Ghost in the Shell is "international" story

[Zontar]

it's farsical to say that Tommy Lee Jones drove anyone to see Captain America

I know three people who went to see the First Avenger specifically because Tommy Lee Jones was in the main cast of a pulpy second world war movie (specifically my father, one of my uncles and a mutual friend of theirs). These are people in their 50s who have no interest in comic book movies who went to see that one specifically because of one actor (well, two, Stanley Tucci is also a man they enjoy the works of).

It's because of that mentality that Marvel dished out 50 million dollars, a whole Deadpool movie, 20% of Civil War's budget, just to get Robert Downy Jr. into the cast. People who are much more in the know then anyone on this forum made that choice regarding such a large sum of money.

And you are arguing both of those arguments are equally convincing?

The conversation would go more like this:

-"Honey, lets see this movie, Ghost in the Shell..."
-"I loved those movies/series, ok."

The problem is for over 99% of the movie going audience, that isn't what's going to happen. Virtually no one saw the original movie (which made less then two and a half million dollars at the box office) and a similarly small number of people have watched/read the series. For all but a marginal number of people, this outcome simply doesn't exist, and it is quite frankly the situation hermes pointed out.

That's just the way it is, the product is far, far too niche to use its name brand recognition alone to accomplish anything except get anime fans to work as free advertisement like every other movie that's based on something gets. Only unlike Marvel that fan ad work won't be enough on its own to reach critical mass.

 

[Sonmi]

And you are arguing both of those arguments are equally convincing?

The conversation would go more like this:

-"Honey, lets see this movie, Ghost in the Shell..."
-"I loved those movies/series, ok."

Though tbh, I'll probably be skipping this one, if only based on the sad whitewashing. ScarJo might do just fine, but I can skip out on a movie to stick to my principles.

Good luck selling any tickets and making your money back if all you're counting on is people who already love Ghost in the Shell.

Ghost in the Sell isn't well-known enough to sell on name alone.

Except that I've already provided sources that show this 'conventional wisdom' is just plain wrong.

Except you've only shown that there were exceptions to the rule, and even then, very flimsy ones.

Again, if people are going to claim big budget films need star power to bring people to the seats, that's the standard we're working with.

Big budget movies need big names if they want to sell, yes.

Whether that big name applies to the actors, to the director, or to the source material, you simply do need name recognition if you want to go anywhere. Considering Ghost in the Shell neither has the brand recognition nor the big name director, it'll rely on its lead to draw in crowds.

Except my argument has always been 'it's not the actor, it's the concept'. Yea, Battleship was a shitshow, and it would have been a shit show with any 'A lister' in the lead.

Battleship kept boasting about having Rihanna in its marketing, your argument here is void. It did try to attract on the basis of the celebrity of its actors.

I wouldn't know, he's the reason I don't see his films actually.

You not realising how many tickets Sandler was selling shows how out of touch you are with the market, mate. You seem to mistakenly conflate your criteria to go see a movie with that of the average moviegoer.

 

[UberGott]

- Children, young and old, who want to watch robots transform into stuff.

I asked the successful head of marketing at a major studio if he needed a star to market a movie and he responded, ?People pay money for concepts. Having a star doesn?t matter. ... [http://www.vulture.com/2012/07/why-stars-dont-matter-gavin-polone.html]

Go on, tell me more. Calling Optimus Prime 'the star' that drives people to see transformers is like saying Major Kusanagi is the star that drives people to see GITS. It says nothing about the person voicing, or acting, the character.

Sarcasm isn't always obvious in prose, so let me make this clear; you're taking what I've said too literally.

My point isn't literally that most people actually give a shit about Optimus Prime, it's that they care about big honkin' robots beating the crap out of each other in a 145 minute orgy of ugly robot punching porn. The concept of "Robots turn into trucks and then punch other robots" sells itself - heck, it's literally just an extension of a cartoon designed to sell toys!

