I think it will be good.
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Don't give me The Seven Samurai with one white actor (or replacing just the seven with white actors), just go ahead and make The Magnificent Seven.But. . . That IS what the Magnificent 7 IS.But, as he said, changing the setting also makes a huge difference.
Retelling the story with white characters with everything moved to the old West is very different than leaving it in Japan and just making the main characters white.
You do understand that Major is a cyborg? She can look however the hell she wants to look. She gets built not born.
Don't give me The Seven Samurai with one white actor (or replacing just the seven with white actors), just go ahead and make The Magnificent Seven.But. . . That IS what the Magnificent 7 IS.
Yup. I think it's the difference between cultural appropriation and acculturation. Take a story that's obviously about Japanese people, values and culture, adding a white dude (or lady) is appropriation. I mean... it could be done, cause there are actual stories that have historically taken place like this (traveling merchants/explorers/military/etc) but by and large it's still no the right way to do it.
Taking the kernel of the story and applying it to your own culture though, providing a new lens on the theme and seeing how it plays out is just what happens as time passes and cultures slowly exchange ideas.
My point is that if they had just gone all-in on making the show "American", it wouldn't be as offensive. Do an original version of GitS, you can even have a female lead called "the Major" (just give her an ethnically appropriate name), incorporate American cultural values (more focus on individualism). Transcendentalism (an American philosophy) would provide some wonderful dry, serious quotes to provide a philosophical context. Instead of living alone in the woods, now you live alone in the data.
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
Imagine the Major saying that while sifting through data on the net. Or the wonderfully overused line from Civil Disobedience could be used by the antagonist:
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.
Anyways, that's my opinion. Americans should make American movies. All art is stealing, so a certain amount is fine, but don't try to pretend to be the thing you're stealing, just steal it and turn it into your own thing.
You do understand that Major is a cyborg? She can look however the hell she wants to look. She gets built not born.Don't give me The Seven Samurai with one white actor (or replacing just the seven with white actors), just go ahead and make The Magnificent Seven.But. . . That IS what the Magnificent 7 IS.But, as he said, changing the setting also makes a huge difference.
Retelling the story with white characters with everything moved to the old West is very different than leaving it in Japan and just making the main characters white.
Why would she want to look white? Why would the engineers want her to look white? If they can make realistic faces on cyborgs look white, and evidently everyone wants to look white, why doesn't everyone look white? (plastic surgery would be easier and simpler technology than building fully articulated cyborgs)
If the plot doesn't hinge on her looking white, it's kind of stupid to have a Japanese character, even if she is a cyborg, look white. Odds are, the reason the cast a white actress has nothing to do with the story, but rather just plain old fashioned racism.
It's particularly problematic when Hollywood has a tendency to push minority actors and actresses to the side and give all the leading roles to white people (in case you missed Exodus and Gods of Egypt recently). Racist whitewashing is so prevalent, it's really the obvious reason for why this happened until there's some good proof otherwise.
You do understand that Major is a cyborg? She can look however the hell she wants to look. She gets built not born.Don't give me The Seven Samurai with one white actor (or replacing just the seven with white actors), just go ahead and make The Magnificent Seven.But. . . That IS what the Magnificent 7 IS.But, as he said, changing the setting also makes a huge difference.
Retelling the story with white characters with everything moved to the old West is very different than leaving it in Japan and just making the main characters white.
Exactly. She can look however she wants.
How she wants to look is Japanese, is the thing.
New trailer is out (Youtube, Apple)
I am a pretty hardcore fan of the anime, the original two movies, and both seasons of Standalone Complex. I think ScarJo and the other actors will do their best with what they were given, and I think the special effects will be passable. But from watching the trailer, I don't think the writers or director understand anything at all about what makes the Major work as a compelling character, nor why the source material so is fascinating. It looks like a designed-by-committee-of-Hollywood-beancounters' attempt to cash in on a franchise, the writers lightly skimming the cliff notes of the source material, and someone saying they should pack it full of tired Hollywood scifi cliches that are introduced but not explored.
Rating: D-/F+
Nod. Looks amazingly awful. Style's wrong, characters are wrong, voices are wrong, stripping down to not-nudity plastic suit is just laughable (she's a soldier, she needs her gear), and the whining, navel gazing and angst out of the stoic Major is just... unforgivable.
