Phixius

10th Jun 2014

Ghostbusters 2 (1989)

Corrected entry: Two of the Ghostbusters are examining their evidence, and one of them puts a picture of the man in the huge painting into a device similar to a photocopier. Problem is, the picture comes out the other end of the device before it has entirely finished going in.

kh1616

Correction: It's a spectral analyzer. Eagon also turns up the roentgens, a unit of measurement for radiation, which presumably makes the device more sensitive. It analyzed the spectral presence within the photograph and printed out a visual representation of that presence. The printout that discharged from the device has nothing to do with the original image that was actually photographed and fed into it, therefore the spectral analyzer does not need to scan the entire photographed image to create this facsimile of the spirit possessing the photographs. In other words, the machine was able to "see" the ghost and print out a picture of it before the entire photo had been scanned. Not out of the question at all, especially for completely fictional technology.

Phixius

It's a fascinating explanation that proves that you'd be great at writing sci-fi tech for a series or movie (I say it unironically, legit love the write-up), but I don't see any visual or conceptual hint in the movie that supports it? It looks like they feed a picture to a copier and the output comes out before the original picture has gone through the apparatus. Visually the photo rolling in is such a minor detail it's almost unnoticeable.

Sammo

27th Aug 2001

Ghostbusters 2 (1989)

Corrected entry: In the scene where Ray and Egon are in the dark room analyzing the photos they took at the museum, watch as they run the one photo through the "spectral analyzer". As they put the photo into the machine on the left side, the photo goes throught the machine at a very slow pace. You can see the photo as they are talking about what food they should get. The photo is about halfway through the machine on the left, when the entire photo magically appears on the right hand side of the machine and is finished being analyzed. When they pull the completed photo out of the right side of the machine, you can see the original photo still being analyzed on the left side. (00:56:26)

Correction: They're analyzing all the photos. The machine is obviously capable of scanning another photo while analyzing a previously scanned photo.

Phixius

Ray says that he'll run "this wider shot" and Egon specifically tunes the machine for it; it'd make no sense for the machine to print a different picture from the one they are specifically discussing.

Sammo

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