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Ghost in the Shell

Started by JamesC, 06 April, 2017, 06:51:54 AM

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TordelBack

In fact it was the week after Jurassic Park I, so an even worse start. But yeah, Pops is right, it's a really fun film. Ian McKellan as Death, you can't go far wrong.

Jim_Campbell

Saw GitS tonight on IMAX 3D. Very much didn't hate it. Owned the anime on VHS many years ago, and found it somewhat glacially paced. This version zipped along, looked amazingand didn't outstay its welcome. Worth an hour forty-five of your time IMO.
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positronic

Quote from: TordelBack on 09 April, 2017, 11:01:26 PM
In fact it was the week after Jurassic Park I, so an even worse start. But yeah, Pops is right, it's a really fun film. Ian McKellan as Death, you can't go far wrong.

Ah, you're right. I should have checked it. Hard to keep those JP films straight.

But it's smart in its knowing nudge-and-a-wink homages to action movie genre tropes, and also good in the context of a fantasy movie with a wider appeal and friendly to a younger demographic.

That isn't the demographic targeted by the trailer, though. Anyone who went into the theater expecting to see a Schwarzennegger flick along the lines of Commando or Red Heat was in for a rude awakening, so word of mouth from that audience probably killed whatever chance it may have had. The audience it would have appealed to probably just watched the trailer and shrugged.

Smith

Quote from: Mister Pops on 09 April, 2017, 09:24:42 PM
Last Action Hero is hugely under-rated.
I second that emotion.It Arnolds only truly funny movie.

I, Cosh

Quote from: Mister Pops on 09 April, 2017, 09:24:42 PM
Last Action Hero is hugely under-rated. It's the perfect Sunday afternoon film.
Last Action Hero is a great film. On the other hand, I've never liked Jurassic Park for some weird reason.
We never really die.

Keef Monkey

I really liked GiTS, and I went in as a huge fan of the original (and with Standalone Complex being one of my favourite sci fi series ever). The story is a bit more Hollywood, but I felt like they got the spirit of it (I got really geeked out seeing Batou being a total badass in live action) and between SAC and Arise we've had a bunch of new differing takes on it that have been great in their own way, so the fact that we now have an American live action one doesn't bother me at all. I'll definitely be buying it on Blu-ray as me and the missus have both been talking about how much we'd like to see it again.

As far as the white washing hurting the box office, I really can't see that being the case. The wider audience who the film would need to pull in to make it a proper blockbuster will have barely any knowledge of the original if they've even heard of it at all, so I doubt any of that controversy even registered outside of the internet forums. I thought Johanssen was absolutely spot-on, from the look to the presence I really felt like that was the Major up on screen. The rest of the casting was great too.

The marketing awareness is a weird one, I thought it was clear it was an action sci-fi movie from the advertising, but that might have been my familiarity with the original influencing the way I saw that stuff. One friend who had no prior knowledge of GiTS avoided it because she thought it was a horror film (must have been the word ghost?) so they obviously could have done a better job with the ads.

Watched Under The Skin for the first time last night too, that won't be leaving me for a while.

JOE SOAP

#66
Quote from: positronic on 07 April, 2017, 05:27:54 PMIf failure is already established, then there's no longer any need for filtering, and nothing to be gained by it. Of course, opinion of the type you see on Rotten Tomatoes will always exist, and no one can stop word of mouth from spreading, either. What I was really talking about though, was the opinions expressed by people in positions closer to the film (or the source material on which the film is based), before that failure is a established fact. Censorship as such isn't necessary before a determination of failure, because that would imply that all diversity of opinions have, in theory, equal access to dissemination to the public. That simply isn't true, because the media chooses whom to cast its spotlight on, and can choose which things to support or demonize. William Randolph Hearst was infamous for his use of news media to champion a cause (regardless of its true validity) or alternatively, condemn it, and things haven't changed all that much. News media empires are frequently tied up with entertainment media empires. After failure is an established fact, negativity is allowed in the media because pointing the finger of blame casts the spotlight away from others -- but that doesn't mean the finger couldn't be at pointing in the right direction, either.

This is the crux though, 'the media' is no longer just a few controlling interests like William Randolph Hearst - it's a much more complex and porous system than it was in the first half of the 20th Century. Other opinions do come though and are disseminated and read far easier by those who have a different agenda in their promotion, and no longer need rely solely on those who control the organs of publication to reach a sizeable audience. It creates a chaotic imbalance for us to judge the 'truth' of any situation. The problem is there are no filters for objectivity anymore to sort through all the noise.

