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40 secrets, mistakes and fun facts You Never Knew About Ghostbusters 1984
Hello! You better have your Proton Pack ready and don’t forget to turn the siren on because we start 2018 with a classic, The Ghostbuster. This 1984 film, with its amazing mix of comedy and paranormal events, was a combination that was never seen before, and the audience loved it. Do you like this movie? Great! Keep watching this video, which is full of curiosities about The Ghostbusters.
The famous green ghost called Slimer, best known in Latin America for the comic and cartoons with the name of “pegajoso” belongs to the ghost of actor, comedian and musician John Belushi, known to be part of The Blues Brothers. The writer and screenwriter of the movie Ghostbusters, Dan Aykroyd, referred to Slimer ghost as said actor, although it was never named in the film.
In this film, the actors had a 40% improvisation, a very high percentage and it is not that they did not take this film seriously, but that the director had a lot of confidence in the cast, especially in Bill Murray and the comedian actor Rick Moranis , there are 5 minute scenes that are pure improvisation, leaving aside the script.
Ghostbusters, kings of publicity, and is that, during the year of 1984, to increase more people’s interest in the film, they thought of launching a TV commercial, taking a part of the film in which people called the ghostbusters, changing the fictional number, for a real one, which allowed people to call for free, in doing this people listened to the recorded voice of Bill Murray saying: “Hello, we are catching ghosts at this moment, so leave your message and we’ll call you later. ” People went crazy with this detail, they got to receive more than 1000 calls per day, for six weeks until the movie was released.
The only thing missing in this movie was the humorous touch of the actor Eddie Murphy, he would be responsible for playing the character of Winston Zeddemore, but Eddie Murphy rejected the role, which forced the writers to rewrite the script for the actor Ernie Hudson, in the beginning, this character would appear from the film’s start, but, as Eddie Murphy rejected the role, it was changed so that this character only appeared in the middle of the film.
One of the film writers was Harold Ramis, at first he did not plan to participate as a character in the Ghostbusters, there were several auditions for the role of Dr. Egon Spengler, none of them convinced him, so he decided that he was the best candidate to play Dr. Egon Spengler character.
Harold Ramis was also well-known as a film director, he directed the movie called Groundhog Day, starring by his friend Bill Murray, Harold Ramis is one of the ghost hunters who has already died, at first he had only had an infection of autoimmune inflammatory vasculitis, which caused him to be unable to walk, he was rehabilitated in 1 year, but had a relapse that ended his life at the age of 69 years, in 2014.
After his death the former president Barack Obama issued a statement saying: “When we saw his films as Animal House and Ghostbusters, we laughed until it hurt, thanks o people like him we never lost our faith in happy endings.”
Fun facts Ghosbusters No suits, no proton pack.
The original idea of the Ghostbusters had John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy as main characters, the three would form part of the SWAT team and they would face the ghosts with magic wands, instead of scientific weapons, the film would be 100% comedy ,
but, as we know, the actor John Belushi died in 1982 and Eddie Murphy ended up rejecting the paper, for which the whole story had to be rewritten, otherwise we would have a very different and perhaps not so pleasant memory of the Ghostbusters movie.
The sticky residues of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, actually were shaving cream, more than 50 gallons of cream were spread throughout the set,
including the large barrel dropped on the actor William Atherton, which, luckily, did not cause him injuries, since the amount of shaving cream was big and it almost makes him fall to the ground.
fun facts ghostbusters, Real paranormal events?
During the scene where the actors were in the library, suddenly a shelf of books came down, this was real and was not planned, possibly the shelf was misplaced, we can see the real jump of shock the actors made, said shot was used for the movie.
By the way, just by seeing this logo, we clearly know that it’s about the ghost busters, but do you know what that ghost is called? Originally it was going to replace the sticky green ghost, but it was not like that, the name of this ghost is Mooglie and would be the only friendly ghost, something like Casper.
fun facts Ghostbusters is a plagiarism?
Do not be scared or exalted, I mean the song, the main theme of the film, Created by Ray Parker Jr. This musical theme was a wonder in 1984 … and, well, to this day is an emblematic theme, but in those years it remained for 3 weeks on the Billboard list, a whole deed that few musical themes have been able to make, also earned him an extra benefit to the $ 20 million.
The film, won a Grammy for best musical theme and, if that was not enough, it was nominated for a Oscar award, but in the end it ended up winning the song “I just called to say I love you” from the movie “The woman in red” composed by Stevie Wonder, the same who looks like a Simpsons character,
but the matter here is that Ray Parker Jr faced a legal trial with the group Huey Lewis and the News since Ray Parker Jr practically copied the rhythm of the song “I want a new Drug”, song that Huey Lewis and the News had published 6 months before the Ghostbusters. The funny thing is that the Ghostbusters producer had previously contacted the group Huey Lewis and the News to develop the main theme of the film, however the band ended up abandoning the project and that’s the moment when Ray Parker Jr appeared to compose the film music, it is curious that the musical theme Ghostbusters was his only success, in short, the plagiarism was accepted and both the singer and the producer reached a monetary agreement of millions with the band Huey Lewis and the News, with the agreement of keeping them quiet,
this was kept as a well-known secret until the year 2001, when, in the television program called “Behind The Music” he counted how offensive the plagiarism of his music was, and also the hatred he had towards the showbiz because, if they want something, they get it at all costs.