Let's not kid ourselves, Transformers sells well simply because it's lowest-common denominator trash, and for all the ribbing Michael Bay rightly deserves, he happens to be the best at making lowest-common denominator trash that moves at a brisk pace and drops jaws when it has to. People love to hate them, and not without reason, but in the same way that McDonalds will always sell more hamburgers than a Michelin Star rated restaurant, more people will show up for middling superhero films and cartoon spin-offs than they will for a host of substantially better, more worth-while things.

The concept of "a lonely cop in a largely cybernetic future uncovers a massive political conspiracy while questioning the meaning of her own existance"... doesn't exactly sell itself to anyone who isn't going out of their way to look for it. Hell, most people who stumbled on the 1995 film did because of the novelty of

While not quite the same thing, I know, Science Fiction movies about artificial intelligence and their interaction with humanity - Automata, Ex Machina, Chappie, and so on - tend not to, and those are less philosophically complex and narratively convoluted than GITS tends to be.

The exceptions to this are movies like The Matrix and I, Robot - films that sell themselves on being bombastic, braindead action films first, and maybe a serious reflections of the human condition second. They also, coincidentally, starred Keanu Reeves and Will Smith. But that Star Power doesn't mean anything, right?

The conversation would go more like this:

-"Honey, lets see this movie, Ghost in the Shell..."
-"I loved those movies/series, ok."

I'm glad the love of your life is a weeaboo.

Now here's how that conversation goes for, like, 95% of the world.

-"Honey, let's go see this movie, Ghost in the Shell..."
-"I don't like scary movies."
-"Oh! No, see, it's about cyborgs."
-"Ugh, you mean like Chappie? That movie sucked!"
-"That's an Android. Anyway, it's based on an anime--"
-"One of those weird pedo cartoons I found on your laptop?"
-"I...y'know what, let's go see Thor 4."
-"I'll get my coat!"
-"Oh, wait! Black Widow's in Ghost in the Shell. She's the star, actually."
-"Johansson? Oh, neat. I guess we can see Thor next week."
-"Sweet!"
-"Who else is in Ghosting the Shell?"
-"Takeshi Kitano."
-"...wha?"
-"...you'd rather see Thor, wouldn't you."
-"Yeah. Thor's good."
-"...it's probably better than Ghost in the Shell, anyway."
-"Then why do you want to see it?"
-[Kenji Kawai music plays in the distance]

Though tbh, I'll probably be skipping this one, if only based on the sad whitewashing. ScarJo might do just fine, but I can skip out on a movie to stick to my principles.

Honest question: Did you refuse to see Memoirs of a Geisha because Ziyi Zhang wasn't Japanese?

What about Valkyrie, since Tom Cruise wasn't born in Germany?

How about the Japanese comedy Thermae Romae, which takes place in Ancient Rome but has an almost exclusively Japanese cast?

Have you taken a similar stance against the Fullmetal Alchemist films for taking what are intentionally European and Middle Eastern characters and casting them as Japanese - a story in which the clash between obvious ethnicities are actually central to the plot?

I'd like to hear what an actual Japanese person has to say about it.

[a href="https://archive.is/JroNc"]Ask and ye shall receive.[/a]

 

[Yopaz]

]Where did I do that? If anything, you are the one cherry picking what racism is when saying stuff like "It's racist when movie producers cast someone based on race. It's not racism when we pick what movies to watch based on race."

That was taken out of context and it was a response to someone else who had that stance. This is not my opinion, this is not a notion I support. It was a summary of what someone said when accusing casting of being racism.

You on the other hand did actually say the following:

The truly racist attitude is the one that says: "I won't see this movie because the main protagonist is black"

Why does it have to be "if the protagonist is black"? Any judgment based on race is racist. I include all kinds of judgement, all races in my view. How is including ALL cherry picking? I haven't even accused casting of being inspired by racism, just like you I have argued that this is financial and that Scarlet Johansson draws a bigger crowd than Ghost In The Shell.


You ignored all of that, you picked the one line, which in the context doest represent my opinion, and focused on that. You cherry picked, made accusations and as a result I do not take you seriously.

