Today Netflix released a new season of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, bringing back the writer and director of the original SAC series to make a new story, a continuation of the series several years into the future. 2045 is a 3D CGI web animation published by Netflix as one of their original series'.
Set in 2045, Section 9 has broken up and the world has moved to a state of sustainable war to keep the economies of the world going. During these "sustainable wars", a mass hack of world financial institutions caused a mass default of loans and the destruction of all cryptocurrency as well as digitally held fiat currency. This has plunged the American Empire into civil war where most of the former members of Section 9 are hiring out as mercenaries. During an operation the mercenaries are picked up by the US government for a secretive mission to capture a wealthy tech magnate, but things may not be so straightforward.
Visuals: 4/10 The new look is substandard, but that was obvious being a cheaply made 3d CG Netflix adaptation. They don't try to do anything visually interesting until the end of the season, where they do some okay things with it. They also have a dude's head get literally gibbed by a punch, and the neck stump is just a bumpy red texture. I miss old I.G. when they would blow off someone's head and detail every little bit of anatomy as it goes flying
New characters: 0/10 Fuck these people, we get a black guy in the first half of the season who's just there to be an inept comic relief, but bad. Then a pink haired girl in the second half to be bad inept comic relief and steal Ishikawa's job
Music: 0/10 I miss Yoko Kanno
New person just ripped off generic American movie soundtracks
Story: 6/10* With the caveat that you make it through pretty much most of the season. Apart from a standalone bank heist episode, the first 8 episodes are bad, with 5 being an absolute mess of horrible brainless action.
But 9 and on turn pretty good. Not great, but pretty good.
Overall I'd say the writer isn't on his A game and there's enormous pressure from someone above him to make it more "palatable". The opening of the series is atrocious and feels like something other than Ghost in the Shell entirely, and even when the series gets it's footing later on it feels weak and watered down. For a while it's a straight up dumb action show, with the first episode in particular being "cyborgs vs Mad Max rejects", and even later in the series when we're investigating and looking at the sociological ramifications of future tech, it still keeps these exaggerated action scenes, along with characters acting like cartoon caricatures instead of human beings.
I'm going to watch the second season to see what little good can be found and hopes that there's less pressure to be dumb action and some beefing up of the braininess, but I can't fault anyone for skipping it or stopping after a few episodes. If you can make it past 5, I congratulate you. The only episode I can wholeheartedly recommend is the bank heist episode.
Set in 2045, Section 9 has broken up and the world has moved to a state of sustainable war to keep the economies of the world going. During these "sustainable wars", a mass hack of world financial institutions caused a mass default of loans and the destruction of all cryptocurrency as well as digitally held fiat currency. This has plunged the American Empire into civil war where most of the former members of Section 9 are hiring out as mercenaries. During an operation the mercenaries are picked up by the US government for a secretive mission to capture a wealthy tech magnate, but things may not be so straightforward.
Visuals: 4/10 The new look is substandard, but that was obvious being a cheaply made 3d CG Netflix adaptation. They don't try to do anything visually interesting until the end of the season, where they do some okay things with it. They also have a dude's head get literally gibbed by a punch, and the neck stump is just a bumpy red texture. I miss old I.G. when they would blow off someone's head and detail every little bit of anatomy as it goes flying
New characters: 0/10 Fuck these people, we get a black guy in the first half of the season who's just there to be an inept comic relief, but bad. Then a pink haired girl in the second half to be bad inept comic relief and steal Ishikawa's job
Music: 0/10 I miss Yoko Kanno
New person just ripped off generic American movie soundtracks
Story: 6/10* With the caveat that you make it through pretty much most of the season. Apart from a standalone bank heist episode, the first 8 episodes are bad, with 5 being an absolute mess of horrible brainless action.
But 9 and on turn pretty good. Not great, but pretty good.
Overall I'd say the writer isn't on his A game and there's enormous pressure from someone above him to make it more "palatable". The opening of the series is atrocious and feels like something other than Ghost in the Shell entirely, and even when the series gets it's footing later on it feels weak and watered down. For a while it's a straight up dumb action show, with the first episode in particular being "cyborgs vs Mad Max rejects", and even later in the series when we're investigating and looking at the sociological ramifications of future tech, it still keeps these exaggerated action scenes, along with characters acting like cartoon caricatures instead of human beings.
I'm going to watch the second season to see what little good can be found and hopes that there's less pressure to be dumb action and some beefing up of the braininess, but I can't fault anyone for skipping it or stopping after a few episodes. If you can make it past 5, I congratulate you. The only episode I can wholeheartedly recommend is the bank heist episode.
