Corrected entry: At the end when they cross the streams, Stay Puft is looking at them at their level. He was nowhere near that tall.
Character mistake: When Peter frees Dana from the dog, she calls him Ray.
Corrected entry: In the beginning when Ray is approaching the ghost in the library, when he says get her he's making his scared face before the ghost freaks out.
Corrected entry: As Gozer is flipping over the Ghostbusters, we can see some sort of ceiling decoration, but they are on top of a building and even the open portal door shows no roof above them.
Correction: That's actually part of the building spire with clouds above it. Not a ceiling. The clouds are fake of course and not moving so it looks like a ceiling. You can see this spire again when he marshmallow man is fired upon by the ghostbusters and the explosion later.
Corrected entry: The movie takes place in the fall of 1984, but when Dana visits the Ghostbusters for the first time, Janine to kill time is intently reading her copy of People Magazine with Cher on the cover. It's the January 23 issue; it's not an absolute impossibility, but it's obviously a magazine they picked up the day of the shooting (which happened late 1983 to early 1984). (00:21:15)
Correction: I'm sorry, but this is highly far-fetched. No mistake is sight in any way. There is absolutely nothing wrong about someone reading a magazine, new or old.
To add to what the others said, I'll also add that most businesses, doctor's offices, etc. don't usually have new magazines on the magazine rack. They tend to keep old ones around for people to read instead. Weirdly enough, there's actually a reason for it - studies/polls show that places that put out new magazines tend to get most of them stolen. So they purposely just put out whatever old magazines they have lying around. Chances are, that's one of the only magazines they had sitting around the Ghostbusters HQ.
Oh absolutely, as anyone who's been to the doctor's or even the barber shop has experienced (newspapers are usually the daily ones instead, it's cheap and makes sense), but it's not as if there is a waiting room or magazine rack there, and their business freshly opened so it's not a leftover. Again, I personally find the justification of the magazine clashing with the fictional timeline but matching perfectly the one of the shooting less straightforward than the explanation, but of course it's my own view and as I said with full disclosure and honesty in the entry, it's not a complete impossibility. We don't see the whole place so there can be a waiting table somewhere with magazines from 9 months prior that one of the Ghostbusters picked up somewhere and I don't deny it.
So why post it?
This is getting a little redundant but again; simple, it's her desk, there are no other magazines or magazines rack nor a waiting room in a place that just opened for business, and I find more believable by a very good margin that they used whatever magazine they had handy when filming, which happens to be the time when that magazine is from, than thinking that it was a deliberate choice coherent with the fictional world to have her read at her desk a random old thing. I respect the objections I have read so far, but I already weighed them before posting and anyone can make their own judgement on that weighing them differently.
I think you need to look up the word mistake before posting something new. Because it makes completely no sense to post this.
Ah, well, I explained more than abundantly why I thought it relevant to post the objectively verifiable detail with a caveat and I wouldn't randomly do it whenever characters happen to read a magazines in movies - the 'meta' explanation is by far more linear, and I say it as someone who had months-old mags in their backpack when I was a teenager. I respect other people's evaluations and I don't mind if the entry is downvoted based on a disagreement about its relevancy on grounds of not being sufficiently incongruous to be a mistake. I think we can leave it at that and refrain from suggestions on what other people need to do.;).
Sure, I said it all in the entry already. There's no law of nature or man-made that forbids a secretary from bringing at work a 9 months old weekly magazine. I think the real (or less far-fetched, if you will) reason is more than apparent, but do what you want with the information.;).
The fundamental problem is that you yourself said it's not necessarily a mistake... ergo, it's not a mistake. Sure, in a meta context, it probably was just a magazine they picked up before filming... but that doesn't make it a mistake in-movie. There're many reasons why someone might be reading an old magazine, which invalidates the mistake. Case in point, we keep old newspapers and magazines at my house to re-read, because sometimes they have good articles, recipes, etc. It's totally possible and even likely she might be reading an old magazine.
