Why Walter Peck was wrong?

[Thebestoftherest]

He says he would make a video about that but I can't find it on the homepage?

[Keyser94]

Maybe because he spineless and want to avoid controversy because Walter Peck wasn't wrong.

Let me guess, he pass over the developing of this movie and the ideology of the producers and the director, like their ideology had nothing to do in the plot of the movie, Walter Peck was portrayed like an idiot and wrong, because the director and producer were anti-regulation hardcore conservatives, they loved Reagan, that why the science of how their backpack and the containment area is never explain even that they say that is nuclear powered, basically they have a nuclear weapon in the middle of New York. And that don't need oversee and regulation?

That is the epitome of U. S. exceptionalism.

[FaxModem1]

Maybe he's saving it for tomorrow?

[CharlesPhipps]

The nature of media is that the Author is Dead the moment other people watch it. It's funny how a bunch of hardcore Reaganites and libertarians created the perfect embodiment of the Trump appointed EPA stooge.

Walter Peck is a science denying moron who shows up to shut down something that he has no knowledge about.

[AndrewGPaul]

“Nuclear powered”

No they’re not; at least, not as depicted onscreen. They’re “nuclear accelerators”, which isn’t the same thing. Like the LHC, albeit a thousand times smaller. Even if they were nuclear powered, as is pointed out in the review, that’s nothing to do with the EPA at all, never mind Walter Peck. That would be the purview of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Now, there’s an argument to be made that there was insufficient oversight of the Ghostbusters, but that doesn’t make Walter Peck right. Even if he was from the NRC rather than the EPA, he was needlessly confrontational and is personally responsible for releasing the stored ghosts from the containment facility.

It’s nothing to do with Reagan-era Lassaize-faire capitalism; this sort of self-reliant anti-authoritarian view has been in American cinema since ... well forever, really. The rogue cop who fights crime while avoiding such petty hindrances as due process and the law, westerns, the popularity of gangsters as protagonists, superhero films - all of those are more worrying, to my mind, than Ghostbusters.

Keyser94, where are you from? So we can put the odd anti-American rant in context?

[Rocketboy1313]

I am going to look at things from multiple perspectives.
1) from the writing perspective, it is good writing to have mundane horseshit like not having enough money, being seen as kooks, and HAVING TO PUT UP WITH GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT are all good micro threats that can come in and out of the plot to create complications, they are effective foreshadowing elements that can show up at the wrong time to kick off the final act (like what happens with Peck).

2) The Ghostbusters are creating a business that has never existed using science that is untested and not well regarded. THEY SHOULD BE REGULATED and treating the EPA with contempt causes them more problems than playing the game would have.

3) Peck is ... just the worst. He is a petty person who dislikes that he doesn't get respect in spite of having a job he sees as noble/important. He undermines his position by going from zero-to-sixty right after needling Peter. He should have gotten more authority than kicking the door in and shutting down equipment that was (by his own admission) untested and potentially dangerous.

[Keyser94]

Wow, how mature of all you block me for answer your comments. Not Walter Peck isn't a science denier, he wanted to prevent the city for having a nuclear holocaust, also, funny thing thing about science in this movie, because they never actually assume scientific implications of an afterlife, in the Ghost busters movies ghost are just ghost. And the answer is simple because the right-wingers that did this movies didnt want insult their beloved Christian religion by trying to give an implication even an scientific explanation why ghost exist.

Who were the science denier again?

[MafiaKirby]

"Maybe because he spineless and want to avoid controversy because Walter Peck wasn't wrong."

Walter Peck is absolutely wrong.

Walter Peck is right in that what the Ghostbusters are doing is dangerous.

So what does he do with this potentially dangerous technology, which he believes is made by a trio of scientists with only vaguely relevant training? He basically tries to run in and flip the switch to off, not knowing what's going to happen if he does so.

"because the director and producer were anti-regulation hardcore conservatives, they loved Reagan,"

It's entirely possible that the director and producer made the movie the way they did for ideological reasons. Which really isn't relevant to whether or not Walter Peck was right. He still wasn't, and any government agency which was permitted to act the way that Walter Peck's EPA acts would be justly condemnable. Now, do you want to argue that perhaps this is a representation of the way government regulation works that's not in keeping with how real government regulators behave? Well, aside from a few assholes out there, that would be entirely accurate. An actual EPA (or more likely NRC) regulator wouldn't have done what Walter Peck did.

...Which means that Walter Peck was wrong. Do you know any people who work with regulatory agencies? 'Cause I do. Maybe you should ask them what they think you should do if you have a poorly understood machine whose creators insist that it'd be very dangerous to turn off.

The ideology of the producers and the directors may have lead Walter Peck to not be an accurate representation of government regulators (at least the ones who aren't dumbasses,) but the fact that "In the real world the person who has Walter Peck's job would be necessary and would not have behaved the way that Walter Peck behaves" is a different thing from "Walter Peck was right." He wasn't. Real philosophy professors don't act like the asshole in "God's Not Dead," but that doesn't mean that Professor Radisson was _RIGHT._

"that why the science of how their backpack and the containment area is never explain even that they say that is nuclear powered, basically they have a nuclear weapon in the middle of New York."

That doesn't at all follow. You know why the science of the backpack and containment area isn't explained? 'Cause ghosts aren't REAL. Or if they are real, then the science of containing them isn't. The directors can't make explain the science of Ghostbusting because Busting, no matter how good it makes you feel, doesn't work or happen. And it's a freaking supernatural comedy film, not a hard-science drama. The director and producer's ideology isn't the reason the science isn't explained, the reason the science isn't explained is that the science doesn't exist and it would be boring to listen to if it did.

[CrypticMirror]

Walter Peck was right, but he went about things all the wrong way.

For a start he never should have let Venkman get under his skin like that. You ever wonder why people who deal with the public always act so jaded and disinterested when you get upset about something? They are trained to be like that, maybe show a little more emotion than in fiction but not by much, because the job is the job and the decision has always already been taken, and it doesn't matter what is said by whom. Once you start letting it get personal, then you end up going viral on twitter.

He'd got his C and D, which stopped the GB's from doing what he considered to be gulling the public, but when he let things get personal and had his ego wrapped up in a pissing contest, that is when he started screwing up and ordered a hard shutdown of the big ghost bin. That was ego posturing, and he should have removed the GB's from the premises and called in more people to figure out how it worked before doing anything. Incidentally, running what is essentially an abu ghraib for ghosts, some of whom were clearly sentient -and some sapient-, in a Manhattan fire station basement, that raises some tricky ethical questions too. Could the Ghostbusters have been guilty of unlawfully imprisonment?

They needed reigned in, but by a better person than Walter Peck.

[Gigglemesh (Banned)]

Didn’t Chuck post this review back in 2015