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Nod. Looks amazingly awful. Style's wrong, characters are wrong, voices are wrong, stripping down to not-nudity plastic suit is just laughable (she's a soldier, she needs her gear), and the whining, navel gazing and angst out of the stoic Major is just... unforgivable.New trailer is out (Youtube, Apple)
I am a pretty hardcore fan of the anime, the original two movies, and both seasons of Standalone Complex. I think ScarJo and the other actors will do their best with what they were given, and I think the special effects will be passable. But from watching the trailer, I don't think the writers or director understand anything at all about what makes the Major work as a compelling character, nor why the source material so is fascinating. It looks like a designed-by-committee-of-Hollywood-beancounters' attempt to cash in on a franchise, the writers lightly skimming the cliff notes of the source material, and someone saying they should pack it full of tired Hollywood scifi cliches that are introduced but not explored.
Rating: D-/F+
You haven't seen much Ghost in the Shell then. The thermo-optic camouflage body suit is canon and one of her iconic outfits.
Looks cool! Remember that live action can't and never should look exactly like a cartoon or comic. Look what MCU did. Strayed far from canon many times yet that don't stop people from buying tickets.
Difference A: The MCU has never been a series of adaptations. They are in an alternate continuity from other Marvel properties.
Difference B: They didn't do a complete racelift of all the major characters.
That's a specious argument anyway. It doesn't need to look "exactly" like the source material to be in the same ballpark. Which this isn't.
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The petty criminal in the flooded square, the water scene with Batou, her swan dive off a building, the various images, even the "not nude" optical camouflage suit. This movie is heavily inspired by the original 1995 Ghost in the Shell movie.
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Heavily inspired doesn't mean the plot will carry it. Mostly I kept thinking they'd do a better job than "The Major's history has been altered! Must fight the system!"
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The plot didn't carry in the sequel.
Bjorn,
Batou doesn't bother me as much as the plot they're screwing with.
Star,
It's not a matter of that so much as they're losing what makes Ghost in the Shell unique in the annals of animated artistry.
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Purple,
I'm not disputing the cinematography of this film. I just think they're losing out on the plot aspects...
Batou always looked like s%&!.
Animated Batou had the facial structure to pull off the goofy eyes. This guy (Pilou) does not.
Acting-wise, him being in the other s#@*ty Scarjo sci-fi movie of the last couple of years (Lucy) doesn't inspire me either.
Sun,
Nothing really acting wise is inspiring me to go see this, honestly.
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Yeah the plot of the animated first movie was a rogue AI that wanted to have babies with the Major. A sort of twisted commentary on evolution. And the original Major was depicted as rebellious and deeply philosophical. She was a VERY different person when they remade her for SAC.
So the fact that they remade the plot (something they NEEDED to do BTW, as a naughty AI was going to inspire some rather HARSH critics, AND to keep it fresh for fans who actually saw the 1995 movie) actually gives me great hope this film will be good. Even the changes to the Major which aren't exactly easy to nail down in a few clips aren't completely unexpected... the biggest worry here is that MOST of the modern fans have only seen one version of the Major (the one from SAC) and they will be a little off balance seeing her depicted differently.
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She never stripped naked.
The shot of her punching the guy while standing in a thin layer of water, while stripped down, is pretty much taken exactly from the first movie.
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Aranna,
But I LIKED SAC and Second GIG!
Hama,
I'm just saying I was hoping for more trippy as ball stuff. I don't see that here in this trailer.
Kahnya,
Yep the Individual Eleven arc from 2nd Gig. Though apparently no ties to Gudo.
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As for Seven Samurai, it was actually inspired by John Ford Westerns, so it was kind of fitting that the movie itself would inspire a later Western. Then, there were the Kurosawa films based off of Shakespeare . . .
My point isn't the source of the story. My point is that the person in each culture took the story and presented it through the lens of their own culture. Very few portions of a culture are original or without influence from other cultures (or previous versions of their culture). Borrowing elements from a culture can be done in valid and respectful ways.
It can also be done in disrespectful and harmful ways and there are a lot of examples of such both in contemporary movies and in previous eras.
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I love how the people think they know what will be in the movie after watching a 2 minute preview which was left intentionally vague, like every good trailer should.
It's only the first trailer.
Oooh, well just imagine what I think of the entirety of you after only reading two sentences.
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I'm not saying my current disappointment based on this movie is justified or even correct after the first trailer. Even I know I'm judging it harshly. Some people get really deeply invested with the Star Wars or Star Trek franchises and fandom. That is what this movie feels like for me. I know a 2 hour cinematic adaptation can only include so much of the vast original source material. I know there are differences in the characterizations of Kusanagi between the manga, the movies, the SAC series, and Arise. But this movie... this doesn't feel faithful to the spirit of her character, to the spirit of that world.
If you think this film is something you'll enjoy, good. Just let me dread a little, ok?
