Here is my summation of the new Ghost in the Shell live-action movie trailer: The three scenes fans remember, oh look they left a lesbian scene in, a tepid Hollywood plot without much substance, and a dollop of service, just the way fans like.
My conclusion – if Oshii Mamoru and Shirow Masamune are happy with it, I’m happy for them.
Please let me know your thoughts in the comments!
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The original Ghost in the Shell series was my Sailor Moon, in the sense that it helped me through a formative and rough time.
This? This is just tentpole trash on so many levels.
SJ is a good actress, but she does not fit here. Rinko Kikuchi would be a far better choice. As would a half dozen AA actors.
But if Masamune Shirow and Production I.G don’t care I see no reason to mourn the death a special series for me. There are other, better things to read/watch!
Outside of the whitewashing and such, which have their own debates elsewhere, I was turned way off by the plot they were presenting, that her original body was ‘stolen’ from her and they turned her into a ‘monster’. This was never part of the originals and isn’t a welcome addition. It’s like they are doing cyberpunk, lesbian Robocop. Which I guess might be how a US exec would soundbite it. :/
Yup.
I don’t have the same emotional bond you do, and while I would vastly have preferred an Asian actress playing the Major (even aside from the whitewashing, there are other actresses than Scarlet Johansson in Hollywood and I’d like some of them to get a role now and again), I feel as if my opinion must take second place to that of the creator. Bearing in mind that Japanese creators have plenty of Asian actresses in their movies, it’s a super-exciting exotic thing for them to have a white actress in the role. Oshii and Shirow were on the set, all grins and thumbs up, so, that’s our answer.
Not to say you are wrong, but I have some thoughts on this.
“Never part of the originals”. To be very fair the first movie massively rewrote the Major from the manga, which was the actual original. The character and the plot has been reworked several times and revised and reimagined so speaking of an “original” seems less like an actual argument and more like sour grapes. The only original is the manga and people would have hated that as movie, it was very talky.
The plot you cite is not that dissimilar from Arise and that was written with Shirow’s guidance. So…again, we have to say the creators must get precedent over our opinions. It is their vision, we are allowed to share in it.
I never enjoy animated series turning into live-action shows. They are animated for a reason. I’m sure many people enjoy them still and I don’t mean to take away from their enjoyment, but animation has so many things to it that can’t really be replicated with live actors. It just personally makes it hard for me to take them seriously.
I’m fascinated by the fact that we now have the technical capability to make ideas that had to be animated in the past into live-action now, but I wholeheartedly agree that I am disappointed. By movies in general.
That is an interesting point – if we are using computer graphics, 3D stuff, etc. to enhance live action movies (IE., Jurassic Park, new Star Wars, etc.), is it still live-action or something else? I don’t think I could say it is animated, but it has animated 3D parts.
I’d agree. We’re moving closer and closer towards augmented reality in all things.
Of note in some of the trailer/ preview footage was heavy video “glitching” as a style note, which has been a big over-used thing in artsy vid stuff for the last 4+yrs. So it goes mainstream now, or returns to one of its sources.
Otherwise, I can see how the MKV Major from Arise was a necessary update and wonder if they will screw up the bullet-pockmarked “tree of evolution” snippet in the climactic tankxmajor battle.