I showed GB2 to my girlfriend for the first time, she enjoyed the movie and thought it was funny, but she had one question,
“so whats the connection with Vigo and the Slime?”
I explained how negative electrons can give ghosts energy and so forth.
Vigo seemed to only have power when outside of the painting and within the walls of the museum, so how was he able to summon the river of slime?
was the slime some manifestation of Vigo? or was it some seperate entity he was using to gain power? either way it still raises the question what the connection was.
Ive seen the movie over 100 times, but maybe there was something i missed or this is just a major plot hole.
And i know in the VG, it’s explained how various slimes were the creation of Shandor’s rituals. But i’m tryin to keep it in the context of GB2 the film.
His power wasn’t sequestered to the museum, otherwise, how could he have created “Ghost Nanny Janosz”, locked the darkroom door at the Firehouse, directed the slime to Dana’s bathtub, or sent those bad omens when Egon, Ray and Winston were in the tunnels by Van Horne?
Egon and Winston mention that New York’s bad vibes were manifesting the slime… maybe he was able to create a small amount of it (he has some relation to it, as there’s the river in the ruins of the castle behind his head), and the bad-tempered New Yorkers did the rest, making the supply grow and fester like a sponge. In turn, he then feeds off of that stockpile of negative energy to extend his reach and eventually leave the painting.
In the game its revealed that Ivo Shandor had a facility that manufactured a bunch of different colored slime. Winston at one point speculates that’s where it all came from.
If thats the case, that gives a basis for the slime existing in some quantity and then growing in volume by feeding off of the city’s negative energy.
Vigo says he can only return on the new year (never explained)
Again the game sort of gives the impression that the slime and Vigo were a coincidence…he was powerless in the painting looking for a way to return and when the painting got to NY he was able to tap into the negative energy provided by the slime flow.
You know those bug zappers with the purple lights?
You know how bugs fly into them?
Vigo was a ghost/evil spirit/whatever. We know he was a Magician; while specifics are not available, one can assume his power related to negative energy. Ghosts, in this universe, are composed of energy particles–at least theoretically. Much like the proton streams wrap themselves around ghosts, because of energy/atomic differences, Vigo simply fed off the negative energy.
I know that’s not the clear defined answer you want; but it’s hardly a plothole. It just requires you to accept that an evil spirit can use negative energy to become more powerful.
The connection was pure coincidence. When the Vigo painting was brought out of Archives to Restorations in the Manhattan Museum of Art, the spirit of Vigo now had the ability to access power from the river of Psychomagnotheric Slime.
In the context of only Ghostbusters II…hmm. Well, “Magicians, Martyrs, and Madmen” notes Vigo as a powerful magician. He lived to the age of 105 and it took some doing to execute him. Vigo was evil. From all that, we can reasonably suss out Vigo practiced black magic. Black magic, bad. River of Psychomagnotheric Slime negatively charged., bad. Therefore, they correlate and are compatible to each other. Vigo can use his black magic and cast some spell that allows him to draw energy from the river. The physical intermediary of this spell was the painting, hence why the river could be seen in the photographs Peter took. Vigo’s spirit remained on the physical plane because it seems implied he cast a spell that anchored himself to the painting in the event of his eventual death so he could take on a new vessel and live again someday. It seems conjectural at best that whatever this spell was, a caveat of it was he could only take a new vessel in the New Year. Black magic is funny that way.
How his power extended as you ask, Kingpin explained it best. I think you’re asking about the Photo Room fire? I’m guessing they were trying to make some statement about Spirit Photography. But in essence, those photos of Vigo’s were like a portals that he could extend his reach from thus why he could lock the door and start a fire remotely. The lesson learned is taking pictures of Class 7’s is a bad idea.
I always thought the slime was made when the ghosts interacted with the physical world. When they touched or manipulated something, it created ectoplasmic residue.
I thought the river of slime was a byproduct of Vigo siphoning the negative energy in New York. When he focused and absorbed the bad vibes, the slime was just a physical byproduct created by the transformation of energy. So though it seemed like the slime was causing all the funky stuff to happen, it was actually something that was being created because the supernatural was brushing against the natural.
Alright, so they have this giant hole, which leads to the river of slime. Since Ray knocked out the power, it is quite likely that they would have to use that hole to fix the outage. I find it odd that not only would Ray wait to go on the hunt for the river of slime, but that no one else would notice, especially after seeing what it could do.
There’s a line of dialogue that addressed that point in the script and/or novel. When the Con Ed guy is being questioned as a witness at the trial, he says they went down there and saw NO evidence of the slime Ray claims he saw. Cut to the GB’s discussing it, with I believe Egon conjecturing that the slime flow is tidal in nature.
I guess changing the line to “they must have put it there” was less confusing and moved the story forward faster.