The attitude evident in GitS would make any adaptation by Hollywood darkly amusing and wrongminded.
The usual beef about the whitewashed casting and the weakness of hollywood adaptations I won't go into, as it's pretty evident. Even the timing is wrong. GitS is in a slump and ARISE seems to have failed to recapture the earlier adaptations' audiences, neither the film nor SAC. I just wonder if the series is still so in demand, even among the slower fanbases outside of Japan in the west. Nostalgics already expect the worst and newer fans haven't read the manga or seen the anime; who is this for?Â
Also, I never saw it myself and it's technically a light novel, but supposedly Edge of Tomorrow was a decent All You Need is Kill adaptation, and the creator liked it.Â
Other than that all I can think of is Black Swan if you believe the perhaps credible theory it was basically just a ripoff of Perfect Blue. "Adaptation," in a sense...
Arad's involvement in this doesn't really worry me -that- much. Looking at his projects and scraping out and discarding all the sequels that were the result of the studios saying "Huh, people liked this. Produce more movies so we can keep the rights!", this is the guy who produced Blade, X-Men, Spider-Man, The Punisher, Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, and The Amazing Spider-Man; all of these did fairly well with the general movie-going public. Sure, he had a few turds -- Daredevil (which I personally don't think was -that- bad) Hulk, Fantastic Four (which is now a bright shiny gem when you compare it to the reboot), and Ghost Rider -- but the comic book movies are difficult to do anyways. He was also involved with several of the classic 90's Marvel cartoons. Which, regardless of what you might think now, if you saw these as a kid you can't deny that you loved them. They're like Power Rangers or Pokemon; you made fun of them in the light, but watched them religiously when no-one was around to catch you.
That being said, though... Ghost in the Shell is not Marvel. But I'll still trust this guy more than I'd trust M. Night Shyamalyan to do it.
I don't know about others here, but my initial experience with the original Ghost in the Shell movie was me walking away thinking "... What the HELL did I just waste my time on?", only to be hit with a weird urge a week or so later to steal the video cassette from my brother and watch it again. In the end, I think it took me five viewings before I could appreciate what I was watching, and then I was hooked. And for everyone I've introduced to GitS since, I tell them to watch the movie, walk away for a week, and then return to it. Rinse and repeat a few times -- when you're brand-new to the series, you need time to digest and process what's going on in the non-action scenes to appreciate it. But this is going to be a Hollywood movie, which means they have 90-120 minutes to get the general public to love the franchise or else they consider it a flop. Which means it's going to be flashy, action-oriented, and not as deep as those of us who are long-time fans of the source material want it to be.
On the plus side, it seems (and if this is correct) that the writer was an Oscar nominee for Best Writing for an Original Screenplay this past year. So, maybe there's some hope on the writing side.
Anyways.
I'm not too worried about Scarlett Johansson getting Motoko's part. She's been doing enough action movies that I think she'll be able to pull off that part well enough. At the -very- least, they could've chosen a whole lot worse for the role.
Who I AM worried about is the guy they casted for Batou. The only other movie that I've seen him in is "Lucy", and looking back at that I really don't think he's Batou material. At all. Appearance, voice... I'm super worried. Batou is my favorite, and a bad Batou is likely to kill any potential "GitS Cinematic Universe" appreciation I could have faster than bad writing/directing could.
I do think that there's a lot of potential for good. ...it just gets mixed with all the potential for bad that the industry has shown to do a lot.
I'm really hoping it turns out good, since I'll probably be throwing $20 at a theater to go watch it. I'm a little miffed on some of the lack of diversity, but it's an American-made film and that's just sorta how they work.
(04-14-2016, 07:53 PM)Caspar Wrote: [ -> ]Also, I never saw it myself and it's technically a light novel, but supposedly Edge of Tomorrow was a decent All You Need is Kill adaptation, and the creator liked it.Â
It was actually a decent adaptation. Not bad at all. I did however enjoy the two separately.
My one response to this at the moment, is 'Sorry no thank you.'
I am still very bitter about Airbender.
Apparently this was a thing for this movie.
http://screencrush.com/ghost-in-the-shel...asson-vfx/
Sounds like great potential for Mystery Science Theater 3000 style watching with friends and maybe a drinking game.
edit - to clarify, I'm watching it. Just not in the theater.
(04-15-2016, 01:49 PM)Kage Wrote: [ -> ] (04-14-2016, 07:53 PM)Caspar Wrote: [ -> ]Also, I never saw it myself and it's technically a light novel, but supposedly Edge of Tomorrow was a decent All You Need is Kill adaptation, and the creator liked it.Â
It was actually a decent adaptation. Not bad at all. I did however enjoy the two separately.
