Ghost in the Shell-Live Action 2017

pixelburp

Nowhere near as bad as it could have been, but also didn't surprise in terms of how shallow this adaptation ended up. Mind you, it felt somewhat appropriate that an American remake of a film about artificial humanity should itself be cold and without much spark of life. I'm sure that was a coincidence mind you.

That said, there was enjoyment to be had, if the viewer dialled back their expectations and left their cynicism at the door; essentially this was an entertaining cyber-thriller that felt like a bit of a throwback - in a good way. Yes, this film is essentially redundant but there was definitely a lot of craft and love put into the production, the screen dense with colour and detail of a vision of the future turned to 11. It was nice to see a budget stretch its legs and really commit to something vaguely outlandish, instead of the standard 'day after tomorrow' settings. And while there was much publicity about the admittedly poor decision to whitewash the cast, it had enough of an in-fiction reason & Tokyo was so aggressively multi-cultural, the problem faded away a little (though that aspect about 'refugees' felt annoyingly underwritten and could have elevated the script in turning the table on topical immigration fears).

All in all, totally forgettable & Johansson can do these sci-fi actioners in her sleep at this stage, but this wasn't the total disaster I suspect a lot of people braced themselves for. Empty, but not terrible.

constitutionus

just back from it now and i hate to say it but i found it to be mostly "Meh"

its not BAD, and its gorgeous to look at and well acted throughout i just couldnt get all that invested in the story (which is mad cause there was some really nice ideas in there in realation to what it means to be human and individuality).

I havent seen the original anime and didnt read the books so ive no idea how faithful it is to the source material but all i can think of now is if it IS then "Deus EX" have ripped the hell out of it as what i mainly thought was "this is as close to a Deus Ex film im going to get."



did love yer man "batou"s look, VERY cable -ish and bodes well to how that lad should look in deadpool 2 .

all in all its 6/10 from me.

not a bad time, i just cant tell someone its a cinema price experience.

BlitzKrieg

On the topic of the film at least looking good one thing that I thought looked god awful in the film was the spider tank.

I dont know how someone could so completely and utterly f*ck up the design and motion of the spider tank, especially when you have so much soure material to draw from (not just the ghost in the shell animated movie, spider tanks are all over the place in cyberpunk and other sci fi material) I mean for f*ck sake even Terminator Genysis got it closer then the trash in this film.

sorry it is such a tiny part of the film, but it soured the whole *leave your brain at home and enjoy it as an action film* towards the end. The rest of me had already checked out well before hand.

ancapailldorcha

BlitzKrieg wrote: »

so not worth seeing, more so if you are a fan of the original, it'll just p*ss you off.

I've not actually seen the original. Was debating seeing this but the comments here are quite discouraging.

Victor

How does Batou escape the assassins? Did I miss something?

[Fr Dougal singing voice]
Spider Tank
Spider Tank
Spider Tank
Why do you only have six legs?

Outlaw Pete

Seen it in the IMAX and while visually I was entertained, somewhat, I just felt bored overall.

I was initially interested in the story and then it just droned on a bit too long without much of interest happening.

Then when she gets given her history and helped to escape being deleted / killed or whatever, I thought 'Nice one, this might pick up now'.... which it did tbf... but only for three and half minutes and then I was bored again.

Couldn't wait for it to end tbh and only I was sitting in the middle of a row and didn't want to bother folks.. I would've walked two thirds way through.

Highlight for me was seeing the DeLorean ... which I guess was a tip of the hat to Zemeckis.

I was bored silly in it. One of the few times I wanted to walk out during a movie. Bland acting - everyone just sounds bored. The action somehow seemed all over the place. Felt a lot longer than the relatively short runtime. Looked beautiful and stylish. as. hell, but that was about it.

Overheal

I liked it, not understanding the hate. When you strip away all the negative hype around the movie, it's good. It apparently is not making great returns in the US because Social Justice Warriors have been on a whitewashing crusade for a while now, and GiTS is just swept up in it. Even though, its perfectly sensible casting for the part in this case. The reaction in Japan is completely indifferent to the race issue. Its hypocritical for instance that nobody gives a **** that Ishikawa is black; nope but if Kusanagi is a white American well holy **** stop right there and check your privilege!

