Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. I've caught some shit, mostly from whiny misogynists, for adopting a "wait and see" attitude when it comes to Paul Feig's Ghostbusters reboot. I can be hopeful that the very funny Feig is leading four very funny ladies into a cinematic universe I cherish and also think it was a bad idea to completely reboot the franchise instead of making this a direct sequel. Those two thoughts can coexist in my mind.
The trailers and TV spots have gone from "Oh no..." to "okay, this might be good" in quality and I'm still hoping the movie pulls it out. But even I can't defend this new theme song.
Everything I'm worried the movie will be is perfectly summed up in this cover. It's hacky, "updated" to be super modern and cool, but leans so heavily on what came before that you don't have a choice but to compare it to the much better original.
Ugh. I've listened to this a few times now and it gets worse with each repeat.
The Ray Parker Jr. original is so iconic and part of pop culture it's tough to try to recapture that magic. I get it. That's why you have to go in a radically different direction. Take Bobby Brown's song for Ghostbusters 2. It's just as "of its time" as this Fall Out Boy cover is, but they decided not to just copy what came before in a hipper way. No matter what you think of the movie, you have to admit On Our Own stands apart from Parker's original and does its own thing.
If I can walk away from this project disliking the theme song but digging the movie I'll be super happy.
PS Yes, I know Run-DMC did a much closer redo of the Ray Parker Jr. song for GB2. I think they do a little bit better of a job doing their own thing with it, but I don't know if there's a person on this earth who wouldn't agree that Run-DMC is way cooler than Fall Out Boy. My point still stands, that Bobby Brown's song got to be the identity of the sequel because it didn't just update the original theme song.
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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