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Release Date: June 29, 1999 MSRP: $29.99 Video: 16:9 Widescreen (2.35:1 aspect ratio) Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1 Languages: English Subtitles: English Closed-Captioned: Yes Discs: 1 Sides: 1 Layers: 2 DVD-Rom Content: Yes Regional Coding: 1 Video Format: NTSC Total File Size: 7.31 Gigabytes Package Type: Keep Case CTHV Catalog Number: 04139 |
This ground-breaking DVD release features the most extensive and sophisticated interactive options ever offered on DVD releases from Columbia/Tristar Home Video as of June 29, 1999 (it's original release date). This DVD represents a benchmark in added-value options offered to consumers.
"Live" Feature-Length Video Commentary
Harold Ramis (writer & actor), Ivan Reitman (director) and Joe Medjuck (producer) were filmed in silhouette, watching the entire film, and commenting on it. The viewer can choose to watch the commentary with their silhouettes pointing and gesturing as they watch the film or listen to their commentary as an extra audio track while watching the movie normally. VIDEO COMMENTARY ONLY WORKS IN 4:3 LETTERBOX MODE, SO MOST PEOPLE WON'T BE ABLE TO VIEW IT - OR WANT TO.
Feature-Length Production Notes
Columbia/Tristar Home Video has taken the text of the book "Making Ghostbusters" by Don Shay and put it into a subtitle stream, so that the viewer may choose to watch the film with antidotes, trivia and bits of interviews that pertain to particular points in the film.
Featurettes:
- 1984 "The Making Of Ghostbusters" featurette -- Vintage interviews with the cast and crew.
- 1999 "Star" featurette -- New interviews with Harold Ramis, Ivan Reitman and Dan Aykroyd talking about the origins of Ghostbusters, how it changed their lives and careers, and how their kids like it.
- 1999 "Meet the Special Effects Team" featurette -- New interviews with more than a dozen of the original visual effects team. Includes original production photos and conceptual art.
Storyboard to Film Comparison
Watch a split-screen side-by-side comparison of three scenes in the film next to their animated original storyboards.
Before and After Special Effects
With the Multiple Angles feature of DVD, the viewer can toggle back and forth between the rough cut and the final cut of the film to see three scenes before and after the final visual effects were added.
Still Photo Galleries:
There are a total of 879 still images on the DVD. It should be noted that the 2005 DVD release contains three extra Terror Dog photos, but one less logo drawing. These three extra Terror Dog photos have been included in this collection for the sake of completeness, which brings the total number of images up to 879 (otherwise it would have been 876). It needs to be mentioned that these may not be complete storyboards. For example, the book Making Ghostbusters has some panels from the "Cheeky Ghost" scene that are missing on the DVD. It also needs to be mentioned that in the Drawings - Early NYC Concepts section, all but the very last image (Stay Puft and the city) are actually from The Real Ghostbusters animated series, and not the movie. Sony messed up. Below is the full list of still images, all in the order as originally presented on the DVD. I have used common fan names for the gallery names, with the actual DVD names in parenthesis afterwards (where different). All of the still images are available for viewing here on Spook Central. You can either view the still images in the galleries linked below, where you'll find thumbnails linked to web-friendly 720x540 images (all padding/frames have been cropped out); or you can view the original 720x480 images straight off of the DVD, which I am providing in this 145 Mb zip file.
- Production Photos (288 images total)
- Ghoulish Librarian (Library Ghost) (24 images)
- Lovely Floating Ghost (Dream Ghost) (18 images)
- Production Team (4 images)
- Slimer (59 images)
- Spook Central (43 images)
- Stay Puft Man (65 images)
- Terror Dogs (72 images)
- Conceptual Drawings (230 images total)
- Colorful Early NYC Concepts (11 images)
- Colorful Ecto-Mobile Interior (3 images)
- Early Stay Puft Man Concepts (3 images)
- Light Stream Chalk Drawings (Proton Streams) (19 images)
- Pencil and Chalk Creature Concepts (158 images)
- Pencil Librarian Ghoul Concepts (Library Ghost) (5 images)
- Pencil Terror Dog Concepts (4 images)
- SFX Conceptual Paintings (10 images)
- Early Logo Concepts (17 images)
- Storyboards (361 images total)
- Bums In Park (6 images)
- Dogs Drag Dana (25 images)
- Slimer Pigs Out (6 images)
- Haunted Stacks (14 images)
- Boys In Library (25 images)
- Louis Meets Dog (26 images)
- Mink Coat (14 images)
- Louis Meets Muggers (21 images)
- Proton Charging (24 images)
- Atop Spook Central (87 images)
- Cheeky Ghost (13 images)
- Slimer (100 images)
Deleted Scenes:
- Stake -- Dean Yeager and the Ghostbusters have a longer talk.