So following the song we could say “If there’s something weird, and it don’t look good. Who you gonna call?” Your lawyer. Although, being sincere, I like the ghostbusters plagiarism more than the Huey Lewis and the News original theme.
The famous fire station where the ghostbusters have their office, it was not really one, but 2 different fire stations, the exterior that we see in the film is in New York city, but the interior that we see in the film is find in Los Angeles. This was done because, in the first fire station there was not enough space, besides the exterior of the first fire department was used in other Hollywood films, like in the movie The Mask of 1994.
The production time of this film was very limited, they had to complete it in the summer of 1984, the director of the film, the ghostbuster Ivan Reitman, comments that this made them commit many errors in the film, like visible cables, improvised things and a long etc, but people love the movie and the characters so much that do not care that it was a movie with errors.
The demonic creatures presented in the film (Zuul and Vinz Clortho) were designed based on royal statues of the old Philadelphia church.
The supposed sounding line used by Peter Venkman in Dana’s apartment to capture paranormal things, is actually a “Sniffer” United Technologies / Bacharach 300 Series. It was used to capture gas leaks or low oxygen risk. As it was an artifact little known by the public, it was decided to be used it in the film.
Let’s remember that Gozer is the main villain of this film, but this name has a story behind, since Gozer is a rare case documented in England where, in a house, the name Gozer mysteriously appeared written on all walls.
Initially Gozer was going to be played by Paul Reubens, the popular actor who played thr character named Pee-wee Herman, but the actor rejected the character.
And by the way, at the end Gozer is based on the costumes of the singer David Bowie, in fact in the script they called Gozer David Bowie as a nickname.
The proton pack equipment really weighed and a lot, none of the actors enjoyed the long hours of filming with those heavy things on the back, especially the actor Harold Ramis, who was the most complaining of all.
After actor Harold Ramis death in 2014, fans of the film went to the fire station, placed small altars filled with chocolate bars and Twinkies or submarine buns in reference to his character Egon Spengler.
To make the Marshmallow Man scenes, 3 costumes were created, each worth 20 thousand dollars and all were destroyed to film different shots of this character.
Kymberly Herrin played the character called “dream ghost”, who appears in a small scene, this was the most important role in her short career as an actress.
The majority of the scenes were filmed inside Columbia University in New York, the university agreed as long as no reference was made to the name of the university in the film.
The apartment building where Dana lives really exists and is located in Central Park New York, however a scale model with more floors was used for the movie, so that, in the film, it seems to be higher.
The original script of the ghostbusters would be developed in a futuristic era in 2050, there would be many ghostbusters teams instead of firefighters, all stations in the city would be ghostbusters, however a futuristic movie with such a number of ghostbusters would cost a lot of money to produce. For this reason they hired Harold Ramis, to adapt the idea to the current era and especially reducing the money to produce it.
The actress Sigourney Weaver, who participated in this film as Dana Barrett, comments an anecdote that happened months after the movie premiere, she had an accident in her apartment that caused a fire, the firemen arrived and put out the fire, one of the firemen opened the refrigerator of the actress which had been burned and seeing how it all was, he said “Well, better call the Ghostbusters.”
A scene was planned where Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man would come out of the water right next to The Statue of Liberty, so that the audience could see how huge he was, but the scene was very difficult to make, so the idea was ruled out, however, we saw The Statue of Liberty in the Ghostbusters 2 film of 1989.
In the advertising campaigns carried out for the film, the Ectomobile, the ghostbusters’ car traveled the streets of Manhattan without the ghost’s logo, it had also been thought to paint it black, but, since there would be many scenes in the movie at night, the conclusion was that it would be difficult to see.
Since the producer wanted a family movie, many ideas were discarded, since the film’s story when the ghosts are released would be much darker, even there would be nudity of the actress Sigourney Weaver, but those ideas were eventually discarded.
For this film more grotesque puppets and animatronics would be used, however, this was not carried out and said puppets were recycled a year later for another film called Fright NIght (1985).
The original title that director Ivan Reitman had in mind for this film was “Ghost Smashers”.
The sound designer Richard Beggs was in charge of creating the peculiar sound of the siren that the Ectomobile uses, he use the sound of a leopard, an Ampex AG-440 recorder, mix and edit with other audios to get the sound of the siren of the ghostbusters.
Many Hollywood stars went to The Ghostbusters premiere, including silvestre stallone, who was asked if he believed in ghosts or not, he replied that of course he believes in ghost and energies that come from another world.
The names of the main characters Egon (E) Spengler, Ray Stantz (S) and Peter Venkman (P), contain ESP initials, at the beginning of the film Peter Venkman performs a parody of the experiments called EPS shock therapy, which is commonly related to paranormal activity, Joseph Banks Rhine was the pioneer in Parapsychology.
