Corrected entry: Carl could have easily broken through the windows and escaped from Sam's ghost without throwing the hook at Sam, which instead causes fallen glass in the window to impale him and kill him.
Corrected entry: The storyline seems to change throughout the movie. First off, the plot was originally that Willy was only supposed to mug Sam and get his wallet, but not actually kill him. Carl confirmed this to Willy at Willy's place. But then later the storyline completely changes that Sam claims he was deliberately murdered for finding out Carl was laundering money at the bank (Ode Mae threw in that last part). Two different motives that conflict one another.
Correction: There's no discrepancy here. Willy was supposed to mug Sam and otherwise leave him unharmed because Carl wanted Sam's password information, but Willy ended up murdering him. Sam was murdered as a result of Carl wanting to launder the money. That may not have been the plan, but it is what ended up happening and Sam's statement that he was murdered over the money is correct.
Corrected entry: When Willie Lopez is mowed down in the street, his body is shown landing on the pavement near the wheels of a vehicle. When the camera comes back to part where Willie's soul leaves the body, his dead body is now on the hood of the vehicle and not in the street.
Correction: It is his ghost that is shown thrown and landing on the pavement. This is obvious when his ghost, the thrown body, gets up and walks to the cars where the accident occured.
Correction: The force of the impact not only killed Willy immediately but was strong enough to throw his spirit out of his body.
Corrected entry: After Sam learned how to move objects, he could've either killed Carl and Willie, or gone to a police station and written down what was happening.
Correction: First: He didn't necessarily want to kill them. He wanted Molly and Oda Mae safe. Second: I highly doubt any police officer is going to go to a judge or superior officer and get a warrant based on saying "A ghost wrote this down." They would be fired or committed.
Corrected entry: When Oda Mae takes four million dollars from the account, she hands him one tiny piece of ID. But the name on her ID wouldn't match the name on the account.
Correction: Yes the name with Max and Sam told her to get one of her fake IDs. So the ID would have the name Rita Miller on it.
Correction: To add, when Carl was on the phone earlier in the movie, the guy he was talking to said to transfer the money from the twelve separate accounts into one account and put it under the name Rita Miller. Sam then had her make a fake ID with the name Rita Miller on it. The same ID she showed to Lyle Ferguson.
Corrected entry: How did Carl and Willy know where Oda Mae lived?
Correction: It doesn't take much to find someone's address. She could have been listed, for all we know. If not, Carl's a sharp guy who works with computers. He could very easily have come up with her address, especially if she didn't do anything to hide it.
Correction: When Molly talks to Carl about seeing her at the bank, she says, "Her name isn't even Oda Mae Brown. It's Rita Miller or something." Carl at that point knew that Oda Mae had taken all of the money so to find her he could have simply looked in a phone book to find her or, since Willy had already been to her business he would already know where she lived.
Corrected entry: When the ghost on the subway gets angry he throws Sam through the train. How does Sam stop so abruptly? It's as if he's hit the outside of a carriage and stopped when he should have just kept going.
Correction: According to the director's commentary, Sam's mind created the 'rules' for the physics of being a ghost, i.e. he had to learn to be able to walk through walls/ doors etc. In Sam's mind he was still bound by the rules of the living world which means he would stop when he hit the end of the carriage.
Corrected entry: When Sam is on the train and sees the other ghost, the 'train ghost' gets up and looks at Sam, then starts yelling at him. How does the train ghost know that Sam is a another ghost? Sam certainly can't tell between ghosts and humans.
Correction: Sam is still learning to deal with being a ghost and has not learned how to tell dead people from live people yet. The other ghost has been one for a long time and can recognize other ghosts. The ghost in the hospital was able to recognize Sam as being a ghost along with the lady in the cemetery. Some things have to be learned just like Sam had to learn how to move objects.
Corrected entry: You are you not allowed to smoke on a NYC subway nor is any advertising for cigarettes permitted. So there would not have been a cigarette vending machine for the train ghost to smash.
Correction: I'm pretty sure that this law was not in effect when the movie was filmed (89 - early 90) and probably not until 1995. I know you could still smoke on airplanes in 1990.
Corrected entry: During the second time Oda May and Sam are talking, Oda May keeps looking right at Sam even though she insists that she can't see where he is.
