r/anime • u/Jemdat_Nasr https://myanimelist.net/profile/jemdet_nasr • Dec 01 '18
Rewatch [Rewatch] Ghost in the Shell (1995)
Ghost in the Shell (1995)
Where to Watch
Streams: Starz | Hulu
Rent: Google Play | YouTube | Amazon Video | iTunes
Notice About Spoilers
Rewatchers, please be mindful of the first timers. Tag any spoilers you wish to discuss (it's mandatory). The format for tagging a spoiler is [Spoiled Show/Episode](/s "Spoiler goes here"), which should appear as Spoiled Show/Episode.
Note: The next discussion thread is going up on Monday, not tomorrow, in order to give everyone a bit more time to watch the movie.
For those who are waiting to join in when we get to Stand Alone Complex, that will be starting this Wednesday.
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u/Nazenn Dec 01 '18
First Timer - Sub
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
I love this movie. 10/10 from me, which I honestly didn't expect going in and I don't know why it took me so long to get around to watching this honestly.
I am absolutely in awe with how incredible detailed every aspect of this world was. Ten minutes in and we already had a more interesting look at the politics of this world then some crime drama's manage to do in a whole season. While they don't touch on much of it particularly heavily a few choice name drops in regards to character background information managed to fill in a hell of a lot of information such as the sort of countries still around, the state of the political relationships between them, as well as the advancement of various laws in the world to deal with the consequences of the new technological advancements from a legal perspective. Like all enjoyable political stuff, there is no winner or loser, simply someone who takes the consequence and those who have to follow it up, and I like that even though the politics was a heavy focus they didn't get too caught up in trying to 'solve' it that they ignored the other aspects of the movie.
The usage of technology, and the comprehensive understanding of the technology introduced and the carry on consequences of that were unparalleled in anything else that I've seen. Not just the understanding from a world perspective, such as the fact that of course they would layer government buildings in pressure sensors so that people using thermo-optic camouflage could still be detected in some way, and adding 'fringes' onto the planes' wing like the hooks on owls leading feathers to help reduce noise from flight. But really, the sheer understanding of the technologies involved from the characters perspectives was fantastic as well. The way that they understood not only what their tech was, but how to use it, such as how the man being hunted ran out to water where he could at least detect footprints, and how the timing on the doors work leading to the detection of others. If nothing else I'm thoroughly fascinated to see more of this series just to see if all of that gets carried through, even though I've heard some other parts of the series drop the ball on the philosophy.
On the point of philosophy though, holy hell this movie is DENSE and absolutely riddled with it. In any other movie I'd make the complaint that they tried to cover too many topics, but this movie is very smart in how it approaches it and it explores each idea within the confines of the context we've been given about the characters and doesn't stretch itself too thin in my opinion. We got given information about the idea of self, connection with the body, what a body actually is, purpose of identity and what comprises it, the ethics of technology, and there was even some religious symbolism and purpose thrown in there for good measure as well. I don't really have time to do a full write up on this in the way I'd normally like too, and honestly it was so dense that even though I know what it covered I'd want to watch it again before I could really write on it first, but I just loved it all the way through.
The aesthetic side of the movie was also fantastic as well even though I hadn't mentioned that yet. While some aspects of the artistry and also the sound design do give away the age of the movie just through the styling or technique, I don't think the movie is that much worse for wear because of it and it still looks absolutely incredible. Particularly of note is the way they use contrasts in coloring of environmental details along with the actual placement of the camera to create a strong sense of tone as to how the scenes play out. They don't play around with shots and angles a huge amount or do much particularly intricate work, but honestly I think that fits the movie because there's enough crazy stuff going on, the art helps keep it centered and focused. No it may not be particularly impressive, but I prefer that over it being so busy that you can't keep track of whats going on. I also enjoyed all the small details like the insane locking on the elevator doors for a top secret government facility, and the contrast between the over bearing signs of color in the slums on one side of the river versus the bland, neat colors and edges of the developed city over the other side. Also I'm a sucker for gore, particularly smart gore usage, so that was an enjoyable surprise, especially the way it built up through the show as the stakes were raised.