 

[Jux]

Really? You honestly think there are more people in America (or the world) that are more familiar with GitS than ScarJo?

I'm telling you how my conversation would go. That said, when I don't know the source material, the first question I ask is 'What is the movie about'? 'Who is in it' only rates on my list in so far as there are a few actors I just hate and don't want to see. I don't get excited to see certain actors on the screen, because the strength of the performance is largely going to be based on whether the actor cast for the role was right, and how well the character was written. Both of those things are entirely outside the influence of the person doing the acting.

 

[Jux]

Honest question: Did you refuse to see Memoirs of a Geisha because Ziyi Zhang wasn't Japanese?

What about Valkyrie, since Tom Cruise wasn't born in Germany?

How about the Japanese comedy Thermae Romae, which takes place in Ancient Rome but has an almost exclusively Japanese cast?

Have you taken a similar stance against the Fullmetal Alchemist films for taking what are intentionally European and Middle Eastern characters and casting them as Japanese - a story in which the clash between obvious ethnicities are actually central to the plot?

Haven't seen any of those movies, and tbh, none of them interest me.

 

[Einspanner]

...And my counterpoint, that snipping the coasts off this country is snipping off most of the people and the economy of the country.

If you take out the three cities (and the rest of their states with them) you still have 80% of the US economy and about the same of its population.

I don't want to get into this fascinating debate too much, but California vanishing alone would crash the US economy into the dirt. This may be one of the topics that's better served by knowing something about it.

That doesn't really relate to the subject though, since by that logic having any part of the country that represents more then 5% of the nation's GDP would do just that.

I think your compulsive snipping and selective responses have thrown you for a loop.

 

[Zontar]

I think your compulsive snipping and selective responses have thrown you for a loop.

But that was never my point to begin with, only that due to the state of entertainment within the three cities I mentioned, a public opinion that is very much not nation wide (and only debatably a majority one) is shown to be the near exclusive one held by people in entertainment, where as without those three cities it goes from "debatably on that side" to "undebatably opposed to it" at the national level.

 

[Redryhno]

Really? You honestly think there are more people in America (or the world) that are more familiar with GitS than ScarJo?

I'm telling you how my conversation would go. That said, when I don't know the source material, the first question I ask is 'What is the movie about'? 'Who is in it' only rates on my list in so far as there are a few actors I just hate and don't want to see. I don't get excited to see certain actors on the screen, because the strength of the performance is largely going to be based on whether the actor cast for the role was right, and how well the character was written. Both of those things are entirely outside the influence of the person doing the acting.

Congrats, that's your conversation. That's my conversation with some of my friends as well. But there's not enough people having those conversations to get the movie its money back.

Also don't give me that shit about the writing making the character and not the actor. I've seen enough of the same boring ass award-winning plays to know for a fact that writing doesn't mean shit if the actors can't act. Conversely, there's been some truly awful movies that have been saved and/or stolen by a single character(such as half of Anthony Hopkins career).

Honest question: Did you refuse to see Memoirs of a Geisha because Ziyi Zhang wasn't Japanese?

What about Valkyrie, since Tom Cruise wasn't born in Germany?

How about the Japanese comedy Thermae Romae, which takes place in Ancient Rome but has an almost exclusively Japanese cast?

Have you taken a similar stance against the Fullmetal Alchemist films for taking what are intentionally European and Middle Eastern characters and casting them as Japanese - a story in which the clash between obvious ethnicities are actually central to the plot?

Haven't seen any of those movies, and tbh, none of them interest me.

Congrats, you just joined the mainstream when they hear about GitS.

Also, you think GitS is the shit, but have no interest in FMA? Not to mention you're doing yourself a bit of a disservice, I'd say Valkryie is one of the better performances Cruise has had in years(guess when nobody wants to work with you you have to start getting good at some point).

