In fairness...

Message:

The first production season of "The Real Ghostbusters," is actually quite good. The writing team, including J Michael Straczynski, Larry diTillio, Kathryn Drennan, David Gerrold, Chuck Menville, Michael Reeves and Steven Barnes - "real" writers all, wrote some rather complex and witty stories, came up with some really freaky and creative creatures, and genuinely tried to create a quality show.

"Collect Call of Cathulhu" (it's a 'parody,' hence the 'Cathulhu') is a better Lovecraft adaptation than most, "Ragnarok and Roll," is genuinely touching - and the first act pretty terrifying and high stakes, and then there's, "You Can't Take it With You," in which a mad billionaire builds a pyramid tomb using partial Ghostbusters gear salvaged from the remains of Dana Barrett's building enabling him to place his material possessions in the Ghost Realm. When our heroes come a cross of fearful servants, hiding from the madman, Egon's response was a deadpan, "Very Egyptian of him." A line that probably went over the kid's heads.

Unfortunately that first production season is 48 of the 170 episodes, then the show took a double hit of the censors cracking down ("Janine shouldn't be sarcastic and biting, but should be nurturing and motherly." "Please make Egon's glasses round instead of rectangular as children are frightened of sharp angles." Two REAL network censor notes), and. Bill Murray insisting the very funny Lorenzo Music be fired. Music was replaced by Dave Couler who voices Peter Venkman as a Bill Murray who has been hit on the head several times with a hammer. Couler's Venkman is seriously retarded. Actual frightening and intimidating monster designs were replaced with cute ones. And all the writers I mentioned above all quit the show over the interference, being replaced with the type of hack who would write anything for a paycheck. Worst of all, by season 3 "Slimer" was the lead.

Morbius the living Vampire has been a Marvel Comics character since 1971. Morbius predates Wolverine's creation by five years. Rather than sarcastically call Morbius a "blood drinking Wolverine," it would be more accurate to call Wolverine "Morbius with knives." Morbius is the one who created Blade (speaking of bad Marvel movies). Just saying.

In this example the complaint of "making shite up" and wondering what a 51 year old comic character is going to add to genre betrays more the ignorance of the writer - who has admitted he didn't read comic books - than commentary on Marvel.

Also, that's kinda the entire point of fiction writing - making shite up!

I did stop caring about Marvel films after they failed to stick the landing on Avengers: Endgame by having Steve Rogers destroy the stability of the universe (according to the rules laid out in that movie) so he could travel back in time and live with Peggy Carter. In fairness Hayley Atwell (Peggy's actress) is quite tasty. I mean the Marvel films/TV shows on their own have all kinds of sloppy storytelling going on, but, frankly, not much worse than most fiction. Even Arthur Conan Doyle pulled out the "he's not really dead" trope in all those Sherlock Holmes (and Moriarty) stories set after the duo fell from the falls. Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard never wrote a cogent through line, and my former editor at OC Weekly was so thrilled when I opened a review of a Shakespeare play with, "Shakespeare's plots sucked. Want an example?" (Comedy of Errors), that he was already looking forward to indignant letters.

I haven't seen Ghostbusters: Afterlife yet, but I'm certain it will be a moderately entertaining film that derives half of its appeal from the nostalgia callbacks to the 1984 film. Since this film is set "32 years" after Ghostbusters II, can we assume Egon became estranged from his daughter when she got knocked up at the age of 16? That's the only way the timeline works. The actress playing the mother is a decade older than her character can possibly be (literally. I looked this up. I research my snark - especially when I've called someone else out for factual errors in his snark). Oh. Gozer? Again? 30+ years for a sequel and you can't create a new threat? What sloppy writing that doesn't, on the surface, add anything new to the mythology. What a Marvel movie cop out! Hell, Gozer was the villain in the Ghostbusters video game written by Dan Ackroyd which he said was "Basically Ghostbusters 3." So that's 3 of 4 Ghostbusters plots lazily using the same villain!

At least the 2016 Ghostbusters tried to do something different. It may have failed as a film, but I put that down to studio interference... There's a five minute scene in that film where the ladies make fun of internet comments - well, according to the film's writer, director and stars that was a studio mandated reshoot, and I wonder what plot/character development, or actual jokes, were cut for that horrid scene. The subplot of Slimer running around with a female ghost and getting sucked into the portal was also Sony mandated... It was intended to set up a new Slimer cartoon... Yeah, the 2016 Ghostbusters was a mediocre film, but I wonder what it might have been without interfere from studio suits.

Which cycles back to Marvel... Marvel Comics has some great characters and storylines to pull from, but, the films are constantly hampered by studio interference to protect the money making franchise. Even the directors who have done multiple Marvel films have discussed the high levels of interference from House of Mouse.

See, in 1984 Columbia gave Ivan Reitman and Dan Ackroyd $35million to make a movie, then left them alone to make it. The studio didn't give notes until the first cut was complete. They basically got to auteur away. Studios don't do this anymore, and the fact ANY studio film made after 2005 or so can have any artistic value at all is basically a miracle.

Yours,