Scarlett Johansson to Star in Ghost in the Shell Live-Action Film

madwarper

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Ghost in the Shell? I don't have anything against this... It's just that Universal/Illumination Entertainment got the rights to make a Pluto [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluto_%28manga%29] movie back in 2010. I'll just be disappointed if GitS comes out before Pluto.
 

Arawn

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Fappy said:
Johansson is a good actress, but I really doubt this movie will be any good at all. Hollywood adaptions of foreign source material rarely works out :/

Thank you. As excited as I am to see a Ghost in the Shell movie, that thought alone is what makes me cringe. Foreign movie adaptations are right there next to video game adaptations; not the best track record. I bring to evidence Edge of Tomorrow. For it's credit an okay movie. But just recently I found out it was based on a manga called All you need is Kill! How did I figure this out? I read said manga and thought "Someone should make a movie out of this" and wouldn't you know it, I realized it was the recent Tom Cruise movie. Did not do the book justice. If it had followed the book exactly I think it would have monstrously better. My only word of advice to this noble undertaking is thus: Respect the source material. The reason it's popular and has fans is because people like what they have done. Don't just take a section and water it down. (make it easier for non-fans to get into it)
 

Casual Shinji

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Trishbot said:
Ishigami said:
Yea whatever... Production IG already slaughtered GitS may as well rape the corpse for what it?s worth. Go ahead Hollywood see if I care.
Can't get worse than GiTS: Innocence. There's artsy, and then there's pretentious. That was slightly funny, though, for a film about discovering what makes people truly human, there was a shocking lack of any of it on display. Just cold, calculated, rendered computer imagery to distract your brain from thinking about it too hard.
Oshii is one of those artsy types you really don't wanna leave to their own devices.
 

Mike Fang

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A live action remake of a Japanese anime film.

*sighs* Fuck you Hollywood. Fuck you sideways. You need to invest in some original film ideas instead of constant retreads of old material, especially stuff that's fine the way it is, wouldn't benefit from being remade and is more than likely going to be little more than a God damn cash grab trying to make a buck off of fans of the source material.
 

ckam

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Oct 8, 2008
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Can we not...? I just... I just don't feel these adaptations are made in the right place or with the right mindset.
 

DaViller

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I´m cool with johanson, she was good in everything I have seen her in (not amazing but good). But the director of fucking snowwhite and the huntsman? Fuck that shit.
 

Fursnake

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Is she going to run around mostly naked like in the anime movie? That might make this adaptation more tolerable.
 

Adam Jensen_v1legacy

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PunkRex said:
Well, Johansson does look like she was designed, if I was to imagine a perfect being she'd be up there.
Word. I love that woman. I have full faith that she can nail the role. Unfortunately I don't have any faith in the director so my expectations for the movie are quite low as the result of that. And it seems like they know it's not gonna be great which is why they're betting on Scarlett as the A list celebrity and our new sci-fi queen to generate interest. It is working though. I have to go see it. But I'm a pretty big fan of Scarlett Johansson. I've been watching her movies since I was a kid. "Horse Whisperer" meant a lot to me when I was growing up.

DaViller said:
I´m cool with johanson, she was good in everything I have seen her in (not amazing but good).
Did you watch "Lost in Translation" and "A Love Song for Bobby Long"? She was amazing in those.
 

Darth_Payn

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Color me intrigued. Scarlet is a bonified ass-kicker, and for once he usual stone-faced shortage of emoting (I can hear Dr. Zoidberg's Uncle Harold yell, "You've got to emote, dammit!") can work to her advantage portraying The Major's usual stoic demeanor. I just wonder how the costume will work. I'm not entirely worried about the director, writer, and other behind the scenes guys, since Spielberg's producing it, and since he's a fan, he'll make damn sure they get it right.
 

Major_Tom

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Jun 29, 2008
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So are they making a remake of the 1995 film, or another adaptation of the original manga? Anyway, the choice of the director is sill my main concern. Can we at least get Kenji Kawai to do the music?
 

Kittyhawk

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Those in panic can pipe down. I can certainly agree that after her role in Lucy, she's a great fit for GitS, which has been in the pipe for years now. Can't wait to see it, now.

Go watch Lucy if you have doubts. She was half way to being the Major, with all that kick ass n gun play.

Okay Marvel, you can green light that Black Widow flick too.
 

Johnny Novgorod

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Ugh, by the guy who boinked his lead actress in Snow White? Well, he certainly has his priorities in check...
 
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Nope. Won't work. GitS is just beyond Hollywood's experience. The best they can do for cerebral action films is Inception; that is to say, decent, but not exactly inspired. GitS is way smarter than they are able to pull off.
 

raankh

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I doubt they will make her inhuman enough to be the Major; neither the weird contrast between boisterous gorilla and cyborg killer of the manga or the machine-cool warrior with a whispering ghost of the animes. I forsee an emotional and "bad ass" Johansson doing a straight up action role that completely misses the fundamental point of Motoko Kusanagi and how she clings to humanity; excellently metaphored by the fact that the Major has no genitals.
 

vagabondwillsmile

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Scarim Coral said:
While Johnssan does got the combat ability to be the Major but she doesn't got her looks

If anything I still vouch for Rinko Kikuchi (Pacific Rim) to be Motoko Kusanagi!

