11 ms·

A theatre in New York was showing the 1995 film, so I watched it for first time on big screen on Wednesday, then saw the live action on Friday (first time I can

A theatre in New York was showing the 1995 film, so I watched it for first time on big screen on Wednesday, then saw the live action on Friday (first time I can remember going to a film on opening day in New York and having an almost empty audience). I was prepared for a new interpretation of the material, and that never bothered me because between the films and TV series it's always been a bit confusing to me if there ever has been a cannon story, but have always really loved the match of philosophical ideas of mind and the visual atmosphere (and the spider tanks are just great fun). Opening sequence of this film I was really excited because it was visually stunning, but 5 mins later I was questioning if I should stay or leave because the dialog was really really bad. I stayed because I really wanted to like this adaption but I felt like it was 2 hours of my life wasted, I wouldn't recommend any of my friends to watch this, even later when it's released digitally.

ekianjo 10y ago
Ghost in the shell from Oshii was very much a philosophical movie. I had zero expectations that Hollywood could really do anything that matched it. Just as expected.
- digitalzombie 10y ago
  They should have gave it to the Wachowskis to do it. They would have done it justice.
  - aethr 10y ago
    They would have called it "The Matrix".
    - gpderetta 10y ago
      you probably know it, but as the story goes, the Wachowskis did show GitS to the producers and explicitly said: "we want to make this movie". In a way, Matrix is the Wachowskis GitS.
  - barclay 10y ago
    You've not seen _jupiter ascending_, I take it?
    - digitalzombie 10y ago
      Yeah I heard it sucked. I did like Cloud Atlas. But The Matrix was inspired by Ghost in the Shell so I have huge hope that they couldn't kill Ghost in the Shell like this current director did.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
    - bobwaycott 10y ago
      Yeah, that was atrocious. A major letdown after being a huge Matrix fan.
      - mcguire 10y ago
        It's such a pity they never made any sequels.
  - spectistcles 10y ago
    eeeehhhhh
- aminorex 10y ago
  The film was a masterful rendition of Shirow's vision. I have never seen anime brought to live action with such fullness. Batou and the Major look feel and act like the anime characters. The tech is precisely on point. Brilliant work. That they did not wallow in obsolete philosophical tropes saved the film from bathetic anachronism.
mathewsanders 10y ago
But as a positive note, I love that science fiction has become mainstream. When I was a teenager I used to be embarrassed to say I read/watched science fiction and it felt like any given year you'd be lucky to have more than 1-2 science fiction films, but look at the line up for releases this year: http://screenrant.com/our-most-anticipated-sci-fi-movies-of-2017/ http://screenrant.com/our-most-anticipated-sci-fi-movies-of-...
- smhost 10y ago
  What do you mean by "becoming" more mainstream? To me, it feels like scifi has been mainstream for a good 10~15 years.
  - mathewsanders 10y ago
    I Agree. (and I updated my passive wording)
  - radley 10y ago
    cough 40. Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Battlestar Galactica, Space 1999, Buck Rogers in 25th Century, ET, Back to the Future... And I'm going to get massively downvoted if I don't mention Dr. Who....
    - wyldfire 10y ago
      Hardcore sci-fi fans like to draw a distinction between the fantasy and science fiction genres. They would probably decompose your list like so -- Fantasy: "Star Wars", "Buck Rogers", "Back to the Future"; Science Fiction: "ET", "Close Encounters", "Battlestar Galactica". I've never seen/read "Space: 1999" so I wouldn't know where it belongs.
    - wyldfire 10y ago
      Hardcore sci-fi fans like to draw a distinction between the fantasy and science fiction genres. They would probably decompose your list like so -- Fantasy: "Star Wars", "Buck Rogers", "Back to the Future"; Science Fiction: "ET", "Close Encounters", "Battlestar Galactica". I've never seen/read "Space: 1999" so I wouldn't know where it belongs.
rangibaby 10y ago
I'm betting there will be a Japanese dubbed version that will fix that
- icanhackit 10y ago
  Years after watching the english dub of the 1995 film I watched the Japanese original and found either the subtitle translation was way off or the English dub just seemed to capture more complex philosophical ideas. Perhaps I'm biased because my perception is limited to mostly Western culture and ways of thinking, but the Japanese version seemed terse and lacking the same descriptive language that made the concepts easy to grok.
  - chmod775 10y ago
    The "official" subtitles that come with the 1995 version of the movie are absolutely terrible, riddled with mistakes, and literal translations that don't work in the english language. Case in point: At the end of the chase scene, after the thug fired his remaining 8 bullets, the subtitles make the major say "All Finished?" instead of "Out of bullets?" - which would've certainly worked better in English. Another thing is the concept of "Ghost", which western viewers often misinterpret as some spiritual soul but should be understood as "self-aware (part of the) mind/consciousness". From what I heard this is obvious to jap. viewers. But this is hard to translate regardless of how you approach it. Anyways I recommend watching it with any fansub you can find online - any of them will be of much higher quality than the bundled subtitles.
Fricken 10y ago
The cyberpunk tropes still had some freshness back in 1995, but today they're just done to death. While the live action film touched upon all the big ideas, I'm glad they didn't try unpack too much of it, I'd be bored to tears, I've already been there with dozens of previous books and films. Even in 1995 the ideas in ghost in the shell had already been explored thoroughly, Dick and Gibson were all about that sort of thing. What made Ghost In The Shell exceptional was the story and the visual style. The new film brought that style to life beautifully, I got exactly what I paid for. And even under the best of circumstances, a two hour film isn't enough time to do more than a superficial examination of some philosophical concept or another.
