58 minutes… how could any human being handle this much pleasure?
I enjoyed the hell out of the review of the reboot. Spot on Plinkett review. I ought to get around to sending him some pizza rolls sometime.
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He nailed it.
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Plinkett contradicts himself a few times, with the no love interest (Kevin and Erin’s BF), says Feig is too nice, when he also showed a clip of Dan and Feig not agreeing on missing scenes with says Feig does call the shots, even though they added them later when audience agreed with Dan, but rightfully targets Bill for being there actual biggest problem the GBfranchise has.
I don’t think the GBettes are carbon copies of the OGB as well, with perhaps the exception being Holtzmann.
He goes a bit overboard with sampling to many scenes together with different audio’s and responses to enforce his point in an unfair way, but some of the actual movie edits are better, some are worse, as you also need to consider the following/prior scene.
Overall, a decent review that’s surprisingly more respectful to the creators. Well, except for Bill.
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huh?
Yes, also surprising that he stayed within the movie and really made few jokes about the controversy surrounding it. Didn’t touch on the all-women/misogyny stuff…which has been done to death…even if I kinda wanted to hear him rail on it in the Plinkett voice 
How can anyone handle that much analysis? 58 minutes isn’t a review, it’s a thesis.
58 minutes is short compared to the Star Wars prequels reviews lol I think those are over an hour.
That being said, it isn’t just a review. You are right, It is pretty much a thesis. Which is why I tend to enjoy his videos even though I disagree with some of what he says. If you haven’t watched it he makes 11 points of contention(with side tangents and a couple skits) and backs up each claim/opinion with examples. I love in depth video essays/books that cover all the bases. I can see how some people might find it a bit too much though.
The biggest criticism which I think most of us agree on(I think? Maybe not) is the all poor ab libbing. That scene with the Dean of the college kicking Abbey out is so hard to watch.
Also anyone who watched the video, what did you think of the edit Plinkett made of the subway scene? He mutes all the dialogue and let’s the suspense build through atmosphere. Again he makes a excellent point by comparing '16 to '84. '16 is afraid of not having a comment or quip every other second while '84 takes things more seriously and let’s the audience take things in a bit more.
Just remember folks: a review is just another opinion. If you love GB’16 that’s awesome. If you dislike it for reasons other than the leads having no ■■■■■, the video is like a warm hug. If it has anything to do with “no girls aloud” well then…you’re an idiot. And sexist.
Well…I finally found a reason to hate ATC.
…It caused Plinkett to finally jump the shark. About 75 of them.
Plinkett just made the #1 mistake of a comedian. He put his anger over his sense of humor. The whole reason Plinkett’s reviews worked in the past was the witty juxtaposition of this murderous old guy taking mainstream blockbuster movies down a peg or two. He went after movies that had a lot of hype around them but proved disappointments. And occasionally he’d give a wink to the audience, showing he also knows how screwy he is. But with this ATC review, all I’m getting is arrogant fanboy rage toward a movie that he was never going to like to begin with. Plinkett has completely lost the self deprecating quality that made his previous reviews so amusing and original.
If anyone enjoys this review, it’s because you too are angry. Not because it’s funny.
Nor is it accurate. For Plinkett to compare Abby to Ray and Erin to Venkman leads me to question his fandom in the first place. Abby is the Venkman, the assertive one who rubs people the wrong way, and who urges her best friend to go into business and not be afraid of ridicule. Erin is the Ray, the more low key one who takes her work seriously but is also concerned about her reputation. Hello, Venkman even teased Ray about always being concerned about his reputation! And no, Erin shouldn’t be all that respected at her workplace because clearly neither were Ray or Egon. The whole point was that they were underdogs who didn’t follow the rules! (That’s assuming ATC is even following GB84 that close to begin with, which it isn’t). Even if you dislike ATC, this is not up for debate. That’s the problem with a lot of these Internet critics, they think the only qualification they need is “liking movies.” But they don’t really understand them.
I’ll go a step further. *Plinkett has no business commenting on Ghostbusters (1984).* His shtick is to show off his allegedly keen knowledge of storytelling with such rudimentary phrases as “protagonist” and “arc.” That works for a fairly straight forward movie like Star Wars. But GB84’s charm has always been that it deliberately, and successfully, broke with many of those writing conventions. Plinkett has never even tried reviewing such outlier films, often brushing them aside as exceptions to the rules he holds so dear. In other words, he’s far out of his league here.
Plus he makes the at this point extremely annoying blanket statement that the humor in GB84 is “dry and sarcastic.” Yes, some of the characters are dry and sarcastic and it works great. But others are not, and it also works great. If GB84 was entirely dry and sarcastic it would be a very different movie. This “dry and sarcastic” obsession is simply fanboys and girls wanting to appear all erudite and stuff while still enjoying mainstream entertainment.
