‘A new team for a generation to love as the original guys’, as director Paul Feig calls his take on the iconic Ghostbusters. The first good look of which you can take here in the official trailer:
That’s it LA was able to participate in a sneak peek of this yesterday before it dropped this morning over at Sony Pictures Studios along with press, bloggers and the legion of Ghostbusters from around the country. The enthusiasm was palpable as creator Ivan Reitman, director Paul Feig and writer Katie Dippold welcomed everyone. Feig was admittedly really nervous but was given a warm welcome from the really cool, open minded fans who have been waiting to continue the legacy. Negativity was not in the house and everyone eagerly watched as the lights dimmed.
What we are taking away immediately from the trailer is the introduction of the characters. I consider it a soft reboot that doesn’t erase the past films but also isn’t a continuation of them. How? I’ll get there. The trailer opens with Kristen Wiig getting slimed by a turn of the 19th century looking lady ghost. A ghost who was not CG’d entirely and actually there in costume, harnessed and lit up by LED lights. Yay for practical effects meeting new tech!!
Okay so we get Wiig introduced as Erin Gilbert, a quantum particle physicist who has been working with Abby Yates, a paranormal expert played by Melissa McCarthy. While the two bring comedic chops uniquely their own, their characters have broad strokes of the Egon and Ray characters from the original films. We then get introduced to Kate McKinnon as Jillian Holtzman their nuclear engineer who makes the proton packs and see how Leslie Jones joins the team as Patty Tolman, the everyman character who knows NYC and saw things go down in the subway station. Very fitting of the Venkman and Winston characters in archetypes. McKinnon had a very eccentric vibe going that Venkman personality. “We wanted to give nods to what we love but also give original origin stories”, Feig shared at the event.
The trailer then went on to give us scenes of everyone suiting up, a glimpse of SLIMER, the ability of ghosts to possess you, a very needing to be exorcised Chris Hemsworth, and a parade of historical ghosts the team has to take on. The crowd of course went wild at the sight of Slimer and we all laughed at the clip of Jones slapping the ghost out of McCarthy with “The power of Patty compels you!”.
After the first view, everyone stood up to give the creative team a standing ovation and cheered to see it again! After the repeat viewing, we noticed some small details. Like, the mild spoiler of Chris Hemsworth getting possesed that was revealed in the LEGO toy set is shown here so we don’t really know what that means or the importance of it. May just be something along the vein of Tully’s possession. But the parallels are too blatant that it really seems that this film might just be a parallel universe.
Think about it, it’s an all female team with the archetypal roles of the original characters, certain beats are familiar and while Dippold describes their homages as “making sure to capture heart of what we loved from the original and still bring something new” it’s clever to chalk it up to hitting those moments we love. While we didn’t get to see the big bad, there was a toy unveiled at the NYC Toy Fair named Rowan who takes the form of a ghost that looks like the emblem. Now, if ‘Rowan’ operates in the same capacity as the entities in the original films, then their name might be a hint at their mythology. According to a lot of European mythologies and Victorian era mythologies, Rowan is a Neo-Druid name for a portal tree and considered a threshold between worlds. THEREFORE, the original films can still be cannon and not erased. But that’s just my speculation.
At the conclusion of the event, we didn’t get to learn more about the cameos but did learn that the new characters take the story we love. Reitman gave them their blessing when he visited, “It’s tough to come up with that type of improv. I saw the four walk down, I thought of the first moment I saw the guys and I got the same feeling when I saw these four women.” he shared, “It’s not issue of gender. There’s something really startling to those four together that is like what made the first team so special. They’re smart and they’re writers.” Feig added that the new team had the same dynamics and chemistry in the real life that was needed for the film. “This comes from such a pure place. This idea is such a great idea. There’s so many things you could do with it.”, he said. “Everyone working on this has such a love and respect for this property.”
We’re excited for Ghostbusters based off this first trailer that shows us some great moments, the chemistry between the team and the some of the action sequences without giving too much away. There’s still some questions and nervous nostalgia but this trailer has made us more optimistic about the film they’ve made for a new generation of fans who can look up to these new heroes.
