Halfway through, it's not really making me think of Ghost In The Shell, you know what it's reminding me of?

Back To The Future 2.  The shot of that first day (side though, isn't it weird that so much of this movie takes place during the DAY?) where ScoJo is walking down the street and there's that giant fish sologram swimming about?  That totally reminded me of the holographic Jaws from BTTF 2.  Plus there's that goofy car that passes in the background, and on top of that, Batou's car looks like the freakin' Deloreon, doesn't it?  I'm waiting for the wheels to flip and for it to take off into the air.

Oh, side thought on Batou:



Until he lost his eyes, my mind kept switching between thinking he was Keifer Sutherland or Jack Black.  Either of which would be entertaining, I have no idea who he is, I THINK he's Dutch, I also always thought the eyes in the animation was a stylistic choice and not weird little lenses.


The other movie that this is making me think of is Robocop, since it's her human brain in a metal shell now (rather like how they changed the Fugitoid in Ninja Turtles, now that I think about it).  I was really thinking it when we went to the corporate HQ and there were those sentries and that tank thing that was SO ED-209 that it wasn't even funny.

It feels like this weird halfway point between Robocop and what the original Ghost In The Shell was, that anime had cybernetics way more advanced, they had brain downloads and ****, you got the feeling there were other bots like the Major out there and that the human body was becoming this weird expendable appendage... it was the end of the biological age of mankind.  This movie felt more like the beginning of that phase.  It's like a prequel to itself.


And one thought, you know I'm sick unto death of holograms, I think it's a lazy way to add "Flash" to the future without actually DOING anything, i didn't like the solograms from the first time I saw them in the previews because they kept messing with my sense of scale, but holy cow, that fish one I mentioned earlier, just SWIMMING across the street?  That's just stupid and dangerous.  And unless you're really far away, you can't see much of the solograms on the sides of buildings so what good are they?  And imagine if you lived in one of those buildings or had an office, how much would it suck to look out and see a fat sumo wrestler's *ss or something like that?

I can't believe it took me this long to finish the flick.  So many thoughts.  The stuff about Back To The Fuiture and Robocop still hold true... would like to make a supercut of all of that... I need to get some video editing software.

Anyway, here are some bullet points of thoughts I had regarding the movie:

Sco Jo

So I totally understand the reality of Hollywood where you need a name star to sell a movie, and on paper Sco Jo makes a big amount of sense.  Her, Under The Skin, Lost In Translation, The Avengers... she's got the prereqs to do a character and movie like this.  And heck, someone in China I think it was MADE a Scarlett Johannson robot, so yeah, that's what a robot there is going to look like.

The issue is that she should be the ONLY American in the movie, that should be the tell.  The robots look western, everyone else (namely everyone else in the cast) should be Asian.  It's the reverse Othello principle.  And you'd have this whole reinforced disassociation every time you see her, she doesn't look like she belongs, she feels separated from everyone else, she can't help but be aware of her body, etc...

I think a big issue with her being Asian is that they throw that on you at the end like a surprise, and it's so insulting.  if they implied it at the front, that this is a new body and it's not her etc MAYBE that could have landed better, I dunno.

The thing is, if this was ten-fifteen years ago or a B-movie... or if the movie was made in China or something, I could see Maggie Q or Shu Qi or Zhang Ziyi in the role and been happy.

Rinko Kinkuchi

Yeah, a lot of people wanted Rinko Kinkuchi (from Pacific Rim) to be the Major and there was NO way that was going to happen.  Having said that, demand was so high that I could picture her being added into the movie (a la "I've HAD it with these mothers*cking snakes on this mother*cking plane!") as one of Section 9.  Maybe replacing mullet guy, because who gives a sh*t about mullet guy?

I think I mentioned how I always thought of Batou as being the older mentor figure, kind of the most luddite of the group, well Rinko would be the one to contrast against that, she'd be the newest member on the team and the audience surrogate, if anything futuristic needs to be explained, they'd explain it to her.  And you should have that feeling at the end that she's going to be the last generation of pre-singularity humans that are going to be there.

Dumbing Down Vs Keeping Things Simple

Here's the plot of the original Ghost In The Shell: an incredible, intelligent new life form born from pure information is unintentionally wreaking havoc on the world, seeking out a wise human to bond with in order to ascend to a higher form of life, something wondrous that we've never seen before.  I think American audiences can wrap their heads around that.  You know why?  Because it was the plot of the FIRST STAR TREK MOVIE IN 1979!  And that movie PLAYED IN THEATERS FOR A YEAR!  People can absolutely wrap their heads around the plot of Ghost In The Shell.  If you want to streamline it, I have no problem with it, but don't graft on a stupid replacement plot because you don't have respect for your audience.

Is This Society Actually Working?

So something about the ending combined with the fact they took down one corporate guy made me think "...is this a dystopia?"  "Was everything working fine, or at least acceptable, except for that one rich a**hole sticking his d*ck in the works?"  "What do the people in this world THINK of their world?"  "Is this a good world to live in or not?"  I have no idea.  I never thought of that in the original because it felt like everything was going on, everything just was.

Is this stylized? Is this like Pushing Daisies or Gotham or something?

So there's this bit where... Cutter, I want to say his name was, he's in Beat Takeshi's office and it made me think of Gotham (and I kept calling him 'Oswald" for the rest of the movie).  And when you combine that with all the bowl-shaped holograms on the desks, all the Americans in Japan (or "...JAPAN?" as I keep calling it), everyone wearing 80s clothing and driving 80s cars, the solograms everywhere, I just kept thinking "is this supposed to be reality or is it just a weird stylized thing?  Is it like Pushing Daisies?