GB II haunted subway observations

Ghostbusters Discussion General Ghostbusters Discussion
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Yesterday I caught Ghostbusters II on Starz, which was both good and bad. The Good: it’s a Ghostbusters movie. The Bad: it was painfully nostalgic watching it in 4:3 aspect ratio. When the haunted subway scene came up I found myself paying attention to little nuances rather than watching the story.

Some things I noticed:

-Ray and Egon’s hat lights are plugged into an orange battery box but Winston does not have one. In fact the wire for his seems to disappear into his Lifegard.

-At first it looks as those the depth measure device is fastened to Winston’s belt one way then when they decide to go back for the proton packs it is clearly hanging lower and from the trap holster strap.

-Why wasn’t Egon able to pick up anything on the Giga Meter? They are walking alongside the Van Horne Station so the slime river is right next door.

-The sound level meter is on Egon’s belt.

-One could assume the GB’s have many spares of their equipment because when they emerge from the street, they have lost their black pistol belts. Egon is later seen with the Giga Meter inside the Liberty crown.

-The slime river is kind of alive since it grabbed at Ray when he sampled it and then dragged Winston in. How did the GB’s survive their little dip? Wouldn’t the river just drown them?

-Ray sits on one of the rocks squishing it like the foam it is (a blooper favorite).

-I think Ramis accidentally says ‘Ernie’ while they are struggling with the depth line…?

Overall I wonder about the GB’s intentions of tracing the source of the slime flow. It seemed more like they wanted to find the Van Horne Station on foot. Then once they found it they could take some up-close readings, measure the slime depth, get some fresh samples and then be on their way.

Always been one of my favorite scenes; glad it was longer than what was in the original script.

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I’m very familiar with this Just-Rite headlamp and its battery box, having purchased a used one which had blue paint on one side of the box, requiring me to disassemble it and strip the spraypaint off.

I had never noticed or paid attention to Winston’s wire, though, so I cued up the movie and saw that his battery box is indeed not visible on his belt, and the wire does seem to go into the Lifegard.

Good eye for catching that during a broadcast!

But step-framing and rewinding through the DVD, I spotted a couple of frames where the wire can also be seen coming out, or rather out from behind, the Lifegard.

I don’t think it’s plugged into the LG, it’s just passing behind it.

And in these frames, there seems to be a rectangular lump under the yellow material of Winston’s slicker.

The screencaps don’t do the shape of it as much justice as viewing it in motion, though. The way the belt cinches above it, you can really tell it’s a boxy shape under there.

So I suspect the Just-Rite battery box is just in a pocket of the slicker.

[It’s possibly completely underneath the slicker, clipped to a pocket of the pants, but that would suggest they cut a large hole through the slicker to pass the entire battery box through, as removing the wire from the battery box is a very time-consuming process of unscrewing the wires from the terminals.]

That is an excellent question. For all the Giga’s “I’m replacing the PKE Meter” airs, it’s not a very beneficial tool in this movie.

Didn’t quite spot it. If you can do a framecap, I’d love to see how it attaches. I bought a zippered case that fits mine, but it doesn’t show off the ‘belt candy’ as well as I’d like.

I posit that the slime wants to possess them more than destroy them. Either that, or it’s like the liquid oxygen from The Abyss that the rat breathes.

I looked for this, but the one rock I spotted doesn’t seem to compress, it just looks like the whole pile is shifting below his weight.

I listened to this a couple of times with my eyes closed, and then once I ‘heard’ it, I watched a couple more times with my eyes open to see if you could see their lip synch.

I agree, it really does sound like someone exclaims, “Ernie!” right after Ray says, “Get his belt off!” Not sure if it’s Ramis or Aykroyd, though, and their faces/lips are all off-camera. Right then, it alternates between a shot of Winston’s hands on the plumb line and a POV of the slime river.

It wouldn’t be the first time an actor called his costar by their real name instead of their character name. The kids in The Goonies do it a couple of times, and the director/editors failed to catch it and correct it.

I remember doing a live play once many years ago, the actor playing my ‘sidekick’ warned me that he had a bad habit of at least once during the run of a show, calling another character by his own character’s name. Sure enough, with an audience under us, he ran onstage in one scene and called me (as Truman) by the name Harold (his part).

Luckily this was a melodrama with a LOT of ad lib components built in, so I just said, “No no, you’re Harold, I’m Truman.” And he was supposed to be in a fluster, telling me what the dastardly ne’er-do-wells were plotting, so his reaction when he realized he’d made his trademark flub actually worked and looked more natural than his normal polished performance.

Anyway, thanks for getting me looking at the nuances again. I love that I can always discover something new in these films.

Alex

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Kinda hard to pinpoint an exact source when the psychomagnotheric energy put off by the slime is essentially encompassing the entire area they are in.

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Not the best picture quality but that’s where the sound level meter is on Egon’s belt: in it’s pouch hanging from a GB 1 D-ring.

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That’s a good way of thinking about it. I remember in RGB: “Venkman’s Ghost Repellers” Egon calibrated the PKE meter to detect reality within the New Jersey Parallelogram.

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I thought someone yelled “hurry,” not “Ernie.”

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When I was six years old I saw this movie on opening day, and I remember sitting in the theatre wondering why the hell would they enter a haunted subway unarmed. I love this movie but that’s just lazy writing.

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Now that I remember that scene, I always loved the suspense when one realizes a ghost train is coming. I think that scene should have more. but Ernie’s part in it is great.

Am I the only one that has always felt that the scene with the visions of the empaled heads somewhat exhagerated on the realism tone, when compared to the rest of the movie? It must be the scariest scene of both movies.

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Here’s a photo of the screen-used pouch:

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