Corrected entry: When Ray and Winston are driving back to the Ghostbusters' office, Winston (who is driving) is wearing coveralls; when they arrive and get out of the car, he is wearing just a shirt and trousers. (01:04:00 - 01:08:20)
Corrected entry: After Dana and Louis break the gargoyles their hair is clean, but when they get to the lower floor their hair has foam in it.
Correction: Very true. It has though been corrected multiple times already, because it's quite easy for them to have got some of the marshmallow muck (or 'foam' as you correctly call it since it's obvious shave foam) on themselves being next to the Ghostbusters who were covered in it. I am not a big fan of "it might have happened offscreen" explanations, but this does seem in line with what is shown.
Corrected entry: When Dana is "strapped" to the chair and pulled into the kitchen, you can clearly see the track in the floor upon which the chair is riding. (00:51:50)
Corrected entry: At the end of the movie when everyone is waving to the Ghostbusters and Ray is backing up the car, on the light bar on Ecto 1, the outer lens is a solid blue light bar. When the car goes to drive away, it's a clear light bar with blue lens covers over each individual rotator.
Correction: The light bars on the front and back of the roof of Ecto-1 are blue but have a solid white colored portion in the center, and nothing about them changes in between shots.
Corrected entry: Why did the Gatekeeper and Keymaster (the dogs) have to possess Dana and Louis? From everything we see, the dog statues are at the top of the building, and the demon dogs break through. Then they go and destroy half the building to find people to possess. They wait a while, Louis gets taken to the Ghostbusters, and Dana stays in her apartment. Then even later they go back to the top of the building, and stand exactly where they were standing after changing from the statues where the lightning changes them back into the demon dogs. What was the point of them leaving, possessing people, then coming back?
Correction: This is a question, not a mistake. Just because the whole scenario seems pointless to you, it doesn't make it a plot hole.
I agree; it's a legitimate question though, so instead of sticking it in the correction section I'd say to move it in the appropriate section.
It actually is addressed in the new movie why it happens, so I thought about adding the reason in, but have held off on it in case I get some of the details or wording wrong.
Corrected entry: When Dana returns from dog form she has no foam in her hair. When she emerges from the building at the bottom with Bill Murray she does.
Correction: She had to walk down the stairs through the entire building with a group of people covered in marshmallow. It wouldn't be hard to get some on her on the way down.
Revealing mistake: In the earthquake scene where the road is cracked, you can see the cloth on the side of one of the cracks flapping in the wind. (01:20:35)
Corrected entry: How could Egon get down to the ground floor so quickly? I mean, a few moments earlier, he poked a guest in the shoulder. And, why would he go back down to the first floor in the first place? They said that nothing happened on any floor except the twelfth.
Correction: Egon probably was able to track Slimer to the ballroom immediately after he slimed Venkman, Egon never says he was on the first floor, he probably knew the layout of the hotel and picked up Slimer's trail heading for the ballroom.
But Egon says, "get down here right away, it just went into a ballroom." That line alone indicates he is already down there.
Egon can still say 'get down here right away" while he himself is still en route to the ballroom.
Somehow I don't believe a man as intelligent as Egon would use an improper term such as "get down here" unless he was already at that location. He more than likely would have said, "get down to" or "get down stairs." Speculation yes, but in terms of his character, I feel this makes sense.
Corrected entry: When Winston says "I wanna make a phone call" to the guard in the jail, the guard closes the door of the cell twice. (01:10:45)
Correction: In fairness, you do hear two noises, the second more subtle. I took it as the door taking an extra pull to properly close. You can argue that in the first shot we don't see the door touching the strike plate or frame, and in the second shot you don't actually see anyone locking it, but I am pretty sure that there are many doors that behave in a similar way in real life.