Er, the reaction from the anime community and fans of GitS has been overwhelmingly negative. And for good reason ranging from tepid talent on the project, to whitewashing, to the hilarious rumor of them apparently trying to digitally yellow-face the cast. It was doomed from day one and was better off left alone.

That's not true. The anime community hate it because every nerd on the planet seems to cry for new and interesting things, but then cry when shit sees the slightest change.

With things like the new Ghostbusters, Batman v Superman and now this. You'd think that these new movies were erasing the source material. Apparently if the slightest change is made in a new iteration, then everyone just condemns it to hell without ever even giving it a chance.

Shit, if you see the movie and you personally think it's bad, then fair enough. But if you're basing your hatred for the movie over the casting of Scarlet Johansson and a rumor, then shame on you.

EDIT: If Scarlet Johansson brings justice to the role, then who actually gives a shit what colour she is?

Don't remember shit about BvS...But Ghostbusters is just...bad. From the Studio to half the crew to the cast, the whole thing is just a shitshow.

Reitman and the surviving Ghostbusters only support and promote it because they get sued if they don't(even Akroyd who has been trying to get the franchise out of the dumps for years). The entire premise of the movie has been "GIRL POWER" first and "GHOSTBUSTERS THE NEXT GENERATION" somewhere down the line at five or six if I'm being generous. The cast itself is mediocre and hasn't helped endear themselves to people with their claims that the only reason people dislike the new one is because women are involved.

There's a helluval ot of reasons to hate the new Ghostbusters besides the normal "hollywood's run out of ideas" and "new iteration" type complaints.

 

[Redryhno]

I should clarify that I'm more referring to the fact that Ghostbusters had been hated ever since they said "It's a female cast this time".

Granted that the trailers and new song aren't great, but there were so many people who didn't even want to give the movie a chance, simply because it changed a detail from the original.

As for Batman V Superman, people initially whined that Ben Affleck was cast as Batman. Granted, that it wasn't an issue of race change, but he did end up probably being one of the best live action Batman actors to date.

People also whined about the fact that Batman kills people, Jesse Eisenberg's Lex Luthor was different, Doomsday's origins changed, etc. There was really no justification to it. No one wanted to judge the movie on its own merits just because it changed from "muh comics".

And now we have Ghost in the Shell. Right now, there's nothing to suggest that it'll be a bad movie. Scarlet Johansson could probably give a performance worthy of every reward, and people would still ***** about it because she's white.

Well yeah, because anytime they've tried to do an "ALL-FEMALE" cast in the past, there's been problems since they're too busy worrying about boobs being on the poster than making a good movie. And this is one of the most beloved franchises of all time that had a lot of love put into by Akroyd and Ramis that were REALLY into the whole supernatural thing and it was billed as a ghost comedy being changed into a girl power move.

BvS, yeah, I'm remembering now, but you can't fully blame people, he had a stint as Daredevil and largely while I enjoyed it, wasn't really a Daredevil movie. As for Doomsday's origins, that honestly is unforgivable to me. It's nice that they at least kept him being an experiment gone wrong, but c'mon, Zod is such a fascinating character on his own that they shot themselves in the foot for what they can do in the future with that. And Lex, just works best when he's the established businessman, not the startup kid. Nothing wrong with Eisenberg, just him being the wacky comic relief just didn't work. Also, if you're going to go for an adaptation, what's wrong with "MUH COMICS" being a valid complaint? If you have no respect for the source, why the fuck do it in the first place?

But yeah, people throwing a shitfit over a white girl is just stupid as fuck. I don't like the actor, think she brings pretty much everything she's in down at least a point on the quality scale, and I don't understand why people are focusing on her skintone instead of her acting history. Seems incredibly superficial to me.

 

[UberGott]

Haven't seen any of those movies, and tbh, none of them interest me.

Let's remove the subtlety, then:

Is it acceptable to change a character's race, so long as it's not being changed to white?

