Ghostbusters/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions

**** "The more humaniod ones appear to actually BE the human that they once were." They may ''appear'' to be, sure. There is no evidence (and certainly not in the films) that they actually ''are''. The films are very much rooted in the modern parapsychological view of spectral activity, which very much refuses to view ghosts as souls. In such views they're more like residue left by living beings than the actual beings themselves.

**** There is one episode that may cover this, Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Ghost. They get called to bust a ghost by a ghost who doesn't realize they died. Comments are made this isn't the first time, and the ghost moves on after their business is finished. I believe the same thing happened in Citizen Ghost when they found the sled.

** A quote from Egon's notes in the video game ([[PlayStation 2]] version, which has Egon's spirit guide commentary as one of its admittedly few selling points): "Her name was Eleanor Twitty. With all the havoc manifestations cause, it's easy to forget that a lot of them originally came from the psychic imprints of human beings. I don't believe that there's much of anything left of a 'soul' or whatever at this point, but it's still an unnerving concept to ponder if you let your rational guard down." Admittedly, Egon's a rationalist who likely doesn't believe in souls at all; Ray would probably have a different take on ghosts and whether they used to be people, or they're just based on people.

** The only ghosts that are even based on once-living people in the films are the Scolari brothers, and it's more probable that, given the properties of the pink slime in the courtroom scene, they were a psychic manifestation tied to the judge that sentenced them rather than the brothers' actual souls. Everything else is usually just some kind of violent, inhuman spirit. That ghost from the library is obviously a shape-shifter, so its librarian form could have very well been a mimic of a living person that it just saw the week before.

*** Most of what the Ghostbusters do is deal with ''unpleasant'' ghosts. If kindly old Aunt Agnes likes to manifest and chat from time to time, there's no real reason to call someone and pay them exorbitant amounts of money to get rid of her.

**** Yeah, you'll notice that we never see them bust Fiorella [[La Guardia]]. All he did was show up and have a long chat with the current mayor. He wasn't into wreaking havoc, and as a result we never hear of him being contested.

* Why don't the Ghostbusters put more research into a permanent way to get rid of ghosts? The Containment Unit has been proven to be a massive liability as every single ghost to get near the firehouse outside a trap tries to take a swipe at it. Seeing as they have demons, evil gods, and who knows how many plain vanilla ghosts just itching to cause Armageddon and able to wait thousands of years for it, you'd think they'd be spend at least a few weekends in trying to find a way to force them into a less fragile plane of existence than ours.

** Quite simple really, by the time the containment unit is forced to explode or open by outside forces the ghost free warranties they've given out have expired. Also it would probably cost a lot more to find a way to shove ghosts into another dimension or otherwise permanently remove them than it would be to simply capture them again(for a fee of course). If the good people of New York were willing to fund that endeavor I'm sure the Ghostbusters would turn a good portion of their research to it. The Ghostbusters are a company like an insurance company, not a charity.

** Alternatively, the "Return of the Ghostbusters" fan film gives the explanation that Ray theorized that the eyes were literally the "window to the soul" and that a person looking into the trap while it's closing will cause the trap to pull that person's soul into it.

** It's really really bright and could hurt your eyes.

* Why do the ghosts run from the particle beams? Even Gozer avoids them as powerful as it is. Did they know that it could catch them before the ghostbusters did? Just doesn't make sense to me as to why they would run and try to avoid the beams when nothing else has been able to touch them up to this point. Or maybe the Busters are just really, really bad shots after all. The only ghost we see that really doesn't result in massive damage(When beams are involved) in it's capture is Vigo, but they don't really capture him in a trap or anything.

** Why do people duck or run when someone fires a gun at them? Preservation instinct. Presumably, the ghosts ''do'' sense that the beams are in some way harmful or debilitating to them. Regarding the 'Busters being bad shots, to be fair whenever you see them firing the particle beams they're clearly struggling with them; they're obviously not easy to direct or controi.

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[[Category:Ghostbusters]]