I have been closely watching the Ghostbusters trailers, though honestly I cringed at the first trailer and shortly decided not to see the movie. I'm a die-hard fan of the first movie, and hell... I enjoyed the second. I just don't find it that entertaining, funny or even that good. What has caught my attention is the reactions to women who have spoken against reviewers/critics/commenters who have said the movie is something that they won't see because it looks terrible. AVGN is one of them, though I think he put it down well why he wasn't going to see it. (I can post a link if you wish.) And yes, I have seen a LOT of nasty comments from Youtube that is unfair and has nothing to do with the movie, but others have said the same thing that I think: The movie doesn't look that funny/good. A lot of people have been going after these comments/reviewers for stating this opinion, saying that they're being sexist amongst other things and hate women having rights. I heard even the cast is a part of this whole thing and is encouraging it. So the question I ask people is: Do you think it's unfair to judge someone for not seeing a movie that you were originally a fan of with an all-male cast that looked good. (I have looked at the original trailers and they were pretty good.) And not see a movie with the opposite gender that the trailer looked bad?
It isn't fair to them to be called sexist over something that may not be their taste. I've been called similar for not liking a lesbian pairing in a show (keep in mind no pairings are canon) despite supporting many other lesbian pairings. It's a similar situation, whether chalked down to racism, homophobia, or various other things, it COULD ring true but it doesn't always. As an example, I myself am very into the idea of gay characters in media, but I dislike the recent reveal of Sulu being gay in the new Star Trek. Am I homophobic? Of course not, I just feel like that's too much change on an existing character. It's the same thing with this. Rebooting a property just to make it more politically correct is too much of a change. Disregarding the gender stuff at all it just looks like a bad rehash of the original (to most people. I personally fully support the film and am reserving judgement until the final product because it's my brand of dumb slapstick humor), which is where most of the actual critism is. But because it's female-led, of course you'll look bad disliking it. In this day and age anything different is taken as good because it breaks the mold, but people fail to realize that it's just not okay to mess with existing properties, tweak them to be more PC and then make a quick buck. I feel that's unfair to the creators of the original, and downright insulting (depending on where it goes).
You have an interesting point, I do know that Dan Akroyd is a producer to the movie and actually owns a bit of the franchise. That was probably one of the bigger reasons there's a new movie coming out. I have seen recent commercials with a male (none-character, neither from the new or original) character going in and busting ghosts at different locations while advertising for Ghostbusters and whatever he's being paid to advertise. Even today when walking through Target I saw several films with a Ghostbusters patch and an offer for five dollars off your ticket if you buy the movie that's advertising it. Two red flags for me. I would kill to see a group of, say: Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and two other VERY strong actresses who have worked great together in the past in these parts. (Tina and Amy especially are usually untouchable together when it comes to SNL skits.) I would be the first in line. But even if I didn't know the cast going in, (I sure as hell didn't know them at 7 when I saw it the first time.) I would go to see humor that suited my tastes, great graphics, maybe... And a great storyline. All three didn't appear in the trailer. I don't see myself enjoying it. My mom put it best when I spoke to her about the controversy: "If it was good, why are they spending so much of their time going after people for saying it was bad? Wouldn't they be doing something else with their time?"
If the movie is exactly the same, down to time, down to look, basically if you replaced all of the men in the original movie with women and the other way around, that's different. But this is almost like a remake and it's not going to be the exact same, and it may try to have the same feel but the problem is is that technology has advanced, it's a different set of crew etc. People are looking at this like its the exact same as the original movie but with women, but that isn't the case, because it can't be. It's always going to be a little different. And most remakes are bad. I don't think it has much to do with the gender of the characters, it's that regardless, even if this movie had male characters it would still be just as ****** you know what I mean? At the end of the day this is kind of all like a fanfic. There are really good genderbent fanfic's, but if the fanfic is bad does that mean you don't like the genderbent of the character in a general sense? No! That would be like saying that someone writes bad fanfic and so you can't watch the show or read the book anymore. It needs to be of quality for you to like it regardless. If the characters are written poorly and the writing is bad even if it's your favorite pairing for genderbent or whatever you're still not going to be able to get through it. And as much as fans of the original want to get through it maybe they just can't.
I just had a talk about this on tumblr. Honestly this movie was produced under pressure where as- NO ONE wanted to come and make this film. Sony had waited a loooong time to try and get in the groove of, what else? Making MORE money. And what BETTER way to do that- then to make films starting lead roles as women? Because that's what people want? Or so they thought. This movie IS a sham, but to answer your question? I think it's unfair to call/judge others on their choice of why they did or didn't see a movie. It's like.. if I said I didn't watch LoTr's because I wanted them to all be females instead, and it just plain right lookes dumb with males. That's how I see it. (people on tumblr pointed out to me via a post on some serious points on why this movie is garbage. It's NOT because of the females roles it's the bad writing, judgment and directing.) Like @Calxiyn said, it's like a bad fanfic.
I assume you meant to ask, "Is it unfair to judge someone for enjoying the first movie and not wanting to watch this one." And the answer is yes, of course it is. This shouldn't be a controversial statement, but people equate criticism with prejudice. Frankly, I haven't seen any Ghostbusters so I don't really have a dog in this specific race, but people who agree that the new movie looks mediocre and defend it solely because of the all-female cast are shortchanging their own movement. Women should have equal representation in fictional media. "Equal" does not mean "equal in quantity," it means equal. We should not settle for sub-par writing, sub-par acting, sub-par premises, sub-par anything. Because we don't have to. We have plenty of evidence to suggest that all-woman productions can be just as inspiring and entertaining as all-male or mixed-gender productions. By blindly defending fictional works based strictly on their demographic, we leave an opening for misogynistic f#%kheads to spout their nonsense about women ruining the things they like and dragging down the quality of fiction. And as we know, give a bigot an inch and they'll take the whole Mason-Dixon line. So yeah, in short, like what you like and don't like what you don't, and if anybody with an agenda tries to cuss you out for it then just remind them what feminism is about: equal treatment and equal rights, including the right to disagree with each other.
The movie looks shit to me because it looks shit to me: unfunny, overproduced, forgettable. That's the biggest issue: changing who the characters are is secondary, but those changes which feel very unnatural definitely do gives me less reason to give this movie a chance.