- radley 10y ago
  I've never considered GitS to be "punk". It's much more in line with Cameron's Aliens & Avatar.
  - crystalPalace 10y ago
    The protagonists are not "punk" but to me the setting contains many elements that I would consider punk. The vast wealth gap, the abandonment of vulnerable populations and the areas they inhabit, and the seedy underbelly of the cities all lurk underneath the gleaming chrome and neon surface. To me this is the epitome of the genre, the incongruity between the powerful corps and their government puppets and the misery of the general population. GitS feeds the dream of super wizard class hackers and street samurai but also pays homage to the downtrodden masses left behind by progress. With a nice dash of philosophy.
- serf 10y ago
  >a two hour film isn't enough time to do more than a superficial examination of some philosophical concept or another. You only need a superficial touch on a subject to intrigue someone who is interested to fall further down the rabbit hole. Personally I can say that the 95 movie introduced a child-me to philosophical ideas about self; and that snow-balled into hours in the books exploring the ideas deeper. Two hours isn't a long time to teach a broad concept in any in-depth manner, but it initiated an exploration of philosophy that spanned many thousands of hours for me, and I credit the Oshii film for having whatever it took to hook a very young kid into some very heavy ideas.
radley 10y ago
The key to GitS was always moving the imagination ball forward. GitS 2 was a big mindfk, but then the TV series, the TV movie, and then the OVA - each step forward was a powerful reinterpretation of the core concept - the thinning of spirit within technology and how it might be leveraged by brilliant minds. From what I saw with the previews, they only wanted to copy the legend. There was nothing about adding value and building on what came before. That's why it's so flat.
zmonkeyz 10y ago
I really liked the adaptation. I told my friends it was like having a readers digest version of the 1995 movie which was a short part of a big manga.
stancollins 10y ago
> I felt like it was 2 hours of my life wasted Oh please... Be honest and tell me you don't waste time on social networks leaving snobby comments.
js8 10y ago
I watched a cinema rip, to decide whether it's worth to see it in 3D in cinema, for the effects at least (I also didn't expect anything great). In the end I decided not to, because it would just make me angry. There were so many homages to GitS movie, but done so badly! My favorite scene in the original is the museum tank fight scene, where you can feel so clearly how desperate the situation is (from many small details). The same scene in the new movie just doesn't give you any feelings at all about the situation. Perhaps it's a decent action movie if you don't know or like the original.
JohnBooty 10y ago
You might really like the original manga! Same issues examined, but it is very different in tone. It's very ADHD, almost, with tons of hyperactive detail, motion, and dialogue crammed into every panel. It makes me really nostalgic for those early cyberpunk days. The 1995 movie, by contrast, was very somber and serious and dreary. I love much of the animation, but otherwise I think it's kind of a snoozefest.
aluhut 10y ago
Did you (and all the critics going this way that I guess will become the mainstream) even see the '95 movie recently? The highly praised philosophical content is ridiculously short. Barely a few sentences. There is not much talk at all in the movie. Google up the script. It's short. Really short. Most of the movie is action and slow shots where nothing happens and this is the best part of it. Actually when I saw the anime for the first time on VHS, there were those hardcore manga fans complaining in the same way about it. Now today I see the whole /r/scifi going up in fire on how shallow that was. Just to praise the next super hero reboot a few weeks later. I've been in the cinema to watch GitS and I rarely go there. I expected crap. What I got was a beautiful designed cyperpunk action movie that delivered more of a story to one of my favorite characters then the original movie. It couldn't end up being better with all those messed up reboots currently so popular out there. You say the dialogue was bad? So I guess you speak Japanese because all translated versions of the anime I've seen were...let's say: basic stuff blown up. Hope none of your friends who would listen to you were GitS fans because this is a must see for those.
- heartsucker 10y ago
  > A theatre in New York was showing the 1995 film, so I watched it for first time on big screen on Wednesday, then saw the live action on Friday > Did you ... even see the '95 movie recently? Dude...
  - aluhut 10y ago
    It was more of a rhetorical question ;)
- fsociety 10y ago
  You totally missed the point of the '95 movie if you think it was all in the dialogue. 90% of the content was told through visual storytelling and the soundtrack. The new movie totally missed the point too. If they wanted to make a full up action movie they could've done that.. but instead it was a bad attempt at reimagining the original for a wider audience - which I think is contradictory because the original movie HAS a wide audience while still retaining depth. Not to mention the editing was horrible.. it felt like Batman Vs Superman all over again.
barrkel 10y ago
I didn't see the 1995 version until last Saturday. I thought it had dated quite badly, and that the "philosophy" it dealt with was trite. That's probably largely an artifact of its being viewed out of its age; it's also clear to me why the new movie had to have a different plot. The fanservice device of requiring nudity to activate cloak in the anime (& manga) was also a bit eye-rolling. I found the new movie to be fairly formulaic, and the ending ridiculous and offensive - summary execution is not justice - and leaving out the merging of the consciousnesses seemed like it was just creating an opening for a potential sequel. The visuals were the best thing about it.