I love how the people think they know what will be in the movie after watching a 2 minute preview which was left intentionally vague, like every good trailer should.It's only the first trailer.Oooh, well just imagine what I think of the entirety of you after only reading two sentences.
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I'm not saying my current disappointment based on this movie is justified or even correct after the first trailer. Even I know I'm judging it harshly. Some people get really deeply invested with the Star Wars or Star Trek franchises and fandom. That is what this movie feels like for me. I know a 2 hour cinematic adaptation can only include so much of the vast original source material. I know there are differences in the characterizations of Kusanagi between the manga, the movies, the SAC series, and Arise. But this movie... this doesn't feel faithful to the spirit of her character, to the spirit of that world.
If you think this film is something you'll enjoy, good. Just let me dread a little, ok?
cannot favorite this enough
I liked ALL of Ghost in the Shell even Arise; which was also unfairly under attack for changing the Major. People fall in love with a certain version. And that is fine. If using a different version of the Major hurts the show then it will. I am hoping it won't hurt the show.
It's like comic books. They change things up a lot. Maybe there are some of us who fall in love with the genre and can over look the constant changes.
I liked ALL of Ghost in the Shell even Arise; which was also unfairly under attack for changing the Major. People fall in love with a certain version. And that is fine. If using a different version of the Major hurts the show then it will. I am hoping it won't hurt the show.
It's like comic books. They change things up a lot. Maybe there are some of us who fall in love with the genre and can over look the constant changes.
That was me. I still don't like Arise, but it still felt like GitS to me. I'm not keen on that Kusanagi's characterization as a whole, but she still felt like "a" Kusanagi. (I'm not sure I'm explaining this well enough.)
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Ah well. Even if I don't like this Ghost in the Shell adaptation, maybe it'll work as another cinematic installment of ScarJo as an The Eternal Champion.
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I like taking completely unrelated movies that share an actor and imagining them being in a series together (best example ever: Christian Bale in Empire of the Sun as the REAL first installment of Nolan's Dark Knight series).
Maybe ScarJo's character from Lost in Translation never left Japan.
Look all I know is I was psyched and thrilled that Doctor Strange kept its Ditko's psychedelics. I miss that. So when I saw this...I was disappointed.
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I think the Major vs. the Spider Tank will still be good (seems to be in the movie from the trailer), if even more brutal. If it is faithful to the original movie events, that'll be something watching the reactions of the audience who didn't know it was coming.
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I think the Major vs. the Spider Tank will still be good (seems to be in the movie from the trailer), if even more brutal. If it is faithful to the original movie events, that'll be something watching the reactions of the audience who didn't know it was coming.Since this seems to have the same plot as the anime, I'd say that it's a very high possibility.
May seem that way but I read the writers/director are not using the puppet master in this first film so it will deviate.
Pan,
My understanding is they're using the Individual Eleven, but without Guda as the fall guy.
Also tanks are good but not sure it will fix this movie.
Goda wasn't the fall guy, unless we're going with a theory of an unreliable narrator.
Iron,
Well it's been a while since I watched 2nd Gig.
No worries. It sounded funny when you said it, but I had to look it up to be sure.
I really like the Individual Eleven story. I enjoy it's historical adjacency (the original crime is a real event) and it serves as a much more illuminating example of what a stand alone complex is. If they use that story pretty much as in, it'll be interesting in how it is received by the public, since it's a story about manufacturing a war against refugees and immigrants.
2nd edit: he was the planner, the guy with the messed up face. He planted seeds and viruses to convince people to engage in terrorist behavior and create the illusion of an organized group, when no such group existed. His plan being to stir up the fear of violence against refugees, causing refugees to become more violent themselves, finally resulting in anti-refugee sentiment and legislation. The resulting wave of nationalism bringing a new era of glory to Japan.
I just remember he was involved. I just kept forgetting if he was the fall guy or the planner.
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It doesn't matter that the Japanese have pale skin (they can also have blue eyes on their own).Except that then calling the casting for this movie a "whitewash" is patently absurd.
And I'm pretty sure the Japanese can have blue eyes in the case of albinism but otherwise, no. Not without recent European ancestry somewhere in the mix.
Major Motako Kusanagi is ethnically Japanese. Not Caucasian.K, so? Her body is synthetic. And her body "type" is what is under discussion.
When you have a Caucasian actor play a non-Caucasian role then you have whitewashing, it doesn't mater if the ethnicity being replaced is pale or not.
And her synthetic body is Japanese. The person before she got a synthetic body was Japanese. The character is Japanese.