Discuss all things Ghostbusters here, unless they would be better suited in one of the few forums below.
#4974351
You know what I would love a book on? It would be very hard, but I'd love to know how exactly the proton packs and traps were designed. It would be almost impossible to get into the details after all these years. We all know that originally they were backpacks, visors and double wrist wands/pins which extruded from the lower arm, between clenched fingers of the fist.

Wrist wands/pegs

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These wrist wands looked suspiciously like the old long Beckman multimeter lead probe wire test pins which were included with that old voltmeter. This is reinforced by the fact that the Beckman was actually prominently visible in a GB1 scene (Chinese food scene).

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Ghost Trap

Or how the red light on the trap looks identical to the layout of the Motorola MT-500 battery charger (not the rapid charger), the same radio Venkman used when confronted with Slimer for the first time. Light on the corner in both.

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Yellow Hose

Or how the yellow leg hose on the Ghostbusters suits looks identical to the yellow hose on the Bacharach Sniffer 300 that was in the movie (Peter in Dana's appartment scene).

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Cyclotron

We saw that RT-395/APN-102 radar image recently unearthed which looks almost identical to the cyclotron in the proton pack down to the location of the exit port in relation to the "bumper".

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Probably at a previous stage (Aykroyd's original) it included 3 hoses between the cyclotron and the thrower and a swivel between their belts and the thrower (then still a pistol) , similar to the way the M56 Smartgun in Aliens was attached to a body harness mount 3 years later. I wonder if Cameron saw these concepts?

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Final Neutrona Wand

I know Stephen Dane had a large part to play, maybe even designed the final version.

I know he designed the functionality of the thrower, with the bar graph initially going downwards to indicate increasing power aligned to the circular decals next to it, with the power dial markings 1, 2, 3 he drew on top of the dial indicating the selected power.


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The final screen used version reversed this direction and has the bargraph going upwards indicating increasing power.

Also interesting how Dane originally had the ACTIVATE sign by the firing button, but then decided that the toggle switch on the left should activate the cylotron and swapped the signs around (arrows in his sketch).

The final version also included an additional empty circle at the bottom for when the pack was switched on without the cyclotron being switched on yet (ACTIVATE not flipped). This last circle was not in Stephen Dane's original concept which only included 4 circles.

So the final is:

Bargraph at Empty Circle: everything switched on apart from Activate, cyclotron not switched on (not Activated).
Activate: activates the cyclotron (like on the Hasbro and Matty wands), the graph moves up to Quarter Circle: Quarter Stream, ready to fire.

Then 1, 2, 3 on the aluminum dial sets the power higher to either 1, 2, or 3

1: Half Circle: Half Stream
2: Three Quarter Circle: Three Quarter Stream
3: Full Circle: Full Stream


S.D.'s initial downward direction for the bargraph power level may have been because the original design of the proton beams was to show the beam shooting into the gun as opposed to out.

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Also interesting how the barrel pop mechanism was apparently an afterthought (green lever not in Stephen Dane's design). I always wondered at the weird location of that green lever, just sticking out. They apparently crammed it in a place your thumb could reach after they designed the wand itself.

I'd love to know how all this:

https://www.theghostbustersreferencelib ... nspiration

fits together
Nighty80, oidoglr, GBKid1984 and 1 others liked this

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