So, Ghost in the Shell seems to be pretty good

[FalloutJack]

In my opinion, this iteration of Ghost in the Shell is worthy. However, for the sake of someone who asked me not to spoil it, spoiler tags.

Spoiler: My Thoughts

Ghost in the Shell has been a phenomenon that has seen willing and interesting divergent takes in its overall story. The manga, which is different from the anime movie, which is different from the show...and is also different from the live-action movie. It's funny, the way things work out, the question of what memories or what 'you' is real over another version or thought, and in all of this we see so many perspectives and takes on the same thing.

This takes much from the source material, but in true fashion, it also interprets it differently while remaining very well done. Some very clear and known elements were kept, others altered alightly, while some were actively changed...and yet this is still Ghost in the Shell. It seems to take elements of the manga and animation, SAC, and Arise. To wit, it's telling us a new tale of the Major, while still being THE tale of the Major. By the same token that her body is interchangeable as parts, so to is the story, in ways.

All that we know and love is still in there, but different. Instead of the Puppetmaster, it's Hideo Kuze's network, and yet it's still a question of a terrifying experiment gone rogue. Instead of the multiped being piloted by a nameless agent, we have the man behind Motoko's very 'creation'. Instead of Batou having had those unblinking eyes because of his time in the Rangers, he has 'em because of a mission. It's alternate character development in a story in which the facts are malleable.

Aramaki is, as always, a badass, but I like that they really displayed it here.

Incidentally, there might be some question about the screentime for some of the characters being too short, but again...the animation didn't have much time to flesh out Togusa, Ishikawa, Saito, and more. That's what SAC and Arise did, and brilliantly. This, to me, looked like early days of Section 9, clear Ghost in the Shell plot, and everything that makes it what it is. This will be one of the VERY FEW live-action movies that did right.

Hell, they even did the opening credits with the assembly of a cyberbody and the end credits had the opening music from the original animation. That's class and attention to detail, right there. This was cared about.

 

[Elijin]

It exists to introduce the story to an entirely new audience. If you cant see that....well, that's your problem, not the movies.

Or are you some diehard anime weeb who thinks that if people don't want anime then they don't deserve any of the stories contained within?

What stories contained within? This is a new story wearing Ghost in the Shell's skin.

Ironic, but not much else.

I wouldn't know, I haven't seen it. But people are saying its a retelling of the original. The poster I quoted said if its just a retelling of the original, it shouldn't exist. But the original is an anime film and this is a live action Hollywood film with a well billed cast. So, like I said. It exists to bring the story to a new audience. I give zero craps about whether people think it did it well, etc etc.

I mean the MrBoBo says remakes should be better than the original, or do their own thing. Apparently be in a completely different medium with a different audience is not 'doing its own thing.'

 

[MrBoBo]

I mean the MrBoBo says remakes should be better than the original, or do their own thing. Apparently be in a completely different medium with a different audience is not 'doing its own thing.'

When I say "doing it's own thing", that's meant as a positive, not literally "anything".

The 1986 Fly movie uses it's materiel as a spring board for something even greater, with themes about aging and disease, with terrific performances, special effects, music score and story. It subverts the expectations with the jerk becoming the hero, and the nice guy becoming the tragic villain. It's existence is completely justified, it elevates itself beyond the material.

This, Robocop and others of it's ilk, however you wish to label it, are garbage, cynical in nature and do not in anyway, shape or form elevate themselves over the original source.
.

 

[Elijin]

I mean the MrBoBo says remakes should be better than the original, or do their own thing. Apparently be in a completely different medium with a different audience is not 'doing its own thing.'

When I say "doing it's own thing", that's meant as a positive, not literally "anything".

The 1986 Fly movie uses it's materiel as a spring board for something even greater, with themes about aging and disease, with terrific performances, special effects, music score and story. It subverts the expectations with the jerk becoming the hero, and the nice guy becoming the tragic villain. It's existence is completely justified, it elevates itself beyond the material.

This, Robocop and others of it's ilk, however you wish to label it, are garbage, cynical in nature and do not in anyway, shape or form elevate themselves over the original source.
.

Its a story. Its being exposed to a new audience. Every time a story reaches a new audience, it has been elevated. It has the chance to make new connections, inspire future works and shape things that come after it.

You could argue something like Robocop doesn't, I guess. Since its the same story on the same medium. But GITS is gaining a new level of audience exposure. And regardless of whatever your self important sense of cultured tastes say, sharing a story with those who haven't heard it, is an elevation.

 

[Thaluikhain]

It's disappointing how actors are often expected to work out for certain roles but nobody expects the same from an actress. You seldom see any muscular actresses in action and sci-fi movies, like Vasquez from Aliens or Noomi Rapace in Prometheus. The major should have an athlete's body.

No, they have to slim down rather than bulk up. And yeah, long past time to change that.

