Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 AduroT wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 AduroT wrote:
Without taking the time to stop and look it up, I'm pretty sure Batou is US Special Forces of some sort. You meet his unit at one point in the series and they all have the same eyes.

I don't think they are US special forces, as they are deployed by the Japanese government at the end of season 2. A GITS wiki says the Rangers are part of the JSDF.

Well that's what I get for not looking it up. It's been awhile since I've seen it and I remember the impression they were special/foreign but am clearly mistaken then.

It's not a huge deal. In the series many of them had gone and worked as mercenaries and UN peacekeepers and stuff before signing up with Section 9, so they got around and a stint with the US special forces wouldn't be unheard of

Saw this tonight. I had low expectations due to the bad reviews and not being able to get into the anime, but man, I liked it a fair amount. It has good action, and I think it's worth the price of a ticket for the visuals alone - the cityscapes were amazing. It's a beautiful looking movie.

 Breotan wrote:
I don't think Batou is Japanese. He's Caucasian but I don't know which nationality. It was mentioned in one of the S.A.C. series, I think, but I don't remember.

I'm pretty sure he is. In SAC they mentioned he was a Ranger, which are an elite JSDF unit. I think they would have specified if it were US rangers.
You later on see members of the JSDF with the same style of ocular implants as him, implying that those implants are standard issue gear for the army.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 AduroT wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 AduroT wrote:
Without taking the time to stop and look it up, I'm pretty sure Batou is US Special Forces of some sort. You meet his unit at one point in the series and they all have the same eyes.

I don't think they are US special forces, as they are deployed by the Japanese government at the end of season 2. A GITS wiki says the Rangers are part of the JSDF.

Well that's what I get for not looking it up. It's been awhile since I've seen it and I remember the impression they were special/foreign but am clearly mistaken then.

It's not a huge deal. In the series many of them had gone and worked as mercenaries and UN peacekeepers and stuff before signing up with Section 9, so they got around and a stint with the US special forces wouldn't be unheard of

It would certainly not be. After all, Batou did fight alongside the American Imperial army and stumble across a war crime. There was an episode about that in SAC.

Just saw it yesterday, I think the trailer actually marketed it carefully given how the story seemed to go but unfortunately made it look worse than it is. It seems better if you don't try to hold it to the original but instead see it as another stand alone that unfortunately needed to be dumbed down a bit for some reason. Its start felt really weak like some bad fanfiction, but thankfully it picked up eventually.

I'll have to go see it once I have an evening free, if only to be able to say it's not like the original.

While people do mention "whitewashing" that is actually one thing I think suits the movie quite a lot. Characters in the manga and animated movie don't all look Japanese or asian to me, and that's one current fashion in Asia. Actors, models and others with the money spend good cash on surgery (eyelids specifically) in order to look less "asian", more Western. Also having a caucasian boy/girlfriend is a big status symbol, and there's companies that hire westerners for their offices just to stand around and look important so locals will know it's a very mighty company indeed to have such a guy working there.

So if you can have a cyborg body (or those cute service androids), why not make it look caucasian? By the time GitS rolls around it could ofc even be a bit passé what with everyone (rich) having access to it, so it might mark the designer/user as somewhat oldfashioned. ;-)

So far we have a people who haven't seen the movie declaring it utter crap, and people who have seen it saying it's decent enough.

It somewhat uses it as a story point.

 feeder wrote:
So far we have a people who haven't seen the movie declaring it utter crap, and people who have seen it saying it's decent enough.

Rotten Tomatoes has Ghost at 43%, whereas Beauty is at 71% and Logan is at 92%. CHIPS is at 20%. Seems legit.

Audience score is 63%, for what it's worth.

The creator of GitS wanted and liked ScarJo for the part but that isn't what is important. A major plot point isn't important either. What is important is WHITEWASHING...WWWWHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIITEWAAAAAAAASSHING!


Is it a male/female thing? Avatar (James Cameron version) leaned on the White Savior trope hard but the back lash was minimal whereas GitS had support from the creator and other things but people bitched and moaned loudly when it was just a trailer.

Maybe it is a western hard on for Japanese things or just anime. No one yelled when Japan remade Unforgiven* but did throw fits when the shoe is on the other foot. Seems a double standard; when Japan does it it is fine but if the US does it OMG SO HORRIBLE RACISM BLARGLE BLARGLE WOKE.

There are real issues with Whitewashing but this isn't it, but who wants to face the real issues when we can complain about superficial ones online and get an internal sense of moral superiority without actually having to be morally superior.

*If you haven't seen the Japanese remake you should, or at least watch the trailer.

Saw the movie with my wife yesterday and we both enjoyed it. I was a casual fan of the two seasons of Stand Alone Complex, and that is about as far as my toe dipped into the Ghost in the Shell world.

That said, I found the movie to be extremely entertaining, and the future presented frighteningly plausible. The performances were great, the characters were recognizable and the visuals were pretty amazing.

We saw the film in 3D and thought the value was there, but we also went to a matinee so the ticket prices were *only* $11 for 3D.

My wife had no familiarity with GitS, and really liked the movie, for whatever that is worth.

 Ahtman wrote:
The creator of GitS wanted and liked ScarJo for the part but that isn't what is important. A major plot point isn't important either. What is important is WHITEWASHING...WWWWHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIITEWAAAAAAAASSHING!


Is it a male/female thing? Avatar (James Cameron version) leaned on the White Savior trope hard but the back lash was minimal whereas GitS had support from the creator and other things but people bitched and moaned loudly when it was just a trailer.

Maybe it is a western hard on for Japanese things or just anime. No one yelled when Japan remade Unforgiven* but did throw fits when the shoe is on the other foot. Seems a double standard; when Japan does it it is fine but if the US does it OMG SO HORRIBLE RACISM BLARGLE BLARGLE WOKE.

