RichardLess wrote: ↑July 30th, 2020, 2:54 pm Can you read off those notes you made after seeing GB2 in theatres? I’d be interested in seeing them. How old were you in 1989? Old enough to remember if Slimer came out of the Statue of Liberty(which I’m fairly certain is a myth. But I still hold out hope someone 100% remembers seeing that)
I thought I had them scanned already, but if so they're not in that album.
I was 19 and in college when GBII came out.
I've been asked before about the notes, so I know I checked. There's no notation about Slimer coming out of the Statue of Liberty at the end credits, and I personally have zero memory of seeing it. I saw the film twice on opening day and came home to a copy of the script in my mailbox from the guy who adapted the movie for the NOW Comics version. So I immediately read the script with a fresh double-dose of having seen the movie.
I have always believed that the large number of folks claiming to have seen this Slimer scene in theatres must be similar to the 'Biggs chat' scene from Star Wars, which many people swore was in the version they'd seen, but was most likely a conflation of viewing the film and reading the photo storybook and novelization.
There ARE stage directions in the November 88 and February 89 script drafts for GB2 about Slimer flying out of the Statue's observation windows. But what everyone seems to ignore when using this as 'proof' is that the shot of Slimer was intended to be from the other characters' POV from the ceremony on the base, AFTER their deleted dialogue about their various ancestry.
https://www.theraffon.net/~spookcentral/gb2_script.htm The Nov 88 script includes an extra gag of Stantz realizing they put Libby's torch in the wrong hand, with Venkman telling him "Shhh. Nobody'll notice." This was omitted prior to the Feb 89 script revisions, but was a detail that did survive into the end of the B.B. Hiller junior novelization.
https://www.theraffon.net/~spookcentral/gb2_book.htm Since no one seems to be insisting that the dialogue scene was in this 'other' cut of the movie, just the Slimer shot, I suspect its popularity is possibly due to the familiar visual of him flying towards the camera at the end of the first film getting blurred with the second film.
Funnily enough, I've always believed that the home video release of GB2 *was* slightly different than the movie I saw on opening day, both in the sequencing of the various montage scenes and also the more audible volume level of Venkman quietly talking to his guests on World of the Psychic in the moments before the lights come up. Yet I don't recall this Slimer shot at all.
My opening-day notes did include a personal disappointment that the film was not dedicated to Gilda Radner. She had just passed away approx. three weeks before the movie came out.
I just expected that back then due to her SNL connection to Murray and Aykroyd, especially after Steve Martin's wonderful tribute to her on the SNL episode that aired the night she passed away. I was unaware at the time but she'd also worked with Ramis (and Reitman) in the pre-SNL National Lampoon show, something discussed on the 1999 Ghostbusters DVD commentary track.
https://www.theraffon.net/~spookcentral ... omment.htm [I think they mean the National Lampoon Radio Hour show, not to be confused with the stage show National Lampoon: Lemmings, though there is a certain amount of cross-pollination between the two.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Natio ... Radio_Hour ]
I found out in recent years, though, that at various times she'd actually dated Aykroyd, Murray, and Ramis... and before dating Bill, even dated his older brother Brian Doyle-Murray.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilda_Radner (Scroll down to Personal Life)
So now the lack of a dedication mystifies me even more.
Alex