As an aside, I remember they cast the rather muscly looking Victoria Pratt in the Mutant X series, but them had her wear a long coat all the time so you can't see her muscles.

 

[runic knight]

I've heard from a few friends it is pretty good, including a pretty big fan of the original anime. Not seen it yet, but I have more hopes for it now than I did when it was announced.

The critic reviews aren't good for it, but honestly, I am finding those reviews more and more strained from my experiences when I see a movie. Given that the most general review is that the movie is a souless but fun spectacle and that those sorts of criticisms were given to Dr. Strange as well, a movie I did enjoy, I think I will check this one out eventually.

 

[Wrex Brogan]

Ehhh, it was... ok. Action scenes were good and the visuals were amazing, but the story was a bit weak (and didn't exactly improve on the original's story either) and ScarJo was honestly a little bland as the Major. Felt like she was channeling Lucy a little too much for the role, and given that movie sucked ass... yeah.

But still, a perfectly serviceable movie. Go see it for the prettiness at the least, though you may be a touch disappointed if you're a fan of the anime or weren't a fan of the original movie.

 

[Nature Guardian]

I wouldn't watch it even if they paid me to do so.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

As someone who can't stand anime because of monumentally dumb way that all anime is directed, terrible sound effects, frustrating voice acting and shallow characterization that boils down to either "too cool for school" or "too dumb and/or insecure for Earth", I'm glad that an actual movie was made. I couldn't care less about the so-called whitewashing either. Major is a fictional character from what is essentially a cartoon. And let's not pretend like the original Ghost in the Shell is some kind of original idea. It's a clever mix of existing ideas and that's about it. I'll never understand why people think so highly of it.

I'm ready for your hate, internet. Bring it.

 

[EternallyBored]

As someone who can't stand anime because of monumentally dumb way that all anime is directed, terrible sound effects, frustrating voice acting and shallow characterization that boils down to either "too cool for school" or "too dumb and/or insecure for Earth", I'm glad that an actual movie was made. I couldn't care less about the so-called whitewashing either. Major is a fictional character from what is essentially a cartoon. And let's not pretend like the original Ghost in the Shell is some kind of original idea. It's a clever mix of existing ideas and that's about it. I'll never understand why people think so highly of it.

I'm ready for your hate, internet. Bring it.

Generally they think highly of it for two major reasons, it's a mix of existing ideas, today, but back in 1995, it was a level of sci-fi that had been rarely touched by anime, and pretty much never by Western animation, even among Western media you usually didn't see those types of transhumanist themes outside of hard sci-fi literature, or maybe Hollywood's brief flirtations with cyberpunk in the 80's-90's though most were action oriented over pop philosophy. GITS may have handled some of its themes ham handedly, but much like old Hollywood movies that still get praise it gets credit for being the first to break into the mainstream with those ideas. Sort of like how movies like Blade Runner or the original Star Trek get praise for their ideas, but there are a lot of more modern properties that have refined them and done them better in many ways. A lot of the stuff that does GITS themes and ideas better came after and Japanese media makers have often credited GITS for being the inspiration for those ideas. It effected the aesthetics in many anime that came after its release.

On the Western front, Ghost in the Shell was a bit of a case of "right place, right time", in that it caught on in America during a time when we didn't really get any anime except the stuff explicitly made for kids, or stuff bought by American companies and hacked apart to make it kid friendly. I grew up in Hawaii where cultural crossover with Japan was pretty noticeable, you could catch late 70's early 80's anime on television, and video stores had VHS tapes of anime imported straight from Japan with no English track, and no subtitles.
When my family moved to the mainland, anime and manga were pretty much unknown, most people's knowledge of Japanese media was mostly video games, you got anime through shifty mail order magazines, importers, bootleg VHS tapes, and whatever you could find in pawn shops. American animation was pretty much completely dominated by Children's shows, the most adult oriented animation most Americans encountered was the Simpsons, or Beavis and Butthead after 1993 and South Park in 1997.
When GITS released in the US in 1996, it was a shit load of American's first encounter with adult animation that told a serious story, it was a lot of people's first experience with serious Japanese animation.

It's a mix of: they did it first, or at least brought it into the mainstream first, it had an impact on similar genre pieces that came afterwards, and it was many people in the early American anime communities first experience with serious adult animation that wasn't focused on comedy. It's sort of like other classics, Casablanca doesn't really do anything that hasn't been done elsewhere, and there's a ton of romance films that I would consider flat out better, but its place in history guarantees it a certain level of acclaim, regardless of what came after.

 

[Jux]

19 million in the first weekend on a 110 million budget. Who was it again saying whitewashing was ok because scarjo was totally needed for that star power? lol And a 43% on Rotten Tomatoes currently.

 

[ckriley]

The movie was very disappointing on so many levels. First off, let me just preface my remarks by saying I'm not really familiar with the source material. I never saw the 1995 original anime and never read any of the manga. Of course I know about GITS but that's mainly because I'm a geek for sci-fi and fantasy. But the only thing I knew about it was the iconic shot of Major jumping off a building and disappearing. I always thought that was cool.