ekianjo 10y ago

Ghost in the shell from Oshii was very much a philosophical movie. I had zero expectations that Hollywood could really do anything that matched it. Just as expected.

digitalzombie 10y ago
They should have gave it to the Wachowskis to do it. They would have done it justice.
- aethr 10y ago
  They would have called it "The Matrix".
  - gpderetta 10y ago
    you probably know it, but as the story goes, the Wachowskis did show GitS to the producers and explicitly said: "we want to make this movie". In a way, Matrix is the Wachowskis GitS.
- barclay 10y ago
  You've not seen _jupiter ascending_, I take it?
  - digitalzombie 10y ago
    Yeah I heard it sucked. I did like Cloud Atlas. But The Matrix was inspired by Ghost in the Shell so I have huge hope that they couldn't kill Ghost in the Shell like this current director did.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - bobwaycott 10y ago
    Yeah, that was atrocious. A major letdown after being a huge Matrix fan.
    - mcguire 10y ago
      It's such a pity they never made any sequels.
- spectistcles 10y ago
  eeeehhhhh
aminorex 10y ago
The film was a masterful rendition of Shirow's vision. I have never seen anime brought to live action with such fullness. Batou and the Major look feel and act like the anime characters. The tech is precisely on point. Brilliant work. That they did not wallow in obsolete philosophical tropes saved the film from bathetic anachronism.

