Ghost in the Shell (2017)

[RDKirk]

Went to see it the live-action movie starring Scarlett Johansson. Then rented and re-watched the 1995 animated movie that I saw myself in around 2005.

Bullet points:

- The visuals of the 2017 movie are stunning, very reminiscent of the visuals of Bladerunner in general concept, but with close realizations of specific scenes of the 1995 movie as well.

- Speaking of Bladerunner, the plot of this 2017 version is different from the 1995 movie, but less different than Bladerunner is different from its source material "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" They kept the concepts of the characters, many scenes, basic environmental concepts, but varied the plot to fit the format and target audience.

- IMO, the differences in plot are worthwhile and well-done. The 1995 anime works for an ainime-enthusiast audience that already has a taste for it, but if a live-action movie had been done faithfully to the anime, it would have been horrible for the general movie audience, if not even for anime enthusiasts. Particularly egregious in the 1995 anime were minutes upon minutes of expositional dialog--characters standing still talking to each other explaining where the plot is.

- That said, the plot of the 2017 movie is still only mediocre as story, although about average as such movies go these days. If this movie doesn't do well at the box office, it's not because it failed to faithfully reproduce the anime, but for other reasons common to failing SF action movies.

- The 2017 movie provides more character backstory and more characterization than the 1995 anime. In some ways, the 2017 movie plot is more like the backstory prequel to the 1995 anime plot. It's largely a "who am I and why am I?" story laid upon a police story framework.

- The "whitewashing" issue is overblown. A year or so ago, there was a big "whitewashing" issue over the biopic of the black 60s singer Nina Simone. The movie cast Zoe Saldana to play the title role. Saldana is a black actress, but looks nothing like Nina Simone, and that sparked a whirlwind of controversy.

In this case, Scarlett Johansson looks like the anime character. Maybe they could have found an ethnic Japanese actress who looks like the anime character...but I doubt it (and it would have to have been an ethnic Japanese actress...casting any other Asian ethnicity as a Japanese character would have been offensive to the Japanese audience). The same is true of the character Batou. I think casting A-list actors that fit the looks of the characters of the anime despite ethnicity was the right choice.

And if you look again at the 1995 anime, the characters are clearly drawn as Japanese or Caucasian, regardless of the character's names. In the anime, the Japanese characters are clearly different in skin color, hair texture, and eye shape from its Caucasian characters. Where the 2017 movie has made any ethnicity changes, it has had the anime's Caucasian characters played by Japanese actors.

In terms of the ethnicities of good guys versus bad guys, the primary bad guys are all Caucasian in the 2017 movie and the good guys are mostly Japanese with one Caucasian (who was also Caucasian in the anime), one person who was Caucasian in the anime changed to Japanese in the 2017 movie, and one person whose was Caucasian in the anime and is still Caucasian in the 2017 movie--but whose ethnicity had been changed by the bad guys.

A change in the plot is that this story revolves mostly around the lead character and her backstory--which is totally absent from the 1995 anime. In the anime, she's simply there as she is...no explanation. The 2017 movie is her backstory, which is why I think it's more of a prequel in that respect to the 1995 anime.

It also provides a reason why the Major looks as she does. A lot of people consider that plot element a "whitewashing" insult, but it works perfectly in the plot to give further evidence of how heinous the primary antagonist is. Being the thoroughly despicable person he is, yes, that's exactly what he'd do.

The concept of the function of a person's memories in this movie is the antithesis of the function of memories in Bladerunner. In Bladerunner, a person is the sum of his memories--regardless how those memories were gained. In this movie, a person is the sum of his actions, regardless of his memories.

 

[Ironhold]

Good cyberpunk number, horrible adaptation.

That's my personal take on it.

 

[CrystalDragon]

Watched a bit of and learned about the original in my Japanese Culture class, and I REALLY want to see this. I love those kind of "finding identity"films so it sounds like my kind of movie.

 

[NothingIsImpossible]

I loved it. I find really the only ones that hate it are the ones who loved the original GitS stuff. I loved the original too but was ok with this one. I guess there will always be a minority who dislike anything that is converted from book, comic, tv to a movie format. Lord of the Rings, X-Men...etc.

Actually the best responses I heard about this movie came from Japenese themselves. They watched the trailer and were asked what they thought about it. Most all of them said they noticed it looked different but were not upset because it was being catered to an american audience. They said it makes sense since some of things may not be fully understood by americans and to anyone whos never heard of it, they would have to change the story to make it a bit easier to understand. They also loved how visually good it looked and said it obviously had a american big budget.

As for the white washing they didn't see a big deal with it. Again they said its american so it would make sense to have whites playing parts. One person said there is not alot os American Asian actors who could fit the role and that Scarlet looked the role. One man and his wife said that GitS to some degree doesn't really have Japanese characters, they said they are more of a neutral looking race/ethnicity. Which looking back I can see what they mean. We know its Japanese culture but the characters but they do look like they are not always asian.

 

[RDKirk]

I loved it. I find really the only ones that hate it are the ones who loved the original GitS stuff. I loved the original too but was ok with this one. I guess there will always be a minority who dislike anything that is converted from book, comic, tv to a movie format. Lord of the Rings, X-Men...etc.

Actually the best responses I heard about this movie came from Japenese themselves. They watched the trailer and were asked what they thought about it. Most all of them said they noticed it looked different but were not upset because it was being catered to an american audience. They said it makes sense since some of things may not be fully understood by americans and to anyone whos never heard of it, they would have to change the story to make it a bit easier to understand. They also loved how visually good it looked and said it obviously had a american big budget.

As for the white washing they didn't see a big deal with it. Again they said its american so it would make sense to have whites playing parts. One person said there is not alot os American Asian actors who could fit the role and that Scarlet looked the role. One man and his wife said that GitS to some degree doesn't really have Japanese characters, they said they are more of a neutral looking race/ethnicity. Which looking back I can see what they mean. We know its Japanese culture but the characters but they do look like they are not always asian.

There is a YouTube video on Japanese reactions to seeing the movie. As noted by their reactions to the trailers, the had nearly zero problems with Scarlett Johanssen as a Caucasian playing the role, and generally believed that she perfectly fit the part in physical appearance.

Interestingly the most severe casting criticism from the Japanese was of the rather well-reknown Japanese actor Takeshi Kitano as the head of Section 9. The Japanese didn't seem to like him in that role at all, not in the slightest, and even complained that his Japanese was unintelligible (even though the actor was allowed to speak Japanese...because his English would have been unintelligible).