Having said that, the movie adaptation basically showed everything wrong with Hollywood today. It's all generic, derivative, and painfully formulaic. Studios today are far less willing to take risks than they've ever been before, and that's really saying something.

I know enough about GITS to know that it can be very cerebral and philosophical, and that 75% of The Matrix was lifted directly from Ghost In The Shell. There's even a story that when the Wachowskis pitched it to producer Joel Silver, they just showed him GITS and said, "We want to do that for real."

Modern sci-fi owes a hefty debt to GITS, there's no doubt about it. If you like Westworld, you can thank Ghost In The Shell for that. That's why it's dismaying to see such a generic movie based on such a rich IP.

 

[MatParker116]

19 million in the first weekend on a 110 million budget. Who was it again saying whitewashing was ok because scarjo was totally needed for that star power? lol And a 43% on Rotten Tomatoes currently.

It's actually $60 million when international is taken into account and it's yet to open in China. It's doing well in Asia and that should help it make a small profit when all is said and done.

 

[hentropy]

19 million in the first weekend on a 110 million budget. Who was it again saying whitewashing was ok because scarjo was totally needed for that star power? lol And a 43% on Rotten Tomatoes currently.

It's actually $60 million when international is taken into account and it's yet to open in China. It's doing well in Asia and that should help it make a small profit when all is said and done.

Keep in mind that announced production budgets are often unreliable. We don't really know how much they spent on the movie at the end of the day, as Hollywood will often drop marketing costs from the "budget" among other things. Which means even if they "break even" at 110m, they're probably not actually making money. Some float a "rule of thumb" of basically doubling the production budget to get the "real costs" of making the movie, but even if we lowball it and say they need 150m just to break even, they're not even close to halfway there yet. And even breaking even is not the goal. In order for a film to be considered "successful" it has to double its (real) production costs. If it simply breaks even or goes in the red modestly, it's a flop, and if it only manages to make half of its (real) production budget, it's a bomb.

China can deliver huge wins for studios, or deliver huge losses. No one can really nail down which movies do well there, even movies that do well in Asia generally don't always do well in China specifically (Star Wars is a dud over there). The fact that this is an adaptation of a Japanese IP (hint: the Japanese aren't loved in China) might hamper it. If you're a fan of this movie and want it to do well for some strange reason, I'm not sure if I'd count on China to deliver it. It would have to slay in China in order to get it over the 200m mark, and typically only Chinese-language movies make that kind of bank.

 

[CaptainFunnyPants]

Its better than Rogue One, so if you thought that was worth watching I'd recommend watching the GitS movie. Batou in particular was a pleasant surprise for me who had low expectations.

 

[Scarytown_v1legacy]

Well this looks to spell the end (or at least delay) any hope of a Black Widow solo movie. The studio put all its eggs in the ScarJo basket and it didn't pan out at all. They could have probably gone with anybody and had the same result (and less controversy). I'm not sure what it would have taken to be a success. It still has a chance in China, but it has a week to try and recoup its cost before the force of nature known as "The Fate of the Furious" sweeps the box office.

I still think people blew the white washing controversy out of proportion. While I think most of the population didn't care about it (or anything at all about the movie), the negative light didn't help it on a marketing aspect. It was enough that Jordan Peele was courted for possibly helming Akira to try and navigate through the murky social waters (though I think we will see another 10 years of development hell now).

My biggest overall worry is that cape films will continue to suck most of the industry dry when it comes to big VFX movies. I was hoping for a resurgence of cyberpunk, but I put too much expectation from the director of Snow White and the Huntsman and the writer of 3 Transformer movies. Well at least I got Blade Runner 2049 (please, please don't let me down) to look forward to.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

I saw it today. Cliched, hollow, and everything felt weirdly disconnected and meaningless. I don't like GITS (original animated movie feature and its spin off series) in general. I find it uncreative and stupid. The amount you could have done with the idea could have dealt with far greater depth of the topic.

It wasn't targeted to me. But it felt like a montage of a myriad of other scenes from things I have already seen. Like a collage of highlight weirdly strung together into a movie.

 

[Gatlank]

My friends (which didn't saw the original animation or series) thought it was average. That to me was a signal to not even bother.

 

[McElroy]

Modern sci-fi owes a hefty debt to GITS, there's no doubt about it. If you like Westworld, you can thank Ghost In The Shell for that. That's why it's dismaying to see such a generic movie based on such a rich IP.

While I haven't watched Westworld, the original movies Westworld and Futureworld are from the 70s.

Movies with mediocre plots are just filler. Can't really be bothered myself all the way to a theater. I wouldn't really worry about RT scores, though. The MCU poisoned that well. I mean c'mon, Ant-Man is over 80%.