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The Statue of Liberty is the twenty-third chapter on the DVD of Ghostbusters II. In this chapter, the Ghostbusters animate the Statue of Liberty with positively charged mood slime.

Cast[]

Equipment[]

Environmental[]

Locations[]

Plot[]

The Ghostbusters stood on Liberty Island and stared at the Statue of Liberty. Ray and Winston wore Slime Blower packs instead of Proton Packs. Peter mused it kind of makes you wonder. Ray inquired what. Peter clarified it made you wonder if she was naked under that toga. He reminded Ray "she" was French and he knew that.

Inside the Statue, the Ghostbusters completed preparations with assorted equipment. Egon confirmed the speakers were ready then asked Ray if the Slime Blowers were ready. Ray stated internal audio and electric were set. Winston confirmed his Slime Blower was primed and set. Peter leaned towards the slime blower and pretended to speak to the positively charged Psychomagnotheric Slime inside. He asked Winston if their slime was in a good mood. Winston remarked he hoped so because the Statue of Liberty was a lot bigger than a toaster. Egon cued Peter and handed him a microphone. Peter tested the microphone then asked aloud how many people in the audience was a national monument. He "greeted" the Statue of Liberty. He and Egon went up to the crown. Winston quipped, "Let's frost it." Ray reciprocated with, "It's slime time." They tapped blower guns then blasted positively charged Psychomagnotheric Slime all over the statue's interior. Ray remarked it was beautiful while he kept a cigar in his mouth.

Some time later, the Ghostbusters gathered up in the crown. A modified NES Advantage controller was readied. Ray confirmed the pilot controls were ready. Egon checked his wrist watch and noted it was almost midnight. He cued Peter. Peter pretended to be a radio DJ and affirmed they were going to squeeze some "New Year's juice" from New York with a song off of the request line. Jackie Wilson's "(Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher and Higher" was played off a Sony WM-A39 Walkman. All of the Psychomagnotheric Slime reacted and energy surged throughout. The Statue's torch suddenly ignited in an explosive manner, startling the Ghostbusters. The Statue walked off its foundation and into the river to the mainland. Ray was excited to see how people would react to the animated statue and predicted it would really get the city's positive energy flowing. Peter cheered on the Statue to keep kicking and promised they would pop for a weekend in Las Vegas with the Jolly Green Giant if she pulled it off. The same dock supervisor and co-worker that saw the Titanic stared at the approaching Statue and were speechless.

In the Firehouse, Janine zipped Louis up in one of Egon's flightsuits. She found him fantastic in it. Louis declared he was born to wear it. They kissed. The font doors opened and Louis dashed outside the Firehouse in full gear, wearing a Proton Pack. He stopped and remarked the equipment was heavy.

Trivia[]

