Paul Feig

When angry fans made the trailer for Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters the most disliked movie trailer in the history of YouTube (now at 880,000 thumbs down and counting as of this writing), their accompanying comments repeated the same complaints. The digital effects looked bad. The broad physical comedy didn’t work. The cast was gallingly female. (Recent example, all spelling errors theirs: “why woman ? im not sexist but i think its not good to use them.”) Over and over, they returned to one singular conclusion: The new Ghostbusters would not only ruin fans’ collective childhoods, it would ruin the original Ghostbusters.

The cast of Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters are set to appear on The Graham Norton Show on June 23, but a couple of clips from their delightful episode have popped up online, including one in which Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy — at Feig’s urging — perform their “folk lady” version of the classic theme song. As an added bonus, their sharply-dressed director gets slimed, straight-up Nickelodeon style.

Yes, yes, our old pal Stay Puft the giant marshmallow man is back in these new TV spots for Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters, but the real delight here is watching Melissa McCarthy fire her proton pack at the crotch of a huge, sinister version of the iconic logo. “How do you like that?!” she shouts, and I think the only response is, "Very much, please continue."

Following their delightful appearance with the original Ghostbusters cast on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the ladies of Paul Feig’s reboot — along with their dopey receptionist — have assembled in a brand new poster. And if that’s not enough for you, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones, Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy each have their very own featurette, offering a proper intro to their respective characters along with a little dose of new footage.

We’ve seen a lot of trailers for Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters, some controversial and some pretty great. But the latest one shows more of the ghosts the new crew will be busting.

It’s hard to believe that the great pop culture wars are being waged over something like female Ghostbusters, but here we are. In the year 2016, we’ve seen backlash over casting Idris Elba as the Gunslinger in The Dark Tower, accusations that critics were paid by Marvel to diss Batman v Superman, and, perhaps worst of all, outrage at Paul Feig for making a new Ghostbusters movie with women in the lead roles. You don’t have to look very far to find heinous comments about the reboot on the internet, but as you might imagine, Feig has seen some of the worst of it.

My daughter is five months old, and at this point her experience of popular culture is mostly limited to board books. (She’s a big fan of DC’s My First Book of Girl Power.) She’s too young to watch movies or television, despite my repeated insistence that Gymkata is an important work of art that must be considered and appreciated.

It’s become impossible to talk about Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters without acknowledging the unsavory reactions from fans of the original who have declared the reboot cinema non grata (to say the least). It’s also been suggested that perhaps some words of support from the original cast members might help soothe the aggressive fanbase, that if their so-called childhood heroes give Feig’s film the stamp of approval (as if their willingness to cameo in the film wasn’t endorsement enough), maybe the anti-reboot fan contingent would settle down and come to accept a crew of female Ghostbusters. That’s not the case, as OG Ghostbuster Dan Aykroyd shared his positive thoughts on Feig’s reboot, inspiring a slew of predictably angry reactions.

*Red alarm emoji* There is a new Ghostbusters trailer, which means any and all trolls should see themselves out.

Oh, a new Ghostbusters trailer! I am sure this will be met warmly, with a calm and measured reception!