[Film] Ghostbusters - Frozen Empire (3/22/24)

[Smoove_B]

I was surprised there wasn't a thread. Here's the official trailer:



Not gonna lie. I'm kinda happy that the original Ghostbusters are still a thing in 2024.

[Daehawk]

That looks really good to me. Was a fan of the originals. I still need to see the one before this one with the kids that are in this one.

[YellowKing]

I'm really excited for it, and that's coming from someone who was really disappointed in Ghostbusters: Afterlife.

My biggest problem with Afterlife is that for a Ghostbusters movie, especially one starring Paul Rudd, they inexplicably removed all the comedy. That said, I eventually got over them switching genres and moved on with my life.

When I saw the trailer for this one, with my brain already adjusted to action-adventure mode, I was immediately in. The premise hearkens back to the crazier stuff Ackroyd used to pitch when he first came up with Ghostbusters, as well as some of the wilder ideas from the Ghostbusters cartoon. I think that could be a ton of fun. And having them back in the city I think will make all the difference. I hated Afterlife's desert setting, it just didn't feel right.

[Blackhawk]

A time jump is, in my opinion, still the #1 way to (soft) reboot an older, beloved franchise. Think Star Trek TNG and Cobra Kai.

[Daehawk]

They could do a new younger Ghostbusters and have it be good. Maybe get Chris Pratt. or Pine

[Pyperkub]

I really liked the kids as the new Ghostbusters generation. And Rudd was funny to me in it. Afterlife holds up for me.

[Lassr]

I really liked the kids as the new Ghostbusters generation. And Rudd was funny to me in it. Afterlife holds up for me.

Wife and I saw Afterlife on our cruise and we both thought it was really good, of course, it may be because we were starved for entertainment at that point, but we are excited to see this new one.

[Rumpy]

I'm really excited for it, and that's coming from someone who was really disappointed in Ghostbusters: Afterlife.

My biggest problem with Afterlife is that for a Ghostbusters movie, especially one starring Paul Rudd, they inexplicably removed all the comedy. That said, I eventually got over them switching genres and moved on with my life.

That never bothered me much, given that most of the movie is played like an adventure movie where bit by bit, the kids discover their Uncle's legacy. It's only when the the old gang returns at the end, that you get a hint of whimsy of the previous movies, and that from now on in future movies, the entirety of the experience is back. I thought it played off pretty well, given that the franchise had been asleep for so long.

[Moliere]

[Daehawk]

[Daehawk]

[gilraen]

Went to see this yesterday. It was fun but felt...lacking somehow. Lots of nods to the original films, massive build-up to the big bad, and in the end it just didn't quite know what to do with itself.

[Kraken]

The only review I've seen so far was not great. They liked Bill Murray, and that's about all. I'll watch it if/when it comes to a streaming service I already pay for.

[Punisher]

We are tentatively seeing it tomorrow. We actually went tonight but on the way out of the food court my electric wheelchair locked up. Couldn't even move it in manual mode. No amount of resetting or reseating cables helped. Had to walk put with a cane and a mormal 1 minute walk took me about 15 minutes or so and my back was screaming at me by the time I made it to the car (which was parked right outside the door).
Anyway, bavk on topic.
We are planning on using my main electric wheelchair tomorrow regardless of what reviews say. I learned long ago that crotics don't agree with my tastes for the mist part. I dtill read them to get an idea but my tastes are basically was i entertained, knowing what I now know would I go again, and do I feel like I wasted my time.
In my current mental condition I'm even easier on movies. It takes a lot for me to feel like I've wasted my time with them. I just want to kill time and have fun.

Only hiccups will be weather and if I reciver enough by tomorrow.

[wonderpug]

“It was fine” -wonderpug

Not terrible, not fantastic. The wife and kids liked it better than me, and the theater audience applauded at the end more than usual so I think everyone there liked it more than me.

[Punisher]

And it was a bust.
It's been pouring most of the day so I couldn't really go out plus just about every road near me flooded out.
Might try tomorrow if roads clear and weather is good

[Brian]

Seent it.

Maybe it was all the negative to so - so reviews but I had pretty low expectations and ended up enjoying it a lot more than I expected to.

I would even go so far as to rate it above Ghostbusters 2.
Which isn't a very high bar, granted.

[YellowKing]

Same - the mixed reviews (and my dislike of Afterlife) had me going into this with very low expectations. But I thought it was a blast. This was everything I wanted Afterlife to be. It's funnier, it's more action-packed, and because of the setting, the fan service felt far more connected to the original. My kids loved it as well, with my daughter even going so far as to say it was her favorite of the entire franchise.

It's not perfect; at times it feels like it's kind of bouncing around, unable to settle on what it's trying to be, but overall it feels like a true expansion of the Ghostbusters universe in a way that the other films have been unable to capture.

I will say, however, that despite my criticism of Afterlife, it was absolutely essential in laying the foundation for this film. They give only a cursory explanation in this film of who Paul Rudd and co. are and why they're now Ghostbustin', so if nothing else I will give Afterlife credit for making this movie possible.

Some of the harshest criticism I've seen (from a Ghostbusters Fan group, no less) seems to center around their dislike of Phoebe Spengler's character. I couldn't disagree more - she was my favorite part of Afterlife and she's the heart and soul of this movie as well. I love the idea of Egon living on through her work.

[Rumpy]

I'm hoping to see this in a few weeks and hope it will still be in theatres by the time I come back from my Eclipse trip. One gripe I had with Afterlife was the audio. It seemed to be rather soft, if that makes any sense? I had to crank my audio way up. In viewing the trailer for Frozen Empire, it was essentially the same issue, causing dialogue to be lost in the mix.