mathewsanders 10y ago

But as a positive note, I love that science fiction has become mainstream. When I was a teenager I used to be embarrassed to say I read/watched science fiction and it felt like any given year you'd be lucky to have more than 1-2 science fiction films, but look at the line up for releases this year: http://screenrant.com/our-most-anticipated-sci-fi-movies-of-2017/ http://screenrant.com/our-most-anticipated-sci-fi-movies-of-...

smhost 10y ago
What do you mean by "becoming" more mainstream? To me, it feels like scifi has been mainstream for a good 10~15 years.
- mathewsanders 10y ago
  I Agree. (and I updated my passive wording)
- radley 10y ago
  cough 40. Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Battlestar Galactica, Space 1999, Buck Rogers in 25th Century, ET, Back to the Future... And I'm going to get massively downvoted if I don't mention Dr. Who....
  - wyldfire 10y ago
    Hardcore sci-fi fans like to draw a distinction between the fantasy and science fiction genres. They would probably decompose your list like so -- Fantasy: "Star Wars", "Buck Rogers", "Back to the Future"; Science Fiction: "ET", "Close Encounters", "Battlestar Galactica". I've never seen/read "Space: 1999" so I wouldn't know where it belongs.
  - wyldfire 10y ago
    Hardcore sci-fi fans like to draw a distinction between the fantasy and science fiction genres. They would probably decompose your list like so -- Fantasy: "Star Wars", "Buck Rogers", "Back to the Future"; Science Fiction: "ET", "Close Encounters", "Battlestar Galactica". I've never seen/read "Space: 1999" so I wouldn't know where it belongs.

rangibaby 10y ago

I'm betting there will be a Japanese dubbed version that will fix that

icanhackit 10y ago
Years after watching the english dub of the 1995 film I watched the Japanese original and found either the subtitle translation was way off or the English dub just seemed to capture more complex philosophical ideas. Perhaps I'm biased because my perception is limited to mostly Western culture and ways of thinking, but the Japanese version seemed terse and lacking the same descriptive language that made the concepts easy to grok.
- chmod775 10y ago
  The "official" subtitles that come with the 1995 version of the movie are absolutely terrible, riddled with mistakes, and literal translations that don't work in the english language. Case in point: At the end of the chase scene, after the thug fired his remaining 8 bullets, the subtitles make the major say "All Finished?" instead of "Out of bullets?" - which would've certainly worked better in English. Another thing is the concept of "Ghost", which western viewers often misinterpret as some spiritual soul but should be understood as "self-aware (part of the) mind/consciousness". From what I heard this is obvious to jap. viewers. But this is hard to translate regardless of how you approach it. Anyways I recommend watching it with any fansub you can find online - any of them will be of much higher quality than the bundled subtitles.

Fricken 10y ago

The cyberpunk tropes still had some freshness back in 1995, but today they're just done to death. While the live action film touched upon all the big ideas, I'm glad they didn't try unpack too much of it, I'd be bored to tears, I've already been there with dozens of previous books and films. Even in 1995 the ideas in ghost in the shell had already been explored thoroughly, Dick and Gibson were all about that sort of thing. What made Ghost In The Shell exceptional was the story and the visual style. The new film brought that style to life beautifully, I got exactly what I paid for. And even under the best of circumstances, a two hour film isn't enough time to do more than a superficial examination of some philosophical concept or another.

radley 10y ago
I've never considered GitS to be "punk". It's much more in line with Cameron's Aliens & Avatar.
- crystalPalace 10y ago
  The protagonists are not "punk" but to me the setting contains many elements that I would consider punk. The vast wealth gap, the abandonment of vulnerable populations and the areas they inhabit, and the seedy underbelly of the cities all lurk underneath the gleaming chrome and neon surface. To me this is the epitome of the genre, the incongruity between the powerful corps and their government puppets and the misery of the general population. GitS feeds the dream of super wizard class hackers and street samurai but also pays homage to the downtrodden masses left behind by progress. With a nice dash of philosophy.
serf 10y ago
>a two hour film isn't enough time to do more than a superficial examination of some philosophical concept or another. You only need a superficial touch on a subject to intrigue someone who is interested to fall further down the rabbit hole. Personally I can say that the 95 movie introduced a child-me to philosophical ideas about self; and that snow-balled into hours in the books exploring the ideas deeper. Two hours isn't a long time to teach a broad concept in any in-depth manner, but it initiated an exploration of philosophy that spanned many thousands of hours for me, and I credit the Oshii film for having whatever it took to hook a very young kid into some very heavy ideas.