I intentionally brought up ethnicity - rather than race - to only further the point that the genetics any given actors has very little to do with whether or not they're capable of playing a role. I know Hollywood has a history with White Washing and that makes the situation more complex from a social point of view, but the actual act of an actor playing a character of another ethnicity shouldn't be seen as an inherently bad thing - especially if the context of the role in question doesn't directly have anything to do with the character's race or nationality.

Is Tom Cruise able to play a historical Nazi? Is Ziyi Zhang able to play a fictionalized Geisha? Is Idris Alba able to play a Norse God? If the answer to any of these questions is "yes", then Scarlet Johansson playing a cyborg based on a Japanese comic book really shouldn't be that big a deal.

I should clarify that I'm more referring to the fact that Ghostbusters had been hated ever since they said "It's a female cast this time".

I think most of that gut reaction was people calling Sony's bluff - not the announcement itself, but the fact that it was the only thing they had to say about the movie. No cast, no director, no direction - it was literally "There's a new Ghostbusters, and it's got a female cast! I mean, come on, it's [$current_year]!"

When you're going to remake a legitimate classic, you usually need to convince fans of the original there's a reason to revisit it. They could have given this amazing concept to Edgar Wright, Guillermo del Toro, Phil Lord & Christopher Miller, Stephen Chow - there's probably a hundred directors who get why the mix of serious supernatural horror and smarmy comedy in the original is such a winning combination and really come up with something that fans old and new could have gotten excited over. Instead of actually explaining WHY their movie was justified, Feig and the rest of the clowns writing for Hollywood rags just sneered at all those gross internet nerds who clearly hated the movie because vaginas are icky.

They could have talked about famous horror stories they wanted to draw inspiration from, amazing new locations and twists in the technology they'd introduce - they could have done ANYTHING to convince people who legitimately think the original is a cornerstone of modern film making that there was a fantastic reason to revisit a film that, by all counts, does damn near everything it tries to do well.

If you need me I'll be watching The Descent again, which is a movie that's got an all female cast that's, y'know... Good.

Batman v Superman

As somebody who legitimately loves Watchmen and thought Man of Steel was rough, but fascinating. Ultimately, people hated this movie because it's trash. And they hated it before it came out because all signs were pointing to it being a dumpster fire. Yeah, people shat on Afleck without good reason, but people flipped out when Patrick Bateman, and Mr. Mom were cast as Batman, too. People always freak out over who plays Batman, is what I'm saying.

It was a mediocre clusterf*ck before executives panicked, gutted it into incomprehensibility, and tacked on a third act that makes no goddamn sense. I wish I could blame all the bad ideas, half-baked concepts and cringe worthy dialogue on the Men Behind the Curtain, but this movie was never going to be good, "accurate" to a dozen different unrelated comic series' or no.

 

[Redryhno]

Batman v Superman

As somebody who legitimately loves Watchmen and thought Man of Steel was rough, but fascinating. Ultimately, people hated this movie because it's trash. And they hated it before it came out because all signs were pointing to it being a dumpster fire. Yeah, people shat on Afleck without good reason, but people flipped out when Patrick Bateman, and Mr. Mom were cast as Batman, too. People always freak out over who plays Batman, is what I'm saying.

I don't remember the outcry about Bale when he was announced, but let's be fair to the people with Keaton, up to that point in his career, he was largely known as a comedy actor, and I don't think Burton had really shown his colors at that point either to give credibility to the movie and role. Most people went because it was FUCKING JACK NICHOLSON HOLY SHIT.

Personally I really wanted to like Man of Steel because it had so many good ideas that were just never followed through on properly. Costner with his "I don't know, maybe you should let those kids die" bit was one of the darker, but very much fatherly things I've seen a movie do. Too bad they did the whole calm tornado death thing though. The trucker scene was very well done, then they had to go and ruin it with him ruining the guy's livelihood because an earthling tickled him. A toddler growing up with his powers appearing out of nowhere was great, except there was barely any buildup to who or how Clark Kent came to be. The end with the "kill me or I kill them" bit with Zod was great, but the family could've gotten out of the way so easily.

