The new Ghostbusters will suck. That’s not a value judgement, it’s an Internet-predetermined truth—and come Friday, no matter how funny or smart or entertaining director Paul Feig’s reboot is, it’ll become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Put simply, Ghostbusters can’t win.
This is not, as Leslie Jones’ character Patty Tolan might say, “a lady thing.” Yes, a lot of the blowback to this new Ghostbusters has come from Internet trolls concerned that said busters are all women, but that’s only part of the problem. The real issue is that no follow-up could ever satisfy fan expectations. The 1984 film was lightning in a bottle: a movie with a goofy premise that boasted five comedians in their prime and a Sigourney Weaver who was still riding her post-Alien high. It’s a comedy classic that people have had decades to treasure. And even when you’ve got a bottle full of lightning, it’ll never strike in the same place twice.
Feig himself has conceded this point. Talking to WIRED for our most recent issue, the writer-director said “Amy Pascal, who was then head of Sony Pictures, was the one who kept pushing: ‘Why don’t any of you comedy guys want to touch this?’ I was like, ‘Because Ghostbusters is canon!’” At the time Pascal was pushing for a sequel, and Feig thought that by making it a reboot with a new cast, he could keep it fresh. In that, he has succeeded—but he was also right about the canon part. Ghostbusters (1984) is seared into the moviegoing consciousness, and Ghostbusters (2016) no matter how brilliant, was never going to get a chance to live up to it.
The word “nostalgia” comes from the Greek words “nostos,” which means “to go home” and “algos” or “pain,” but a little over a century after it was coined, Immanuel Kant noted that “home” in this case wasn’t about going to a place, it was about going to a time—a time when we were young. Feig is a great filmmaker, he just can’t make it 1984 again.
So where does that leave this new Ghostbusters? Unfortunately, it leaves it in a situation that’s impossible to win. Much like this summer’s other much-maligned reboot, Independence Day: Resurgence, it’s a good movie that on its own would’ve been perfectly good popcorn fare, but since it’s standing atop a wobbling book stack of fan nostalgia and expectations, it has to fail. No gags would be funny enough, no casting perfect enough, to do what that first movie did. No one knew what they were in for then. It was hilarious because it was so weird and unexpected. Fans know what to expect this time, and unless each theater this weekend comes equipped with a DeLorean to take us back to our 1984 selves, the way you felt when you walked out of that first Ghostbusters will remain unmatched.
Does that mean Feig’s version won’t be awesome? Absolutely not. Watching Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones, Melissa McCarthy, and Kristen Wiig read back your Little Caesars delivery order would be funny. The fact that we’re calling on them for more than pizza means there will be laughs. But if anyone goes in expecting the same tingles they got watching the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man fall at the hands of four jumpsuited dudes with proton packs, they’re going to be disappointed. This happened with Total Recall. It happened with any of the recent Terminator movies. It even happened with Ghostbusters II, for Zuul’s sake.
But there is a solution: Forget the title. Just buy a ticket to the latest Feig/McCarthy/Wiig gag-fest. Remember how funny Spy was? Of course you do! That movie made $235 million and is pretty much always playing somewhere; everyone loves it. Bridesmaids, the movie that ostensibly kicked off the latest “Hey, women can be funny!” movement, was nominated for two Oscars. This crew—along with Jones and McKinnon, who’ve pretty much been the life-force of Saturday Night Live for the last two seasons—knows from comedy. Think of that and you might actually let yourself have a good time. Walk in expecting to choke on your Goobers the way you did the first time you heard “Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria!” and you’re riding shotgun in Ecto-1 on your way to Depressionville.
Of course, no one is going to be able to pretend this movie isn’t trying to be Ghostbusters, because it says so on the poster. Also, our brains are programmed to compare the new thing to the old thing—it’s Surfin’ U.S.A. vs. Pet Sounds all over again. Even if it is genuinely better/funnier/zanier than its namesake, it won’t matter. This became obvious as the reviews started to roll out last weekend. “While both funnier and scarier than Ivan Reitman’s 1984 original,” Variety began, sounding promising, “this otherwise over-familiar remake … doesn’t do nearly enough to innovate on what has come before.”
There it is. Had Ghostbusters 2016 really taken the original’s concept and made it into something fresh, it would’ve been vilified left and right for diverging from its sacred source material; since it tried to honor the original, though, it’s seen as stale. Some expectations can never be met. Ghostbusters is fine, but it’s not Ghostbusters—and until you stop wanting it to be, you’ll never be happy.
