Ghost in the Shell (2017)

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HungFist
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Ghost in the Shell (2017)

Post by HungFist »

Short teasers:

https://youtu.be/HapT0SKcyfY
https://youtu.be/q7Tm73m0VZs
https://youtu.be/_6NJJ6pMKVY
https://youtu.be/xziBGsIaWh8
https://youtu.be/vWDBpTB6T0Q

Looking good!

Now, if we can just get an R-rating (and preferrably a good film, too).
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Re: Ghost in the Shell (2017)

Post by HungFist »

No nudity and presumably pg-13 from the looks of the trailer, but it looks gooood!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4VmJcZR0Yg
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Re: Ghost in the Shell (2017)

Post by Guro Taku »

Apparently they recently showed the live-action version of the "shelling" sequence that opens the anime at an event in Tokyo - with a live score performed by Kenji Kawaii:

http://nerdist.com/first-look-at-ghost- ... -sequence/

I'm not yet sure how I feel about this kind of straight-up, shot-for-shot redoing of scenes from the '95 anime, especially when the final film is supposedly not following that film's plot but rather a story arc from the TV series.

I have to say I am looking forward to it for now simply because I'm too starved for any and all cyberpunk imagery to be too picky.
Last edited by Guro Taku on 14 Nov 2016, 19:17, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Ghost in the Shell (2017)

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Guro Taku wrote:especially when the final film is supposedly not following that anime's plot but rather a story arc from the TV series.
This is based on the below interview with producer Avi Arad:

http://collider.com/ghost-in-the-shell- ... y-details/

I find it interesting that he says "It's not Laughing Man" when I was under the impression that Michael Pitt was actually cast in that role?
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Re: Ghost in the Shell (2017)

Post by Guro Taku »

New trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRkb1X9ovI4

Two glimpses of Kitano but he doesn't speak. I'm really curious if he'll speak English in this film.
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Re: Ghost in the Shell (2017)

Post by HungFist »

I was wondering about that too.

The new trailer is remarkably bland and boring (I guess it has to be in order for the mass audiences to like it) and I'm starting to get a little worried about how digital a lot of stuff in it looks. I'm still looking forward to it, though.
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Re: Ghost in the Shell (2017)

Post by Guro Taku »

Here's a new clip that I find... unfortunate:

http://bloody-disgusting.com/the-furthe ... hell-clip/

I can't say I'm thrilled they seem to be going full ROBOCOP with this one. Is this supposed to be an origin story too? Wasn't one of the key appeals of the lead character that even she, herself, didn't know how she became what she is and if she even ever really was human to begin with? Wasn't that the key struggle of the character? Why remove that and give us some "badass cop gets a cyborg body after a terrorist attack" backstory?
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Re: Ghost in the Shell (2017)

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Not quite, she doesn't "know" if she's human any more because the only part of her original body left is her brain, so she struggles with the idea of whether she's still "her", ie: Has she already died and what's left is just a cyber memory of her former self? Is her "ghost" actually her consciousness or just an echo inside her cyberbrain. I don't think Oshii ever got into the origins of the Major but in the manga and subsequent anime TV series it established that she lost her original body in a terrorist attack, no Robocop-esque quest for vengeance against her corporate makers.
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Re: Ghost in the Shell (2017)

Post by Guro Taku »

I had a pretty good time with this one but I'll start with the negatives before going into what I liked. The screenplay by Jamie Moss, William Wheeler and Ehren Kruger is very much a cut-and-paste affair that stitches together bits and pieces of Mamoru Oshii's 1995 film, a tiny bit of Oshii's Innocence and an arc of the SAC TV series. This isn't exactly what one would call original storytelling and you can add to that the fact that director Rupert Sanders takes many shots from the various anime incarnations and just remakes them in live-action. There's no doubt the guy is at the very least a gifted visual stylist but all the best looking parts of his film are shots others came up for him and he just painted them in with a different set of crayons. And finally, my worries above about this having been turned into LADY ROBOCOP were not entirely unfounded...

With all of that said, the stitched together narrative actually mostly works and it is a visually impressive film. I'd never have thought they'd put this much money into an anime remake and I'm surprised that the official budget is listed as only $110 million. If ture, Sanders is a very economical filmmaker. The biggest plus for me was that this film finally scratched my decades-long jonseing for a live-action cyberpunk fix. The world on display here is very much an 80's vision of the future, drenched in all the neon you could ever want and teeming with a populace that has embraced cybernetic body modification. Frankly, if the film had done nothing else right, I'd probably still have been grateful just for that. The cast is alright, including Johansson, who clearly had the misfortune of bing cast in order to get this thing greenlit but managed to make the character work for me. Pilou Asbæk and Juliette Binoche are OK but don't have any stand-out moments. Michael Pitt, here credited as Michael Carmen Pitt, is mostly a special effect. The stand-out performance comes from Takeshi Kitano as Chief Aramaki. Kitano speaks subtitled Japanese in an otherwise English language film and everyone he converses with says their lines in English too. It is mentioned early on that you can learn languages within minutes thanks to implants so I assume everybody who wants to talk to Aramaki just has to install the Japanese language pack? It's really weird but in a way I enjoyed. Also, Kitano is a blast in this. It's not a bit part or a glorified cameo. He has quite a bit of screentime and there's even a scene where he goes full Beat Takeshi too.

