- July 15th, 2016, 3:12 pm#4871816
Is it just me, or are there seldom topics on these here forums devoted to the ghosts themselves?
My favorite aspect of Ghostbusters has always been its creature designs. Back when the first movie came out, the word "ghost" never brought to mind something as bizarre and monstrous as Slimer, and the cartoons, toy lines and comics just kept bending those rules. Ghostbusters pretty much redefined what a "spirit" could be like in pop culture, hearkening back to the more bizarre ghouls and specters of classical mythology.
So, ghost design was one of the things I knew I'd be most critical of in the new film...and while I loved the movie as a whole, this area WAS something of a mixed bag, and the one thing I wish had been done a bit differently.
Case in point: even some of the "human" ghosts in the original two films had an exaggerated, cartoon-like look to them. Not only was this visually interesting, but I honestly always found it quite a bit scarier than just a floating, human corpse. It was as though a person's ghost wasn't just a direct representation of themselves, but a twisted caricature. A distorted reflection. Something losing its grip on its humanity....or maybe I'm overanalyzing.
We also got some glimpses of completely weird monstrosities in the previous films, resembling no human or animal. I especially hoped we would get something like this in GB16.
Instead, a majority of ghosts in this film are simply human-proportioned, zombie-like ghouls. They're colorful, which I do like (boy am I sick of grey and brown movie monsters).
Slimer is an exception of course, but only because he's a series staple.
The Mayhem ghost at least showed us that this new setting can have nonhumanoid specters, but it was admittedly kind of a generic flying demon design.
What really felt like classic GB material were the parade floats. There were many more of them than just you-know-who-if-you've-seen-it, and they had wonderfully creepy, Burtonesque designs to them.
The stilt-walker or "uncle sam" ghost was another good one; he wasn't just the ghost of a guy on stilts, but really had elongated, creepy anatomy.
Other ghosts have appeared only in the toys and merch, like the cockroach ghost and the split ghost. They looked amazing from the toys, and I was really hoping they were actually in the film. Perhaps they were scripted, or just designs that got scrapped? It'll be amazing when conceptual art starts to leak.
Of course there's also the final form taken by Rowan, and I did enjoy that quite a bit. What I REALLY found cool was when
My favorite aspect of Ghostbusters has always been its creature designs. Back when the first movie came out, the word "ghost" never brought to mind something as bizarre and monstrous as Slimer, and the cartoons, toy lines and comics just kept bending those rules. Ghostbusters pretty much redefined what a "spirit" could be like in pop culture, hearkening back to the more bizarre ghouls and specters of classical mythology.
So, ghost design was one of the things I knew I'd be most critical of in the new film...and while I loved the movie as a whole, this area WAS something of a mixed bag, and the one thing I wish had been done a bit differently.
Case in point: even some of the "human" ghosts in the original two films had an exaggerated, cartoon-like look to them. Not only was this visually interesting, but I honestly always found it quite a bit scarier than just a floating, human corpse. It was as though a person's ghost wasn't just a direct representation of themselves, but a twisted caricature. A distorted reflection. Something losing its grip on its humanity....or maybe I'm overanalyzing.
We also got some glimpses of completely weird monstrosities in the previous films, resembling no human or animal. I especially hoped we would get something like this in GB16.
Instead, a majority of ghosts in this film are simply human-proportioned, zombie-like ghouls. They're colorful, which I do like (boy am I sick of grey and brown movie monsters).
Slimer is an exception of course, but only because he's a series staple.
The Mayhem ghost at least showed us that this new setting can have nonhumanoid specters, but it was admittedly kind of a generic flying demon design.
What really felt like classic GB material were the parade floats. There were many more of them than just you-know-who-if-you've-seen-it, and they had wonderfully creepy, Burtonesque designs to them.
The stilt-walker or "uncle sam" ghost was another good one; he wasn't just the ghost of a guy on stilts, but really had elongated, creepy anatomy.
Other ghosts have appeared only in the toys and merch, like the cockroach ghost and the split ghost. They looked amazing from the toys, and I was really hoping they were actually in the film. Perhaps they were scripted, or just designs that got scrapped? It'll be amazing when conceptual art starts to leak.
Of course there's also the final form taken by Rowan, and I did enjoy that quite a bit. What I REALLY found cool was when
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