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Ghost in the Shell


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#1 Gothneo

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Posted 01 April 2017 - 03:18 PM

Went and saw the movie today. 

 

I enjoyed it. They were generally true to the original, and I thought the changes worked well to update and modernize the story. 

 

Visually... this was a stunning movie... it reminded me very much of Blade Runner.



#2 Morgan

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Posted 01 April 2017 - 05:03 PM

My reaction after seeing it was kind of meh, and I can see why fans of the original would be upset.  But it's always going to be true that when something so legendary, from a different visual medium, gets a screen adaptation that the fans of the original will be hurt. That's just inevitable. And so much has been written prior to the film's debut to sour potential audiences, and that's unfortunate when a film starts out like that.

 

My main issue with it was lack of dialogue, and lack of good dialogue. The supporting cast gives it some weight and rescues it from being empty, but there's only so much they can do. The visuals and the music also rescued it to some degree. The film felt shorter than its running time and it was hard to get invested in the fates of the characters. I would not have minded if it had a Peter Jackson-worthy running time of 3 hours 45 minutes. 

 

Lots and lots of Blade Runner overtones and visuals. It even seems like the producers specifically asked for that. And that's not a bad thing.

 

Hopefully the film will serve as a lesson in what not to do for a live-action Akira film that's now in the news. (Gawd only knows how they're gonna do that).

 

It would have been perfectly fine for the characters and environment to serve as a setting for some kind of police procedural, or a plot where they bust thieves of car stereos, just completely detached from the plot of Ghost in the Shell. That would have been just great, to be honest, I'd pay money to see the Major & co. solve mundane crimes.



#3 Gothneo

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Posted 02 April 2017 - 03:48 AM

I never quite fully embraced or liked the way the plot of the original Ghost in the Shell anime progressed... so in that regard I guess I was more open to the changes they made. I think it absolutely deserves its 50ish rating on meta critic.. meaning its not great... but its not terrible, so yeah, I can understand your "meh" rating! I thought the way they had Scarlett "slouch" to look more like a plodding machine was a poor choice of the director. 

 

Ultimately, I feel the movie was still able to get to the primary point of original, which was to really question the essence of humanity, but I do agree that the point could have just as easily been made as you describe. 

 

I always found Akira to be much more engaging and honestly... I would be more upset at large  changes to the plot of a live action version of Akira as I think it largely stands the test of time and and the original plot works well. 



#4 Morgan

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Posted 07 April 2017 - 09:14 PM

The critical reaction to this film fits perfectly into a common theme of sci-fi movie pitfalls of the last 10 years, to the point that a lot of postmortems sound the same: They cut the dialogue down to three pages and sped up the action to accommodate a 3rd grader's attention span.

 

A lot of sci-fi blockbusters now feel like they were directed by the same two or three directors to roughly the same producer's demands. At least Ghost in the Shell wasn't as frenetic or loud as Transformers, but I have a feeling that that was a battle the production had to fight: We can't make this excessively loud or explosion-laden because we have to stick to source material.

 

The difference still feels like 1986 RoboCop vs 2014 RoboCop.



#5 Gothneo

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Posted 08 April 2017 - 03:47 AM

There was more dialog in the original anime... but stylistically, I guess I didn't think the action was that sped up from how the anime version was done... still I don't disagree with your general statement. I can't stand the transformer movies for that exact reason... and frankly its one of my big critiques of JJ-Trek too. 



#6 JonWes

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Posted 13 April 2017 - 12:01 AM

I thought it was really fantastic. I've seen it three times. The visuals and the world are so well realized, and I thought ScarJo was great in the part. She's assisted by a GREAT supporting cast, too. It wasn't as philosophical as the movie, but I don't need this to be the same thing. We've got the anime for that. I enjoyed the more action-oriented take, and how it was a more personal story for the Major, who is fairly cold in the original. I was very moved by what happens when the Major goes looking for her past. I thought that was beautifully done. The dialogue could be ham-fisted at times, but nothing too egregious.






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