← Back to Reviews
in
Ghost in the Shell:
The New Movie
WHY'D I WATCH IT?
I really wanted to be able to say that The New Movie, clearly better marketed as a loose prequel to the original Ghost in the Shell, solves that movies biggest problems, i.e. the rambly-as-**** exposition.
At first it seems like the movie's a bit easier to follow than most GitS spins, it's a typical corporate espionage mystery that all comes down to some metaphysical ideations, this time it's about the technological deadend of prosthetics and robot heaven, or as they call it "The Third World" where everything is data.
It's a rather interesting thought; it makes sense that this idea would arise (pun acknowledged) from a society heavily composed of increasingly artificial people and it rather prompts the question if this "world of data" is not simply the world as-is? Practically everything we know of is in some way reduceable to 0s and 1s. Woulda liked to have had that ponderance confirmed by the movie.
Unfortunately, despite a refreshingly trippy opening montage of young cyborgs and foreshadowing it doesn't take long for this GitS to feel very worn in.
A couple twists in the narrative are all to obviously given away with foreshadowing and even a plot involving a Kusanagi doppelganger does little to shake the tremendously stale scenes of characters without any background music just expositioning at each other.
There's maybe around 7 plot-relevant characters besides the main team which appears in full and hardly any of them, least of which their organizations of research development projects, are memorable. There was a "MOC" and a "MOD" and I'm not still not entirely sure what either of them were.
The one seriously redeeming aspect of this movie is the action and tech sequences, which despite never quite reaching the peak level of animation quality on offer by the original GitS (astoundingly), they're still quite solid. The action is interesting, not just because of the tactics on employ, but also because of it's visualization of tech and some noticeably raw sound effects.
We get a pleasingly expanded look at how tech works in this world from occasional first-person views, of both goodies and baddies, as well as some interesting visualizations of hacking.
Something I was particularly fond of, even if it messes heavily with continuity, is the proto-Tachikomas called Logikomas. They're more blocky so they haven't yet entered the iPod-phase of development, but as part of this they're actually armed with shields which they have connect to erect emergency barricades which... just makes an incredible amount of sense, it's too bad they got rid of that feature 30 years ago.
Despite ending on a prelude to the original GitS movie, The New Movie feels like a sendup in the best and worst ways. It's loyal addition to the series, but it's loyalty suffers for it's pre-Innocence-level exposition, which does little to divert attention away from significant narrative failures such as when they swap in the real Motoko, when as far as we know she died so what we're looking at must be the imposter, without any warning, and of course the ending which signs off on the death of the villain who we last see... safe? At the bottom of a giant cylindrical room filled with water for some alien reason?
MUST BE DEAD. I DUNNO.
Interesting Trivia: Mary McGlynn, the English voice actress who normally plays Motoko, the protagonist actually plays the antagonist in this movie. Which is fitting, even though she dies immediately...
Final Verdict: [Meh...]
Ghost in the Shell:
The New Movie
Sci-Fi Action Mystery / 2015
WHY'D I WATCH IT?
For the Action Movie Countdown.
The sequel/spin-off movie to the prequel/reboot Ghost in the Shell: Arise anime series.
WHAT'D I THINK? *SPOILERS*
The sequel/spin-off movie to the prequel/reboot Ghost in the Shell: Arise anime series.
WHAT'D I THINK? *SPOILERS*
"You are a super-wizard-class hacker!"
I really wanted to be able to say that The New Movie, clearly better marketed as a loose prequel to the original Ghost in the Shell, solves that movies biggest problems, i.e. the rambly-as-**** exposition.
At first it seems like the movie's a bit easier to follow than most GitS spins, it's a typical corporate espionage mystery that all comes down to some metaphysical ideations, this time it's about the technological deadend of prosthetics and robot heaven, or as they call it "The Third World" where everything is data.
It's a rather interesting thought; it makes sense that this idea would arise (pun acknowledged) from a society heavily composed of increasingly artificial people and it rather prompts the question if this "world of data" is not simply the world as-is? Practically everything we know of is in some way reduceable to 0s and 1s. Woulda liked to have had that ponderance confirmed by the movie.
Unfortunately, despite a refreshingly trippy opening montage of young cyborgs and foreshadowing it doesn't take long for this GitS to feel very worn in.
A couple twists in the narrative are all to obviously given away with foreshadowing and even a plot involving a Kusanagi doppelganger does little to shake the tremendously stale scenes of characters without any background music just expositioning at each other.
There's maybe around 7 plot-relevant characters besides the main team which appears in full and hardly any of them, least of which their organizations of research development projects, are memorable. There was a "MOC" and a "MOD" and I'm not still not entirely sure what either of them were.
The one seriously redeeming aspect of this movie is the action and tech sequences, which despite never quite reaching the peak level of animation quality on offer by the original GitS (astoundingly), they're still quite solid. The action is interesting, not just because of the tactics on employ, but also because of it's visualization of tech and some noticeably raw sound effects.
We get a pleasingly expanded look at how tech works in this world from occasional first-person views, of both goodies and baddies, as well as some interesting visualizations of hacking.
Something I was particularly fond of, even if it messes heavily with continuity, is the proto-Tachikomas called Logikomas. They're more blocky so they haven't yet entered the iPod-phase of development, but as part of this they're actually armed with shields which they have connect to erect emergency barricades which... just makes an incredible amount of sense, it's too bad they got rid of that feature 30 years ago.
Despite ending on a prelude to the original GitS movie, The New Movie feels like a sendup in the best and worst ways. It's loyal addition to the series, but it's loyalty suffers for it's pre-Innocence-level exposition, which does little to divert attention away from significant narrative failures such as when they swap in the real Motoko, when as far as we know she died so what we're looking at must be the imposter, without any warning, and of course the ending which signs off on the death of the villain who we last see... safe? At the bottom of a giant cylindrical room filled with water for some alien reason?
MUST BE DEAD. I DUNNO.
Interesting Trivia: Mary McGlynn, the English voice actress who normally plays Motoko, the protagonist actually plays the antagonist in this movie. Which is fitting, even though she dies immediately...