"Ghost in the Shell Live Action Film"Movies

[JKgo]

....Honestly, I'm not bothered about the white-washing thingy. It's a Hollywood movie aimed at the primarily white North American audience. It only makes sense that they cast a well known actress that can bring in solid business.

You want an Asian actress in the leading role? Well, the bad news is, no self-respecting Hollywood Studio execs will commit harakiri like that. End of.

Besides, ironically, one or two reviews I read says the movie had plenty of diversity thing going on already.

I'm planning to see this at the local cinema, but the problem is that they are only showing it in 3D - with my increasingly dimming eyesights I fear the strenuous exposure to 3D imagery might be bad for my sanity...

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Honestly, I'm not bothered about the white-washing thingy. It's a Hollywood movie aimed at the primarily white North American audience.

I suspect that most of the criticism is coming from super-fanboys who wouldn't be content with anything less than an ultra-faithful adaptation of the source material - which, ironically enough, would add nothing to the franchise. It's like the people who complaimed about Daniel Craig being cast as James Bond because he's blond (even though Fleming never really described Bond's physical features in detail). What's more important - a performance true to the character, or an actor who looks like the character?

 

[Wiegert]

Well, that was certainly... eh.

Spoiler

Not quite as limp as I feared. If anything, I liked the ideas they had in mind for this adaptation far more than I could have hoped when it became clear where they were trying to go. The execution however...

This GitS's vitality lies almost exclusively in the visuals. The heart is there but, funnily enough, very little soul. Throwing Project 2501 into the shell of "Kuze" and mixing both of their original motives was an easy direction that I feel they ultimately squandered in the latter half in favour of generic antag #347.

Can't say I have an issue with The Major's pre-shelling backstory. Especially when it becomes clear that she was (shock-horror) born Japanese. This movie has its obvious flaws but the running drama concerning the lead's race is one that simply needs to die already.

I did get a slight kick out of some of the Major and Batou's scenes/dialogue together though. Definitely the few times that felt familiar* in a pleasant way. Albeit delivered in a more gruff and appropriately robotic manner and with 90% less spontaneous philosophy.

Aramaki was so far removed from anything I've seen of him beforehand that I'd genuinely love to see him as a stone-cold killer in future adaptations.

I also think Togusa and the others might have present at one point or another.


*Beyond outright recreating scenes from the anime

I suspect that most of the criticism is coming from super-fanboys who wouldn't be content with anything less than an ultra-faithful adaptation of the source material - which, ironically enough, would add nothing to the franchise.

Spoiler

While this wasn't ultra-faithful, it did track much closer to the 1995 movie (and Innocence once or twice, interestingly) than I was expecting. Key scenes almost frame-for-frame copies of the original, but executed tastefully enough that they do work pretty well.

I reckon if this was a set-up for an unlikely sequel it might feel more purposeful. As a standalone Hollywood adaptation it really is just a re-imagining of the original movie with a fraction of the impact. And I suspect that it's what most people had envisaged anyway.

I do feel the need to give it a second look soon-ish. In anything other than 3D/IMAX at the very least. That was not the best big-screen format for it.

 

[Omnis]

The good news: It's the best Ghost In The Shell movie they've made so far.

The bad news: It's still pretty bad.

The writing is SO bad. The first half of the movie felt like Mass Effect Andromeda bad (It didn't help that all the original music "inspiration" that was supposed to be there was replaced by generic Clint Mansell "mass effecty" beeps and boops). It was so slow and suffers terribly from explaining-everything-I-do-instead-of-doing-it. Character introductions were piss-poor if not non-existent. I purposely took my mom to see the movie and she told me that if I didn't explain the franchise to her before we went, she would have been totally lost.

ScarJo's performance is pretty bad at times, I have to say. At times, she looks and moves like a protocol droid rather than the pinnacle of cybernetic technology. She has some good moments, though. The acting aspect of the movie seems like they filmed for a month, took the summer off, and then came back and filmed the rest. It doesn't seem like the same cast as the movie goes on.

I also hated how they handled Aramaki and subtitles. They turned him from a shrewd strategist into an ineffective joke of a leader at best and a thug with a gun at worst. The subtitles dance around the screen, which was ****ing annoying on a huge theater screen, and the fact that Beat is the only one speaking Japanese made it seem like he wasn't in the same film. It's like they just brought him in and made him do some lines. Like, imagine the T-rex in Jurassic Park speaking French to Malcolm. I don't know why they thought it would work.

Luckily, the movie gets much better for the second half where the real plot comes into focus and they start marching up its slope of rising action.

As far as tributes to the original, the tank sequence was pretty cool. Earlier in this thread I mentioned what I wanted from the scene, and I'm happy that they included it. I'm not sure I like the changes they made though. The best part about the tank scene in the original is that we finally got to see the invincible Major break, revealing the crude mechanics underneath her skin. The new movie makes her broken from the get go, so one of the most powerful scenes in film history loses pretty much all of its meaning.

