Yeah, I'm definitely not trying to begrudge what other people like. Some people might not like a movie that is mostly cerebral. The art and action of GITS is almost secondary to the concept it's exploring. I've seen quite a lot of anime that looked fun and interesting, it just wasn't something I could get into.

It may also be that a lot of anime are series, and require a time investment.

It's less a retelling and more an expression of a culmination of factors in post-war Japan. Japanese media in that era really had a lot of fear about the post-war state, especially the loss of culture, baked in.