Regardless given Western adaption over eastern stuff then to fail anyway.
My thoughts exactly. At least Kikuchi looks the part - and we did get to see her fight in Pacific Rim. We've even seen her with the Kusanagi hair-style! She's most likely more capable than Johansson for that matter. Hollywood action / fighting is full of close-ups, shakey-cam, and jump cuts specifically because the actors don't really know how to fight or do gymnastics. They are physically fit, sure. But they are rarely capable of fighting and action. Where Jacki Chan (NOT Hollywood JC), Donny Yen, and Iko Uwais films for example, are filled with people that have extensive and continuing training - people that can, and do, fight. It's not from just a four month pt and martial arts boot camp... And they let you know it too with wide-angles, long-cuts, steady cam, and close-ups only to show the audience that people are actually making contact.

As far as direction goes, eh. It's not really bothersome to me - as I'm pretty much agains the entire project. There isn't anything in his repertoire that specifically says he isn't capable. Snow White and the Huntsman is more of a victim of a shit screen-play, story, and script than poor direction. But I'd put money down that Del Torro is a bigger fan of GitS than Sanders and Speilberg put together. And guess with whom he worked in Pacific Rim!

That said... Fuck you Hollywood and your adaptations of other culture's work. It's always shit. I've never once looked at a Hollywood adaptations of anything and said, "Yep, I'm so glad I saw this version." and not immediately going to watch the original afterwards to clenase the pallet. Stop it. I'm really starting to hate you.
 

WanderingFool

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Awww Dammit... I like her in the role of Black Widow, and she can probably pull off a the major, but just the idea of "Live-action GitS" disgusts me...

Hopefully, if it does come to be, they'll focus on the action aspects, and less on the "everyone stands around discussing philosphy and cybernetic dissacociation of the human soul" parts. Seriously, As much as I love the series, it can get rediculous at times.
 

medv4380

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With the rare exception of Cutie Honey which went for over the top effects to make it work. Anime doesn't really translate to live actor very well, and Hollywood just hasn't done it well ever. I have nothing against Scarlett Johansson doing the roll, but if this ends up being another sub par to bad movie with her as a hero I can't be disappointed, because my expectations are already at Zero.
 

Diddy_Mao

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Of all of the Anime sacred cows I think GitS is probably the easiest to adapt to film. I'm not 100% confident it'll be done well but it would be worlds easier than Akira.

I'm not overly fond of the attached director but I'll take this over whatever garbage Cameron
had planned for Battle Angel.
 

vagabondwillsmile

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fix-the-spade said:
Cans of whitewash still experiencing strong sales in Hollywood...

However, if it must be whitewashed they could do a lot worse than casting The Black Widow as Major Kusanagi, begs the question who will play Batou and Togusa, I always pictured Batou as European simply because he looks European, but Togusa not so much.

I can't help but think that Hollywood will shy away from the heavier themes in GitS and that the film will suffer from it.
One thing I will say on the issue of race in asian comics and animation being adapted by Hollywood and its almost inevitable (and stupid) white-washing: It IS common for many characters in any given work to have hair colors and skin tones to indicate indeterminate race. So, often, they could just as easily - in live action - be played by people of asian, anglo-saxon, latin, hebrew, middle-eastern, mixed, etc. ethnicities (of course it doesn't work if culture and ethnicity is central to the message of the story though, which is part of why the live-action dump of Nickalodeon's Avataar was such a shit-show...). Kiki's Dilivery Service from Miyazaki could very well be in a place like Amsterdam and played entirely by European actors. BUT there ARE often indicators in Asian stories that would lead to the characters being thought of as specifically Japanese, Korean, Chinese, etc. Character names, locations, cultural idiosyncrasies, etc. can all indicate a character's implied ethnicity and culture regardless of cell color used to represent their skin. Certainly, this is the case with GitS. The appearance is of indeterminate race/ethnicity/culture. BUT we all know they are Japanese. And out of respect to the nation and culture of origine it would be nice for Hollywood to cast accordingly! If Speilberg was truly a fan, he would understand this! White-washing does a disservice to the source material.

And yeah - the GitS film was actually plenty watered-down from the manga anyway. They won't even touch the heavy stuff in the film or manga, and certainly not the manga's comedy (ex. the pranks the squad pulls, the funny tachikomas, Kusanagi telling off her superiors and making them punch themselves via hack, body swaps...). The Hollywood adaptation, considering Hollywood's track record with these things, is bound to be token, Hollywood action cyber-shclock, and will probably try to out-mood the GitS animated film, which is... pretty damn dark and moody.
 

Makabriel

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raankh said:
I doubt they will make her inhuman enough to be the Major; neither the weird contrast between boisterous gorilla and cyborg killer of the manga or the machine-cool warrior with a whispering ghost of the animes. I forsee an emotional and "bad ass" Johansson doing a straight up action role that completely misses the fundamental point of Motoko Kusanagi and how she clings to humanity; excellently metaphored by the fact that the Major has no genitals.
Have you seen her in Lucy? She can do detached VERY well.. which is why I approve of this casting.

fix-the-spade said:
Cans of whitewash still experiencing strong sales in Hollywood...

However, if it must be whitewashed they could do a lot worse than casting The Black Widow as Major Kusanagi, begs the question who will play Batou and Togusa, I always pictured Batou as European simply because he looks European, but Togusa not so much.

I can't help but think that Hollywood will shy away from the heavier themes in GitS and that the film will suffer from it.
Honestly, in thinking about it the only person I can see playing Batou would be a younger Dolph Lundgren..