Idea
The Pun Tyrant
Spoiler Free Version:
The two movies are highly distinct, and have surprisingly little common ground. However, in my view, none is deeper, more complex or even better than the other necessarily. One is simply updated into modern hollywood style, but retains the key elements that made the other one great, but constructed for a modern audience.
I think this might honestly a great live action adaptation and at the very least, it lives up to the legacy of the original. Defitnely go watch them both if you haven´t already.
From here on, I will not hesitate to spoil either movie.
Ghost in the Shell is a beloved franchise, including several movies and two seasons of anime. Given the history of bad live action movie adaptations for popular animes, then, it made perfect sense for there to be an air to worry about this one as well. However, rest assured, this worry was in vain, as far as I can tell.
To begin with, a little introduction to the original Ghost in the Shell movie. The movie followed cyborg, Major, who was in the case of chasing down the criminal "The Puppetmaster" and was always at the border of an existencial crisis due to the nature of her work often involving people whose reality was shattered by mind hacks. Ghost in the Shell has a good reputation as far as themes are concerned, and that is certainly not wrong: it does have many deep interesting themes that are at least somewhat explored in the narrative. However, I think it was really hurt by a poor script. Not only was most of the language cryptic lingo, mixed with cop tropes, but other areas could jumpcut to discussions on existence that were off-topic and forced, as if assuming that they needed to directly ask the questions or the audience would be too dumb to understand them.
It´s always hard for me to jduge quality in animation or music, so I won´t even try to. The narrative was good, the resolution and themes were good, worldbuilding even if vague was top notch but the scrypt not so much. This was the thoughts I had on the first movie and with which I went to see the second one.
One thing I immediately noticed was the absense of something crucial to the plot of the first movie: the puppetmaster. Without the villain, it stood to reason that the entire plot changed completely. In a sense, I think this wasn´t a bad decision. The movie got updated to match our times. The movie got less of a hit from being made by hollywood if there was less of a possible comparison to the original movie to be made. And the several scenes where there WERE call backs to the original, felt either organic or at least had some enough effects that it retained a lot of the awesomness, bringing not a better but a different form of realism to the technology. The worldbuilding was still excellent and some might even argue, better than the original movie.
It had it´s dumb parts too. The nonsensical cringe of only two people insisting on talking japanese at the same time everyone else was talking in perfect english, one of them being a kid that litterally appeared for a second, and other one being one of the big shot characters, who still ended up speaking Engrish, creating a total irony that prevented him from ever being on scene again without me and my buddies laughing. Speaking of laughing, the villain was laughably evil, and his death was probably one of the dumbest death scenes I have ever seen in a live action film and I´ve seen plenty of comedy. If you want a good laugh, pay attention to the splashing in the pond after his death. Lastly, the movie didn´t really know it´s plot either. It had a plot, but it often felt like it was forgetting or trying to add new stuff without thinking or trying to connect it, resulting in the emptiness of various scenes that had no business in the movie to begin with.
However, one thing the live action defintely brushed on from the original was in putting the philosophical matters into their hands. While in my opinion, the movie lost a LOT with removing the puppet master, since the puppet master was what allowed for the discussion to reach the level of talking about the true meaning of what sentience and life truly are, it WAS able to make the discussions feel organic. While the original was forcing the questions directly and up our asses at times when there was no precedent to justify it, the movie at least does a good job of creating a job where we can see where the character is coming from and why these things would be so proiminent at that moment. This allows the audience to connect with the characters on trying to understand these questions or think about them, meaning that it will have a similar inspirational effect on the audience or it might have one with more ease.
Both versions had a bunch of pretty bad villains, paired with a so-so one. I could see why one would say the live action one was worse, but in return, I think, it one-uped the original in terms of the supporting cast, by not only making them more individual and likeable, having an additional level of badassery and being less "in your face" about some of the aspects of thematics.
The one thing I was really disappointed about, was the ending. While the original has a very interesting and original ending even by modern anime, with the villain and the main character merging and both being kinda lost and kinda not in the process, the movie rewrite of the whole plot didn´t lead to the same conclusion. It did still feel pretty organic, but the climatic ending seemed replaced with a "the fault is in the stars" trailer for a moment, while the main character stayed exactly the same except the dialog was replaced with "batman in the shell".
Overall, the live action adaptation lives up to the good name of ghost in the shell and knows it´s place as an adaptation. While it does try to replace content to make other transitions more smooth, it also keeps much of the original´s appeal. It doesn´t try to be fully original either and does resort to plenty of tropes here and there but then again, what else would you expect from a movie that is hoped to be essentially ripping off another work anyway? Instead, the writers seemed to focus on correcting some of the flaws in the original and "translating" it for a modern audience, which is a good and valuable cause which I think, at least in some level, they were successful with. In my personal opinion, one is just as good as the other, making this live action movie an actual miracle given the landscape so far and as such, one that should be supported.
Note: I reference "the movie" often, when I do, I am usually talking about the live action. Sorry.