I'm actually hoping this does well enough to get a sequel, just to see what they'll do now that the origin story stuff is out of the way and all the most memorable shots from the animes have been used up.
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Re: Ghost in the Shell (2017)

Post by HungFist »

Cool. It opens here next weekend, although I plan to be in Tokyo watching pinky violence and jitsuroku films at that time. I'll probably have a chance to see this the following week.
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Re: Ghost in the Shell (2017)

Post by Guro Taku »

I'm really curious how they will release it in Japan. I'm sure the English subtitles for Kitano will be gone but will they subtitle everyone else or do they dub movies more regularily now? I'll also have to keep an eye out for Japanese critic reviews and I'm looking forward to discussing some of the more spoilery things once you (and others) have had the chance to see it. There were some additional pleasant surprises that I purposefully didn't mention to not rob them of their pleasant surprisiness.
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Re: Ghost in the Shell (2017)

Post by HungFist »

They will release both subbed and dubbed versions. I'll have to wait a week to see how many screening of each will be held, but I'd expect big theaters to have 70/30 sub/dub ratio and smaller theaters to play sub only.

Whether Kitano will have English subs is a question mark. Quite often Hollywood films for some reason have English subs for the non-English parts together with Japanese subs for the entire film. Silence did not, however.
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Re: Ghost in the Shell (2017)

Post by Guro Taku »

HungFist wrote:Quite often Hollywood films for some reason have English subs for the non-English parts together with Japanese subs for the entire film.
So if there's, for example, Spanish dialogue in a Hollywood film, the Japanese release keeps the English subs for those parts and only adds Japanese subs for the rest of the film? Or do they add Japanese subs in addition to keeping the English subs? The latter would make more sense as surely not every Japanese viewer can perfectly read and understand English...
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Re: Ghost in the Shell (2017)

Post by HungFist »

Guro Taku wrote:
HungFist wrote:Quite often Hollywood films for some reason have English subs for the non-English parts together with Japanese subs for the entire film.
Or do they add Japanese subs in addition to keeping the English subs?
This.

I haven't memorized examples but District 9 comes to mind immediately. I'm pretty sure Universal Soldier: Regeneration had non-English dialogue with ENG & JP subs too (not that it's a "Hollywood movie" but anyway). And a bunch of other films that I can't get into my mind right now.
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Re: Ghost in the Shell (2017)

Post by Guro Taku »

Thanks for the clarification, sir. This may have to do with the kind of prints they are given. If the Hollywood studio slaps "hard subs" on all their prints, the Japanese distributors have no other option than to add their own subs below/on top.

Also, I find it rather amusing that they were using Mamoru Oshii's visit to the set of the US film prominently in their promotional compaign, yet the scene they're shooting in all the pics and clips online (Major visiting a temple and kneeling with the monks) was actually deleted from the film!

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Re: Ghost in the Shell (2017)

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Yeah, I was thinking that my examples mostly come from the film print era... things might have changed now that everything is digital.

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Re: Ghost in the Shell (2017)

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I finally saw this and unfortunately found it terribly mediocre. Since I haven't read the manga or seen the TV series, my comparison point shall be Oshii's film.

I have no fundamental problem with Johansson's casting - she looks the part and the film would've been an instant half star up had she done nudity in it - but I couldn't help but to think she talks too much and acts too emotional.

Which brings us to the first problem. Oshii's film was a wonderful mix of juvenile nudity, philosophical discussions with subtitle overkill, and extended atmospheric audio-visual sequences. The live action lacks the fist and has no patience for the other two. When characters should be silent they keep babbling (not to make American mass viewers uncomfortable?) and when philosophical topics are explored it's 15 seconds and cut to the next scene.

The pace also means there is little time for visual treats. Considering how good some of the early teasers looked, the film is a disappointment. There is a pretty 3 second shot here and there, but one wishes the filmmakers had slowed the fuck down. The score is pretty dull as well.

Action is pretty standard and boring until the climax, which is genuinely exciting. The same goes for the storyline and characters, which get better towards the end.

Supporting cast is alright. Takeshi Kitano (a major supporting character) and Kaori Momoi slightly stand out from the rest.

Not terrible by any means, just underwhelming.
HungFist wrote: Whether Kitano will have English subs is a question mark.
Kitano was subbed in English with "burnt in" subs.
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Re: Ghost in the Shell (2017)

Post by Guro Taku »

I watched it again (rushing to catch it on a tiny screen before it gets swept out of theaters in the wake of its box office failure) and I still enjoyed it, for much the same reasons as the first time around. This will probably become a "guilty pleasure" for me, though I don't feel all that guilty. Anyway, one thing that I liked both times was how the American film took scenes from various GITS incarnations and remixed them into its LADY BATTLE COP narrative. A little to my own surprise, I found that more interesting than any straight up, beat-for-beat remake of the 1995 film could have been. However, and this is probably a big issue for some viewers without my prior viewing experience, the scenes may have only worked for me because I already saw them in their original and proper context. The screenwriters and the director clearly wanted to include a number of iconic scenes but in sampling them, they forgot that a scene is not just visuals but also emotional context. The scene between Batou and Motoko at the pier works great in the 1995 anime but in the Sanders film it comes totally out of nowhere and must seem random and confusing for regular viewers. The same goes even more for the interrogation scene with the garbage truck driver.

By the way, I don't usually give much of a fuck about limited edition home video artworks, but I think this here is pretty cool and certainly better than all the theatrical posters:

Image

And speaking of not giving much of a fuck, I really shrugged off the Scarlett Casting Controversy (TM) but I must admit I am very curious if it will have any effect on how future Hollywood anime remakes are approached, especially the very-much Americanized AKIRA that Warner Bros. has been threatening us with for what feels like a decade now.
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