All Images Redone From Ghostbusters 1 & 2 Blu-rays

Overall, I think the two Blu-ray discs released in 2014 for both films are the best available copies of the films. When I need to pull new images, I tend to go with my Blu-ray rips over my DVD rips, so it seemed fitting that I replace all of Spook Central's old movie frame grabs with new ones from the Blu-rays So, here's the quick laundry list of pages that have new movie images on them, all in the original 1920x800 high-resolution/definition quality. The music video frames are, of course, not high res/def, since they're standard def on the Blu-rays. But they are larger and infinitely better than what I used to have. The quality of details is amazing! With the Props pages, if you click on the header image you'll get the full image. The Deleted Scenes pages also include a few re-done book-scanned images in high-resolution.

• Filming Locations pages
• Props pages
• GB1 Deleted Scenes pages (some on main page, Nobel Prize, Fort Detmerring ghost)
• GB2 Deleted Scenes pages (some on main page, many on other pages)
• GB Music Video
• On Our Own Music Video

For the most part, the 2014 Blu-rays are significantly better for both movies. Some frames are a tad darker, but not usually by very much. As mentioned in my review from last year, all pink slime effects shots in Ghostbusters II are significantly darker, but I still felt that they were acceptable. I only encountered three images where the new Blu-rays were too dark to replace them, so I had to keep the old images.

1. GB1: Ecto-1 aside FDR drive before Ray & Winston talk (two frames used from this one shot).
2. GB2: My Slime Blower header, which is a crop of Winston and Peter firing on the Vigo painting after Ray gets possessed.

I did notice a few interesting things, so I made a few quick comparison images to illustrate what I found. Old images are on top/right (sourced from the 1999 DVDs) and the new images are on the bottom/left (sourced from the 20104 Blu-rays). The Dream Ghost shot (originally Fort Detmerring ghost) went from a brown room to a green room, and is a tad darker. I kinda like the brown room better.


The Statue of Liberty overhead shot went from blue to green. I never noticed the blueness before, and looking at both images, green seems like the way to go since that's her natural hue (she was originally a copper brown back in 1886), but I think the ground should still be blue and not green. This *IS* a night shot, after all.


When the Ecto-1A turned off East 14th Street enroute to the museum, it passes by a "Burger House" restaurant. You wouldn't know that on the DVD because the sign was blown-out white. I never realized that there was anything wrong with the DVD shot until I saw the same frame on the Blu-ray!


The biggest fault with the Ghostbusters 1999 DVD is that the picture is a tad dingy looking. That's never been more apparent than in this frame from the opening shot.


Here's a frame from Ghostbusters where the Blu-ray looks more natural and shows more detail.


For the most part, both Blu-rays show more picture on all sides of the frame. However, a bunch of shots in Ghostbusters have some minor cropping on the left side, while showing a tiny bit more on the right. This shot from the first montage is interesting because there's a pretty big chunk cut off on the left; the whole back of the taxi. It reminds me of the terror dog running across the street shot, which is also missing a big chunk of the left-side frame.


These next two comparisons are side-by-side comparisons using actual-size Blu-ray images, though heavily cropped to fit the page. With these comparisons, you really get to see how the Blu-ray presents details that weren't there on the DVD.

In this frame from the Ghostbusters II street digging scene, you could not tell, at all, that the sign in the background read "Hebrew National". That's a kosher hot dog company, for those who don't know.


As many times as I've seen these movies, when I do projects like this, I tend to see things I never saw before. Because of the higher resolution of the Blu-ray, I noticed matte lines around the left-most skyline buildings on the Central Park shot from Ghostbusters (the shot at 16:45 that precedes Dana's first appearance in the film). I never even knew that there were matte lines there because they couldn't be seen before.


Finally, let me point out some of the items Video Explosion was selling when the guys left wearing the Santa hats. On the left side, under the "Children's $3.99 Videos" sign, are a bunch of public domain videotapes. I can't identify all of them, but I do see Casper, Superman, Popeye, and Shirley Temple - all of the usual Public Domain suspects

On the right side, we see a whole bunch of video games. There's a Nintendo Entertainment System Action Set, a NES Advantage joystick controller (now you know where Ray got the one he used to pilot Lady Liberty), and the NES games: Super Mario Bros. 2, Karate Kid, Legend of Zelda, and Excitebike - plus a few more I could not identify.


[UPDATE - 9/27/2015]
Another one of the NES video games has been identified. "Bc" writes in to say that the game above Excitebike is Donkey Kong Classics, a compilation of Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Junior. Here's the box art courtesy of GameFaqs:


[UPDATE - 7/19/2016]
Two more NES video games has been positively identified. Kevin Striker writes in to say that the games to the left of Donkey Kong Classics are Xevious and Adventure Island. Here's the box art courtesy of GameFaqs:


He believes that The Adventures of Bayou Billy is next to Super Mario Bros. 2, but I was not able to satisfactorily confirm it with box art at GameFaqs. That would be the last one to ID (assuming the purple box to the right of that is some sort of game storage tray).