though the door opened of its own accord.

Standing over the fire was a young lady fixing some kind of soup. She pulled out a spoonful, blew on the spoon, and put it to her lips. She let out a sound of approval at her handiwork and put the spoon on a hook by fire.

She took a look at the shire reeve, smirked at the sword in his hand, and said to him, “Do you think that will do anything against me?”

The door to the hut closed by itself. 

Don't Call It A Comeback?

 Things to work on for the new year. I want to write more and this may be a replacement for twitter. We'll see. Just gonna write something here to post. 

Anyway, blogs are awesome and are making a comeback.

New year, new project

This is taken from what may end up being the opening of a possible zine I might make at some point.

What do you love? Me, I love a great many things but I’ve never been one of those fans that obsesses about one thing to the near exclusion of all else. I love Star Wars and Star Trek (although Star Trek to a much lesser degree if we’re being honest. And I love Babylon 5. And Flash Gordon. 

I love comic books. All comic books. I am neither a DC or a Marvel or an Image or a Dark Horse guy. I can’t imagine only reading Marvel or DC books, because why cut yourself from so many good books.

I am not a horror guy but I like people that are horror people. They’re good people.

I love sports. I’m a Detroit fan and I love the Tigers and the Red Wings. I am continuously scared by the Lions. I am a bandwagon Pistons fan. I do not see a distinction between my love of comics and my love of sports. Most of the time they go hand in hand because there’s nothing more peaceful to me than reading comics with a football game on in the background.

I hate people that use the phrase “sportsball”. Ironically or ironically. Stop using it.

I love anime. Old school, new school, subbed or dubbed. Sci fi, fantasy, romance, harem, real robot, fake robot, doesn’t matter.

…I’ll finish this later…

Buy some comics. It's fun. If that's your thing.

These are just some random thoughts I have on comic books coming out on 2/8. Please note, I buy digitally, I am a cheap ass, and almost everything I buy these days is Image or old DC books. I’m also going through a bit of a Wildstorm renaissance at the moment; rereading Sleeper, buying Divine Right which is always 99 cents an issue. I reread Brian Woods DV8 miniseries the other day and was that a missed opportunity to follow up on the book. DC should think about folding them into the DCU as a foil for the Teen Titans. Anyway, comics!

East of West #31 – Best comic on the stands. Get at me.

Birthright #22 – Also the best comic on stands. Also get at me. I like to have my cake and eat it too because who just buys cake and doesn’t eat it? “Hey, here’s a cake, let’s just look at it.”

Green Valley #5 – I read the first issue, and it was good enough but I’m willing to wait for the series to hit a $1 sale.

Savage Dragon has published #220 issues. Spawn has published #270. Think about that.

James Bond Felix Leiter #2 – I bring this up only because I was watching Casino Royale a few weeks ago and I really want a Jeffrey Wright as Felix Leiter movie. Mostly because Jeffrey Wright is bad ass and low key as hell.

Deadpool the Duck #3 – I don’t know if I should be madder at Marvel for publishing this shit or comic buyers for buying enough Deadpool spin off books to justify its publication. I’ll go with the fans because it’s more fun that way.

Buy some comics. Or Don't. I'm not your robot supervisor.

Here's a bunch of comics I have thoughts about that are coming out this week.

Checkmate by Greg Rucka feels like it should be one of those series spoken of with great reverence in the same way people talk about the original Suicide Squad or American Flagg or NFL SuperPro. Checkmate comes from the post Infinite Crisis period of DC where, at least for me, they were at a creative zenith, and while it’s been a while since I’ve read it, I remember it being one of the series I anticipated most. Checkmate took what Rucka was doing on Queen and Country and applied it to the DC Universe, crafting a smart and mature spy book with plenty of politics and also robots. Checkmate is one of those DC or Marvel comic books that come out every once in a while that is enough of a departure from other superhero comics that it feels super unique. I’m glad to see this is getting a collection, although I wonder how it will read to anyone who doesn’t remember that Batman used to date his bodyguard and then she got turned into a cyborg and then she became a spy and oh yeah Mr. Terrific was cool back then. Checkmate was good, and it's cool DC is bringing it back out.

Joyride – WHY DIDN’T MORE OF YOU READ JOYRIDE?!?!?! Ah well, everything I like is doomed. Go buy Joyride. It's good.

Detective Comics #949 and I would read so many more DC books if they had any kind of digital price drop or sales but DC has opted not to and me complaining about it such a whiney thing to do. “Ohhh, why won’t DC make their comics cheaper boo hoo hoo I’m a freaking cheapskate but I still have the scruples to not pirate books wahhh.” I know, I know this is why I don’t really complain about it too much but I still resent it like hell. Anyway, I’ve read the first three issues of Rebirth Detective and I kind of want to read more. I’ll keep waiting for a sale. Because I’m a cheap bastard.

Doom Patrol #4 – I hate paying $4 for a digital comic, the story kind of doesn’t make sense and that’s largely because of being goofy for the sake of goofiness but it did have Flex Mentallo and Danny the Street (now world) and I think I’ll keep reading this. I can’t remember if I read #3 though and that’s never a good sign. Or it’s just that my memory’s shit. Probably that last one.

Hey, there’s a new Kamamdi book I guess. There’s about a 25% success rate when people take later Kirby concepts and try to revive them. I’m thinking of Walt Simonson’s Orion, and I guess people seem to like the new Moon Girl Devil Dinosaur comic but I guess that begs the question of how far afield do you have to go before something is not a Kirby concept? Didio’s Omac may count, I know some people who raved about that. I’m not going to count Final Crisis because I was thinking about it tonight and I don’t think it’s actually all that good. I may need to reread it, but then I’d be spending my time reading a comic I’ve read several times and already don’t think is all that good. And don’t tell me “Well you have to read all of Morrison’s Batman and JLA and Seven Soldiers to get it” because bleegh if I’m going to read someone’s massive run it’s going to be Hickman’s Marvel Secret Warriors/FF/Avengers/Secret Wars run.

Anyway, comics! Buy them. Or buy other comics. I don’t know what you like.

Actor in Superhero Project X wants to work in Superhero Project Y

In an interview on website 1, actor stated that he would be thrilled to work on upcoming superhero movie y. Riding high off the success and fan love of superhero project x, actor is excited to perform as character in upcoming projects for company, including superhero movie y and superhero movie z.

Character is known to be in sequel to original project, but until sequel comes out, there is plenty of opportunity for character to show up in superhero movie y, superhero movie z, and many other superhero movies. I know fans would be excited to see character show up in other projects for company, so we'll just have to see if character is inserted into those projects.

Superhero project X is available to watch now and Superhero project Y is out at sometime in the future.