Ghost in the Shell (2017)

 Hi all,

This is a repost from my old blog that I stopped running (The Conist). http://theconist.blogspot.com/2017/05/ghost-in-shell.html

May 01, 2017

Ghost in the Shell (2017)

Paramount Pictures/DreamWorks

As a longtime fan of Ghost in the Shell the Anime I was very excited to get the chance to finally see the film this past weekend. There were many aspects of the anime that made it into the film. One such feature is the dives that the major does. The scenes were beautifully rendered and breathed life into an anime world. Scarlett Johansson did a great job as Major, but I think that Pilou Asbaek’s portray of Batou really was the stand out performance. Just as a fan I was more than a little sad that the Tachikomas were not in the film. I think that they could have brought a lightness to the heavy emotions surrounding human vs. machine that were in the film. The sound track was also a letdown. I was hoping that the music for it would have been as strong as the anime’s. The Stand Alone Complex opening is one of my all-time favorites and I was hoping that they would have at least paid an homage to it. Overall the movie was great. 9/10

8/30/21 Update: Looking back on this film I still feel that it was a good movie. I know a lot of people had issues with the casting. I think this comes from people that think only one race can play a character. I understand that they feel that more Asian actors should have been included, but what would their argument have been if an African American actress would have been cast in the lead. Would they still have had issues or would they have been happy with that since it was a non-white appearing person. A lot of this is how we not only stereotypes people/cultures, but also how we stereotype characters. Recently there was an amazing cosplay of the Scarlet Witch and the cosplayer appeared dark skinned. Would these people tell her that she can't do that character because she does not appear white. I think the easiest way to move past this is open characters to try outs by all actors/actresses and then let the one who does the best character win the part. We need to move past stereotyping what characters look like. If you have watched some of the live adaptations of Hana Yori Dango for example some of shows are better then others. There has been versions where I think an American cast would have down a much better job (just look at the mess of Meteor Shower or the 1995 version, give me the 2005 version any day). Casting by just culture does not make for a good version of the characters. People need to also take this into account when they criticize casting.

Picture From: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1219827/