My one response to this at the moment, is 'Sorry no thank you.'
I am still very bitter about Airbender.
Apparently this was a thing for this movie.
http://screencrush.com/ghost-in-the-shel...asson-vfx/
So it's like a modern version of Connery in You Only Live Twice? Except real, and not part of the movie plot. I dunno, that makes me a little angry.
Come on now. Motoko is very stoic and confident. Surely there are plenty of more suitable performers. Her background is complex but her performance wouldn't be nearly as much so, IMO.
Airbender was so dead on arrival that the racebending was like another scoop of gravedirt. Albeit the foulest smelling one.
(04-15-2016, 03:07 PM)Zhavi Wrote: [ -> ]Sounds like great potential for Mystery Science Theater 3000 style watching with friends and maybe a drinking game.
Bad Movie Bingo.
If I go with a group to this in the theaters, I'm bringing sheets. Just in case.
A great deal of GITS street cred is that it was what a lot of people consider to be the first animated movie that reached the level of visuals, narrative, and seriousness of a well executed live action film
Making an actual live action film of it is kind of oxymoron when you think about it
Okay.
So.
I saw it.
And... well, I walked out of the theater after the movie not regretting the price of tickets and popcorn. It wasn't amazing, I don't think I can say that it was a solid addition to the overall GitS name, but I didn't feel like I wasted time or money and I think I might've actually regretted it if I didn't see it on the big screen.
Show Content
Yarr! Thar be spoilers ahead!So, let's clear the things I found 'bad' about the movie first. Our protagonist is... "Major". She's got a full name, but it's said like twice and very quickly and I never fully caught it; it might have been "Marie", but everyone calls her Major. Major is the first full-body cyborg, the result of a "you see our products everywhere" corporation called Hanka experiment/project, thought to be by her creators to be the next step in human evolution, and she's on-loan to Section 9 as a trial. Major comes off as being a bit emotionally... frail, I suppose, and uncertain as she questions her supposed humanity, as she's aware that she was built as a weapon though she seems somewhat okay with this because her immigrant family was killed by terrorists as they were arriving in what I'm assuming is Japan.
Yep. Kusanagi got turned from the introspective, determined and capable badass to an often meek, borderline emo little slip. My husband compared it to what Fox did to Scott Summers/Cyclops in the first three X-Men movies. Scarlett Johansson is a decent actor, so this has to be more of a writing/directing issue than her performance.Â
The whitewashing debacle left it's mark as well. That program/filter that was reportedly used after to make the non-Asian actors look more Asian... I want to blame that on the weirdness that goes on with eyes in close-ups. It was distracting. It also may have spawned a plot-point that I found distracting: Major's family seemed to have been immigrating to Neo-Japan, their boat was attacked by terrorists, and that Major was the only survivor in the sense that she was the only one who wasn't brain-dead after the attack. Which... turns out to not be the case towards the end of the movie. Maybe parts of this WAS part of the original script, but there's something so heavy-handed about it that I wouldn't be surprised if this was one of the parts that was re-written/re-shot because 'whitewashing'.
Alright, so, that's what I thought was truly bad about the movie -- and most of it revolves around this new "Major". So let's move on to the 'myeh...' portion.
The 'villain' and... 'misguided doctor trope of some flavor'. Hanka's... CEO, I guess, is our ultimate villain. He's just your typical corporate bad-guy trope, out to make a profit at any cost and by virtue of his project being loaned to Section 9, feels he can control Section 9; nothing deep about him. Our misguided doctor is one of his employees, who lead the project that created Major. Insert trope where doctor/scientist initially ignores ethics and rights to create something, becomes motherly towards her creation, and ultimately either has deathbed confession/repentance or rebels to save her creation and dies in the process. They serve their purpose, but that's about all they're there for.
So, the good stuff?
Batou. Oh good gods, he was actually -good-, and he was the one I worried about the most. The accent was a little weird, but that 'went away' when they were speaking via "mind link", which I thought was a great touch. In the stills and trailers his eyes often looked like googly eyes, but with full editing and in motion they look amazing. His personality was closer to what I remember from the manga (1995/Innocence, Batou was more serious while SAC he's more... playful but prone to moody), and while how he got his prosthetic eyes isn't true to the source material, I didn't have a problem with it -- it made sense in the setting we get in this movie.
The rest of the Section 9 cast... when you see them. Even in the changes that were made to some of them, when you see them they look good. I was a little annoyed that the few lines that Ishikawa got revolved mostly around him getting a prosthetic liver so he can drink more, but even with his casting choice he looked good. Togusa got matured up quite a bit; he wasn't Section 9's newbie, he was closer to his Solid State Society version. You don't see a lot of them, which is a shame.
