ghost in the shell (movie)

[Blue Ghost]

Well, I was being kind of tongue in cheek with AKO, but it would be interesting to see someone make the effort. Or Macross even. Megazone 23, or one of the hundreds of others. Maybe a live action version of one of Miyazakis deals.

Thanks.

 

[Condottiere]

Since A-Ko is an Amazon-Kryptonian hybrid, whitewash is the obvious solution.

 

[Blue Ghost]

I'm just curious though. Why "Ghost in the Shell"? I wonder what the logic was in deciding that particular film to remake instead of ... I don't know ... "Akira" or something.

 

[JimMarn]

There is no telling... I know that Hollywood will redo movies when they want a known quantity. They occasionaly show imagination, but it scares them.

I liked Beau Geste with Gary Cooper. Then I found out years later its a 4th or 5th remake. A silent version was first.

As for why the live action Ghost in the Shell didn't do good, I think it was the rumor mill.

I will be going to see it again. I always miss something in an action movie I don't notice until I see it again.

 

[whartung]

There is no telling... I know that Hollywood will redo movies when they want a known quantity.

There's talk of rebooting The Matrix. That just sounds terrible, I don't think The Matrix has aged badly, myself.

As for why the live action Ghost in the Shell didn't do good, I think it was the rumor mill.

What little I heard about the movie was simply that outside of the person-in-a-robot part, GITS has literally nothing to do with the original. I imagine folks were looking forward to seeing the original story, not a, ahem, hollow shell of one.

But don't listen to me, I really have no interest in it, I never cared for the original.

 

[JimMarn]

There's talk of rebooting The Matrix. That just sounds terrible, I don't think The Matrix has aged badly, myself.



What little I heard about the movie was simply that outside of the person-in-a-robot part, GITS has literally nothing to do with the original. I imagine folks were looking forward to seeing the original story, not a, ahem, hollow shell of one.

But don't listen to me, I really have no interest in it, I never cared for the original.

Well, it wasn't a person in a robot type story.

I saw some complaints on Facebook and youtube. I asked if any of the complainers had seen the movie ? Turns out only a very tiny number had.

My opinion is that the trailer for the movie wasn't well thought out.

I saw complaints about it being a mis-mash of ideas. Well, the Anime episodes were lifted, out of sequence, from the Manga. Stand Alone Complex movie was to have been the third season, but there was only one idea left from the Manga, so they made a movie instead.

I think the Manga could have been used as a starting point, and all the rest built off of it. But thats not what happened. I'll likely go see it again.

I never got to see the other GitS movies in a movie theater. Not carried by the theaters where I was living in 1995 that I ever noticed. My sister thinks it was likely there for one weekend.

 

[Quint]

Just saw it this evening and I was pleasantly surprised, given all the hype around the film. I dare say it was more... coherent..? Than the original rather starkly existential anime film, and certainly tells a more self-contained story.

Again, clearly a set-up for additional movies.

I was commenting in the car on the way home that while certainly "get" the concept and complaints of whitewashing in films, in my own view I never saw the Major as particular Asian in appearance in the films. It's admittedly a potentially touchy subject but ScarJo looks like the Major much more than many of the Asian actors suggested as alternatives.

But it all also looked very Cyberpunk and addressed the "focus issues" about as well as could be expected.

D.

 

[JimMarn]

i have all of the DvDs, and the Manga. Only Arimaki looks Japanese. Many of the other charactewrs, including people walking on the sidewalk, look Caucasian, in the Manga. There are Japanese characters in the Manga. Not very many in the Anime episodes. There are some hospital scenes, I didn't see a doctor or nurse that didn't look Caucasian.

 

[BwapTED]

i have all of the DvDs, and the Manga. Only Arimaki looks Japanese. Many of the other charactewrs, including people walking on the sidewalk, look Caucasian, in the Manga. There are Japanese characters in the Manga. Not very many in the Anime episodes. There are some hospital scenes, I didn't see a doctor or nurse that didn't look Caucasian.

In Japan, where nearly everyone is Japanese, I suspect many people look at the cartoons and see Japanese people. Weird hair colors help them stand out.

http://kotaku.com/5627268/why-do-japanese-characters-look-white

It's complex.