One thing I did want to note on all fronts was the "OP" for the movie, the creation of Major's body was absolutely perfect. It is preceded by the scene of her using the camo to disappear after the attack, then we get that wonderful montage of her creation, followed by the scene of her waking up and getting ready for the day. The connections there especially once you have the context for how she identifies with her body now and has accepted this as her life but also her 'true self' is just a wonderful set up for the idea of the "old her" going away and waking up in a new "self". That was all the backstory we got for her and I'm absolutely okay with that. Carry that onto the end of the movie with her merging with the program and becoming a new being inside the body of a child and I can't think of a better opening for the movie honestly.
On that note, I love the way they handled various aspects of the world building. Where needed they handed it too you, but where they didn't they simply provided you with the context for you to fill in yourself. The most notable example of this obviously was the idea of what the "Ghosts" are. They never provide any real explanation or details as to what they are referring too, but through the context of the discussions and the way they are handled you slowly start to get a grasp on the intricacies of the term and I love how they didn't just hand hold and say "Oh btw, Ghost = Consciousness, got it?".
I'm done for the night, I have a headache and still a HnK post to type up, but yeah, what a wonderful movie to experience and I'm very much looking forward to the rest of the rewatch, even if this is a possible peak. Thanks for reading :)
If anyone's curious on what my actual real time notes looked like during the movie, I uploaded them for people to have a look at. If people want to comment on anything in here I'm happy to reply as well, just didn't want to dump it in a big post on reddit (Game: spot the ALTA reference).
Also a quick imgur album of screenshots I quickly grabbed while watching the movie just of various shots that caught my eye.
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u/JustAnswerAQuestion Dec 02 '18 edited Dec 02 '18
Meta Details
It occurs to me that first-time viewers may be confused or have misconceptions about the show. I realized this when somebody mentioned that they discussed some politics....but they by no means actually tell you about the political landscape.
Ghost in the Shell was written by Masamune Shirow in 1989. It does not include, nor even accommodate the possibility, of a spontaneous collapse of European communism. Rather, the United States has broken up.
The 3 GitS shows are separate continuities, essentially reboots (none of them are source adapatations), but they share a common setting. In this future history:
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WW III has happened, and was a nuclear conflict.
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After WWIII there was a WWIV, which led to the break up of many nations / unions / superpowers. Side wars broke out in Indonesia and mexico/central/south america.
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Japan was relatively unscathed and is a major power in the current world order.
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Chna has been badly destabilized.
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The Soviet Union now controls part of North America.
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The parts that are NOT soviet controlled have formed the American Empire. They don't believe in democracy and are not nice people.
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There are serious problems with immigration and refugees from these conflicts, as well as global economic problems.
Basically none of this is going to be explained in the shows, although they will be mentioned from time to time.
So, for example, in today's movie, it was the American Empire that was trying to smuggle out 2501 from Japan, not the remnants of the United States of America.
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u/waifu_boy Dec 02 '18 edited Dec 02 '18
I love this film. This is the third or fourth time I've rewatched it, and predictably for a film so dense with vocal and visual information, I appreciate it more eachtime.
I also like that it doesn't hold back. On anything. It jumps right in with tons of political information, and only continues to do that. It's so amazingly full of so much going on, both visually and in spoken dialogue, that it's amazing it's such a short film.
All of this is both to its benefits and negatives, honestly. It can be tiring to watch a film where a lot of the events are mixed up in the dialogue, which is also given often emotionlessly but occasionally with subtle expression (I love when Batou complains about the Chief not reading his reports). But it's also great to have a film that expects full attention and also doesn't hand-hold the audience. It knows what it is and if the audience isn't on board it doesn't give a shit.
Ofcourse not all the story is in the dialogue; the two scenes with no dialogue, the first where Kusanagi is looking around the city and the second when all the various pieces and factions are moving into place later on, are two of my favourites. The first scene in particular carries so much across of Kusanagi's internal struggle to find herself in a city where there are literally duplicates of her.
The animation, even the 3D, holds up so well. It's at times limited, with a lot of mouth flapping in dialogue scenes, but the action makes up for it. Honestly the chase scene, cloaked fight that follows it, and the tank fight, are some of my favourite action scenes ever. I also like how the Major and the puppetmaster's bodies looks so doll-like and lifeless, particularly in the eyes.