Do let me know what you thought about the movies and this review!
The two movies are highly distinct, and have surprisingly little common ground. However, in my view, none is deeper, more complex or even better than the other necessarily. One is simply updated into modern hollywood style, but retains the key elements that made the other one great, but constructed for a modern audience.
I think this might honestly a great live action adaptation and at the very least, it lives up to the legacy of the original. Defitnely go watch them both if you haven´t already.
From here on, I will not hesitate to spoil either movie.
Ghost in the Shell is a beloved franchise, including several movies and two seasons of anime. Given the history of bad live action movie adaptations for popular animes, then, it made perfect sense for there to be an air to worry about this one as well. However, rest assured, this worry was in vain, as far as I can tell.
To begin with, a little introduction to the original Ghost in the Shell movie. The movie followed cyborg, Major, who was in the case of chasing down the criminal "The Puppetmaster" and was always at the border of an existencial crisis due to the nature of her work often involving people whose reality was shattered by mind hacks. Ghost in the Shell has a good reputation as far as themes are concerned, and that is certainly not wrong: it does have many deep interesting themes that are at least somewhat explored in the narrative. However, I think it was really hurt by a poor script. Not only was most of the language cryptic lingo, mixed with cop tropes, but other areas could jumpcut to discussions on existence that were off-topic and forced, as if assuming that they needed to directly ask the questions or the audience would be too dumb to understand them.
It´s always hard for me to jduge quality in animation or music, so I won´t even try to. The narrative was good, the resolution and themes were good, worldbuilding even if vague was top notch but the scrypt not so much. This was the thoughts I had on the first movie and with which I went to see the second one.
One thing I immediately noticed was the absense of something crucial to the plot of the first movie: the puppetmaster. Without the villain, it stood to reason that the entire plot changed completely. In a sense, I think this wasn´t a bad decision. The movie got updated to match our times. The movie got less of a hit from being made by hollywood if there was less of a possible comparison to the original movie to be made. And the several scenes where there WERE call backs to the original, felt either organic or at least had some enough effects that it retained a lot of the awesomness, bringing not a better but a different form of realism to the technology. The worldbuilding was still excellent and some might even argue, better than the original movie.
It had it´s dumb parts too. The nonsensical cringe of only two people insisting on talking japanese at the same time everyone else was talking in perfect english, one of them being a kid that litterally appeared for a second, and other one being one of the big shot characters, who still ended up speaking Engrish, creating a total irony that prevented him from ever being on scene again without me and my buddies laughing. Speaking of laughing, the villain was laughably evil, and his death was probably one of the dumbest death scenes I have ever seen in a live action film and I´ve seen plenty of comedy. If you want a good laugh, pay attention to the splashing in the pond after his death. Lastly, the movie didn´t really know it´s plot either. It had a plot, but it often felt like it was forgetting or trying to add new stuff without thinking or trying to connect it, resulting in the emptiness of various scenes that had no business in the movie to begin with.
However, one thing the live action defintely brushed on from the original was in putting the philosophical matters into their hands. While in my opinion, the movie lost a LOT with removing the puppet master, since the puppet master was what allowed for the discussion to reach the level of talking about the true meaning of what sentience and life truly are, it WAS able to make the discussions feel organic. While the original was forcing the questions directly and up our asses at times when there was no precedent to justify it, the movie at least does a good job of creating a job where we can see where the character is coming from and why these things would be so proiminent at that moment. This allows the audience to connect with the characters on trying to understand these questions or think about them, meaning that it will have a similar inspirational effect on the audience or it might have one with more ease.
Both versions had a bunch of pretty bad villains, paired with a so-so one. I could see why one would say the live action one was worse, but in return, I think, it one-uped the original in terms of the supporting cast, by not only making them more individual and likeable, having an additional level of badassery and being less "in your face" about some of the aspects of thematics.
The one thing I was really disappointed about, was the ending. While the original has a very interesting and original ending even by modern anime, with the villain and the main character merging and both being kinda lost and kinda not in the process, the movie rewrite of the whole plot didn´t lead to the same conclusion. It did still feel pretty organic, but the climatic ending seemed replaced with a "the fault is in the stars" trailer for a moment, while the main character stayed exactly the same except the dialog was replaced with "batman in the shell".
Overall, the live action adaptation lives up to the good name of ghost in the shell and knows it´s place as an adaptation. While it does try to replace content to make other transitions more smooth, it also keeps much of the original´s appeal. It doesn´t try to be fully original either and does resort to plenty of tropes here and there but then again, what else would you expect from a movie that is hoped to be essentially ripping off another work anyway? Instead, the writers seemed to focus on correcting some of the flaws in the original and "translating" it for a modern audience, which is a good and valuable cause which I think, at least in some level, they were successful with. In my personal opinion, one is just as good as the other, making this live action movie an actual miracle given the landscape so far and as such, one that should be supported.
Note: I reference "the movie" often, when I do, I am usually talking about the live action. Sorry.
Do let me know what you thought about the movies and this review!