I certainly see European-looking people in a lot of anime. But was that the intent, or am I simply assuming light hair+ fair skin= European?
And much of it is stylized, with those big eyes, so it can be hard to say for sure...

Sometimes the characters are obviously European or quasi-European, though. German or English names, blond hair, Western-style setting, etc.

And then there's futuristic stuff, where perhaps a more diverse milieu is being shown. More diverse than present-day Japan, I mean.

 

[Enoki]

Well certainly from the manga and anime both some of the characters were not intended to be Japanese.

Batou at several points is made out to be an ex-"Ranger" and in at least a couple of sequences it's shown his old compatriots are US-like soldiers with the implication he's American.

Saito, the sniper, is recruited during what looks like a mission in South America as backstory.

Ishikawa is another with a curly full beard. That's hardly a Japanese trait. His hair and beard give the impression he's a "foreigner."

I think that the anime and manga tried to be more cosmopolitan and international on purpose right from the start regardless of the names sounding Japanese.

 

[BwapTED]

Well certainly from the manga and anime both some of the characters were not intended to be Japanese.

Batou at several points is made out to be an ex-"Ranger" and in at least a couple of sequences it's shown his old compatriots are US-like soldiers with the implication he's American.

Saito, the sniper, is recruited during what looks like a mission in South America as backstory.

Ishikawa is another with a curly full beard. That's hardly a Japanese trait. His hair and beard give the impression he's a "foreigner."

I think that the anime and manga tried to be more cosmopolitan and international on purpose right from the start regardless of the names sounding Japanese.

You know much more about GitS than I do, so I bow to your superior knowledge.

I have not read the manga, nor even seen all the amine series. I did watch the movie (anime).

RE the full beard-- well, there are the Ainu.


And then there's the question of the Jomon and what relation they had or did not have with the ancestors of the Ainu.
And who exactly the Emishi were.


"Hairy people."

But, sure, the beard might be there to suggest a foreign origin.
Again, you know the manga and I don't.

 

[Enoki]

Well, I do have the advantage of being rather immersed in manga and anime, including doing proofreads for several scanlation groups for manga.

But, that aside, I finally watched the movie. I wasn't impressed with the result. It seemed to me that Hollywood / "the West" crept into it too much and the result was almost schizophrenic.

There was too much focus on technology and not near enough on character building. There were scenes lifted straight out of the original GitS movie, but they lacked the depth the anime gave them.
At points it was gripping and I really got into what was going on. At other places it was pointless. It meandered in directions where you lost the story.
But, what really killed it for me was there was too much focus on technology and the worst part of all, was the substitution of the "Evil Corporation" and its "Evil Corporate leader" that is a Hollywood trope being substituted in for the much more subtle idealist / terrorist of the original anime.
It was obvious and a blunt instrument as a storyline rather than something that built tension and pulled you into the story.

In Traveller terms it was an obvious storyline that the party wasn't going to get anything out of beyond shooting stuff up. I guess if you are playing with what are called "tweens" today, that's probably enough. But, given that most of the Traveller crowd are older and more adult it's a sure turn off to a good game.

 

[JimMarn]

In Japan, where nearly everyone is Japanese, I suspect many people look at the cartoons and see Japanese people. Weird hair colors help them stand out.

http://kotaku.com/5627268/why-do-japanese-characters-look-white

It's complex.

I certainly see European-looking people in a lot of anime. But was that the intent, or am I simply assuming light hair+ fair skin= European?
And much of it is stylized, with those big eyes, so it can be hard to say for sure...

Sometimes the characters are obviously European or quasi-European, though. German or English names, blond hair, Western-style setting, etc.

And then there's futuristic stuff, where perhaps a more diverse milieu is being shown. More diverse than present-day Japan, I mean.

I understand that bit. I do look Caucasian... but my most recent ancestry to Cherokee and Comanche.

I do know about the Ainu as well. One thing I enjoyed when I was a kid was, and still is, geography and the people who live there.

 

[JimMarn]

Well, I do have the advantage of being rather immersed in manga and anime, including doing proofreads for several scanlation groups for manga.

But, that aside, I finally watched the movie. I wasn't impressed with the result. It seemed to me that Hollywood / "the West" crept into it too much and the result was almost schizophrenic.

