I'm sure everyone remembers the scene from gb2 in the jewlery store where the guys have the traps rigged and propped up to some crystals, forming lasers around the room. Well does anyone have any idea how the heck they did that and how these lasers captured the ghost?

Interesting question.

Let's start with the problem they were called into deal with - expensive crystal hovering around a store. Maybe it was a poltergiest. Poltergiests often play pranks by moving items around. And they're invisible. Tough to shoot what you can't see and even using ecto-goggles, you can't just shoot - you're in a china shop. Look at the damage they did in the Sedgewick.

So, maybe Egon cook up something clever. Poltergeists are some of the weakest of ghosts (at least, in Ghostbuster terms). You probably don't need a full stream shot or maybe no shot at all.

So new traps are rigged, which tighten the wide trap beam into a thin beam. This gets bounced and split and shot at the floating crystal. It's a kind of trap beam shot gun blast - something's got to hit the ghost at least once, sucking it in.

Rememer, the trap is bright - “Don't look directly into the trap. I looked in the trap Ray.” - Maybe it was focussed and amplified, like a laser, not just tightened. Hence the sunglasses they're wearing. You know, in case a stray beam hits crystal and bounces into an eye.

Ghost is trapped, which is why the items fall - they break, but it's limited damage. Better than shooting the whole place up with proton streams.

Time to hit my copy of cinescape and see if they talk about it at all. Too bad the DVD doesn't have commentary.

I've had that same question before. I think you know what your are talking about too dude.

The first thing those reminded me of were the transporter boosters on Star Trek: The Next Generation. When circumstances caused getting a pattern lock to be difficult, the beacons would boost the pattern signal. I supposed that perhaps these were some kind of device that interfered with psychokinetic energy. PKE is, at least from what I understood (and since Ghostbusters isn't really a serious movie or show, they haven't tried to have consistent science like a real scifi movie would), what allows a ghost to a) exist and b) interact with the “physical” world. Some kind of psycokinetic influence was being exerted on the china to make it float, and apparently, those beacons interfered with that influence, causing the pieces to fall.