Everything wrong with the new Ghostbusters trailer

Today the trailer for the new, all-lady Ghostbusters film was released. A lot of people seem to think it’s amazing, which is inexplicable, because it’s a load of bollocks. This is not because there’s a lack of any other kind of actual bollocks in the film: the very concept of this movie has already produced enough tears from Men’s Rights Activists to supply every branch of Petsmart with saltlicks for many decades to come, which is something I can get behind, even if the cast wasn’t a strong line-up (which it is).

No, the trailer is terrible because it’s a terrible trailer, whether or not the film turns out to be any good. Consider the facts:

10. It opens with a minor-key, half speed version of the Ghostbusters theme played on piano, intercut with short-titles-on-black screens, in exactly the same way as that f***ing Jurassic World teaser, which was itself hackneyed to begin with, as if Hollywood is not only currently over reliant on remakes but also, possibly, maybe, running out of ideas on how to market said remakes, and in a few years directors will be seen hawking their films in bulk on Electric Avenue yelling “PAND A PUNNET!” at passers by. This opening segment takes up approximately one fifth of the entire trailer.

9. There’s a shot of a graffiti version of Ghostbusters logo, transparently the result of at least one producer, in his late fifties, repeatedly demanding the original concept be updated for a more urban/millennial/21st century audience.

8. Then there’s a scene with the ghostly librarian, like what they had in the original, presumably to help the audience link this film with that, but actually makes the concept slightly confused. Is this a scene-for-scene remake? Is it set in the same universe but decades later, with the librarian still hanging around and one of the girls inheriting the firehouse from her weird uncle Ray, because he’s now selling paranormally-themed vodka in skull shaped bottles and thinks Mama Cass is haunting his stairmaster, and therefore shouldn’t be looking after his own affairs – or, arguably, writing screenplays? Is it a separate timeline all together? What about this trailer makes me want to find out? (Answer: Kate McKinnon.)

7. The music moves into a modern remix of Ghostbusters theme that nobody asked for (see point two).

6. The ghosts have obviously been loaned by the Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland at cost.

5. Patty Tolan, played by Leslie Jones, and one of two black actors in the current named cast list, announces she’s joining the team by saying “You guys are really smart about this science stuff, but I know New York”. This is after we have had a breakdown of how intelligent the other main characters are. Odds on the first draft of the script read “but I got street smarts!”

4. It includes shots of what appear to be proton pistols, clearly spoiling what is probably a cool action bit in the film, a la Darth Maul’s double lightsaber reveal from The Phantom Menace trailer (which turned out to be the only cool bit in that film).

3. The trailer as a whole is edited and cut together with the same elegance as, to pick an example almost from nowhere, a gangly CGI Baron Samedi-meets-Beetlejuice ghost giant wobbling down Times Square. Abundance of smash cuts, with DOOF DOOF DOOF noises accompanying some, as well providing a mounting score to my amazement that a concept so full of potential has produced a trailer this stultifying.

2. The possession angle is crowbarred in out of nowhere, and even the voice over makes it apparent that, whether or not this turns out to be significant in the film, it’s kind of an afterthought, and whoever received the footage to edit into a passable cinematic trailer was given No. Helpful. Notes. Whatsoever.

1. Absence of funny jokes.

Everything right with the new Ghostbusters trailer:

1. Kate motherf***ing McKinnon.