So, Aramaki. Initially, I wasn't happy with him. He came off as not having a lot of control over Section 9 -- Major disobeys his orders blithely and Hanka's CEO seems to be dictating to him a lot. More of a doormat than "he's planning for long-term", like Aaramaki typically is. And then we got a scene with a very strong vibe of "... they're going to kill him off at some point...", and then a few moments later we see him get into a car, alone, and another car full of guys in suits pulls up and Aramaki randomly orders everyone to turn on their "mind links"... and then my dread started to sink in. And then the car got shot up. I won't go much further in spoiling it, but he didn't die, got a badass moment, and started being more like the Aramaki we all know and expect.
One last small nitpick about Aramaki: when he "mind links", he still speaks in Japanese. This makes little sense considering that everyone else loses their accents when they're speaking over the "mind link".
Kuze. He was a mix of 2nd GiG's Kuze, Puppetmaster, Laughing Man, and Puppeteer, with some Frankenstein's Monster thrown in. It could be argued that this Kuze wasn't a good character because he's so obviously based on the others, but that's actually what I LIKED about him. This was, in its own way, bits and pieces of random data that assembled itself into its own consciousness -- everything that it's predecessors had been and/or aspired to. Â I enjoyed dissecting him and figuring out which part came from which source.
Which sort of segue's into the next thing I enjoyed. 75% of the movie is pulled in one way or another from the previous movies or series -- there are whole scenes that are either copied almost identically or very heavily inspired by the predecessors. There are characters who are like this new Kuze -- conglomerates of other characters rolled all up into one. There's so much that you can sit back and say "... Yeah, I remember this from this movie or that episode". And I enjoyed recognizing/placing those scenes, because on their own this movie did the scenes very well. Which... yes, I suppose could be argued that this was lazy writing. I'll agree that the overall story was fairly weak and where they did go original, it sucked. But the scenes they recreated/re-imagined, on their own, are impressive.
So... if you get dragged by someone else to see the movie or give in to the morbid curiosity... this isn't a -horrible- movie. There's totally worse out there. Don't go in with the mindset of looking it as a single, whole piece. Leave any views about whitewashing at the door. Try to enjoy each scene as it's own thing, appreciate how they tried (and in most cases succeeded) to recreate iconic scenes. If you can do that, I don't think you'll walk out of the theater regretting the money spent either.
Sweet an old thread!
I am not a major Ghost in the Shell Fan. I like to watch it, but I have never gone out of my way to.
I enjoyed the movie, that simple. My expectations were low and it exceeded them easily. Some parts made me pretty giddy, some parts were pretty weak, but no weaker than your usual super hero adaptation (which I realize this isn't, really).
It did not come out at the right moment, the themes and ideas having been floating around in Hollywood for a couple of decades now. But, viewed as an homage rather than a trend setter, I think it accomplishes what it sets out to do.
I have to agree with Batou being the best part of the movie. Absolutely. Villains are the sore spot. Oh well, they were weak in the original anime film as well.
Edit: Oh yeah, and like an hour and a half of Scarlett Johansson in a partly animated body suit? I don't see anything in that to complain about ^^
I saw it too (on release night at that because free tickets!).
I'm mostly in agreement with Mae too.
It wasn't a bad movie, and is probably worth the ticket price, but it's not life-changing. I wasn't expecting a masterpiece going in and for me, they honestly should have just not touched on the race/ethnicity stuff at all. It honestly had no place in the movie after the very first occurrence. Aside from her name in the originals, the Major didn't really have an identity with any development. In the 1995 movie, the only defining "Japanese" thing about her is her name. And spoilers, it could be argued she's not even the same person at the end. In the second movie, we never see her beyond borrowing some other shells. Her Japanese identity was really something the Stand Alone Complex focused on. If that. And they go on to explain that she prefers Caucasian shells that look like generic units because it allows her more freedom to get her work done. Yes, they touched on her childhood, but it was fragments at best. In Arise, she's just sorta there. It's like watching her rebellious teen phase.
When I think of the live-action GitS, it fits in as much as the other works. One of the friends who saw it with me had never read or watched any of the originals and she seemed to enjoy it. (Also because free tickets. She probably wouldn't have watched it on a whim unless our friendgroup had recommended it otherwise.) To her, the story held up in its own canon decently enough, although the racial things felt forced in.
As a lot of other reviews said, watch it for the visuals. Anyone who watched the 1995 movie will see a number of scenes recreated. And they turned out pretty nice. If I had to say whether they succeeded in adapting GitS to live-action, I'd say yes. It has faults. And a lot of those faults are tricky with ethnic representation, conflicts on source material interpretation, and people "wanting it to be better."