Ghost in the Shell is one of the most prolific and
influential series in modern times, especially in contemporary western culture.
It feels as though we were just biding our time of enjoying the almost
immaculate slew of Ghost in the Shell media until people decided that they
could make a few extra bucks by re-animating the peacefully resting body of
works, Ghost in the Shell. Ghost in the Shell was first serialized as a manga
from 89’-90’. Later it made its biggest impact worldwide with Mamoru Oshii’s
1995 masterpiece, Ghost in the Shell.
Oshii was known for his experimental and distinct style that was
utilized in Angel’s Egg and the 2nd Patlabor movie. He considers his
style to be the exact opposite of the Hollywood formula for making a movie
which is why it is so ironic that Hollywood has chosen Ghost in the Shell to be
the next IP on their chopping block. After the unexpected success of the
theatrical version, an anime was released as a two season series starting in
2003 and although there was a tonal shift, the heart of the movie was still
intact and a fabulous job of being different and standing alone from the movie,
but still remaining the same thematically. There was a second movie in 2004
that picked up where the first one left of and it is generally seen as inferior
to the first but it’s not a bad movie by any stretch of the imagination. This
is where I would consider the golden age of Ghost in the Shell to end.
Skip
ahead 9 years when the anime industry is in decline, sales just are not what
they used to be and production studios are doing what they can to stay afloat
(note the similarities to Hollywood). The re-invigoration of the industry that
Attack on Titan would bring has not yet happened so we have now entered the age
of re-hashing, where studios will take an old beloved IP, spruce it up a bit
and then regurgitate back out for the adoring otaku to eat it up like they
always do. At this point Production I.G. was thinking “Hey, it’s been about ten
years since Ghost in the Shell came out, people love Ghost in the Shell… we
still have the rights to that yeah?” And thus the mediocrity that is known as
Ghost in the Shell: Arise is released.
The series of movies which was later put into an anime series is yet
another re-imagination of the series with a fresh coat of paint slapped on.
It’s not even a good coat of paint, all the character designs are just
different enough so it can’t be confused with the rest of the shlock being
thrown at us. Not only are the aesthetics unimaginative everything about it
seems like it has been tailored to make the most money. It’s far worse than the show in that it in no
way captures the feeling that the movie and the show managed to convey, it’s ok
that they wanted to do their own thing but what they pulled off is just boring
and I consider Arise a part of Ghost in the Shell in name only. I really hate
this slew of re-hashes that the entertainment has been throwing at us, and
Ghost in the Shell just happened next in line, right behind Berserk and
Evangelion. Now not every re-make during this time was bad, the most notable
exception being JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, but that’s another post for another
time.
Fast
forward to 2014 and Hollywood has found itself in a similar position to the
anime industry, DreamWorks says “Hey, I bet we can make some money off that
Ghost in the Shell thing we got the rights to a few years back… we still have
some writers working on that right?” And thus production got moving on the
westernized Hollywood adaptation of Ghost in the Shell, and it looks horrible.
Let us
for a second forget the horrible CGI, the poor choice of actors, and even the
story, we don’t have to look at those
things to know that it’s going to be a bad movie, although we will. All you have
to do is look at the current state of Hollywood and we know that this will be
shitty cyberpunk action movie that will pander to the lowest common
denominator. Any attempt at philosophical thought that the original movie is
known for will be shallow at best, the plot will be cut and paste from pieces
of the most popular aspects of the franchise, it will be yet another origins
story, and all dialogue and every aspect of the storytelling process will be lifted
directly from what has been working most recently in Hollywood. I knew this as
soon as I heard it was going to be released simply because that is what every
other IP that has been in a similar position as Ghost in the Shell. Just look at
every super hero movie ever. Now let’s talk about the trailer and how
everything that I have said will come to fruition.
