Live-Action Ghost in the Shell

Kaori Momoi is going to be playing the mother of Johansson's character, because Paramount officially doesn't give a shit.

We get it. You're opposed to the casting of the the lead.

People are free to criticize it.

I don't really want to make the thread overly negative necessarily, but there is also good reason to suspect that the film will not be that great even outside of Johansson's casting, since the director and the screenwriters' previous works don't speak well of their ability to produce a thoughtful action film.

edited 17th Jul '16 7:46:36 PM by wehrmacht

They are, but to say that Paramount "doesn't give a shit" would imply that Paramount isn't bothering to cast any Asian actors and that everyone would just have Asian names but be played by white actors, at least that's how I see their criticism.

Yea, having done Snow White and the Huntsman does put a damper on things, Rupert Sanders did do some of the Halo 3 ODST ads that won him a few awards at Cannes. That Kristen Stewart film could have been a fluke, hopefully.

The film is kind of an in awkward position where if it fails, it fails and there's not much else to it than that, but if it turns out to be an actually good movie on its own merits (minus the whitewashing) I'm going to feel pretty weird about it and having conversations about the whitewashing is gonna be kind of hard.

It'd actually be better in my mind to not half-ass the Japanese elements and just commit to it being an American adaption, maybe have a black woman as the lead action hero for once.

No kidding. Its a missed opportunity to commit full on and adapt it to be in Washington or New York with a story about a media influenced copy cats, immigration issues, and identity crisis in a world too influenced by technology.

Make it extremely close to home and meaningful. All of Ghost In The Shell's messages apply to the west but unless its set next door most people wont connect them together.

Again, an action vehicle with 'slopsions and bewbs is an easy sell. I mean, they are making another Fast and Furious movie for some reason. And good scripts and original properties are sitting on writer's laptops...

Haha slopsions

Yeah it would make more sense to make it completely American

You could have done what say, Edge of Tomorrow did, which is to take a lot of the same themes/ideas from the source material, but then put it in a more Western setting.

As it stands, trying to "split the difference" makes things MORE awkward. And having clearly not-Japanese Scarlett Johansson's Major have a clearly Japanese mother, is a great snapshot of this awkwardness.

Technically, since the Major is a full-blown cyborg, then the identity of her mother doesn't really matter...but if I was being honest, I doubt many people this side of Michael Jackson would pick a different ethnicity if they were to become cyborgs.

Unless they use the movie to lampshade whitewashing instead of using it, but I am not holding my breath.

Also, Motoko's mother? ...isn't she canonically an orphan no matter which story you look at? I am 100% sure she is in SAC, and 99% she is in Arise (although she has a father figure this time). My memory of the manga and movies is blurry, but since Motoko Kusanagi is an alias, well...

If Momoi was 30-40 yo then she could be a flashback mother, but she is 60. I'll try not to look too much into it, but the Major's lack of human connections with anyone is usually one of the main reasons she is A) such an efficient killing and hacking machine, B) able to see matters regarding AI through a different angle and C) having all those philosophical thoughts about what makes someone a human. C) in particular is what I am looking for in Ghost in the Shell.

In SAC/2nd GIG she was one of only two survivors of a plane crash (the other bein Hideo Kuze), which I what necessitated her full cybernetic body in the first place. So yeah, she's an orphan there.

It's been a long time since I read the manga, so I couldn't comment on that one right now.

In Arise she is a complete Military Brat whose father figure died in the first episode (that kickstarts the series if memory serves). No trace of a parent, I just can't remember if they were explicitly dead or just conspicuously absent.

Arise Major was never even born - her parents died in a freak accident and she had to cyberized straight out of the womb in order to survive, making her a slave to the government in all but name until Aramaki purchases and gives her legal ownership of her body.

edited 5th Aug '16 12:44:56 PM by TheAirman

That sounds pretty fucked up.

It is. A military panel even taunts her about it, saying all she has to do is pay up to cover the cost of her body and she's free to do whatever the hell she wants. Sucks to be any other potential full body cyborgs who don't get Aramaki's attention.

It's also a major plot point in one case that she experiences muscle memory / phantom pain (don't remember which) despite the fact that it should be impossible for her to feel it.

edited 5th Aug '16 12:57:20 PM by TheAirman

Ah true. I think I was a bit too tired when I watched Arise, because the plots were very complex - while I had no issue whatsoever with S.A.C. who isn't exactly the easiest anime to follow.

More details.

cast portraits, mugshot-style. Togusa appears to have been aged up a bit. Also Boma's eye-prosthetics look like googly eyes.

Ethnicity issues aside, the costumes look nice, but Saito and Boma's eye prosthetics don't look like finished work, more like someone used MS Paint to add them to the picture.

Could be intentional. More like a "good enough" military mentality.

The googly eyes look a bit hilarious, to me.

To be fair, EVERYTHING in the military is made by the lowest bidder.

Alright, at this time a bunch of Basement-Dweller d-bags are going apesh_t over the new Spiderman movie having a "black" Mary Jane. As Movie Bob put it, realistically, if you got a boy and a girl from any American school, chances are the kids won't be 100% WASP. And as long as the character is well written and the Disney actress they picked can pull of the character - I DGAF.

However, Scar Jo hasn't impressed me with her work so far and the director seems to have bitten off more than he can chew with the laughing man. Scar Jo is a pout and a pair of knockers - not an actress who can really play a character as deep as the major. The digital Yellow Face they tried and (almost) got away with does make me mad.

I'll go see it but my hopes are not up - it seems to be the textbook Hollywood adaptation. Get some property that geeks love and gets referenced a lot and try to adapt it. The same way a McNugget is an "adaptation" of a chicken dish.