Correction: Oda May can't see him, true, but she can follow the sound of his voice. She can hear where he is, therefore she turns her head that direction as well.
Corrected entry: When Oda Mae and Sam are meeting Lyle Ferguson, in every shot of Lyle you can see a blonde woman and man in a black suit at the desk behind him. When Oda Mae sits down at that side both people are gone. There wasn't enough time for them both to get up and leave. (01:26:25)
Correction: They are still sitting there - you can't see the woman because she is behind Lyle, but they are still there.
Corrected entry: In the scene where the penny is pushed up the side of the door, the head is facing upwards. In the next shot, the head's position has moved 90 degrees to the right.
Correction: You can see the penny turn gradually as it is pushed up the door.
Corrected entry: After Oda Mae was talking to Molly in her home for the first time, Oda Mae leaves the room annoyed. When she says "Have a nice life, and you, have a nice death", she points to the wrong characters.
Correction: She's pretty annoyed when she leaves. Character mistake while flustered doesn't make a movie mistake.
Corrected entry: The whole time Sam is a ghost, he is trying to touch things but can't supposedly, until the ghost in the subway shows him how. But during that whole time that he couldn't touch things, Sam could still go on the subway, (he would be able to jump through the subway doors, but would not fall through the floor when he landed) sit on couches, (he would sit on the couch, the cushions would move, but I'm sure if he tried to move the couch he wouldn't be able to) go up stairs, etc. It was a major part of the movie that he could not touch things, yet, he was touching things the whole time.
Correction: In the DVD commentary, the director explains about believing that as a ghost you can do something easy that you always did when you were alive such as walk up steps and sit down. Its all explained in the commentary.
Correction: If that's the case then why is it that right after he died he tried to touch his own face but couldn't? He had been touching things his whole life so it should have been second nature.
Corrected entry: When Sam is terrorizing Willy in Oda Mae's bathroom, Sam turns on the sink faucet and the mirror above the sink is clear. In the very next shot, steam has instantly appeared on the mirror for Sam to write "Boo" on.
Correction: It doesn't take long for my water to fog up my bathroom mirror. If the hot water is turned up on your heater tank, it's really no challenge whatsoever to accomplish this in seconds.
Corrected entry: When Sam and Carl are fighting in the end scene and Sam is coming from the closet he punches him, but it's visible that he gets punched with a boxing glove.
Corrected entry: When Sam plans to withdraw the money from Rita Miller's account to foil Carl's plot to launder money, Sam tells Oda Mae he needs her to get some of her fake IDs. The only way he would know that Oda Mae once made fake IDs is if he was with Molly at the police station when Oda Mae's police record was pulled and the officer told Molly that Oda Mae was arrested for making fake IDs. Sam was not with Molly, as he was already dead.
Correction: Exactly. His ghost saw the whole thing.
Since Sam never appeared in this scene, there's no way to confirm if he was there or not. It would have actually helped the scene more if Sam was seen by anyone watching the movie as being there.
Correction: That's the reason Oda can hear Sam.
Corrected entry: When Oda Mae is closing the account and getting out her ID she dumps out the contents of her purse. In the next shot and all of the following shots, the plethora of items on the desk is replaced with a white paper. (01:28:35)
Correction: Before Lyle Ferguson leaves the desk, Oda Mae starts putting things back into her purse. The scene cuts away until Lyle returns, giving Oda Mae plenty of time to put everything back.
Corrected entry: When Patrick Swazye chases his killer, the man is hit by a car and his body is flung under the wheels of another vehicle. Yet, in the close-up, the body is on the hood.
Correction: The force of the impact was strong enough to kill Willy instantly while simultaneously throwing his spirit out of his body and onto the street.
Correction: There are two bodies - the physical and the spiritual.
Corrected entry: When Sam returns to Oda Mae's, a few other ghosts are seen entering. When they enter, it makes the sound effect for a ghost passing through a solid object. However, the door is wide open so they aren't passing through it. (01:18:05)
Correction: Stupidities don't really apply in situations where the character is panicking. Carl is being attacked by a ghost and does whatever pops in his head to try and stop the attack. And him simply breaking the windows and exiting would not have stopped Sam from pursuing him.
Phaneron ★