Notice I haven’t even tried to defend ATC. Whether you like it or not is beside the point. The point is the irrational resentment that fans continue to have towards this one random movie, and how it’s done nothing but cloud their judgement. And they’re STILL griping about whatever future plans Reitman has in mind. At this point, fans are the only reason this franchise wouldn’t continue. This goes all the way back to the whining over GB2. Meanwhile so many lesser franchises will continue unabated. It’s not right, people.
Fanboys and girls will like this review because it speaks to their own anger. But it brings nothing new to the table; frankly, Plinkett never has. It’s a case of monkey see, monkey do, about a year too late. It failed to speak to me as both a Ghosthead and a Plinkett fan. Oh well, I’ll go watch Ghostbusters II now. Sorry, RLM, you’re not forgiven for that review, either. :twisted:
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I think you are making a mistake by labelling people who like the review “angry”. Are some people angry? Probably. I know I was. But it’s been over a year, I’ve moved on. I didn’t find the review as funny as his Star Wars reviews but I thought it was one of his best as a pure analytical piece. I’m not going to get into why GB’16 is a mess since we’ve covered all that ground over and over and this video did a better job than I ever could. But to say he jumped the shark? You can disagree with the points he makes, that’s fine. But it’s the same old Plinkett. The character comparison isn’t the strongest but I loved the punch line of Patty being Louis. Comparing GB’16 to the '84 isn’t your favourite thing but I thought showing the 2 side by side really brought home how GREAT the original is. If anything the review is less of a takedown and more of a analysis on why GB’84 is a masterpiece and why a remake was probably never going to work. I also loved this point about how a GB3 with the original crew would be been just fine since they are schlubby to begin with.
I expect this review to probably keep everyone along party lines. If you liked the movie? You won’t care for the review and dismiss its effectiveness. If you hated the movie? You’ll think it’s the 2nd coming of Christ.
One thing I know? Seeing the original side by side with the remake really makes the original stand out as being lightning in a bottle. And it’s true, we should stop calling this a reboot. It’s a remake.
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I think it’s probably pretty obvious that I’m not in the loop with all this stuff, and honestly it amazes me that so many of you are willing to watch an hour long review by a Youtube celebrity. Don’t get me wrong, it’s cool that you’re so dedicated, it’s just that Youtube stars and stuff are really kind of foreign to me, hence the amazement. Mundane Matt, Plinkett, RLM, and so many others which you all know about, and I don’t. I know of them only because you’ve mentioned them. That guy who decided not to review the movie and caused a controversy himself? I would’ve had no clue who he was. It’s just cool to think that Youtube is a world in its own. 
I stand by everything I said. I know why GB84 is a masterpiece. I’m not sure Plinkett does.
Like, when he’s talking about adding a dramatic music pause to that scene with the girls and the tour guide. That’s not at all something you would have seen in GB84. GB84, as fans always point out, is more grounded than that.
Well you’re flat out wrong about the angry thing. I can say that because I liked the video but I’m totally not angry.
Your point about the tour guide is True(not working in '84) but that wasn’t his point, he wasn’t saying it will be like GB 84, he’s saying this is how the scene could’ve worked better. He mentioned that being a straight up Gb’84 clone would be boring. Not everything he said was in context of making it like GB’84. He was just comparing how to do it right and how do not to do it. Like the scene with the Dean. That’s literally a scene I would expect in some lame Adam Sandler film(the whole middle finger bit)
The scene in the subway is a better example of how it could be like GB’84 because he cuts to an example. And he’s right.
Granted, that wasn’t a comparison, fair enough. But this idea of “how to do is right” is flawed. Because, again, GB84 didn’t follow a lot of the typical storytelling cliches, and it’s amazing. Like I said, Plinkett’s taste in movies is a tad too conventional.
This reminds me of when people complained that Ladyhawke’s score was too weird and out of place…so they proceeded to put very bland, obvious orchestrations in its place. It may be more “appropriate” but it’s far less imaginative.
Having seen my share of Sandler movies, I think the comparison is off. It’s something I’d expect to see in a Feig movie though. And hey, I personally didn’t like it. But if we’re not comparing it to GB84, then it’s just Plinkett saying “I didn’t like it.” And analysis needs more.
As for the subway edit, hmm, I do appreciate the point he is trying to make there. Only thing is he compared a random scene in the middle of ATC to the tone of the big climax of GB84, so that’s a bit off.
But! I will commend him for complimenting Leslie Jones. I’d like to send Milo that part of the review on a loop.
That’s a good point about Ghostbusters being more than just the simplistic set of screenwriting rules. Oftentimes I use it as a baseline; for instance when I used to read about character arcs in screenwriting books it always seemed like they were saying that the arc had to be noticeable, even obvious really, and I would always think “well, there weren’t any arcs in Ghostbusters, so character arcs are not crucial.” I don’t think I realized Venkman’s arc until you pointed it out to me, Juror, and then it finally sunk in how subtle the arc can be. It doesn’t have to be some huge, spot it from a mile away change in character, just a subtle difference. I also typically feel whenever writing a screenplay that it needs an opening scene along the lines of Ghostbusters, that is almost like a short in itself; that the characters need to display their personality in the first scene we meet them; that the ending must wrap up quickly.
