Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

[hong]

Just saw it tonight on DVD. Various comments follow that, because they were posted at 2:45 am Austrian time, cannot be guaranteed to be fully coherent.

- My god, is it pretty. This is the most spectacular use of CGI I've ever seen. Seeing it on the small screen just doesn't do it justice. The first-person view through Batou's eyes is like watching an FPS (Metal Gear Solid 10?), while the sweeping vistas are just mind-blowing.

- Sometimes it's almost too pretty for its own good. I got the strong feeling at times that the director was inserting scenes purely because they were so jaw-droppingly beautiful, without too much regard for whether they actually advanced the storyline or our understanding of the world.

- Clearly, Shiro Masamune is still into the earnest speechifying thing he displayed in the first GitS. I think he should cut back the talking, and focus on the guns.

Spoiler

The finale was a letdown IMO. All that pondering over what it means to be alive/sentient/human/whatnot, and in the end, it's back to the old Cartesian mind/body duality, lightly warmed over. It would seem that unless a robot has a ghost (soul), it can't really be alive. Personally, I would have liked a more ambiguous conclusion, maybe along the lines of Blade Runner, or the first GitS.

Also, not only was the ending a bit of a copout philosophically speaking, but it wasted lots of opportunities for human drama. Consider that you've got these kids, who look to be mere adolescents, being kidnapped and their ghosts being put into pleasure robots. That's a premise bursting with potential: what are the kids being forced to do [or is that too squicky a question to contemplate]? What do they remember of their previous life? If the robot is destroyed, does the ghost die? etcetera. However, it's over and done with almost before you've had a chance to consider the implications.

 

[Krug]

Yea I agree. It looked gorgeous, but the story wasn't much. I hear Paranoia Agent is much better.

 

[FCWesel]

I have to say, I just put this in the player last night and stopped it about half-way through because I was bored stupid. Was it "pretty", yeah sure, though i found the CGI totally clashing with the more traditional looking animation. And like hong said, it was pretty but far to damn artsy for my taste I guess.

(I will say I enjoyed the first part of that Yakuza sceen immensly, though.)

I also got annoyed with the every other sentence being a quote of Milton or this or that philosipher, poet or priest. Sorry, again with the over artsy.

I might try and suffer through the rest today, but after reading Hong's disapointment, I will likely not bother. At least it was a free rental from the library.

 

[drnuncheon]

Does this follow the movie GitS, the TV series (Man-Machine Interface, I think?) GitS, or the graphic novel GitS?

J

 

[Warrior Poet]

- My god, is it pretty.

Agreed. Saw it on the big screen, which was a real treat. The detail was outstanding, and I really enjoyed just getting lost in the spectacular visuals. The list is huge, but in particular I loved the

Spoiler

jet with organic bird-like "feathers" on its wings

and the entire

Spoiler

festival scene, as well as the entrance to the northern city, where at first I thought the little points of light were burning embers from factories, only to discover they were birds.

Gorgeous! Not to mention, I think they really nailed

Spoiler

the animation of the basset hound.

- Sometimes it's almost too pretty for its own good.

Also agreed, but I realized about 20 minutes into it that I was enjoying the film just for the visuals. I also like the story, and the characters, and what happens, and at the same time I really love the graphics, both cell drawn and CGI.

- I think he should cut back the talking, and focus on the guns.

I like the philosophy, but would have enjoyed more gun combat as well. Hell, more gun-toting philosophers! Wouldn't that make modern academics interesting!

The finale was a letdown IMO.

I did like

Spoiler

Batou's brief conversation with the freed captive, his lament for the robots/dolls, and how she was clearly expecting him to be sympathetic to her plight.

That messed with my expectations nicely, and caught me off guard. Then,

Spoiler

Her subsequent outburst felt so honest, and I think it probably sank to the root of what was bugging Batou about the whole situation to begin with, pointing to the lack of distinction between the truly living (human?) and the not truly living (robot/doll?).

I also would have liked to have heard more exploration of the whole

Spoiler

"hacking someone else's brain remotely"

bit, which is also a really fascinating premise.

Overall, I think the movie is great.

Warrior Poet

 

[barsoomcore]

I fall somewhere between Hong and WarriorPoet on this one. Like WP, I saw it in the theatre and it was truly mind-blowing, which may have made me more sympathetic.

I'm not sure if I wanted more talking or less talking, actually. Like WP says, right at the end it actually got REALLY interesting, but they didn't get into very much, which is kind of cool, but also kind of disappointing. Unlike hong, I thought it was very ambiguous -- more so than the first one, really. It was made pretty muddy as to what was ethical and what wasn't, what was important and what wasn't and what was really Japanese and what wasn't.



Definitely more guns. But then I think that's true of Some Like It Hot.

 

[Nightfall]

In answer to the question does GitS2: Innocence follow the anime? No. (Btw it's GitS: Stand Alone Complex. The man and machine interface thingie...was something else)

2 more closely follows the movie if I'm right. In any event I've watched both the movie and the TV show. For me, the TV show does it just right. This 2nd movie is good but I side with a lot of people as it being too esoteric and not enough to ground the plot or even explore interesting plot points.

Plus the fact

Spoiler

The Major really didn't show up. I wish she had stayed a real body, and not a ghost hacked doll.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I rented this last night. I loved it. Great visuals, decent enough story, and the scene where Batou goes into the yakuza had me howling, "I tried." LOL. I liked the ending part where Batou pulls the girl out and laments the victims of the killings.

And the Dog, damn if I didn't love that dog. I can't have a dog where i live and seeing that made me remember how much I miss having a dog at the homestead.

Overall I find it a worthy sequal to the original and now I have to go find the manga.

 

[Greydt]

- Clearly, Shiro Masamune is still into the earnest speechifying thing he displayed in the first GitS. I think he should cut back the talking, and focus on the guns.[/spoiler]

I don't think you can blame Shirow for this - it's more of a Mamoru Oshii thing. If you've watched Oshii's other directorial efforts (besides Gits, there's the Patlabor movies and his live action stuff like Avalon), they all have the same similar tone. (in this case, the "speechifying"). I try not to watch an Oshii movie while tired, since I've fallen asleep during the Patlabor movies before.

The Gits: Standalone Complex TV show is more in-line to Shirow's manga.

Overall, I liked Innocence, but like what FCWesel said - the excessive use of quotes is a little annoying. I had watched it in the theater, so it wasn't as bad, but I don't know what I might have done if my first viewing was on DVD.