Hacker News Reader

Comment by andreyk | Hacker News Reader

Interesting. As a big fan of the original and to a lesser extent the show, I actually liked and was impressed by how deftly they combined and remixed elements from different incarnations of Ghost In The Shell. Many seem to criticize this adaptation for not exploring the same themes or reaching the same conclusions as the original, but I was pleasantly surprised they did something new and did not just try to replicate the original. It's different, but to me also seems to be very much 'in the spirit' of the source material.

View on HN

That's what's confusing to me. Why recreate so many scenes if they're trying to tell a new story? Why use Kuze's name and some details of his backstory, but put him in the place of the Puppetmaster with a wholly new theme to explore? Why is it important that Batou not have his fancy eyes until halfway in, rather than many years before, or if you're changing it anyway, why have them at all?

If they made an original story with the same setting and characters, I might have liked it more. But it seemed like they just included some iconic scenes from the original to draw in the fanbase and gave a bait and switch with something new, and conclusions I found much less profound and interesting. I found it... lazy. Like the writers didn't respect the original, and just said "what do we have to make up to get from set piece remake 1 to set piece remake 2?" "oh hey let's use this name I heard from way later on in the story because IDK." Again I must compare it to the slipshod work of the Starship Troopers adaptation. Certainly nowhere near as bad (I do think this movie was good in some respects), but they made many of the same mistakes in terms of reusing and deviating from source material (Why did you make X change? Ignorance, rule of cool, deliberate tone shift? It's unclear.).

Oh, and she blinked. ;)

I've just been googling to remind myself of themes in the other movies and films and realised that with the dogs that Batou feeds they also pulled the Basset Hound from the GITS: Innocence movie

I really liken it to the script writers playing the telephone game[0] about GiTS and it's history. The things you point out, as well as not explaining/introducing anyone really bugged me. I guess Pazu and Borma were there somewhere, and Togusa had some screen time but you didn't really know who he was. Saito finally made an appearance near the end of the film as was on-screen for 10s of seconds. And why did everyone speak english except for Aramaki?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_whispers

> Many seem to criticize this adaptation for not exploring the same themes or reaching the same conclusions as the original

It didn't need do that. It could've told a totally different story and been set in Rio and it would've been fine if the script wasn't in Hollywood formula 101. I saw this movie before and it was called Robocop. And the dialogue was beyond awful. Arrival took a chance and assumed that the audience wasn't intellectually sterile. Pacific Rim (which I love btw) and its intentionally bad plot was better.

The whitewashing bothers me not so much that the Major needed to be Asian per se. It's that Hollywood just doesn't think an asian person can be a lead in a movie that doesn't have kung fu in it.

As someone who liked the shows (esp. 2nd Gig) and thought the original was meh, I thought the new movie was US cultural appropriation and bleaching at its worst. I'd be very sad if I had sold the rights and seen a science fiction ecosystem obliterated in that way.

It's worth noting that there are multiple subtitle tracks and dubs out there for the show; the good ones are pretty steeped in literary and sociological theory and have strong post-colonial / anti-capitalist / transhumanist themes. Characters deliver awesome rambling monologues on topics that would no way make it onto US network television.

> I'd be very sad if I had sold the rights and seen a science fiction ecosystem obliterated in that way

Dragonball Evolution was such a massive turd that it got the original creator of the series to return to it after 20ish years and make "real" movies.

I loved it.

Also, my wife who was never able to grasp the original movie "got" this immediately.

That's because the new one was essentially simplified to the level of a Robocop cliché. It was really embarrassing to see how limited movie producers believe our imaginations are.

The original Ghost in the Shell is still difficult for many to grasp because the core theme around the essential features of identity are not yet culturally available to everyone.

I didn't get that at all. Both still ask what it means to be human. This just asked it in a slightly different way that made it more accessible.

Mostly her beefs with the original was be lack of things that explain what's going on. This movie made those things more accssible.

But that's the thing. They mixed up so many elements from the original movie and series it doesn't ask the same questions at all. Here we have two people whose brains were put into bodies and reprogrammed. This is not the case with the original, where you have a different mind of sorts that doesn't actually need a body and isn't bound to a brain. And at the climax, the answer to "join me" was "yes", but this movie had a "no".

Eh, I didn’t find it that big of a deal. That is, it didn’t ruin the movie for me.

The 'no' surprised me so much I laughed

She probably said "no" in order to be able to make further sequels movies with the same top-selling actress (whatever her name is), not due some deep philosophical decision.

That appears to be an objectionable decision in and of itself, if I understand the argument of the person you've replied to.

She had already transcended in Lucy. Once is enough...

Bah; I wasn't able to grasp Serial Experiments Lain but I wouldn't change it one single thing; I prefer something that tries to challenge my intellect that a plot simpler than a rom-comedy; there is already too much of the latter anyway.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com