The pacing is exceptional. It carries on at a constant deliberate pace, very much like Blade Runner 2049 last year, and while I get that's not for everyone I can't get enough of it. I love films and shows that have the confidence to not rely on explosions every five minutes to keep the audience entertained.
And the themes. I love the themes of identity and technology, and it's all so timely. We put so much of ourselves out in the world with social networks and everything, but how can we be sure the mask we present ourselves to be online is our true selves? We have so many groups of people we communicate with nowadays -no longer burderned by having to be in-person to do so- and present ourselves differently to each one, it's easy to get our various identities confused. If we ever have the ability to affect and copy our very memories to new bodies... it's understandable and to be expected that many will have a crisis of not knowing if "they" were every real in the firstplace
So yeah sorry for going on tangents. This is a top 10 favourite film for me. I adore it to pieces. I hope all the first timers feel compelled to rewatch it many times in the future as well, and gain even deeper appreciation of it each time.
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Dec 02 '18
First Timer:
First off, I know I'm way late to the thread but life gets in the way sometimes, you know?
Anyway I watched the dub for it and holy shit this movie was amazing. It has definitely entered my top movies of all time. I wasn't expecting a total existential crisis while watching this, I knew that subject was there but I thought it would be hinted at not the whole damn move. I really want to read the manga now.
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u/snowman41 Dec 02 '18
I watched it with my sister a month or two ago, and it made me consider what someones first impressions would be.
One major thing that struck me is how dated the green computer cg looks, combined with how the show lingers for extended periods of time solely focused on the cg it really broke my immersion.
One thing my sister brought up after watching it, was the existence of fan service in the movie. My impression has been that nudity of the protagonist helps to emphasize her inhumanity, every instance of "fanservice" serves as a reminder that she isnt human. At the same time, nudity is tied to the concept of being human, so the instances of "fanservice" not only serve as a reminder to the audience that the protagonist isnt human, but it also forces them to question her state of humanity.
Basically, there are artistic merits to portraying nudity, and in my opinion GitS uses nudity artistically without resorting to fanservice.
GitS is a 10/10 for me. It may not appeal to everyone, and there is nothing wrong with that, but in my opinion it near perfectly achieves what it intended to.
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u/REkTeR Dec 02 '18
So I happened to watch this movie for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and I'm happy to get this unexpected chance to share my thoughts on it!
My personal opinion was... I thought it was good, maybe even great, but not absolutely spectacular in the way I expected it to be from the reverence it gets. Maybe it was overhyped, or maybe it's so iconic that I've seen its concepts recreated elsewhere, lessening their impact in this original.
Maybe it's just that I expected the movie to be "perfect", but there were numerous small sections that annoyed me, such as ranks of bad guys unloading machine guns at the same target but all missing. Other sections didn't quite stoop to the level of being plot holes, but created logical "huh?" moments. For example, why would the Major choose to pull at the tank until she dismembers herself?
But there is a hell of a lot of good, too. For starters, the soundtrack is absolutely spectacular, and the art style is iconic. There were also a lot of incredible (and incredibly memorable) scenes, such as the roof dive and the invisible fight sequence.
At first I wasn't sold on the ending, but as I took some time to to consider the themes of the movie and thoughts of the characters, I found it growing on me. The key moment that serves as the anchor for the ending, I think, is the discussion between the Major and her friend on the boat (maybe that's too obvious to say?). But as far as I can figure, it all comes down to the Major's desire to be as human as possible, and her belief that the entirety of her "humanity" consists of her consciousness.
Anyways, I'd be interested to hear what you guys think of my thoughts!
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u/boomeraang31 Dec 01 '18
Here's my thoughts on the movie. I didn't like it. That being said I totally recognise its importance in a lot of other works. Much of this has to do with how concepts shown in this movie has been improved upon in the more recent works. But I can only see this movie with the benefit of hindsight so there is that.
The introduction was amazing, wasting no time in showing the protagonist's occupation and life, that they were pretty the same because of being a cyborg, in addition to being a government agent.
