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We're in an interesting cultural moment for narratives like this, between Her, Ex Machina, GITS, Alien: Covenant, the upcoming Blade Runner 2049, and the great

by firasd 9y ago

We're in an interesting cultural moment for narratives like this, between Her, Ex Machina, GITS, Alien: Covenant, the upcoming Blade Runner 2049, and the great TV show Westworld. This is my favorite essay on these themes, tying together threads spanning from ancient myths to contemporary movies: "The Robots Are Winning!" http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2015/06/04/robots-are-winning/ http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2015/06/04/robots-are-winnin... One interesting thing I've understood when discussing GITS the anime vs the new movie is that in the anime, Motoko embraces her cybernetic body, so the question is: What does it mean to be human? But in the new movie, Major is the first cybernetic body, so the question is more: Who am I? This an interesting essay by Hideo Kojima about the differences: http://www.glixel.com/news/hideo-kojima-on-the-philosophy-behind-ghost-in-the-shell-w475805 http://www.glixel.com/news/hideo-kojima-on-the-philosophy-be... By the way, people into GITS might like this post we made about shots in the movie recreated from the anime: https://medium.com/@gitsost/a-love-letter-to-ghost-in-the-shell-how-shots-from-the-2017-movie-allude-to-the-anime-972a7dfb74e8 https://medium.com/@gitsost/a-love-letter-to-ghost-in-the-sh...

ethbro 9y ago
Pre-dating the manga GitS by a year, the Cyberpunk PPRPG from R Talsorian ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk_2020 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk_2020 ) was a surprisingly well put-together and interesting world. One of my favorite features was cyberpsychosis. As a gameplay element, it was an answer to "Why don't you just buy godlike cyber replacements for your body?" But as a lore element, they bored down into the question. If you've got your neural processing running at multiples of human normal, or have a bulletproof body capable of lifting cars, then how do you relate to all the unmodified people around you? Musn't your relationship with them fundamentally change? And doesn't it seem logical that the amount of change would be related to the extremeness of your augmentation?
- firasd 9y ago
  That's interesting. I recently learned about a philosophical thought experiment that may apply here, it's called "What Is it Like to Be a Bat?" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_it_Like_to_Be_a_Bat%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_it_Like_to_Be_a_Bat%3F
Mithaldu 9y ago
> people into GITS might like this post we made about shots in the movie recreated from the anime: https://medium.com/@gitsost/a-love-letter-to-ghost-in-the-shell-how-shots-from-the-2017-movie-allude-to-the-anime-972a7dfb74e8 https://medium.com/@gitsost/a-love-letter-to-ghost-in-the-sh... I find it quite superficial to call the new movie a love letter just because a number of stills have similar elements in them. As an example: In the water fight scene the anime has a LOT of story-telling with her actions being clearly based on high level moral motivations, as well as observations of and adaption to the progression of the fight itself. Every action taken has a reason and nuance behind it, based on who and what her adversary is as well as the tactical situation. In the movie it's a straight-up beat-down of an almost entirely unresponsive puppet.
- canadian_voter 9y ago
  Indeed. Less a love letter than a cheap porn adaptation, IMHO. As a long-time GITS fan, the new movie was a complete disappointment. It added nothing new or interesting, and dropped almost all of the philosophical content of the original. If you haven't seen the original, start there. And then move on to the sequels, the TV show, etc. if you want. But avoid this new one. None of the individual elements (soundtrack, cinematography, etc) are the equal of the original and as whole it is utterly lacking in style and substance.
  - exelius 9y ago
    I don't think you can do GITS as a live action movie. The amount of special effects required to pull it off means the budget needs to be huge, but that also means you have to "dumb down" the plot for mainstream audiences to have a chance to recover your costs.
    - firasd 9y ago
      Well, you also can't have those lengthy expositions from the 95 anime. I think in a good film you would show the outlines to philosophical angles about consciousness without filling them in with so much prose. Of course GITS '17 went a bit too far in the other direction of keeping the dialog too simple, eg. the bad guy blurting out his clearly-bad motivations. I think Westworld achieved a good balance of throwing in monologues while keeping scenes lively...

by firasd 9y ago

ethbro 9y ago

Pre-dating the manga GitS by a year, the Cyberpunk PPRPG from R Talsorian ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk_2020 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk_2020 ) was a surprisingly well put-together and interesting world. One of my favorite features was cyberpsychosis. As a gameplay element, it was an answer to "Why don't you just buy godlike cyber replacements for your body?" But as a lore element, they bored down into the question. If you've got your neural processing running at multiples of human normal, or have a bulletproof body capable of lifting cars, then how do you relate to all the unmodified people around you? Musn't your relationship with them fundamentally change? And doesn't it seem logical that the amount of change would be related to the extremeness of your augmentation?

firasd 9y ago
That's interesting. I recently learned about a philosophical thought experiment that may apply here, it's called "What Is it Like to Be a Bat?" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_it_Like_to_Be_a_Bat%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_it_Like_to_Be_a_Bat%3F

Mithaldu 9y ago

> people into GITS might like this post we made about shots in the movie recreated from the anime: https://medium.com/@gitsost/a-love-letter-to-ghost-in-the-shell-how-shots-from-the-2017-movie-allude-to-the-anime-972a7dfb74e8 https://medium.com/@gitsost/a-love-letter-to-ghost-in-the-sh... I find it quite superficial to call the new movie a love letter just because a number of stills have similar elements in them. As an example: In the water fight scene the anime has a LOT of story-telling with her actions being clearly based on high level moral motivations, as well as observations of and adaption to the progression of the fight itself. Every action taken has a reason and nuance behind it, based on who and what her adversary is as well as the tactical situation. In the movie it's a straight-up beat-down of an almost entirely unresponsive puppet.

canadian_voter 9y ago
Indeed. Less a love letter than a cheap porn adaptation, IMHO. As a long-time GITS fan, the new movie was a complete disappointment. It added nothing new or interesting, and dropped almost all of the philosophical content of the original. If you haven't seen the original, start there. And then move on to the sequels, the TV show, etc. if you want. But avoid this new one. None of the individual elements (soundtrack, cinematography, etc) are the equal of the original and as whole it is utterly lacking in style and substance.
- exelius 9y ago
  I don't think you can do GITS as a live action movie. The amount of special effects required to pull it off means the budget needs to be huge, but that also means you have to "dumb down" the plot for mainstream audiences to have a chance to recover your costs.
  - firasd 9y ago
    Well, you also can't have those lengthy expositions from the 95 anime. I think in a good film you would show the outlines to philosophical angles about consciousness without filling them in with so much prose. Of course GITS '17 went a bit too far in the other direction of keeping the dialog too simple, eg. the bad guy blurting out his clearly-bad motivations. I think Westworld achieved a good balance of throwing in monologues while keeping scenes lively...