Corrected entry: When Ray pulls up in the Ectomobile (before it has been painted), Peter is walking over to the car and the camera is following him. In the reflection of the window, a piece of equipment can be seen (possibly a boom mic). (00:20:30)
Continuity mistake: When the Ghostbusters are heading for the building, there's a wide view of New York bathed in a sunset light with a red and blue sky. In further close-up shots, there is a clear sunny light everywhere. (01:15:20)
Suggested correction: Most likely the result of the supernatural clouds forming around the building.
Corrected entry: When Dana comes to the station for the first time, Ray is working on Ecto1 and it's primer gray, no light bars or equipment. In one of the following scenes they are eating dinner and cheering to their first customer. Then the alarm sounds for their first call to the Sedgwick hotel and they get in the Ecto1 that is all tuned up, painted with lights and equipment mounted. The events all appear to happen in the same day. It wouldn't be possible to do all that work to Ecto1 in the perceived span of time. (00:21:50)
Correction: The key word is, "appear." Even if there are just a few days between the events, it makes sense for Ecto-1 to look as it does.
Character mistake: Meeting Dana at the Lincoln Center fountain, Venkman tells her that Gozer was a deity worshipped in 6,000 BC by Hittites, Mesopotamians and Sumerians. There are no historical accounts of those specific populations dating back to that ancient of a date, or writing of any form for that matter. (00:43:40)
Suggested correction: Venkman said Mesopotamians, not Babylonians. The Mesopotamian civilization existed in 6500 BC so his information would be accurate in that aspect.
You are absolutely right, I have misquoted the movie there and I just fixed it thanks to your correction. "Mesopotamians" is just a generic denomination, though, so saying that Gozer would be worshipped by the Hittites in 6000 BC, and then list a generic name for the inhabitants of the area and then the Sumerians (generally accepted as the first organized civilization of the area, still much after the proposed date) doesn't seem to be quite accurate.
A valid point of view from both of you, however, it's established that Dr. Venkman is the least knowledgeable in paranormal history so it's possible he listed the groups out of order. As is rightly pointed out, Mesopotamia was a generic listing, like saying Americans, so maybe if he said Mesopotamians first, then the other groups, the quote would make sense?
I completely agree that he's the least knowledgeable of the bunch by far and it is well-established and reinforced in the same scene since he needs Dana's help to read "Hittites." Read, because he's not quoting from memory; he's reading (presumably something Egon or Ray had to write down for him). As you say, "if" he said Mesopotamians first, maybe it would have made sense (but it's not what he says), and even then, using your example, saying "in 1000 BC, Manitou was worshipped by the Sioux, the Americans and the Apache" just sounds wrong. (I know that by 'Americans' we mean generally the US population and feel free to add 'native' to it, then again Hittites established their civilization when the Sumerians were wiped out already, and that's 4 millennia past the date - it is what happens making a word salad in a small sentence that has to register just superficially for the audience).
Revealing mistake: When the eggs are popping out onto the counter in Dana's apartment, if you look closely you can see the the levers in the egg carton flipping each one out. (00:19:30)
Trivia: When Spengler, Venkman and Stantz are in the basement of the New York Public Library, the bookcase falls over, prompting Venkman to ask Stantz if this has ever happened before. The whole exchange, including the bookcase falling over, was not scripted. It is thought that the bookcase fell because some crewmen accidentally bumped into it, and Bill Murray ad-libbed his lines. Producer/director Ivan Reitman decided to leave it in the movie because it added to the supernatural qualities of the film.
Suggested correction: Very funny, but also wrong. Completely unlikely when you watch the scene (there is no way that shelf could be knocked down 'by accident' and there are perfect cuts throughout the sequence). In fact the scene appears in the early script. The most improvisation you can find related to it is the scene with Bill Murray 'collecting the sample (the director in the DVD commentary remarks needing just one take) ', which was made up the day of the shoot to be a set-up for the bookcase moment and the rest.
Correction: He was climbing the building.
Phaneron ★