radley 10y ago

The key to GitS was always moving the imagination ball forward. GitS 2 was a big mindfk, but then the TV series, the TV movie, and then the OVA - each step forward was a powerful reinterpretation of the core concept - the thinning of spirit within technology and how it might be leveraged by brilliant minds. From what I saw with the previews, they only wanted to copy the legend. There was nothing about adding value and building on what came before. That's why it's so flat.

zmonkeyz 10y ago

I really liked the adaptation. I told my friends it was like having a readers digest version of the 1995 movie which was a short part of a big manga.

stancollins 10y ago

> I felt like it was 2 hours of my life wasted Oh please... Be honest and tell me you don't waste time on social networks leaving snobby comments.

js8 10y ago

I watched a cinema rip, to decide whether it's worth to see it in 3D in cinema, for the effects at least (I also didn't expect anything great). In the end I decided not to, because it would just make me angry. There were so many homages to GitS movie, but done so badly! My favorite scene in the original is the museum tank fight scene, where you can feel so clearly how desperate the situation is (from many small details). The same scene in the new movie just doesn't give you any feelings at all about the situation. Perhaps it's a decent action movie if you don't know or like the original.

JohnBooty 10y ago

You might really like the original manga! Same issues examined, but it is very different in tone. It's very ADHD, almost, with tons of hyperactive detail, motion, and dialogue crammed into every panel. It makes me really nostalgic for those early cyberpunk days. The 1995 movie, by contrast, was very somber and serious and dreary. I love much of the animation, but otherwise I think it's kind of a snoozefest.

aluhut 10y ago

Did you (and all the critics going this way that I guess will become the mainstream) even see the '95 movie recently? The highly praised philosophical content is ridiculously short. Barely a few sentences. There is not much talk at all in the movie. Google up the script. It's short. Really short. Most of the movie is action and slow shots where nothing happens and this is the best part of it. Actually when I saw the anime for the first time on VHS, there were those hardcore manga fans complaining in the same way about it. Now today I see the whole /r/scifi going up in fire on how shallow that was. Just to praise the next super hero reboot a few weeks later. I've been in the cinema to watch GitS and I rarely go there. I expected crap. What I got was a beautiful designed cyperpunk action movie that delivered more of a story to one of my favorite characters then the original movie. It couldn't end up being better with all those messed up reboots currently so popular out there. You say the dialogue was bad? So I guess you speak Japanese because all translated versions of the anime I've seen were...let's say: basic stuff blown up. Hope none of your friends who would listen to you were GitS fans because this is a must see for those.

heartsucker 10y ago
> A theatre in New York was showing the 1995 film, so I watched it for first time on big screen on Wednesday, then saw the live action on Friday > Did you ... even see the '95 movie recently? Dude...
- aluhut 10y ago
  It was more of a rhetorical question ;)
fsociety 10y ago
You totally missed the point of the '95 movie if you think it was all in the dialogue. 90% of the content was told through visual storytelling and the soundtrack. The new movie totally missed the point too. If they wanted to make a full up action movie they could've done that.. but instead it was a bad attempt at reimagining the original for a wider audience - which I think is contradictory because the original movie HAS a wide audience while still retaining depth. Not to mention the editing was horrible.. it felt like Batman Vs Superman all over again.

barrkel 10y ago

I didn't see the 1995 version until last Saturday. I thought it had dated quite badly, and that the "philosophy" it dealt with was trite. That's probably largely an artifact of its being viewed out of its age; it's also clear to me why the new movie had to have a different plot. The fanservice device of requiring nudity to activate cloak in the anime (& manga) was also a bit eye-rolling. I found the new movie to be fairly formulaic, and the ending ridiculous and offensive - summary execution is not justice - and leaving out the merging of the consciousnesses seemed like it was just creating an opening for a potential sequel. The visuals were the best thing about it.