After
watching the trailer it’s easy to see that it’s shamelessly pandering to the
old fans. They showed all of these classic scenes from the original movie as
well as the show, but they don’t have the same context, they don’t mean
anything, and they’re just a poor imitation of the original. Let’s take the
classic scene where we see Major’s bedroom for the first time. In the original all
we can see is the window that looks out over the city and her bedroom is cast
in shadows. This is a great peak into Major as a character, we see that her
room, which is generally very personalized and is a reflection of oneself is completely
dark, we get the sense that Major doesn’t really know who she is. In the
trailer we get a re-creation of the shot but we can see her room completely and
it conveys the same pretty much does it add anything? Is this how it’s going to
be communicated? Obviously not because
in the trailer we have to be told about her inner conflict, so the only reason
they put it in movie is because it was in the original, it adds nothing to the
story. It’s already a bad sign about how
the movie will heavy handedly deal with the delicate and more interesting
nuances if the movie. This scene is just put in there because it was in the
original movie. The same goes for basically the rest of the movie where plenty
of other scenes are lifted from the original movie as well as the show. The
movie will be a sub-par shallow westernization of the source material.
From
the glimpses of story that we get it looks like they are trying to mash
together a few elements from Arise with the original, which is not a good sign.
It looks like the ominous voice that we hear later in the preview is going to
be the Puppet Master from the original movie, and I get the feeling that they
will be pursuing him, but when Major and him meet for the first time he will
reveal that the people that she thinks saved her life when they shoved her in
her robot body actually betrayed her, probably by implanting fake memories, and
now she’s going fight back. Aside from this being extremely played out and
devoid of creativity, it completely takes away everything interesting about the
Puppet Master. In the original all he wanted to do was re-produce before he was
captured and killed, and as being artificial intelligence, he still has the
basic primordial instinct of passing on a piece of himself. That is what made
the Puppet Master such a great character and object of interest in the movie,
and I highly doubt anything nearly as interesting as that will be in the new
movie. Another part of the movie that is terrible is the way they deal with the
creation of Major’s body. In the movie the origin of her cybernation is briefly
talked about, but used as a fantastic intro sequence. It’s not that big of a
deal because in this world completely cybernized people are not that uncommon,
what they choose to focus on instead is how she deals with her situation and
what she does to connect to her humanity, and this works perfectly with the
Puppet Master as the antagonist. In the movie it appears that she is the first
ever cybernized person and she struggles to connect to something like how
everyone around her can. This makes her a fish out of water character and it’s flat
out stated that the circumstances of her cybernation will be the focus of the
film. This is just boring and played out, which is probably how every aspect of
the movie will play out.
Now let’s
talk about the characters and presentation for a while. Everyone is freaking
out how they cast Scarlett Johansen as the Major instead of a Japanese actress
and this doesn’t bother me so much because Major’s body is cybernetic so it
look like anything, but Batou being white is pretty bad and that’s definitely a
missed opportunity for representation. But the choice of ScarJo for Major is
pretty telling of the series. She is a huge draw for audiences which really let
you know that they are putting profitability ahead of artistic vision. I think
ScarJo is a fine actor, and she’ll probably do pretty well as Major, but I
highly doubt she is the best choice for the role. Another point that shows how
much this movie is being made solely to drive a profit is that they could have
done any number of creative things and it still would have made money because
there is a large base of Ghost in the Shell fans, like myself, that will see it
regardless of what they did with it. Instead they made a product that will
drive the most amounts of people to see it and that is all this movie is
concerned about. That is all any major production is concerned with.
The whole point of all of this is
that this is not a true Ghost in the Shell movie; it’s just a formulaic future
Hollywood thriller that’s wearing the desecrated skin of multiple Ghost in the
Shell media pieces Buffalo Bill style. That
just doesn’t rest well with me, and I’m going to see regardless because I have
to, but I’m not going to like it. If you have no idea what Ghost in the Shell
is then you’ll probably like the movie, I bet it’s a solid action thriller in a
cyberpunk setting. But it’s not Ghost in the Shell.
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