Before the Ghostbusters team enters to Dana’s destroyed apartment, in the hallway you can see a tricycle, similar to the one Danny was driving in the movie The Shining.
Ron Jeremy made a cameo in this film, years later in 2011 this director made a parody of the ghost-busters but for adults called This Is not Ghostbusters. And well we can not give more details of this, so youtube, nothing inappropriate happened here. 1:08:36
In the scene that shows news in the newspapers of how the ghostbusters are becoming more and more famous, we can find a curious news in the headline of a newspaper “Princess Di Expecting Again” refers to princess Diana who was expecting another baby . No press knew anything about it, but it was officially announced when the film was being filmed that princess Diana was pregnant and in 1984 when the ghostbuster movie was released princess Diana had her second son, Prince Harry.
Fun facts ghostbusters mistakes
When making an aerial shot of Dana building, it is noted that it is a mockup and that even the buildings that are in the background are a painting.
In this film there are very good special effects for the time, they were very good, however you can notice that the worst is the one of the creature Vinz Clortho, the effect of stop motion and cromakey did not turn out well at all.
movie ghostbusters Continuity mistake
Almost half of the film shows the scene of how the ghostbusters are increasingly popular, they appear on television, magazines and newspapers, and in the newspaper is the detail, as it shows the ghostbusters crossing the rays of protons , but the photograph corresponds to the end of the film, apparently the final scene was one of the first that was filmed in this movie.
When Vinz Clortho, the terror dog, ruins Louis’s party, a terrified man uses a chair to hide from the creature, in the continuous shot we can see the same subject behind Vinz Clortho, but now he is holding a chair with armrests, previously it did not has armrests.
In the scene where the ghostbusters are ready to enter the hotel where Dana is, an earthquake occurs, the earth opens and at that moment a patrol falls into the cracks, in the next shot you can watch the tubes that are holding the patrol .
In Dana’s apartment, when she comes shopping and takes out the eggs, a paranormal event happens, which makes the eggs begin to fry instantly, if you pay attention in this scene you will see how the eggs are spilled around the box, An approach is made, but the spilled eggs are now located in a different way.
And by the way, here we can see some marshmallows, with the logo of the marshmallow man that will come alive in this movie.
Near the same scene when Dana opens her refrigerator, she meets the Zuul creature, who opens her mouth, at that point you will notice that the puppet of that creature has a focus in its mouth emitting light.
Script mistake, when Ray Stantz and Egon Spengler save Louis, Ray tells him about the Tunguska explosion of 1909, but this is not true, since the Tunguska explosion happened in 1908, for those who do not know this event, it was a strong explosion in Tunguska supposedly caused by a meteorite or an asteroid, the detonation was similar to a thermonuclear weapon, the energy released was greater than 30 megatons. This is still a mystery, but Tunguska’s success has been used in films like Hellboy, Star Trek, The X-Files and in video games like Call of Duty World at War and Assassin’s Creed.
Near the end of the film, when the ghostbusters destroy the marshmallow man Ray gets up and we can see his clothes slightly covered by Stay-Puft waste, the shot changes to Peter Venkman observing the statue, the shot returns to Ray Stantz again with a Very remarkable change, since now he is inexplicably covered in marshmallow.
At the beginning of the film when the ghost hunters arrive at the library, Peter holds and drops a large blue book to scare Egon, in the next shot the big blue book disappears completely.
When the marshmallow man approaches slowly towards the ghostbusters, an aerial shot is made in which the street is observed and of how there is no person around the marshmallow man, nevertheless the shot changes to floor level and there are hundreds of people running under the feet of the giant marshmallow man, and of course this is because the aerial shot was made on a mockup.
Recycling shots, at the beginning of the film we see the new york park, from which we can see the building where Dana’s apartment is, in the middle of the film, the building is shown from another angle of the park, and almost at the end the film again shows the new york park with the dark energy of gozer above the building, but do you realize that this image and the one at the beginning are the same? If you take a look at the people who enjoy green pasture, you will see that they are the same, it is assumed that they have spent at least 2 months, it is impossible that people have remained in the same position for so long, apparently the scene is recycled , they only added color correction effects in postproduction.
In the scene where the marshmallow man walks through the streets of New York, you will see that he brings a red ribbon, when he sees the ghostbusters and is attacked by them, the red bow disappears completely.
When Dana opens the refrigerator door and finds Zuul, we can see that in the door, there is a bottle with a white lid, when the shot changes to where zuul is and returns to Dana closing the door, the small bottle disappears completely.
We reached the end, I hope this video has been entertaining and you liked to remember the classic ghostbusters, in its time it was a very popular film, but it was even more famous when the animated series came out do you remember it?
On the other hand, what do you think about the new version of the ghostbusters? Personally, I found it very funny, obviously the film is completely devoted to comedy, it takes a bit of the concept of what was originally going to be the classic movie of the ghostbusters, pure comedy, just to have a good time, this new version It did not have great earnings and it won’t be remembered with as much affection as the original, but it is passable.
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