Visually stunning, making it worth seeing at the movies. Kuze was rather interesting, but it is clear they were burdened by a lot of world-building in this film as they touched too lightly at times at things that deserve more depth (like false memories and cyberbrain hacking) and there wasn't time in this adaptation to fit extras in, like closer looks at most of the Section 9 crew or the Tachikomas, but spider-tanks are at least known to exist. At other times I felt like maybe they were a little too careful for example, to make sure everyone in the audience knew that they could communicate by cyberbrain comms because its mentioned a couple times.

There are some clear departures from the anime canon, but these aren't in ways that would injure anyone's ability to appreciate the film, its mostly backstory stuff. One thing I would have liked is if Aramaki had the bald forehead :P but he actually did things in this and wasn't just a mouthpiece. I'm very happy with the film and look forward to sequels. Don't see this not getting a sequel, even with lackluster monetary returns on the first go.

johnny_ultimate

The film is, to be brutally honest, a bit ****.

It manages to be both overbaked and underrealised at the same time. Take the cityscapes: they're simply a cacophony of neon stuff, coming across as obnoxious sensory overload with none of the careful world-building seen in its many obvious inspirations. Visually it is glitzy but with almost nothing in the way of internal consistency or identity. This is a film that has been art designed to within an inch of its life, and only some of the designs - such as the fleeting establishing shots of futuristic tenements - manage to stick.

There's no way to describe the story other than it being a complete ****ing mess. Been a while since I've seen a film with such a complete lack of flow or pace. I've always felt the original anime - which I like but think is a less interesting film than many of its contemporaries - gets far too weighed down in its convoluted plot, but this goes further again. By around half an hour in I couldn't have cared less about the overarching conspiracies involved or barely explained motivations of the characters. It's a silly story poorly told, and wastes far too much time on the origin story.

I didn't have much issue with the 'whitewashing' before release - as nice it would be to have a talented Japanese actress in the role, this is an English-language film about a robotic woman so whatever. But jesus the filmmakers didn't do themselves any favours by attempting to create an absurd, in-film rationale for it that just came across as ludicrous in action. The multi-cultural Tokyo worked, the 'lore' explanation for the race-change simply distracting.

On the plus side, there was 45 seconds or so where Beat Takeshi got to be a badass.

Stick with the original - it's no Akira, but it's solid. This isn't even the best film about an emotionally-cold Scarlett Johannson coming to terms with not being 'human' (that'd be Under the Skin, or indeed Her). This is a bland, pointless film that runs out of steam before act two even begins.

skankkuvhima

Went to see it last night, I thought it was pretty good. I thought the original was a bit up it's own hole (I think that about most anime to be honest) so this version was much more accessible to people who have no interest in Japanese animation

BuyersRemorse

skankkuvhima wrote: »

Went to see it last night, I thought it was pretty good. I thought the original was a bit up it's own hole (I think that about most anime to be honest) so this version was much more accessible to people who have no interest in Japanese animation

How incisive! Should have been the films tagline: 'Coming soon, for people who think the original was up it's own hole...'

Of course, in 20 years time, this will be a distant footnote in the annals of crap Blockbusters, while people will still be talking about the original.

skankkuvhima

BuyersRemorse wrote: »

How incisive! Should have been the films tagline: 'Coming soon, for people who think the original was up it's own hole...'

Of course, in 20 years time, this will be a distant footnote in the annals of crap Blockbusters, while people will still be talking about the original.

Jeez, chill. I'll keep my opinions to myself in future.

Fysh

skankkuvhima wrote: »

Went to see it last night, I thought it was pretty good. I thought the original was a bit up it's own hole (I think that about most anime to be honest) so this version was much more accessible to people who have no interest in Japanese animation

How interested are you, if at all, in sci-fi generally and cyberpunk in particular? I'm wondering if perhaps you've actually hit the nail on the head in that the original is highly regarded by a lot of folk (myself included) who are particularly interested in both - but if you're not too pushed about them, it can be a bit much. "Sci-fi for people who don't really like sci-fi" isn't the catchiest tag going, but it seems it might not be a bad description of this...