[Kraken]

I'm hoping to see this in a few weeks and hope it will still be in theatres by the time I come back from my Eclipse trip. One gripe I had with Afterlife was the audio. It seemed to be rather soft, if that makes any sense? I had to crank my audio way up. In viewing the trailer for Frozen Empire, it was essentially the same issue, causing dialogue to be lost in the mix.

It's not just you. Here's why movie dialog has gotten more difficult to understand.

I used to be able to understand 99% of the dialogue in Hollywood films. But over the past 10 years or so, I've noticed that percentage has dropped significantly — and it's not due to hearing loss on my end. It's gotten to the point where I find myself occasionally not being able to parse entire lines of dialogue when I see a movie in a theater, and when I watch things at home, I've defaulted to turning the subtitles on to make sure I don't miss anything crucial to the plot.

Knowing I'm not alone in having these experiences, I reached out to several professional sound editors, designers, and mixers, many of whom have won Oscars for their work on some of Hollywood's biggest films, to get to the bottom of what's going on. One person refused to talk to me, saying it would be "professional suicide" to address this topic on the record. Another agreed to talk, but only under the condition that they remain anonymous. But several others spoke openly about the topic, and it quickly became apparent that this is a familiar subject among the folks in the sound community, since they're the ones who often bear the brunt of complaints about dialogue intelligibility.

"It's not easy to mix a movie," says Jaime Baksht, who took home an Oscar for his work on last year's excellent "Sound of Metal" and previously worked on Alfonso Cuarón's "Roma." "Everybody thinks you're just moving levers, but it's not like that."

This problem indeed goes far beyond simply flipping a switch or two on a mixing board. It's much more complex than I anticipated, and it turns out there isn't one simple element that can be singled out and blamed as the primary culprit.

"There are a number of root causes," says Mark Mangini, the Academy Award-winning sound designer behind films like "Mad Max: Fury Road" and "Blade Runner 2049." "It's really a gumbo, an accumulation of problems that have been exacerbated over the last 10 years ... that's kind of this time span where all of us in the filmmaking community are noticing that dialogue is harder and harder to understand."

Join me and these industry experts as we sort through that "gumbo" and identify some of the most prominent reasons it has become more difficult to, in the paraphrased words of Chris Tucker's Detective Carter in "Rush Hour," understand the words that are coming out of characters' mouths.

It's a long article so I'll just give you the section headers:

It's a purposeful choice
It's in the acting
Sound isn't respected on sets
Technology (The Jurassic Park Problem)
Familiarity/passive listening
Mixing for cinemas
Mixing for streaming
Home theater woes
How do we fix this?

[YellowKing]

The 20,000 Hertz podcast did an episode on this issue and it was pretty fascinating. That episode laid most of the blame on the disconnect between theaters and streaming services, but there are a lot of factors involved. My wife and daughter both watch everything with subtitles on these days, and neither of them have hearing issues. They've just stopped trying to fight it.

[Blackhawk]

Turning down the music during dialogue would be a good start.

[Jaymann]

That is a great article and helps explain why the sound on a new TV was like mush and I had to buy a sound bar. Even so I always use closed captions and am disappointed when it is not available. Part of it is also some hearing loss. That is a mixed bag since some frequencies I can hear just fine - like a car motor way down the street, but other things, like my daughter's voice (unfortunately) nearly completely elude me.

[Lassr]

The 20,000 Hertz podcast did an episode on this issue and it was pretty fascinating. That episode laid most of the blame on the disconnect between theaters and streaming services, but there are a lot of factors involved. My wife and daughter both watch everything with subtitles on these days, and neither of them have hearing issues. They've just stopped trying to fight it.

Geez, I thought I was just getting old and losing my hearing, even though I didn't feel like I was losing my hearing, because I could still hear everything else. Now at least I know it is not me.

[Punisher]

Turning down the music during dialogue would be a good start.

I would LOVE it if there was a way to do this like a video game something where you can control the volume of music or even turn it off like i do for the most part.

As for the sound thing, vefore my medical adventure i didn't really have too much of an issue. Afterwards I've been using subtitles about 95% of the time to help me understand what's gping on.
Ironically I generally cant watch non English shows or movies because i have to read all the time whivh distracts me from the moving pictures part.
However because i now need subtitles it's slowly getting easier to read and watch. Eventually it should be super easy, barely an inconvenience.

[Blackhawk]

My senses work a little differently from the norm (or, rather, the interpretation phase in my brain works a little differently.) Because of that I have a lot of trouble tuning out sounds, which in turn makes it really hard to understand dialogue over background noise, and music is the worst. It is rare that I can understand more than a few of the words in a song. The recent trend of having music behind most dialogue has been causing me some real problems.

Especially since I also have trouble with subtitles (if they're on, I'll either completely lose track of the scenes because I'm just focusing on the subtitles, or I'll completely lose track of the dialogue because I'm watching the scenes - it kills foreign films for me, unfortunately.)

[Rumpy]

It's a long article so I'll just give you the section headers:

It's a purposeful choice
It's in the acting
Sound isn't respected on sets
Technology (The Jurassic Park Problem)
Familiarity/passive listening
Mixing for cinemas
Mixing for streaming
Home theater woes
How do we fix this?

Thanks. I think I'd read the article awhile back. It's good to know I'm not alone in this. Some are worse than others at this. The sound in Afterlife felt very soft and muddy when I would have expected a movie like this to feel more punchy. And it's not as if I don't have a good sound setup. Situations like this were way worse before I bought a soundbar, and it helps with 90% of things, but some movies are still pretty bad. And it's weird when movies are run so loud in theatres.

[Brian]

Turning down the music during dialogue would be a good start.

Eventually it should be super easy, barely an inconvenience.

[Moliere]

Turning down the music during dialogue would be a good start.

Eventually it should be super easy, barely an inconvenience.