  • In the Ghostbusters II August 5, 1988 Draft, on page 103 to 104, Vigo draws negative energy from the city then infuses and animates the Statue of Liberty with it. The statue's eyes glow and torch bursts into flame. He occupies the observation deck and the Statue marches through the river. Out of respect to the Statue, it was decided she would be a positive influence in the final draft.
  • In the August 5, 1988 Draft, on page 109, the Ghostbusters plug their Proton Packs into a transformer at the end of the heavy-duty cable which is now patched into the Con Edison power grid. Peter's 'It kind of makes you wonder' line appears.
  • In the September 29, 1988 Draft:
    • On page 101, the Ghostbusters meet with the Mayor at Gracie Mansion. He is in a robe and pajamas. He absolutely rejects their plan.
      • In the movie, the Ghostbusters meet with the Mayor at Gracie Mansion earlier in the movie after the restaurant.
    • On page 102, Peter tells the Mayor to take care of it himself. The Mayor relents. He goes with them to Liberty Island and still can't believe he's letting them use the Statue of Liberty.
      • In the movie, the scene is omitted.
    • On page 103, Ray and Peter hose the interior of the Statue of Liberty.
      • In the movie, Ray and Winston hose the interior.
    • On page 104, "Everything is Beautiful" is played. The torch bursts into flame. Winston admits he never visited the Statue of Liberty.
      • In the movie, Jackie Wilson's "(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher" is played. Winston's admission is omitted.
    • On page 105 at the South St. Seaport, celebrants line up at the riverfront pointing and gawking at the Statue of Liberty. Winston admits he can't swim. Egon states they would survive approximately 15 minutes in that freezing cold water. Ray thinks they should keep to the middle of the channel, they're okay to 59th, and they should take First Avenue to 79th. Peter disagrees and tells him there will be bridge traffic so they should take 72nd straight up to Fifth. Peter brings up he used to drive a cab.
      • In the movie, this is omitted.
  • In the November 27, 1988 draft:
    • On page 115, Egon tells Peter there is 300 tons of iron and steel under the Statue of Liberty's toga.
    • On page 116, Ray hopes they have enough slime.
    • On page 118, the Statue of Liberty's head suddenly lurches forward. Winston admits he never visited the Statue.
      • In the movie, the torch violently coming ablaze signals the Statue was animated. The rest becomes part of a deleted scene.
    • On page 119, at the South St. Seaport, celebrants line up at the riverfront pointing and gawking at the Statue of Liberty. Winston admits he can't swim. Egon states they would survive approximately 15 minutes in that freezing cold water. Ray thinks they should keep to the middle of the channel, they're okay to 59th, and they should take First Avenue to 79th. Peter disagrees and tells him there will be bridge traffic so they should take 72nd straight up to Fifth. Peter brings up he used to drive a cab.
  • In the February 27, 1989 Draft, these scenes take place from page 116 to 123.
  • Liberty Island and the interior of the statue was filmed on a sound stage at Burbank Studios in Los Angeles.[1]
  • Peter alludes to the Statue of Liberty's origins as a gift from the France as a monument to the Americans' independence.
  • Winston alludes to the Animated Toaster from Chapter 13: Mood Slime.
  • The Slime Blowers were 3-4 times as bulky as the Proton Pack props. It took 3-4 people to help get them on Ernie Hudson and Dan Aykroyd. The only practical part was the gun. It was a device with a spinner that sent out slime driven by compressed air. The tanks were empty. In reality, the blowers were attached to external tanks, 4-5 feet in height, that supplied the slime.[2]
  • To steer the Statue of Liberty, the team uses a modified NES Advantage joystick.
  • Jackie Wilson's "(Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher and Higher" is played.
  • A Sony WM-A39 Walkman is used to play Jackie Wilson. This model of Walkman originally released in 1988.
  • The scene of the Statue's torch exploding in a fireball was a rare case of serendipity. On the first take, a piece of the rig, flew up into frame. It was a mistake but Ivan Reitman liked it and he cut it in.[3]
  • The shot of the Statue lifting its right foot is erroneous. In the shot, it is depicted as being flatfooted. In reality, her right foot is raised, depicting her moving forward away from oppression and slavery.
  • The earliest shots done were in a larger-than-life-full-size-replica of the crown constructed on a sound stage at Burbank Studios. If the crown were built to scale, the actors faces would be obscured and there would be little room to move around with the Proton Packs on. The replica was 30% larger than the original and the glass was left out of the windows since they got in Ivan Reitman's way.[4][5][6][7]
  • The crown was placed on a gimbal mechanism in order to simulate movement of the Statue. The gimbal used dated back to the 1940s and broke down during the first day of shooting. A second was brought in from CBS but it too was old. New cylinders were flown in overnight and the gimbal was restored to working order. During shooting, Ivan Reitman had the actors tilt down even further than usual in order to capture real fear on camera. Bill Murray recalled it was "quite a ride - nausea, sea legs, the whole thing."[8][9]
  • Peter mentions Las Vegas and the Jolly Green Giant, the mascot for the Green Giant brands of frozen and canned vegetables.
  • Louis wears one of Egon's flightsuits.
  • The Firehouse interior filmed at Fire Station No. 23 in Los Angeles.
  • The Firehouse exterior filmed at Hook & Ladder 8 in New York City.
  • In the February 11, 2008 draft revision of Ghostbusters: The Video Game, Peter remembers the animated Statue of Liberty when he sees Psychomagnotheric Slime in a pump during the Lost Island Rising level.[10]
  • In Ghostbusters Volume 1 #3:
    • On Page 9, laying flat on a shelf is the Nintendo NES Advantage Controller Egon used to 'control' the animated Statue of Liberty.
  • In Ghostbusters Volume 1 #15:
    • On Page 4, Ron Alexander refers to the Ghostbusters' defacing of national landmarks such as when the Statue of Liberty was animated.
  • In Ghostbusters: Get Real #4:
    • On Page 13, the Nintendo NES Advantage Controller used for the Statue of Liberty appears on the console.
  • In Ghostbusters 101 Issue #3:
    • On Page 24, in the Psychomagnotheric ectoplasm section, the animating bullet point lists statues and toasters - a nod to when a toaster and the Statue of Liberty were animated in Ghostbusters II.
  • In Ghostbusters Annual 2018:
    • On Page 28, Winston alludes to when they animated the Statue of Liberty.
  • In Transformers/Ghostbusters: Ghosts of Cybertron Issue #5:
    • On Page 11, Ray mentions the Statue of Liberty and the team animating it in Ghostbusters II.

Quotes[]

Ray: It's slime time.

