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Egon somehow avoids Ghost Traps

Posted: January 16th, 2022, 10:20 pm
by dantonvfx
Hey guys,

I was rewatching the movie again Yesterday, and something came to my head at the final scene.

With all the traps on the field, that captures Gozer, and all the Spirits from the Psicomagnetic Vortex (km away)... how did Egon avoided to be trapped?

He was actually on the edge of the field where the traps where... I know they just trap the above... but it seeme dlike they were trapping everything like if it was a super trap.

Has anyone else noticed this?

Re: Egon somehow avoids Ghost Traps

Posted: January 16th, 2022, 10:50 pm
by mrmichaelt
It looked like only anything above the Traps from standing right over one to floating above x feet in the sky got pulled in.

When Egon manifests to help Phoebe, you see that they then step slowly towards the other Ghostbusters. I think it was meant to be just away from the edge of the field array. That was enough for Egon not to get pulled in. You'd hope in death, Egon would still remember how far he needs to be away from his own trap to not be captured, too.

Re: Egon somehow avoids Ghost Traps

Posted: January 17th, 2022, 4:31 am
by Kingpin
Something I think we often forget is that when we think of ghostbusting, it's probably more influenced by our experiences of the cartoons than the films because of how much The Real Ghostbusters and Extreme Ghostbusters expanded on the lore.

The cartoons, especially the first one suggested the Trap had a wide area of impact, where on a few occasions we saw Slimer at risk of being sucked in... Whilst in comparison the films have a very concentrated area of impact.

As others have said, Egon's ghost was safe because he wasn't stood directly over any of the active Traps.

Re: Egon somehow avoids Ghost Traps

Posted: January 17th, 2022, 11:54 am
by dantonvfx
That is what I thought to, about Egon being out of the area of suction, but then there are a few shots where we see Ghosts getting suctioned to the trap area from KM away.

Here is a shot that shows clearly the "Trap Area". In this one you cna see how the surounding spirits are getting sucked intot he center of the vortex already when they are pretty far form the Trap area

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Here we can see how Out of the Farm Area Spirits get sucked from "we don;t know where" but sume its the Town:

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If the trap field has the power to "suction" all the Ghosts on the area (even out of the trap radius), and even further away.... I go back to the starting point. How Egon survived it? He was barely 1 meter away from the traps.

Here you can see how the trap Field starts right after around 2 meters form the Main entrance

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And here you can see how the OG are literally on the edge of the trap field

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Re: Egon somehow avoids Ghost Traps

Posted: January 17th, 2022, 9:23 pm
by Styrofoam_Guy
Yeah i thought the same thing the first time I saw it in the theater.

Rewatching it again recently there is the scene you show where it looks like everything in the area gets sucked in (except Egon).

Re: Egon somehow avoids Ghost Traps

Posted: January 17th, 2022, 9:26 pm
by groschopf
If there's one ghost that would know how to avoid getting sucked into a trap, it would be the one that built the ghost traps.

Re: Egon somehow avoids Ghost Traps

Posted: January 19th, 2022, 4:10 am
by UEF
Maybe it doesn't suck in 'nice ghosts'. Not sure if there are any other than Egon that exist. :lol:

Re: Egon somehow avoids Ghost Traps

Posted: January 19th, 2022, 7:04 am
by RichardLess
Cue mrmichaelt explaining how this could work in 5….4…3…2….1

Re: Egon somehow avoids Ghost Traps

Posted: January 19th, 2022, 10:25 am
by joezlo
1 - Spengler ain't getting sucked into his own inventions

2 - Gozer probably pulled everything that worshiped him down to prevent being trapped, but failed.

3 - Or all of Gozer's minions were trying to pull him out and just got sucked in too. Following the leader!

Re: Egon somehow avoids Ghost Traps

Posted: January 19th, 2022, 11:37 am
by gerv
Anything that came out with gozer is getting sucked back in with gozer. Presumably they're linked.

Re: Egon somehow avoids Ghost Traps

Posted: January 19th, 2022, 4:27 pm
by mrmichaelt
RichardLess wrote: January 19th, 2022, 7:04 am Cue mrmichaelt explaining how this could work in 5….4…3…2….1
I said what I wanted to say and Kingpin and gerv also nailed it.

Re: Egon somehow avoids Ghost Traps

Posted: January 19th, 2022, 4:30 pm
by RichardLess
mrmichaelt wrote: January 19th, 2022, 4:27 pm
RichardLess wrote: January 19th, 2022, 7:04 am Cue mrmichaelt explaining how this could work in 5….4…3…2….1
I said what I wanted to say and Kingpin and gerv also nailed it.
Somehow I missed your comment the first time I looked at this thread. So I didn’t see your explanation

Re: Egon somehow avoids Ghost Traps

Posted: January 29th, 2022, 3:36 am
by Abouttosay8oclock
I thought of this too…but just chalked it up to movie stuff/artistic license.

Re: Egon somehow avoids Ghost Traps

Posted: January 30th, 2022, 5:05 pm
by StarSpengledBanner82
When they explain how to use the packs and traps in the ballroom Ray says he needs two "confinement streams" to hold Slimer and lower him into the trap. The funny this is of course when he tells them not to look at the trap and Egon does. Which leads me to believe that traps must not have too much of an effect on Egon since there was no WAY he could have avoided looking at the enormous one on his farm. LOL! Although how can we really know exactly how much is accurate about the equipment because they were still learning on the fly when they first started using it and maybe Ray was totally wrong about looking at the trap altogether?