- Dana -- Peter talks to Dana in her apartment.
- Honeymooners -- The Honeymooners in the Sedgewick Hotel.
- Winston -- Janine fields some phone calls while Winston fills out a job application.
- Bums -- Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd as two street bums strolling through Central Park as Louis runs past them.
- Busy -- Peter and Ray converse with the Mayor on the City Hall Loading Dock while Janine gives Egon her lucky coin.
- Promotion -- Outside the Shandor Building, Winston shares his doubts about facing Gozer.
- E.P.A. -- Walter Peck speaks to a cop outside the Shandor Building.
- Puft Hat -- The Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man's hat falls to the ground.
- No Louis! -- Louis asks Dana if they did it.
DVD-ROM Content
- Original Final Shooting Script -- This is hyperlinked to the film so that the viewer may jump from the script to that point in the film in order to compare it to the final partially-improvised film.
- Cast & Crew Filmographies -- These are hyperlinked to detail pages of most of the Columbia/Tristar Home Video DVD titles through filmographies with degrees of separation.
Three-Dimensional Animated Menus
The main menu is a 3-D view of the Manhattan skyline,with the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man wandering through the buildings. The main menu also has computer rendered animated transitions to the sub-menus.
Theatrical Trailers:
- Ghostbusters (2:12) (fullscreen) (missing the "coming soon to a theatre near you" end card)
- Ghostbusters II (2:28) (fullscreen)
- Groundhog Day (2:46) (fullscreen)
- Stripes (2:17) (fullscreen)

- The video commentary only works in 4:3 Letterbox mode, so most people won't be able to view it - or want to. That's why it was never included on all future home video releases of the film.
- The "Tricks & Trivia" option on the DVD turns on the production notes subtitles. So, you might have problems with it if you already have the video commentary on.
- The before and after special effects multi-angle comparison item named "Spook Central Exploding" should have been named "Firehouse Exploding".
- After Peter says, "What about the Twinkie?" is where the disc switches from layer 1 to layer 2. So, if your DVD player pauses briefly, this is why. In my opinion, it is quite noticable and very annoying.
- There are some picture flutters at the very top of the picture in the GB1 trailer (beginning library scene) and all throughout the 1984 featurette. This, from what I can tell, is due to the quality of the original sources.
- On some production photos, the words "Production Photos" isn't entirely highlighted when selected.

- Disc Scan
- Liner Notes Essay
- Press Kit
- Original DVD Materials
- Entertainment Weekly Article -- 06/18/1999
- Video image comparison between this DVD and other digital home video releases
MULTIMEDIA:
FAN-MADE REPLACEMENT ARTWORK:
(to be printed out and used in the DVD keep case outer sleeve in place of what came with the disc)
- Brian Walker (same images and text as RCA/Columbia VHS) (565 Kb)
- Troy Benjamin (541 Kb)
REVIEWS:
- Newsday
- IGN
- Digital Eyes (archive)
- DVD Review (archive)
- The Cinema Laser
- Yanman On The Web (archive)
- DVD Verdict (archive)
- Remote Central
OUTSIDE LINKS:
- Official Site (archive)
- "DVD Or Bust: Ghostbusters Breaks The Mold Of Special Features" by Monica James (archive)
The Home Video Trailer can be found on the original DVD releases of Men in Black (2-Disc Limited Edition), Men in Black 2 (2-Disc Widescreen Special Edition), Big Daddy, Short Circuit 2, and 13 Ghosts (1960). The video can also be streamed on the Spook Central Patreon page and YouTube, and my original DVD rip can be downloaded by Spook Central VIP Members.
"Entertainment Weekly" -- June 18, 1999 (page 81):
FastForward -- The latest from the home-video front
"DVD Or Bust" by Michael Giltz
Ivan Reitman is finally satisfied with Ghostbusters. For the June 29th DVD release of his 1984 hit starring Bill Murray, the director saw to it that everything looks just right, which wasn't the case with the first, supposedly definitive laserdisc edition. "I don't know what happened," he says, "but it pumped up the light level so much you saw all the matte lines. I was embarrassed about it all these years." Not only are the blacks back for DVD, all the effects shots are complete. "When we went out into release, about half dozen shots were unfinished," recalls Reitman, who had to rush his $30 million production. "It mostly had to do with the marshmallow man. The amazing thing is, people didn't care."
(article provided by AJ Quick)
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