There was too much focus on technology and not near enough on character building. There were scenes lifted straight out of the original GitS movie, but they lacked the depth the anime gave them.
At points it was gripping and I really got into what was going on. At other places it was pointless. It meandered in directions where you lost the story.
But, what really killed it for me was there was too much focus on technology and the worst part of all, was the substitution of the "Evil Corporation" and its "Evil Corporate leader" that is a Hollywood trope being substituted in for the much more subtle idealist / terrorist of the original anime.
It was obvious and a blunt instrument as a storyline rather than something that built tension and pulled you into the story.

In Traveller terms it was an obvious storyline that the party wasn't going to get anything out of beyond shooting stuff up. I guess if you are playing with what are called "tweens" today, that's probably enough. But, given that most of the Traveller crowd are older and more adult it's a sure turn off to a good game.

There is a long series of events in the GitS Anime about some politicians and a group of scientists blocking development of a cure for cyber brain scholrosis(sp). They kill several people to stop the publication that shows the popular cure is worthless and the supressed cure actually works, includng the Flower Society. So thats rather an 'evil corproration' there to.

 

[BwapTED]

I understand that bit. I do look Caucasian... but my most recent ancestry to Cherokee and Comanche.

I do know about the Ainu as well. One thing I enjoyed when I was a kid was, and still is, geography and the people who live there.

Kewl beans.


I hope I didn't seem pedantic with the Ainu reference. Like you, I'm interested in geography and cultures.

 

[JimMarn]

Kewl beans.


I hope I didn't seem pedantic with the Ainu reference. Like you, I'm interested in geography and cultures.

No problemo. I used to collect stamps to. Then when I needed to sell some, I found the bottom had fallen out of that market in the 1980s. Hopefully they are still in a box somewhere out in the storage shed.

As for the live action GitS movie... I didn't go in with expectations. I went in to enjoy it or not based on what I saw. Not based on reviews nor angst from others.

In years past, I would have angsted about the contents, but I decided not to. Just like I went to see LotR series, and knew that most likely some things would get altered. The were-worms were laughable to me though.

 

[Blue Ghost]

There is no telling... I know that Hollywood will redo movies when they want a known quantity. They occasionaly show imagination, but it scares them.

I liked Beau Geste with Gary Cooper. Then I found out years later its a 4th or 5th remake. A silent version was first.

As for why the live action Ghost in the Shell didn't do good, I think it was the rumor mill.

I will be going to see it again. I always miss something in an action movie I don't notice until I see it again.

And that's what's interesting. Films or series like "The Twilight Zone" or classic 1960s "Star Trek" had some derivation from other properties (I argued at the IMDB that there would be no Star Trek without "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea"), but they weren't remakes.

Corporate run studios have cranked out more ... eh, visually satisfying product, and they're sticking with the inspirational criteria for a publicly released film, but because they are corporations it's now all backed by marketing research. And I'm guessing that's how "Ghost in the Shell" got made.

I mean ... I hope regular people see it, then get curious about the anime and buy a copy of it. But it's like it was the Japanese using old school "let's offer this to the public and see how it flies" film making, like old school Hollywood, and not marketing.

Oh well. Whatever.

 

[Barsanuphius]

Anime/Manga

My wife and I have seen the Anime. She is afraid it will ruin the story for her.


:rant:

 

[JimMarn]

My wife and I have seen the Anime. She is afraid it will ruin the story for her.


:rant:

Well, I have seen all of it now. The live action movie is a third parallel time track.

The Anime episodes were culed from the Manga, much of it out of sequence from the Manga. The SAC movie is part of that. This is the second parallel time track.

The 1995 movie and GitS 2: Innocence, is the first parallel time track.

The ARISE 4 OVA is a prequel, and due to the way some characters like Saito were brought in, it could be another parallel time track. He was brought in, at least the way he tells it, differently in the Anime second season.

 

[JimMarn]

I did notice recently in Books a Million book store there is the original manga, in large page format. Along with it are some other items from GitS. I looked through them kinda quickly, but they didn't appear to have anything to do with the live action movie or the 1995 movie. For all I know, its a continuation of the 1995 movie and Innocence.