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."
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."
