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posted by martyb on Monday April 03 2017, @03:33AM   Printer-friendly
from the shell-shucked dept.

ArsTechnica's reviewer, Sam Machkovech, opines:

The producers of this week's new Ghost in the Shell film must really believe nobody has seen its source material. That's the only way to enjoy this live-action reboot: oblivious to 1995's original anime film or its manga comic-book precursor. Scarlett Johansson runs around futuristic, CGI-filled worlds in a skin-tight outfit. She shoots guns, kicks faces, and beats the bad guys. Not bad.

But this pedestrian action movie looks nigh unbearable through the lens of the original series. Every bit of social commentary and science-fiction mystique that made the Japanese film and books so stunning has been wrung dry. Respect for the viewer goes into the garbage, replaced by an obnoxious, paint-by-numbers plot of good versus evil. And while I went into my screening ready to laugh off rumors of cast white-washing, I left the theater aghast at how blatantly that issue figured in the final product.

[...] The original film isn't an untouchable anime opus. Its sleepily slow pacing could have been tightened, and the script has its potholes. A live-action reboot may never have lived up to some of the original film's concepts, such as the maelstrom that is East Asian politics, but it could have kicked a lot of ass by at least retreading the basic plot details. Even today, the original feels like a topical, modern commentary on an Internet-of-things world—and that could have been easily reheated. Plus, this reboot deserves credit for a few cool CGI and action moments, along with perfectly solid action-movie acting performances. Johansson makes the most of the script and motivations she's given, and Pilou Asbæk (Johannson's co-star in Lucy) is a pitch-perfect choice to play her police sidekick Batou. (Plus, that character's implanted, robotic eyes look killer in this live-action version.)

But in this reboot, new, compelling plot threads are left to languish, and the original, genre-defining plot is carved up in the service of one of the more fine-but-forgettable action films in recent memory. It's like someone turned Gone with the Wind into a buddy-cop comedy starring Scarlett and Mammy. This reboot couldn't have missed the point harder.

What say you Soylentils? Worth seeing? If you are familiar with the originals, how did this version measure up for you? Is it worth watching as just a summer shoot-em-up action flick?


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 03 2017, @04:33PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 03 2017, @04:33PM (#488254)

    The original movie is still out there and (with version 2.0) still perfectly watchable. I seriously think this is a case of "they changed it, now I hate it" while I'm certain that "it's the same, now I hate it" would just as equally have happened.

    In my opinion, it's all about presentation. If it is portrayed to be a format shift, then it should be true to the original. If it is portrayed to be a heavy adaptation, then they have as much liberty as they want.

    For example, bad samples include the "I Am Legend" movie (philosophical book with huge twists transformed into a generic action movie), and the "Little Mermaid" movie (gruesome fairy tail transformed into a children's story with a happy ending). Good samples include "The Emperor's New Groove" and "Frozen" (both inspired by folklore but drastically different, but marketed as only being loosely inspired by the original source).

    If they had, for example, called this "Hallow Shell - a movie inspired by Ghost in the Shell" then I'm sure they'd have a lot more latitude and slack. However, the "they changed it and it now sucks" seems legitimate to me if they purports it to be similar to the original but they substantially changed it... even if the new incarnation is not actually inferior to the original but merely is different.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 03 2017, @08:48PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 03 2017, @08:48PM (#488363)

    ^ You don't "live-action reboot" a movie to do something very different. What if they rebooted star wars and decided Luke and Leia made a better couple so they merge Luke with Han Solo. Bad boy hero gets the girl, learns about the force, defeats Vader who is just the emperor's lackey and has no other ties to Luke/Leia. Would that be ok? Could we view it as something new and different?

    I feel the same way about the Total Recall reboot. I do NOT feel the same way about the Batman reboots, because they stayed true to the character and had enough depth to be more than a punch em' up movie. When you just slap on a new name with a new actor and rewrite the script to be more action oriented you end up with a steaming pile of crap that everyone realizes is a simple money grab.

  • (Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Tuesday April 04 2017, @08:33AM

    by Rivenaleem (3400) on Tuesday April 04 2017, @08:33AM (#488582)

    However, the "they changed it and it now sucks" seems legitimate to me if they purports it to be similar to the original but they substantially changed it... even if the new incarnation is not actually inferior to the original but merely is different.

    You see, if the movie is not actually inferior, just different, then it doesn't justify the negative reviews. "They changed it and now it sucks" is not a legitimate reason to hate on something, if it can be objectively determined to be a decent movie. I was able to enjoy this this version, not despite its differences, but actually because of them. It's like the movie "True Grit", except that True Grit didn't have a dedicated fanbase that see's any changes to the original as sacrilegious.

    The problem I see is that nobody who gave a negative review (that I saw, and I'll admit I haven't read a lot of reviews) performed the review on the movie itself, but on how the movie is different to the original. Just look at the summary above and find me a comment that doesn't compare this movie to the original.