MisterAnarchy

I saw this in 3D in London last week in the Imax in Leicester Square.
I was hoping to see Skull Island but it was no longer showing so I handed over £23 ,yes £23 ,that the outrageous price they charge.

It looked good on the big screen ,if a bit blurry but that is probably due to the 3D effect .
Im not sure if it was shot in 3D or is upscaled 3D but the 3D effects were used sparingly .They used it alot in the first 10 minutes but then seemed to barely use it.

The film itself was quite average ,the plot was utterly predictable and lacked suspense.
The score by Clint Mansell was good though and the cityscape / technology looked impressive.

The ending seemed to come a bit quickly ,it was like they tried to wrap things up in about 10 minutes , I think it needed another 10 minutes to flesh the story out a bit.

Really enjoyed this
It was a bit dumbed down, which made it a bit shallow, and it took a while to get into as I didn't like the cgi at the start, but then it took off in the right direction
Some scenes were absolutely beautiful, but sometimes it looked like a 3D animated movie

I liked some of the visuals that they directly took from the original.

It was good. They didn't ruin it so thumbs up I suppose

.ak

Looked fantastic... But poor cast choice for the Major and just didn't seem to have any substance the original had.

Have to hand it to the team though, they really pulled the original's world into the 'real world' with a lot of love and attention to detail. I loved the costumes and designs, so perfect. The scene with the Yakuza and the cyber criminals storming the meetup at the begining hit the nail on the head.

Unfortunately I think they got tied down to adapting the original movie almost scene for scene - it didn't flow right, it really felt slow at parts which I never found in the original.

Did enjoy it though, maybe because I went in with low expectations. I really enjoyed the support cast, for the most part they got it right there.

Frank O. Pinion

Scarlett Johansson: "I certainly would never presume to play another race of a person. Diversity is important in Hollywood, and I would never want to feel like I was playing a character that was offensive. Also, having a franchise with a female protagonist driving it is such a rare opportunity. Certainly, I feel the enormous pressure of that—the weight of such a big property on my shoulders."

Scarlett Johansson is full of sh*t, she is playing a character of another race in this film. What a moron. She doesn't have to worry about the weight of the property on her shoulders either, as she won't be getting any sequel paycheques from this flop.

TheIrishGrover

I thought it was meh. Not the total disaster it could have been. Stylistically I thought it looked great, very close to the anime. However it's not gonna change the world.
I'm not one to harp on about changing a character, in general I think the best person for the job. But I did think the criticism the movie got for casting Scarlett Johansson was justified. They did it to get a star in the role, something to market it behind. I understand this. However there are many Asian actors and that could have performed the part. They could have advertised it by highlighting the look, tone and origin of the film (Which they did to some extent).
I mean look at the knots they tie themselves into in addressing/Not addressing her race (Calling her "The Major" constantly even when relaxing).
It was good to see Beat Kitano in the cinema though

Oh and that TERRIBLE remix of the theme. They take a kick-ass, unusual sound and then get Steve Aoki to lazily just ram in a Dub-Step beat in the most predictable and boring way.

pixelburp

Frank O. Pinion wrote: »

Scarlett Johansson: "I certainly would never presume to play another race of a person. Diversity is important in Hollywood, and I would never want to feel like I was playing a character that was offensive. Also, having a franchise with a female protagonist driving it is such a rare opportunity. Certainly, I feel the enormous pressure of that—the weight of such a big property on my shoulders."

Scarlett Johansson is full of sh*t, she is playing a character of another race in this film. What a moron. She doesn't have to worry about the weight of the property on her shoulders either, as she won't be getting any sequel paycheques from this flop.

This came up elsewhere recently and got me thinking; technically, she's not wrong in her what she was saying; it's just the film / studio made an absolutely bone-headed decision that, rather than bypassing the white-washing accusation, contrived to double down on it, making Johansson's character a literal white-washing in being

a Japanese woman turned into a cyborg with a female Caucasian body

. It's actually impressive when you think about. I read a while back that apparently in pre-production the studio debated using prosthetics and make-up to give its Western actors "slitty eyes", so hey, it could have been much, much worse

Slydice

https://twitter.com/MutantMusings/status/1180251315714297856

B.A._Baracus

As in nearly won this year?
2 years ago the movie was already out. You'd think it would have more relevance back then. But now?