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Ghost in the Shell, Live Action Film

MJ12 Commando said:
Why couldn't they have changed a couple of the names and just said it was a Syndicate movie? :V

Just give more people trenchcoats and have a minigun show up and you'd have one.
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So I decided to watch the movie adaptation of Syndicate and I have to say it works so much better if you think of it that way.

Major Imperial Metric or whatever her name is is a brainwashed cyborg enforcer in a cyberpunk universe where you have Aspari... er Hanka running everything. She finds out that everything she knew was a lie from an anti-corporate terrorist and goes rogue.

Also the execution of the CEO, where he falls down backwards into a pit, is literally the ending of Syndicate 2012.

It was a pretty mediocre movie although it had some decent scenes. It thinks it's deeper than it really is. On the other hand it has some good visual design and Aramaki is a huge badass so it works as a dumb sci-fi action movie.

And it's an okay Syndicate movie. Or would be if it had some happy miniguns. Just... it's not a good Ghost in the Shell movie.
 
To be a good Syndicate movie it would have had to be more callous; we saw a suspicious guy so we nerve gassed a whole train, hundreds of ghost-hacked office workers attacking tanks, that sort of thing.

I mean what was the jeopardy? Johansen might stare blankly for longer? If she doesn't xyz the jfk ... she may tilt her head slightly to the left.

ACTING

I mean at least Tom Cruise changed through endless tragedy from a cowardly spin-meister who wags the dog to a heroic person who is like Jesus a thousand times over saving the human race from imminent extermination. What happened in this movie? Officer Murphy reconnected with his wife? Japanese people were converted into white people?
 
Forbes:

" Ghost in the Shell began its box office sprint in China yesterday, with a mere $7.8 million on its opening day"

Also not good... have we got numbers for Japan yet?
 
Is there a stigma against anime among Chinese audiences? Because I'd expect just about any western special effects spectacle to do at least decent there.

Now poor reception in Japan is a lot more clearly understandable.
 
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Reveen said:
Is there a stigma against anime among Chinese audiences? Because I'd expect just about any western special effects spectacle to do at least decent overseas.

Now poor reception in Japan is a lot more clearly understandable.
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Well, "stigma" in the sense that Japanese companies hates releasing their products there because they get pirated to hell and back; but the (younger) Chinese audience generally likes anime, as far as I'm aware. Hell, they've started producing and releasing their own animated series in a very similar artstyle. Not sure whether it has mainstream appeal, though.
 
Stahor said:
Well...
Alita: Battle Angel - Wikipedia
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Wait, that's actually happening now.

God dammit... :(

MJ12 Commando said:
I was thinking about this, and about Edge of Tomorrow, which is also an adaptation of a Japanese written work (okay GiTS is a manga but still counts) to the live screen, one which by all accounts did so very well.

I think the thing is that Edge of Tomorrow, although it was willing to change visuals and plot points, did so while respecting the core of the story, even if its changes were, in total, just as drastic as the ones made for Ghost in the Shell.

Meanwhile Ghost in the Shell from all accounts did not respect the core and overarching themes of Ghost in the Shell.
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I always wondered about the casting of that film.

Like, they casted Rita as a tall blonde.

This is a character who was a tiny redhead who was pissed off about the propaganda media made of her showing her as a tall blonde well built woman to sell better...

I have issues with changes to the plot and such that were very significant, as well as visual changes I found really lacking and issues of characterization, but the casting is kind of laughably non-self aware to an extent I wonder if that was the joke or something. Don't get me wrong, I didn't like various aspects of the original work either, but like, wow.

I appreciated that they changed the title. I'd like to see that more with these "inspired by" things that tend to be on the superficial side of adaptation.

Edit: When I said original work I just meant the manga adaptation. I actually haven't got around to finding a translation of the original novel.
 
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trob030490 said:
Wait, that's actually happening now.

God dammit... :(



I always wondered about the casting of that film.

Like, they casted Rita as a tall blonde.

This is a character who was a tiny redhead who was pissed off about the propaganda media made of her showing her as a tall blonde well built woman to sell better...

I have issues with changes to the plot and such that were very significant, as well as visual changes I found really lacking and issues of characterization, but the casting is kind of laughably non-self aware to an extent I wonder if that was the joke or something. Don't get me wrong, I didn't like various aspects of the original work either, but like, wow.