Ended up thinking it to be really shitty though honestly, I just despise half-baked ideas and a great start peter out to a shitty middling end.

 

[Callate]

Did they know, before that segment, that this movie was even being made? Contrary to most anime fans' dreams here, most Japanese are not otaku, and while GITS is popular, I'm not sure how popular this would be.

In honesty, I don't know. I saw the snippets included in the Nostalgia Critic's piece, not the entire context. I'm taking it somewhat on faith that the footage was not used duplicitously, as the piece's point was definitely not "everyone talking about whitewashing is an idiot" but more that certain sorts of casting against type (regular-sized people playing dwarves and hobbits, for example) goes largely unremarked; outrage is surprisingly sliding-scale.

However, I was in Kyoto five months ago, and "Ghost in the Shell" featured prominently in the limited space available at the front of the International Manga Museum. I think it's entirely reasonable to believe that many young people would at least be aware of it, and it doesn't strain credibility at all to suspect that the interviewees, if not fans, were at least aware of the property.

Also, a similar take on Japan's reaction can be read in "The Hollywood Reporter" here.

I'd guess that most GITS fans in Japan are like most GITS fans in general, and we weren't baying for a 90 minute live action Hollywood take on either the GITS:SAC, or the movies.

At the risk of sounding harsh, the idea that the paramount- much less only- vote that matters is that of the self-proclaimed hard-core fans is both mistaken and works to the detriment of the argument that the race of the actors involved is really what matters.

If the real issue is that Johansson doesn't look like fans' mental images of the main character while the broader Japanese audience is uninterested, to try to couch the matter as being about larger issues of race and representation begins to look... questionable.

It's possible that the entire affair will be a debacle. Or that it will be quite good, and very true to the original materials in its own way, and bring a new round of fandom full circle to looking for the originals. Or that it will be good despite being very different from the originals.

But I haven't seen any good arguments yet to convince me that it doesn't even deserve a chance to be whatever it turns out to be.

And after Lucy, there's a pretty strong case to be made that such a film could be perfectly successful without needing whatever portion of the fanbase might avoid it out of spite.

Trying to sink it before seeing if it floats seems to me putting the cart before the horse.

 

[Zontar]

...And my counterpoint, that snipping the coasts off this country is snipping off most of the people and the economy of the country.

If you take out the three cities (and the rest of their states with them) you still have 80% of the US economy and about the same of its population.

Of course, you've lost most of the schools and medical institutions, you lost Silicon Valley, and apparently you lost your mind.

What's terrifying is the idea of you as some kind of wannabe Ron Swanson, SW.

I have no idea how a statement about the massive over-representation of the political views of LA, New York and San Francisco in the media turned into this.

 

[Einspanner]

many words...
Trying to sink it before seeing if it floats seems to me putting the cart before the horse.

Ghostbusters.

*hysterical laughter*

 

[RebornKusabi]

I'm usually someone who feels that when you adapt a story, you can change parts of it- Jurassic Park the movie has a different theme and WILDLY DIFFERENT characters than the book (Alan Grant loves kids, Ian Malcom is a 50 year old bald white man, Hammond was a sociopath). But when it's an adaptation of a story from Japan, that tends to bother me a bit more that it usually gets white washed. Especially sad that two prominent Asian actresses said they would have done it- Ming Na Wen and Constance Wu, the latter one being a perfect idea because while she's a largely comedic actress, Chris Pratt was a largely comedic and look how his career shifted recently...

This is a case, as a sub-sub-sub-sub average writer of fiction, I haven't got the confidence to share anything I write yet, where an audience surrogate or Ishmael or Rashamon-style story would have served the plot better. They could have kept the cast of Ghost in the Shell completely Japanese, but had Scar Jo be around as a transferred detective or overseeing Internal Affairs, that way they could have had their cake (bankable white person to sell to xenophobic Americans) and ate it too (remained a largely Japanese production).

But after being highly reticent of the new Ghostbusters movie going in, and loving it when I saw it, I will reserve judgement for now.