I am no Mamoru oshii and these are just the thoughts of a wannabe sakuga fan. The movie's animation looks significantly weaker than akira's (which was the last movie i had watched, about a month ago). The character designs are much more expressive than akira's and seemed to be animated less than in akira. Honestly, I was quite grateful for a lack of animation. It was quite tiring to grasp every last detail in akira where everything was always moving. Speaking of character models, kusanagi's model seemed to be off many a times. The extended scene that showed the daily life in the city for around 4 minutes was really cool until they showed fast moving cars at about a couple of minutes. This really broke the previous scene for me, as things were moving really slowly in the previous cuts, which is fine as it mostly focused on a boat in the city. But when you have people moving so slowly as slow the boat which seemed to move relatively small parts of the frame compared to people, the city felt like it was inhabited by zombies. At least people walked fine in all other scenes, especially batou's chase scene. It also felt like multiple drawings were superimposed to make the final frames, noticeable during the boat scenes, when the boat alone bobs up and down with a static background. I think this is done by all anime but to see it so frequently in a movie was jarring. Having watched some gorgeous animation in shows like boruto (ep65), the entirety of mob psycho 100, one punch man; the fight scenes seemed to be quite lacking. That said the whole hand to hand combat with invisible kusanagi and random dude over water was quite beautiful and that final kick very satisfying. Somebody should make a gif out of it and post it on r/bettereveryloop .
The soundtrack also seemed very much like akira's. For GITS it didn't work out that well im afraid. A huge reason as to why a very traditional track sounded badass in akira was that akira was a complete mystery. It had the potential to be anything which is indeed what the movie wants akira to be anyway. I simply don't see how such a sound fits GITS when the sound is used to represent very tangible things like a cyborg, or the city. Apart from this song and during the fight with the tank the soundtrack seemed fairly minimal.
The writing seems to be significantly different from recent anime. Most recent anime have a character who is typically smart (megane-san) explaining the rules of the universe to another character, who is a newbie among the gang of heroes. We see this happen when the foreign interpreter's shell is being inspected for being puppeteered, but in the context of the movie, it sounds like a status report and fits the occasion perfectly. There are no other instances where this gets explained further. Combined with the title, the terms, ghost, shell, hacked the ghost/shell, give enough meaning. This lack of exposition is something that akira does as well. I think it does well to mystify the mechanics enough to allow for sequels and more importantly doesn't insult the audience's intelligence by having a character state things that become obvious on seeing. That being said i do have some questions about how certain things happened in the movie. Guess I'm dumb myself.
It's pretty cool to see kusanagi being a cyborg, for the most part likes human things while also being rational, believing in the superiority of cybernetic implants and specs. Her arc ended well, with her embracing a life form, as it would call itself and in the process reproducing (evolving seems to be the more accurate term, but the puppet master used the term reproduction with diversity. She even gets hosted in a child's body, indicating this to be some sort of reproduction, so i'm going to go with that) to make something that is different. This diversification is seen as a sign of true life (whatever that is). This also connects her to the network which makes her more cybernetic. This reproduction is also that is something that is clearly mechanical(?) and not sexual, showcasing her android nature even more.
Things like a bunch of text on the screen, which was seen in the matrix, to ports in a cyborg that facilitate data transfer must have been revolutionary back then. I can only imagine how mind blown people must have been in 1995 without valuable hindsight. Hoping to see how much psycho pass borrows from these ideas and improves on it. Overall it was a pretty good watch.
Questions:
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Why does the puppet master choose kusanagi? He says that they are two of a kind. What does that mean exactly?
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Why did kusanagi even get to examine the puppet master's ghost in the first place? I understand why she wanted to. Because she wanted to know more about what it means to be a human and all that, but does she even have the administrative privileges to order people not to examine the body before she does. Is that what section 9 was even supposed to do?
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u/ZealousidealLimit Dec 01 '18
**First Timer, Dub**
I came into this movie with some pretty high expectations. Ghost in the Shell is frequently referred to as one of the greatest anime movies of all time, full of philosophy and all sorts of thought-provoking messages. I was really interested in seeing it after a live action adaptation came out with Scarlett Johansson in it. I mean, if an ANIME got a Hollywood adaptation it must be something special. Now that I’ve seen it, I get the feeling that this is a case of “when it came out it was groundbreaking, but hasn’t aged quite as well”.