I appreciated that they changed the title. I'd like to see that more with these "inspired by" things that tend to be on the superficial side of adaptation.

Edit: When I said original work I just meant the manga adaptation. I actually haven't got around to finding a translation of the original novel.
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It should be easy to find if you have an e-reader of some sort.
 
trob030490 said:
Like, they casted Rita as a tall blonde.
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It wasn't almost certainly a deliberate choice because of that scene in the novel where she's playing with her own action figure. Just like how Tom Cruise's character is called 'Cage', the mispronunciation of Keiji's name that the US soldiers use at the end of the novel. The creators of Edge of Tomorrow were more aware than you've giving them credit for.
 
I dunno if I mentioned it in this thread... but...

Honestly the whole EVIL MEGACORP plot really killed the film. The film is actually GREAT when it's just Motoko and Batou. I actually really liked Batou's character, and both Batou and Motoko had really good moments of chemistry between them throughout the film. However, this is ruined because Evil McBadguy kinda takes up the focus of the film with his "I must create cyborgs for teh monies" plan. Honestly it would have been great if it focused more on Section 9 and Kuze.
 
Edge of Tomorrow was a fun movie, despite a few nitpicks (like that freaking kiss). Emily Blunt's yoga pose was visually striking, especially for a scene repeated several times throughout the movie. I was unaware of it being an adaptation of a Japanese novel/manga at the time, so the movie getting a pretty good reception meant the adaptation worked.

Rurouni Kenshin movies are good because the director is really good at the cinematography - he captured the atmosphere of the RK's world really well - and the writing and performance of the actors are all well done despite some parts of it strained my SoD.

Never got the chance to watch GitS, I have been busy these past few weeks. Not sure whether it's still showing in the cinemas. I mean, I did throw money at Ordinal Scale and I find that movie to be bland.

Besides that, even if we continue complaining about anime/manga film adaptations are mostly horrible, people are going to continue making them anyway. I mean, the next few months/years there are going to be several new live-action adaptations incoming: Gintama, JoJo, Bleach, Fullmetal Alchemist are the few I'm aware of. I'm actually excited about Gintama live-action because at least the actors are visually similar to the characters. Hope they get a screening here.
 
Marla said:
Fullmetal Alchemist are the few I'm aware of
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A live-action of FMA wouldn't end badly, due to the characters mostly being fantasy!German IIRC. Well, it could still end badly, but there wouldn't be the 'whitewashing' issue GitS got during production and release.
 
Mizu said:
A live-action of FMA wouldn't end badly, due to the characters mostly being fantasy!German IIRC. Well, it could still end badly, but there wouldn't be the 'whitewashing' issue GitS got during production and release.
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Amestrians are so white that Ed was able to flawlessly blend in in Nazi Germany and I believe either he or Alphonse's Earth counterpart were even complimented on their genetics by a Nazi officer (but it's been fucking ages since I watched CoS so don't quote me).

But the only live-action FMA coming out right now is Japanese and full of Japanese actors so...

Just like the Attack on Titan movies, only this time randomly adding rocket launchers and helicopters wouldn't be just as out-of-place :V
 
ZerbanDaGreat said:
Amestrians are so white that Ed was able to flawlessly blend in in Nazi Germany and I believe either he or Alphonse's Earth counterpart were even complimented on their genetics by a Nazi officer (but it's been fucking ages since I watched CoS so don't quote me).
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Edward never had problem mingling in Nazi Germany, same as Alfons (I think Alfons was a German, never clear on that). They only took issue at his liberal mindset. Edward was very liberal even for the English - that time period just didn't fit him.

Really, Fullmetal Alchemist is one of the few anime that fits into Western production due to its cast of characters and setting. Which is also why I'm wary of its entirely Japanese cast, despite the movie using actual Italy town/city for the setting.

I also hoped that they didn't use too much CGI on this outside the alchemy. AoT were shit partly because of the terrible CGI.

But this is already a derail so I'm gonna stop it here.
 
trob030490 said:
Edit: When I said original work I just meant the manga adaptation. I actually haven't got around to finding a translation of the original novel.
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The novel translation was decent from what I recall. As for the casting, I swear it's because Japan has a hard on for Tom Cruise.

MJ12 Commando said:
You have to explain this shit.
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Well . . . You know how Americans tend to take other people's movies, reuse the name, and attach it to a film and plot that only bares the most superficial resemblance?

Japan decided to cut out the middleman.
 
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