Ghost in the Shell

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Jordan

Madman are doing a daily top 20 anime countdown and this one was todays. It's been a long time since I've check out this influential classic and thought I would use the opportunity to look at the 2.0 version that's out on bluray.

While they give you the original version on the disc, it looks like it's just been upscaled from a vhs or something. It's not good. The new version looks great but even more so than George Lucas' tinkering with his Star Wars saga the changes and completely redone sequences in this film drove me nuts. For a film that was so far ahead of its time in terms of subject matter, visuals and computer graphics, to simply delete that and remake the beloved iconic scenes so it all to look like a final fantasy cut scene is infuriating. I don't think I'll be watching that version again anytime soon and hope they put out a better quality version of the original.

The other thing that struck me was I had forgotten how dry the material is. I can also blame terrible voice acting on the english dub for that. And despite the long philosophical conversations the story is far more simple than I remember too. Mamoru Oshii tends towards the slow paced, thought provoking and poetic. We get 4 minutes of story followed by 10 minutes of visual montage to reflect upon this. And that's repeated throughout.So it's a good thing there is so much to think about and also that the visuals are (or were...) so enigmatic and beautiful.

Now this was hardly the first work of fiction to deal intelligently with ideas of artificial intelligence and the existential and philosophical ramifications of it but it was certainly one of the first I saw. And at a time when the internet was still just a twinkle in the milkman's eye, it raised some concerns that are still relevant today. It's no wonder fans of this were calling films like The Matrix a rip off.

I hear Steven Spielberg has the remake rights although that was a while back and nothing has come of it. And he's already developing a different robot film. Still I would have loved to have seen his treatment, I'm sure character and pacing issues would have been cleaned up greatly.

This film is still as relevant and modern as ever. The only thing that really dates it are the hairstyles. A lot less mullets around today. Apart from that it's just as contemporary as what's being made now. I really was a good 15 to 20 years ahead of its time. It's always been a favourite of mine and next time I watch it I'll be sure to watch the original version rather than the bright and shiny redux.