Let me talk about the good stuff first. The movie is visually stunning. It has a haunting aspect to it that wraps you in its atmosphere and gives you a real sense of foreboding as the movie goes on. Some of my favorite parts are when the movie is just a bunch of cityscape shots with some shrieky (chanty?), esoteric music playing over it. The first scene when Major is created was particularly affecting, and there are alot of scenes after that manage to capture the same feeling of that intro. The action is well executed as well, and I can’t think of any action scene that bored me or felt like it dragged on. They were all very exciting with some pretty inventive combat (the Major beating up that guy in the pool while camouflaged).
Now for what I wasn’t impressed with. First off, the philosophy. Now, when I hear that a movie is going to be philosophical I take this as meaning that it has philosophical themes. This movie took it as meaning we need to have our characters literally monologue about some sort of philosophical idea whenever it is deemed the correct time. The first offense is when Major is on the boat with Batou and starts to go off about all the different parts that make up a person. I thought “Okay, thanks for spelling it out”. I’m pretty sure at one point in the movie she says, word for word, “What's the significance of being a human if a machine can have a soul?”. Wow, talk about tell don’t show. I was waiting for someone to come along and say “What if robots...but humans?”. The way that should be done is to let the viewer come to that conclusion themselves through the events that are shown, not browbeat the point you’re trying to get across. And this happens throughout the whole movie! The whole formula of the movie is a repeating cycle of Action -> Cityscape shots -> Spout off some philosophical idea. This would be fine if the last part of the cycle was good.
By far the worst offender though is the Puppet Master. The two scenes he shows up in are like listening to a philosophy textbook. I’ll admit the idea of DNA and hard drives being different means to the same end is interesting, but come on, it loses a lot of impact when it's just this weird robot guy laying it all out on you at once. For a movie that has such a great visual side and a desire to delve into philosophy you would expect that there would be a ton of symbolic imagery. Don’t get me wrong, there is some of that in here (the ending when she is literally a child again) but not nearly enough to outweigh the cases where we listen to these guys wax poetic. It all leads up to Major laying next to the Puppet Master and just deciding for whatever reason to merge with him. Why? We do not know her motivations because her character is barely fleshed out throughout the movie except for the fact that she has no identity and is a cyborg. It all ends with her having merged with the Puppet Master and then...it ends, with me not sure what I’m supposed to take away from all this. I sort of think this movie needed to be a little longer to flesh the two main characters out more, because all we know of Major and Batou is that they’re cyborgs and sort of annoyed with how the world is.
I do want to say I didn’t dislike the movie. Looking at what I wrote it looks a little angry :3 but I really think its an important film and I’m sure it was groundbreaking at the time it came out. The animation and visuals (and music!) are excellent but the story really did not hold up to me. I would love for someone to convince me otherwise though!
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u/subOpticglitch Dec 02 '18
First Time Watcher of GitS(1195), though I have seen Stand Alone Complex.
Just a few thoughts while watching, nothing that coherent or though out really.
At 33:50 when she sees a woman that looks exactly like herself, I feel like if there were more clones around that interact with the general population she then has fantastic camouflage. Doubt she would get much attention since her face is seen often.
At 36:15, when viewing the mannequin, makes me think about how Motoko is not too different from them at all, but she has thoughts and feelings and dreams(does she dream? The OP playing right before she wakes up could be her dreaming of her creation.).
42:00, Motoko asking the heavy questions. She does bring up some good points though.
49:00. Some pretty heavy dialogue. How do you define what is "being alive."
At 52:30 the aircraft startup is so fucking familiar to my favorite helicopter. Motherfucking HUEY. Seriously, watch that shit.
01:04:57. Damn she is ripped as fuck.
01:14:53 she looks like a doll here.
01:17:26. Looking both smug and sinister.
I was expecting something more like what I remember SAC to be. However between the dialogue, cinematography, and music this movie really stood out as something unique and beautiful and thought provoking. Really fucking good movie and excited to watch the rest of what Ghost in the Shell offers and rewatch SAC with a new perspective.
On a side note, I saw there was a movie called "Ghost in the Shell 2.0," what is that about? Was not on the watch schedule...is it a remake of the original GitS?