I have been a pretty staunch defender of Paul Feig's GHOSTBUSTERS movie to this point, taking the position that we should wait and see what the movie looks like before passing any sort of real judgment on it, while also believing that whatever it may amount to will in no way disrupt your affections for the original GHOSTBUSTERS film that you hold near and dear to your heart.
However, I'm about to throw some fuel on the fire for all the haters out there who are ready to jump on anything this movie does that they can grasp as negative. And for once, they may be perfectly justified.
Over the weekend at this year's Toy Fair, Mattel had a display on some of their GHOSTBUSTERS line that'll be hitting shelves in the summer around the new film's release. There's a pretty cool proton pack for kids to become Ghostbusters using their imaginations and action figures of the new squad. But it's the appearance of what appears to be the film's new bad guy that is sure to invoke some facepalming and a bit of outrage.
This is where we head into SPOILER TERRITORY, so, if you don't want to know, start looking away right now…
According to PixelDan who was able to observe the new figures, the film's baddie Rowan looks like this…
Rather familiar, wouldn't you say?
It's essentially the ghost from the no-ghost logo brought to life. Now as a simply representation of the Ghostbusters, the figure works in symbol form. However, brought to life as a three-dimensional being, not so much. This creature looks awful.
If you remember going back to last year, Neil Casey was cast as "the villain" named Rowan with not a lot of details about the character. Now we know at least one iteration of him, although we don't know if this is something a human form might transform into, like Dana Barrett and Louis Tully became Terror Dogs in the original, or if this is some sort of mo-cap baddie that he'll embody throughout the film.
This villain also puts us in a weird chicken-or-egg situation, because the logo is one of the early aspects of the Ghostbusters that allows them to brand themselves… So does he manifest from the logo already existing, much like the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man came from Ray Stantz's childhood memories, or does the no-ghost logo come from their battle with him?
Lots to think about… and none of it feels very good. I'm still willing to give GHOSTBUSTERS its fair shake in July, but right now this all feels like a very big strike against it.
GHOSTBUSTERS answers your call on July 15, 2016.