While all of those are good tips, it’s probably not the best when I start to think of them as rules. The mind should be allowed to run free, and then the script should be tuned up once a draft has been laid down. It also applies to editing, they say to alternate shot lengths between short and long for each sequence, yet I’ve found that it’s best to edit to the natural pace since it will likely balance out naturally. No need to force anything until everything is laid out first, and it’s easy to see what needs improvement and what works fine. But anyway, it’s probably best to approach it the Venkman way–they aren’t so much rules as they are guidelines.
You know it’s funny, I was just watching a Star Trek: Voyager episode the other day where Torres becomes the inspiration for an alien’s play. And at one point, the playwright is advised to avoid the usual writing “tricks” the audience has already seen so many times. That stories were about the emotion, not just twists, or mistaken identities, or reversals.
Also, I came across a very good essay once about Blues Brothers. Now that’s a movie that follows no rules whatsoever! Consider, our two heroes have their big character arc right at the start of the story! After that, we’re treated to 2 hours of what your Screenwriting professor would call falling action! A typical screenplay would have had Jake and Elwood get into a fight somewhere around the bar scene, separate, and then reconcile in time for the concert. But none of that happens. Our heroes are a unit, they don’t exist apart. It’s weird, but we feel the strength of their connection, and they never feel flat. We don’t need some plot contrivance to “make” us care about their relationship. Their relationship IS the movie. The obstacles they do run into are pretty random (some of them of their own making!). This essay pointed that Aykroyd’s background was in improv, where you don’t have a lot of time to build character development, yet you still have to create characters and scenarios that live and make the audience believe, no matter how odd and random they may seem.
And it’s the same with Ghostbusters. There is a bit more conflict between Peter and Ray, but again, no cliche break up or reunion is required for us to care. Peter is changed from his separation from Dana, this is true. But as you point out, Sav, you’re not hit over the head with it.
Tying this back to ATC, I like that Erin and Abby sort of follow this tradition in that they aren’t hating each other for half the movie. They fall back easily into their old roles and that’s how we learn about their friendship and previous breakup.
I thought it was extremely well done. WAY better than what we actually got. The whole “STOP TALKING” thing had me in stitches.
I also loved how he compared it to Ghostbusters (Classic) just to show how effective some silence can be.
Oh yeah? Cool. I was thinking the other day how awesome it is that the Star Trek fandom is so spread out. At my workplace there’s even a poster on the cork board for a Star Trek fan club (that also accepts Star Wars cosplayers, to quote the poster “they aren’t prejudiced”), which is almost surprising to me considering how small my town is. I’m not sure if we even have enough people to sustain a Ghostbusters franchise to be honest. All I do know is that when I went out in my Ghostbusters costumer Halloween it got a better response than any of my other costumes pretty much, so maybe there would be enough interest.
You know I still haven’t seen Blues Brothers (I have seen them on SNL, though). It just got to Netflix this week so I’ll try and check it out sooner rather than later.
Yes, it’s nice the way it works out in ATC. They hit things off again pretty quickly once Erin realizes that they were on the right path believing in ghosts, if my memory serves me correctly. It almost reminds me of Ghostbusters II in that they’ve all gone their separate ways at the beginning of the movie, but then get together pretty quickly once they go to check our Dana’s apartment. It’s really Dana and Venkman who haven’t actually spoken, but they all went their separate ways to some extent. From a character standpoint ATC is almost like a sequel, but in a story sense there isn’t any Ghostbusting before the movie starts, unlike GBII. Still, maybe the question we should be asking is not whether or not ATC should get a sequel, but a prequel.
I found Plinketts review more entertaining then the actual movie. Did like the idea of less is more, if everything s funny, nothings funny. Lack of love interest. Adjustment s of characters. He did make it seem like some small tweaks and editing would have drastically improved the movie.
Blues Brothers is such a great comedy. It’s sooo big and epic. It always bugs me that people never mention it in the pantheon of great car chase movies. The stunt work is incredible. I love that Dan Aykroyd started out in 1941, Blues Brothers and Ghostbusters. 3 of the most expensive comedies ever made at the time. And he co-wrote two of them lol. 1941 is a Steven Spielberg movie that has to be seen to be believed. It’s just..quite something to behold. Some of the comedy doesn’t work and it’s one of the rare times you get to see a filmmaker parody is own work but holy ■■■■ does it swing for the fences.
Blues Brothers is just oozing with cool plus it’s got charisma & confidence to spare. The less said about the sequel the better. Ugghhhh.
And Juror is totally correct. Blues Brothers 100% follows no rules. It’s an R rated comedy/action/musical and it’s completely it’s own thing. I also consider it a masterpiece. Man Dan Aykroyd should try writing more.
But Wait, Sav. You saw The Blues Brothers on SNL? Like the original Blues Brothers? With Danny & John? When was this?
Quick sidebar, does Plinkett put on that voice for his videos, or is that his natural speaking voice?