I love this trailer if for no other reason than the way the announcer yells “Ghostbusters!” at the end of it.
If you don”t plan to see Ghostbusters, that”s fine. But let”s be clear: I don”t care what you have to say if you simply choose not to see it. Your opinion stops there. You can decide not to see it for any reason you like, and you can feel free to keep it to yourself, because it makes absolutely no difference at this point. Things have been so hostile and ugly around this film so far that I feel like it”s pointless to try to convince anyone of anything. I know what I”ve seen and read, and when people try to convince me that there”s no anti-woman sentiment behind any of the backlash against the film, I just shut the conversation down. I”ve seen it. I”ve experienced it. I”ve been screamed at about it. I know what I know at this point, and I find parts of it completely discouraging.
On Sunday, I had a birthday party to take the kids to, and they were very excited to go shopping for the present beforehand. That”s basically just an excuse to run up and down the toy aisle asking me to buy everything there. This was the first time we saw Ghostbusters toys in the store, and it was interesting to see how little shelf space there was. My kids, two boys, are both excited about the new movie, and when I hear them talking about it, none of what they talk about involves gender. They just love the gadgetry and the tone of Ghostbusters in general. Funny people. Scary ghosts. Big colorful exaggerated effects work. But so far, the retail space given to Ghostbusters is fairly tiny. Out of an entire side of an aisle, there were three pegs for Ghostbusters products, and one of the two shelves directly below. There were figures for three of the actual Ghostbusters, as well as one for Mayhem, the demon-looking creature seen most prominently in the second domestic trailer (embedded at the bottom of this piece), and Rowan the Destroyer, who is the big giant white ghost we see so clearly at the end of this international trailer. The only figure we couldn”t find was Abby, the Melissa McCarthy character, and I hope that”s just because they”d already sold them. They had an Ecto-1 car as well, and some Lego Mini-figs. We bought the lot of it to make sure Target knows that we want this movie”s merchandise, and even though we were on the way to the birthday party, the boys tore into the packaging and opened a couple of the figures right away. The character they both claimed first and fought over? Leslie Jones, who Allen proceeded to quote several times, taking extra pleasure in yelling “HELL MAD!” at the end of the line.
Also, I think it is hilarious that the one character they don”t make a figure for in this first wave is Kevin, played by Chris Hemsworth. There”s something deeply appropriate about that.
There”s some cool stuff in this trailer. I like the creepy mannequin chasing Jones. I am a big fan of the intense color palette they”re using, because I always thought that was part of what made Ghostbusters special. The beams from the proton packs were gorgeous and vivid and hyper-colorful. That”s what I want to see from Ghostbusters, and looking at the big ghost sequences in the trailer, it looks like they went bold. Chris Hemsworth appears to be playing a major dim bulb, and having a blast doing it. He clearly wants to be able to work in big comedies like this, and I remember last year around this time, when people were talking about how he stole Vacation. In the end, I disagree, but mainly because of the movie, not because of him. This role is another chance for him to score big. Kevin has a major supporting role in the movie, and he goes through some pretty profound changes over the course of it.
We”ll see soon enough. All of this will finally go from speculation and hype to reaction once the movie is in the theaters, and that”s just a matter of weeks now.
Ghostbusters faces its public on