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Comment by XorNot | Hacker News Reader

Ghost In The Shell suffers from really dragging in the middle.

There's a bunch a bunch of sequences which go on just way too long for the total amount of plot in the film, and there's a lot of missing context for the main character's motivation: we just kind of get a couple big exposition dumps, but no real feel for who the Major is or why the core conceit of the plot matters to her.

The Stand Alone Complex series, conversely, is amazing.

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Now this is a matter of taste, but I love the slow moments where the film just pans over city scenes with no dialogue. Just a little time to breathe and look at the art in the middle of the action. It's a film that posits a bunch of questions about human vs machine and then declines to answer them in favor of letting you think about them.

Those periods of "Ma"[0] really make the film for me, and their absence was a big part of of why I didn't like the 2017 Scarlett Johanssen version (I walked out of the theater I was so disappointed). They give you time to think & reflect on the implications of the scene that just ended, and how it will affect the forthcoming actions of the characters.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma_(negative_space)

I didn’t get SAC back when it was on Adult Swim. Seeing it randomly and out of order it seemed stale, slow, and too dense. But watched in sequence it is a fantastic bit of scifi.

I remember enjoying the episodes who were outside of the central plot from SAC and SAC2. That episode when they explain the past of the sniper character and how he got recruited by the major was amazing and I watched it over and over.

It would make a great stand alone movie.

I kind of like that we’re thrown headfirst into this world without a ton of exposition around motivations and whatnot. It feels _a lot_ like Blade Runner that way (my favorite film) — sort of confounding and urgent. And you’re teased with these glances and sprinkles of a very intriguing world.

All of this is to say I think the movie is just fantastic and I regularly find new things to love about it on each rewatch.

> I kind of like that we’re thrown headfirst into this world without a ton of exposition around motivations and whatnot. It feels _a lot_ like Blade Runner that way (my favorite film) — sort of confounding and urgent.

I really like this part of fiction and media as well, because it forces you to do some work piecing everything together, so you feel a bit like a detective as well. Way better than superhero movies where you are spoonfed everything. It's a common narrative device found in Phillip K. Dick books, one of which Blade Runner is based off of. I really like the way it builds suspense.

Glad to hear that. I am about to get on the SAC wagon.

I don't agree with you, but it's really sad that you're getting downvoted for having an opinion and explaining it. I'd understand it on Reddit, but this is HN, and it's supposed to be better here.

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