Continuity mistake: When the Ghostbusters with their proton packs walk away from the car and get to the museum the morning after the bathtub incident, the people in front of the museum and on the stairs change at the cut. (00:50:25)
Continuity mistake: While Peter is doing his pantomime with Vigo's painting saying "Walk for me talk for me, yeah!" you can see Dan Aykroyd stiffening on the ladder, acting as if Ray suddenly got possessed/mesmerized by Vigo. In the close-up that follows we see the process happening in a different and more gradual way. (00:51:40)
Continuity mistake: When Peter talks to Dana and shows her the suitcase with her stuff (they sure seem to come and go as it pleases them from her home), Sigourney Weaver is holding the towel in a different way depending on the camera angle. (00:53:40)
Continuity mistake: The position of the socks (or whatever they are) sticking out of the suitcase when Peter presents the suitcase to Dana changes between shots. The one on top stick more in the second shot. (00:54:00)
Continuity mistake: Tully is chasing Janine after she wished him goodnight. When the camera cuts closer to them, the cars parked on the sidewalk change abruptly, and they get back to the same models only at the end of the scene when someone honks a horn at him and the camera switches back to the original angle. (00:55:35)
Continuity mistake: When Louis is saying 'his place at 8' there is a guy in the background on the right hand side on the sidewalk. When it cuts to the long shot and he is almost hit by the taxi, the guy is gone. (00:56:00)
Continuity mistake: When the three guys who aren't Bill Murray and so don't mind wearing overalls and carrying backpacks pull over as Peter fails to hail a cab, the car's license plate says "ECTO 2", but in the rest of the movie the plate is "ECTO 1A" (apparently because the former would have conflicted with the cartoon, where ECTO 2 was the mini-helicopter). (00:57:45)
Continuity mistake: When Venkman is going to the restaurant and calls a cab, the Ecto-Mobile pulls over and the 3 Ghostbusters exit. The 2 women walking down the street pass behind them twice. (00:57:55)
Continuity mistake: In the abandoned railway station scene, when the heads on stakes appear, you can see in the first shot, Winston is wearing his hardhat after that there is a split-second shot and it disappears. In the very next shot it reappears. (00:59:51)
Continuity mistake: When Winston is run over (or 'through') by the ghost train, he holds the stick at different height between shots. (01:01:05)
Continuity mistake: Janosz is kinda bored as he awaits for the word of Vigo, the scourge of Carpathia. In close-up as he hears "I, Vigo..." he grimaces with his hands at chest height and not any wider than the shoulders. Turning to the wide shot, he is listening with his hands raised and the arms spread. (01:12:25)
Continuity mistake: When the ghost is about to kidnap the baby, Oscar stretches out his right arm. A split second later, from a different angle, the arm is resting by his side. (01:15:45)
Continuity mistake: When Dana tries to take Oscar back from the museum on her own, the cloth on top of the pillow where Oscar is resting goes from crumpled to straight. (01:18:20)
Continuity mistake: After Dana rescues the baby in the museum, while she holds him, his head is either turned to the right or to the left, depending on which angle focuses. (01:18:25)
Continuity mistake: When a ghost makes people freak out of the theater, there's a man with a brown scarf who runs towards the camera holding a pop corn bucket. When the angle changes, he's inside the theater, exiting the place again. (01:19:30)
Continuity mistake: When Hardenmeyer is escorted away from the room, the Mayor points his finger at a staffer and tells them to get the Ghostbusters. Another staff member calls his attention, but in that shot we see David Margulies through the window, and he is in a completely different position. (01:22:10)
Continuity mistake: When the Ghostbusters approach the giant uterine slime cocoon to try to breach into the museum, there's a group of firemen to the right. The late arrival to this group brings an axe. Cut to a wide shot and the guy is not carrying the axe anymore. (01:24:05)
Continuity mistake: When Ray calls New York "a burned-out burg", a group of firemen behind the Ghostbusters is starting a fight. Cut to Ray in close-up and the fun background activity is no more. (01:25:50)
Continuity mistake: The Ghostbusters pick up the 'symbol' for their fight by looking at the license plate of their Ecto 1A, which sports in close-up the Statue of Liberty right between the O and the 1. Problem is, in the rest of the movie, and that includes just a few shots before when they were blasting the jelly shell with their protons, Lady Liberty is to the left of the plate, before the E. (01:26:15)
Continuity mistake: When the statue starts to walk it has irons and cables attached to the sole of its sandals. When it's walking downtown the shoe is clean and like new (most likely the first miniature has been replaced by a human in disguise). (01:28:20 - 01:30:15)
Answer: SpikeTV didn't alter the movie except for editing for time and content. The scene you saw was in the original film and the way the river looked was a combination of two things, the camera angle and the poor special effects of the time.
moviemogul