Script To Screen: “Ghostbusters”

The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man scene.

From the 1984 movie Ghostbusters [written by Dan Aykroyd & Harold Ramis], the Final Struggle.

Setup: Gozer commands the three Ghostbusters to choose their form of destruction and despite trying to keep their minds blank, Stantz has a brain fart, resulting in this:

They all turn and look to the south.

GHOSTBUSTERS POV

Looking south past Columbus Circle, they see part of something big and
white moving between the buildings accompanied by thunderous footsteps of
almost seismic proportions.

VENKMAN

He doesn’t know what it is yet, but he knows it’s coming.

VENKMAN
 (desperately)
 What is it? Ray, what did you think of?

BROADWAY AND 55TH

The massive white shape passes behind some buildings, offering a glimpse
of what appears to be a fat, white arm.

STANTZ

He’s about to go into shock.

STANTZ
 (babbling)
 It can’t be! It can’t be!

COLUMBUS CIRCLE

The thundering footsteps continue to plod as the thing starts to emerge
from behind the buildings. Now we can see part of a blue garment covering
its enormous chest.

STANTZ

He recognizes the monster.

STANTZ
 It’s … It’s … It’s the STAY-PUFT
 MARSHMALLOW MAN.

Winston, Venkman and Spengler gape.

THEIR POV

They look across the roof tops and see a large, square, white, bobbing,
laughing head atop a massive body of similar puffed white squares. The
being is dressed in a tiny sailor’s hat, red bosun’s whistle and lanyard
and a little blue vest with a button undone in the middle revealing a
little white belly. It is the cute, quintessential American brand symbol,
looming as large as Godzilla.

STANTZ (V.O.)
 (desperately apologizing)
 I tried to think of the most harmless thing
 … something that could never destroy us
 … something I loved from my childhood.

THE GHOSTBUSTERS

They watch the Marshmallow Man plodding toward them.

VENKMAN
 AND YOU CAME UP WITH THAT?

STANTZ
 The Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man! He was on
 all the packages we used to buy when I was
 a kid. We used to roast Stay-Puft
 marshmallows at Camp Waconda!

VENKMAN
 Great! The marshmallows are about to get
 their revenge.

THE STAY-PUFT MAN

He plods relentlessly uptown toward the Ghostbusters’ rooftop vantage
point. The ground rumbles as his big, soft feet come down on the
pavement.

THE STREET

People are fleeing in panic as the marshmallow feet pad along kicking over
lampposts and mail boxes.

A CAR

The driver jumps out just before an enormous white marshmallow foot comes
down and flattens his automobile.

THE GHOSTBUSTERS

They stand there helplessly watching the laughing bobbing head of the
Stay-Puft Man as he comes toward them.

VENKMAN
 What now?

SPENGLER
 (adjusting his thrower)
 Full-stream with strogon pulse.

Venkman looks at Stantz. Stantz shrugs.

VENKMAN
 (decides)
 I guess that’s all we’ve got.

They step to the edge of the roof, moving like warriors now ready to face
the consequences.

Here is the scene from the movie:

Clearly, a lot of ad libbing in the scene including Venkman’s line: “Nobody steps on a church in my town!”

I’ll see you in comments for a discussion of this scene from Ghostbusters.

One of the single best things you can do to learn the craft of screenwriting is to read the script while watching the movie. After all a screenplay is a blueprint to make a movie and it’s that magic of what happens between printed page and final print that can inform how you approach writing scenes. That is the purpose of Script to Screen, a weekly series on GITS where we analyze a memorable movie scene and the script pages that inspired it.

For more Script To Screen posts, go here.