Re: Egon somehow avoids Ghost Traps

Posted: January 31st, 2022, 1:14 pm
by dantonvfx
StarSpengledBanner82 wrote: January 30th, 2022, 5:05 pm When they explain how to use the packs and traps in the ballroom Ray says he needs two "confinement streams" to hold Slimer and lower him into the trap. The funny this is of course when he tells them not to look at the trap and Egon does. Which leads me to believe that traps must not have too much of an effect on Egon since there was no WAY he could have avoided looking at the enormous one on his farm. LOL! Although how can we really know exactly how much is accurate about the equipment because they were still learning on the fly when they first started using it and maybe Ray was totally wrong about looking at the trap altogether?

I don't think they really needed two confinement streams. Slimer was stunted already and varley moving, wide open. They could probably do it with just the trap, or maybe with one stream.

Think this is the first "Bust" so they are doing thigns rigth to get it done, since one guy uses the trap, the other 2 can use the streams to hold it just in case it fights back. there is no point to be in the first Bust and say: "You know what, I can run the trap and the stream by myself, go out to take some drinks you two". Its the first time they catch a ghost, they have to do it with extra care because never know what could go wrong.

Later on we have seen catching Ghosts with just 1 stream, like the Scolleri brothers 91 stream each) or muncher. Of course, 2 streams hold better than 1 or none, but I don't think they need 2 by rules.

Re: Egon somehow avoids Ghost Traps

Posted: January 31st, 2022, 3:17 pm
by Dr.D
Just wanna throw something else onto this fire...in the IDW series Year One, Egon explains that the real reason the ECU exploded was because the spectral energy was being drawn to Gozer like iron to a magnet. Maybe there was an energy connection between Gozer and the cloud, meaning that as Gozer itself was drawn in it also pulled in every ghost that shared that connection.

Re: Egon somehow avoids Ghost Traps

Posted: February 1st, 2022, 1:44 pm
by tylergfoster
I had the same question the last time I watched it. People can come up with explanations, but I think it's just either a hand-wave or an oversight.

If you wanted to pick at it more, it raises the whole complicated question of whether or not any kind of ethics should govern the Ghostbusters in terms of which ghosts they bust and which ones they don't. Not that it needs to be very deep, like an actual discussion of ghost ethics, but it would be interesting for a future movie to go into the idea of benign or even helpful ghosts that they don't trap.

Re: Egon somehow avoids Ghost Traps

Posted: February 3rd, 2022, 8:37 am
by troberts289
My buddy posed this same question to me when the movie came out; it took me a few months to come up with the right comeback, but yesterday I finally put him in his place...

I submit: Egon was adapting the same supernatural techniques he observed Vigo the Carpathian use; With positive rather than negative energy. that's why he did nothing at all before his family showed up, and why he couldn't physically manifest himself until the other three Ghostbusters showed up.

... And the type of entity Vigo transformed himself into is dispersible, and not venerable to traps, as evidenced by the fact that the guys didn't even bother to bring any in the finally of the second movie.

Mic drop.

Now all I need is for Jason Reitman to confirm this on twitter, #HeyJason.

Re: Egon somehow avoids Ghost Traps

Posted: February 16th, 2022, 1:49 am
by VenomSymbiote
I like that it being Ghostbusters and pseudo-science that you can really think up any number of things and it'd be plausible. It was Egon and he made the traps and set up the field so I'm pretty sure he knew exactly where to stand to be safe. Also the idea that everything that got pulled into the traps did so simply because it was tied to Gozer. Egon moving off the field of traps was him avoiding being caught.

Re: Egon somehow avoids Ghost Traps

Posted: April 1st, 2022, 3:34 pm
by GBfan77
If I were to make a guess, either his Ghost was protected somehow behind the proton streams or the traps were tuned to a specific spiritual energy.

Re: Egon somehow avoids Ghost Traps

Posted: April 2nd, 2022, 9:06 pm
by eviled5150
perhaps the ghost being trapped from km away are under the control of Gozer so they are automatically sucked in from wherever when Gozer is trapped?

Re: Egon somehow avoids Ghost Traps

Posted: April 20th, 2022, 6:12 pm
by dantonvfx
eviled5150 wrote:perhaps the ghost being trapped from km away are under the control of Gozer so they are automatically sucked in from wherever when Gozer is trapped?
That's the best Bet, but I just don't like it. Just because they are under Gozers controll doesn't mean they have to be sucked form KM to the traps. They can be linked and this theory would have sense if they were "reverting and closing" the portal from where they came from, something like what happened on TRG "Doomsday". I buy that. But the Traps are just Traps, they are not connected to Gozer and they don't have any power to suck from KM aways. They just suck whatever is in range, and in this case is Gozer and the Ghsot storm. By that Rule, On the OG GB, since they "Destroyed" Gozer, or they sent him back to his dimension, all the ghosts that were released should be also destroyed or back to their dimension. And we know they are still around.

Its like if you tell me, because Gozer is linked to these ghsots, if you Hit Gozer and he/she is in pain, all the other ghosts are in pain. I could understand that from The Terro Dogs, because they are keeping Gozer together, they are truly link. Or better yet, if you hit one of the Ghosts it affects gozer. It just lazy explanation.

Re: Egon somehow avoids Ghost Traps

Posted: April 27th, 2022, 10:40 am
by Alphagaia
Eh, the franchise started with four(!) Ghostbusters somehow surviving an huge ass explosion without any injury.

I can handwave Egon evading the traps. He should know where to stand and what is needed to pull something in.