Im curious as to which button actually fired the stream. I wonder if its the button next to the orange hatlight. I was just watching GB1 and noticed that after Slimer is sucked into the trap, Venkman holds /points the thrower at the trap. The way he holds it, his right hand is at the rear of the grip, almost on the hose. Also, his wrist is broke/bent at an awkward angle. This would make it impossible for him to utilize the intensify button to shoot.
Any thoughts???
In my head-canon, I always thought both push-buttons were required to throw a stream, as a safety feature. Egon and Ray would both be aware of how much property damage/bodily harm could be caused by the pack, and how easy it would get to be spooked (HAHHAAA, get it?!) while on a bust, and accidentally blast a mirror/civilian/fellow 'Buster, so you have to hold down one button, and then press the other to activate. In my mind, the button next to the orange hat light on the end of the thrower would be the “safety” switch pressed first. The operator then presses down the button on the trigger box, firing the stream.
That could make sense. I know that in GB2, in the courtroom, we see Venkman throwing a stream by pressing the intensify button WITHOUT pushing the one at the tip. However, the packs were also slightly changed.
As ive held my thrower, ive noticed that there are certain angles that dont allow me to always reach the intensify button with my thumb. I can always reach and manipulate the tip button though.
Good point, in certain positions it is much easier to press the forward button than the trigger box one…going along with my head-canon, I’ve also thought that perhaps you have to hold down one button, then depress the other to fire (as the aforementioned safety feature), but once that’s done, either button will maintain the stream, allowing for on-the-fly adjustments, IE “Venkman! Shorten your stream, I don’t want my face burned off!” Given the nuclear-hosepipe tendencies of the neutrona wand to fight the user and stray from the target, it would be much easier to let go of the trigger box button and hold down the one at the end of the thrower as you adjust the stream length/intensity/polarity to better suit the particular specter being busted.
On an unrelated note, thank you for asking this question! I’ve clearly thought about this before, and it’s awesome to know someone else has! Thank you, fellow Ghostbusters fan and GBFans.com for giving me a chance to discuss this, and continuing to make me smile after all these years!
This has been talked about a bunch of times here, there are two threads linked in the Index thread about it.