See Also[]

References[]

  1. Ivan Reitman (2019). Ghostbusters II- Commentary (2019) (Blu-ray ts. 1:26:50-1:27:01). Sony Home Entertainment. Ivan Reitman says: "This is us building the interior of the Statue of Liberty on a stage for us to do this scene. They wouldn't let us go into the real Liberty and do this."
  2. Eisenberg, Adam (November 1989). Ghostbusters Revisited, Cinefex magazine #40, page 37. Cinefex, USA. Dan Aykroyd says: "The slimeblowers were three times as heavy and four times as bulky as the original packs. I think it took three or four guys to get us into them every time. These slimeblowers are going to every mother's nightmare if they ever go to the toy market, believe me--they were built to spew slime all over the walls. They were fun, though--and a beautiful practical effect. The only thing that worked on ours were the guns. The tanks were empty. The gun was actually a practical device with a spinner in it that sent the slime out, and it was driven by a lot of compressed air. Off camera were the real tanks that fed our lines. These tanks were huge--four or five feet high--and contained slime and air. So every time we blew slime on screen, we actually attached to these huge external tanks."
  3. Wallace, Daniel (2015). Ghostbusters The Ultimate Visual History, p. 173. Insight Editions, San Rafael CA USA, ISBN 9781608875108. Ned Gorman says: "On the first take, a piece of the rig-a circuit, or a ring that was retaining the explosion-flew up into the frame. It was a mistake, but it looked good. We showed it to Ivan and he cut it in."
  4. Eisenberg, Adam (November 1989). Ghostbusters Revisited, Cinefex magazine #40, page 34. Cinefex, USA. Line reads: "The earliest shots completed involved a larger-than-full-scale replica of the crown constructed on stage at the Burbank Studios."
  5. Eisenberg, Adam (November 1989). Ghostbusters Revisited, Cinefex magazine #40, page 34. Cinefex, USA. Bo Welch says: "When you are up inside the real crown in New York, it's shocking how small it is. If we had kept ours to the exact same scale, you would only be able to see a little of the guys' faces and they would not have had enough room to stand up and move around with their backpacks on. So we made ours a good thirty percent larger than the real one so that we could accommodate the four Ghostbusters and see their faces and shoulders through the windows. We also left the glass out of the windows. That was Ivan's choice simply because the glass got in his way."
  6. Eisenberg, Adam (November 1989). Ghostbusters Revisited, Cinefex magazine #40, page 34, 37. Cinefex, USA. Bo Welch says: "We altered the scale, but everything else is extremely accurate--the colors, the finish, the hair and the underside of the structure. The other license we took was with the base of the statue. The stair that goes up to the head is really a double-helix--it goes up and right underneath it is the stair coming down. We just did a single spiral stair. Basically it's the impression that was important. It felt like the Statue of Liberty."
  7. Eisenberg, Adam (November 1989). Ghostbusters Revisited, Cinefex magazine #40, page 37 footnote. Cinefex, USA. Line reads: "A larger-than-full-size replica of the Statue of Liberty crown was constructed for closeups of the actors inside. Mounted on a gimbal mechanism in front of giant photo transparencies, the set piece was able to rock back and forth and from side to side in passable simulation of movement down the street."
  8. Eisenberg, Adam (November 1989). Ghostbusters Revisited, Cinefex magazine #40, page 37. Cinefex, USA. Line reads: "The full-scale crown was built on top of a gimbal so that it could be rocked back and forth to simulate the movement of the statue walking. Unfortunately for production, the gimbal broke down during the first day of shooting on the head set. "In the past," Gaspar explained, "gimbals were used a lot in Hollywood. But there are not many left today, and the ones that still exist are old and have not been well maintained. The first one we used for the statue's head was the Burbank Studios gimbal that was probably built around 1940. It has been sitting on the backlot for years. One of the movements that Ivan wanted was a realy heavy jolt when she looks down at the ground, and the rocking put too much of a load on the old casters. We tried to remedy the problem, but then something started to break in another section of the gimbal and I realized that we needed to get another one. I hated to do that because I knew how much it would cost us, but the old gimbal just was not safe. So we got another one from CBC and remounted the head on that. It too was old and some of the swivel joints had cracks in them, so we had new cylinders flown in overnight and repaired it. From then on, we had no problems--the gimbal was better than it had ever been." Riding inside the crown proved to be a unique experience for the actors."
  9. Eisenberg, Adam (November 1989). Ghostbusters Revisited, Cinefex magazine #40, page 37. Cinefex, USA. Bill Murray says: "Actually, it was a little scary. The rig would do strange things and would pitch and turn in ways that even the effects guys did not expect. At one point, Ivan told them to tilt it down even further than usual because he wanted us to be really surprised. Well, that was real fear you see on the screen. It went down so far we thought it had broken again. It was quite a ride--nausea, sea legs, the whole thing."
  10. Dille, Flint & Platten, John Z. (2009). Ghostbusters: The Video Game (Draft Revision February 11, 2008) (Script p. 210). Peter Venkman says: "You remember when the museum turned into a giant Jell-o mold and the Statue of Liberty went meandering through downtown?"

Gallery[]

Selected Screengrabs[]

Behind the Scenes[]

Storyboards of Final Version[]

Storyboards of Previous Drafts[]

 
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