There are real issues with Whitewashing but this isn't it, but who wants to face the real issues when we can complain about superficial ones online and get an internal sense of moral superiority without actually having to be morally superior.

*If you haven't seen the Japanese remake you should, or at least watch the trailer.

I agree. I didn't get any impression of whitewashing while watching this movie. The plot point you speak of is extremely satisfying in terms of explaining things, and felt appropriate for the story and setting.

I have cleaned up this thread - please consider this a reminder that Rule Number One is Be Polite. Thanks!

Evidently the movie bombed over the weekend.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2017/04/03/box-office-five-reasons-ghost-in-the-shell-bombed-in-america/?utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=partner&utm_campaign=yahootix&partner=yahootix#3fa6b02e1144

Only thing I was disappointed in was the lack of this scene. Though it is from the second movie, they put ghost city as the ending credit song anyway.




Also that they didn't use Kenji's music more.

Welp watched it yesterday.

Wont lie
Visuals 10/10 easy.

Story wise: 5/10

I would probably agree with that assessment Desubot, especially about the ratings.

It's worth the admission price for the absolutely fantastic visuals, the sets, character portrayal etc. The music goes with it beautifully, it's an A/V masterpiece. So, anyone who (like me) loved stuff like Avatar, Mad Max etc. just because it has such an awesome spectacle, you'd probably like this as well. I know a couple of real anime fans who absolutely loved the amount of references to the Manga in the film, so I guess there is that for those who like it as well.

Storywise I found it more enjoyable when I stopped trying to reconcile it with the animation. Really, the Major is a different character, the concept of her existence is different (without giving too much away), and obviously it doesn't have as much depth as the story in the animation.

Overall I would say a noble effort, excels in some areas, a bit slow, three and a half stars (out of 5), four or five if you're a big time anime fan.

I've been too busy the past week to go see it, hopefully it is still in theatres for a little bit. I remember when The Neon Demon came out, it was only in local theatres a week (I saw it three times during that week).

I'm not surprised the movie didn't do great. But now the folks working on Blade Runner 2049 are probably a bit nervous. Considering that film is reported to have cost a crap ton of money. And is also part of the same cyberpunk genre. I feel like BR will have a more secure chance of success though.

I saw the original Ghost In The Shell in the cinema when it was new in the mid 1990s (?) as part of a Japanese film festival in London.

It doesn't need a live action remake. It's a fantastic anime spectacle in itself, whatever the arguable merits of the philosophy behind the story.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I saw the original Ghost In The Shell in the cinema when it was new in the mid 1990s (?) as part of a Japanese film festival in London.

It doesn't need a live action remake. It's a fantastic anime spectacle in itself, whatever the arguable merits of the philosophy behind the story.

I feel the same way, but for the opposite reason- I felt it was a highly overrated movie. But it stood on its own for those who liked it and I agree that a LA doesn't add much. I also don't think much of Johansson as an actress and couldn't help but see this as a prettier "Lucy", so that killed pretty much any interest I had in seeing the movie. But maybe her complete inability to act convincingly works for a portrayal of a robot?

I got around to seeing it tonight, I liked it more than I thought I would. I will say i've never seen the anime.. but I probably will now. The trailers would have you think its an action movie jumping around from scene to scene at a breathless pace (kind of like Star Wars Rogue One...I honestly liked this GitS more than R1). But the latest SW tries to get you attached to a lot of characters and fails.

Johansson did pretty good in it, plus i'd rather watch this movie than the endless train of marvel and dc superhero movies we get every year.

On that last point I can agree with, it was something different at least. (Although Logan was bloody brilliant )

Well I finally got around checking this out. I've seen the original GITS, and I thought it was good but not great. I have forgot most of it though.

This was poor but not awful. Story just felt too generic Total Recall thing with very obvious villain. Something I've seen many times, and not just because I have seen the original GITS. I also think Scarlett shouldn't have been in this, but someone fresher. It was too much of a stretch that she went from scared refugee girl to badass cyber-killer Major in a year. When Motoko's mother described her daughter, it didn't fit at all on what we had seen of Major's personality, and the two had no chemistry.

On a plus side, outside scenery was awesome. I am seldom impressed by visuals these days, but city scene were great, really like I have always imagined Shadowrun-style Augmented Reality.

I watched this on the flight back from Japan. I fast-forwarded through the non-action sequences. The film is a mish-mash of set-pieces from the original animation film and series, with some kind of a mish-mash plot that justifies some caucasian actors being in it. I didn't bother to follow it in detail.

The best thing was watching it dubbed in Japanese and Beat Takeshi's dialogue being sub-titled in English. (He's Japanese and spoke his dialogue in Japanese.)

Scarlett Johansen looks pretty good in a skin-tight white leotard.

However there basically was no point in making this film. Watch the original animation and the first TV series (Stand Along Complex ?) and you've got just as good a plot and more exciting action sequences too.

If you don't watch it dubbed Takeshi's form of dialogue is really weird, being what the only person in the movie to speak Japanese? You've got his subordinates speaking to him in English, which he understands, and then replies in Japanese, which they understand, and they just carry on entire conversations like that. It's kind of jarring.

Yeah, it's just a really poorly done movie in general. Some pretty sets and nice effects, but the plot and dialogue is awful.

 jmurph wrote:
Yeah, it's just a really poorly done movie in general. Some pretty sets and nice effects, but the plot and dialogue is awful.

Yeah especially the dialogue. Numerous times they mentioned ghost, the shell, and kept referring to the movies title words...it added a whole other level of cheesiness to it.