It's almost scary how unoriginal this attempt at a GITS movie was. There was some speculation early on once we knew that

Spoiler

Kuze

would be a character, and the speculators were 100% correct. It's like Rupert Sanders took the original movie and remixed it with the "AFFECTION" episode from Stand Alone Complex 2.

And in the process--speaking of meaning-- they totally twisted the whole point of GITS on its head. They kept repeating the message "it's not your memories that make you who you are, it's what you do." This is exactly the opposite of what defines Ghost in the Shell. The miracle of GITS is that the ghost survives. If this mantra was really the meaning of the movie, then the Major would just be a Hanka killing machine. She wouldn't be Motoko at all. It's like the whole movie doesn't even understand what it is, and it refuses to address anything remotely philosophical besides "WHO AM I?!?!?!" and "DEY STOLED IT!" It's so savagely base for such a visually rich film.

I agree completely with the current Rotten Tomatoes consensus. It's a 49% right now and labeled "Hollow and pretty." Nail hit squarely on the head...

 

[prisonermonkeys]

it refuses to address anything remotely philosophical besides "WHO AM I?!?!?!" and "DEY STOLED IT!" It's so savagely base for such a visually rich film.

It was written by Ehren Kruger, whose most notable screenwriting credits include Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Transformers: Age of Extinction and Transformers: The Last Knight ...

 

[Omnis]

It was written by Ehren Kruger, whose most notable screenwriting credits include Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Transformers: Age of Extinction and Transformers: The Last Knight ...

Wow, seriously? I was going to say it felt Michael Bayish, but I thought that was a little harsh.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Wow, seriously? I was going to say it felt Michael Bayish, but I thought that was a little harsh.

He was one of three writers, and because the Screenwriters' Guild have some unusual rules about who can be credited and when (Graham Yost has the sole writing credit for Speed, but freely admits that Joss Whedon wrote 98% of it; Neal Purvis and Robert Wade received credit for Quantum of Solace, as did Paul Haggis even though Haggis threw their script out and started anew), so it's hard to tell exactly how much Kruger contributed. But he was definitely the most experienced of the three writers; the other two were Jamie Moss, who penned the interesting, if uneven and underdeveloped Spectral and the dull and mindless Street Kings; and William Wheeler, who I cannot actually find any information about.

 

[Tornado]

Ghost in the Shell + SAC 2nd Gig + Armitage III + Robocop 2 + Blade Runner. I loved all those things but Robocop 2, which sucked, so I loved the movie except for those bits, which also sucked (but not as much as in Robocop 2). A bunch of hack writing in the first half assuming everyone watching it are morons, but way way better than I expected.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

A bunch of hack writing in the first half assuming everyone watching it are morons

I suspect they're trying to find a balance between appealing to established fans and newcomers to the franchise alike, but then prioritised the newcomers. To be fair, it is a difficult line to tread - appeal too much to established fans, and you alienate newcomers with an incomprehensible story; conversely, if you appeal too much to newcomers, you end up dumbing down the narrative for the fans.

 

[Jawehawk]

I absolutely loved it. One of the most visually amazing movies I've seen in many years, and a plot that is fairly interesting, even if they don't go as deep as I would've liked. I feel like you could've easily added another 30 minutes to this movie to fledge out both the story and characters further.

Spoiler: Spoilers!

It's refreshing to have a movie where the friends/squad mates of the lead character doesn't betray them, I just wish they would've used the secondary characters more. As it is, they feel very under utilized, and without much in the way of characterization. White hair is fragging awesome though.

The conversation between the mother and the Major felt forced and unnatural, and the ending battle was over to quickly. Was really hoping that we'd get an epic showdown including the secondary characters.

Regardless of these flaws, I very much enjoyed the movie. It's the perfect fit for both 3D and IMAX, but sadly, I had to settle for a standard 2D viewing. Definitely getting a 3D copy when it released on Blu-Ray

Ignore the mentally challenged people yelling white washing. Extremists like that are everywhere now a days.

 

[MeanElf]

...Ignore the mentally challenged people yelling white washing. Extremists like that are everywhere now a days.

There was an article pre-release that interviewed a lot of Japanese people (in Japan) about this and they mostly said they didn't get what the fuss was about.

 

[nk4e]

After watching for the 3rd time. I am giving it some slack that they got really close to making a good Anime adaptation. Is it worth it? Sure, if you want to ignore the animated film. They threw in fillers to make it more appealing to the audience. Am I mad that they picked Scarlet Jo? Not really, it's better than the Dragon Ball Z movie and it's coming close to me buying it like the RK series.