Whatever the morals or proportion of the situation - which are frequently lost/get out of control - Ghost in the Shell is an example of a studio not being able to effectively counteract preliminary bad buzz by whatever means of promotion it had with either fans or those who decided to take offence in regards to claims of whitewashing.


positronic

Quote from: JOE SOAP on 10 April, 2017, 11:03:45 AM
Quote from: positronic on 07 April, 2017, 05:27:54 PMIf failure is already established, then there's no longer any need for filtering, and nothing to be gained by it. Of course, opinion of the type you see on Rotten Tomatoes will always exist, and no one can stop word of mouth from spreading, either. What I was really talking about though, was the opinions expressed by people in positions closer to the film (or the source material on which the film is based), before that failure is a established fact. Censorship as such isn't necessary before a determination of failure, because that would imply that all diversity of opinions have, in theory, equal access to dissemination to the public. That simply isn't true, because the media chooses whom to cast its spotlight on, and can choose which things to support or demonize. William Randolph Hearst was infamous for his use of news media to champion a cause (regardless of its true validity) or alternatively, condemn it, and things haven't changed all that much. News media empires are frequently tied up with entertainment media empires. After failure is an established fact, negativity is allowed in the media because pointing the finger of blame casts the spotlight away from others -- but that doesn't mean the finger couldn't be at pointing in the right direction, either.

This is the crux though, 'the media' is no longer just a few controlling interests like William Randolph Hearst - it's a much more complex and porous system than it was in the first half of the 20th Century. Other opinions do come though and are disseminated and read far easier by those who have a different agenda in their promotion, and no longer need rely solely on those who control the organs of publication to reach a sizeable audience. It creates a chaotic imbalance for us to judge the 'truth' of any situation. The problem is there are no filters for objectivity anymore to sort through all the noise.

Whatever the morals or proportion of the situation - which are frequently lost/get out of control - Ghost in the Shell is an example of a studio not being able to effectively counteract preliminary bad buzz by whatever means of promotion it had with either fans or those who decided to take offence in regards to claims of whitewashing.

I concede your point about the dissemination of information through alternate avenues like social media, but that sort of proceeds from an assumption of some real cause that is a motivating source for someone trying to get a message out.

This is more of a passive... not suppression, per se... but more a thing where the media is seeking its own sources for interviews (for promotional purposes), and deciding whose opinions would be 'newsworthy'. You know, like the studio's PR machine is working its magic here, trying to drum up interest in entertainment news sources and the like. It's not to say someone like Oshii gets paid to be interviewed or is coached (or even edited) in some way on saying nice things, but the studios are helping facilitate access to "friendly sources" for interviews, and there's no real benefit to be gained from some known creative type associated with the franchise being motivated as a maverick to express an alternative viewpoint like "I think it stinks". It's not so sinister as some conspiracy or censorship of some kind, it's more like there's a vested interest in the PR for the movie to create a good vibe (via entertainment news), whether the movie's actually good or not -- they can't always control how it's received by the public, but they're actively working to spin it as positive as possible. What vested interests (who stands to gain?) might be motivating the creation of a negative vibe would not be clear, if indeed they exist at all.

Bad buzz is more like the opposite, a grass-roots gut response to the marketing/promotion, or how it's being perceived versus how it's being aimed to be perceived.

Goaty


positronic

Quote from: Keef Monkey on 10 April, 2017, 09:54:49 AM
I really liked GiTS, and I went in as a huge fan of the original (and with Standalone Complex being one of my favourite sci fi series ever). The story is a bit more Hollywood, but I felt like they got the spirit of it (I got really geeked out seeing Batou being a total badass in live action) and between SAC and Arise we've had a bunch of new differing takes on it that have been great in their own way, so the fact that we now have an American live action one doesn't bother me at all. I'll definitely be buying it on Blu-ray as me and the missus have both been talking about how much we'd like to see it again.

I guess first off I should admit that I've mainly fallen out of love with the movie industry, and am rarely motivated to go to theaters any more, so maybe that would put my perspective in DVDs already, so it's not like I'm going to be in position of having nothing to watch).

That said, being a huge fan of SAC (I always felt like the original GitS film doesn't quite gel as well as it could and is a little murky), I can respect this. I haven't been paying as much attention to GitS since SAC, but I was aware of Arise, and after reading many reviews on it, still feel in some way like it's too much of a reboot. The other point is I'd still want to wait until the complete thing was available in a single DVD set if I did decide to buy it, so I'm not ruling it out completely, I guess. From what I've read the character is much younger in that iteration, and without getting too much into why, that has some bearing about how I feel about it too.

But there were a "bunch of new differing takes" between SAC and Arise? Maybe I'm just forgetting some DTV releases here, or don't really consider them that new and/or differing. Or were you thinking about something like the Kodansha manga GitS spinoff series?

Keef Monkey

Ah no, I've worded things badly there - what I meant was that there have been differend GiTS 'brands' or soft reboots with different approaches and was using SAC and Arise as the examples. Not aware of any other iterations, but I've never really considered those two series as taking place in the same continuity as the two anime movies, they feel much more like distinctly different self contained series to me. So from that point of view I never had a problem with the idea of a US version, particularly as it distinguishes itself by using a new storyline (even if it does work in the iconic set-pieces and scenes from the original).

Arise is good, although I personally don't think it's SAC-good. Damn that series was great.

HdE

#71
Skim reading the thread, while drinking coffee, and waiting on edits to come in for a comic. As I'm washing up. So my apologies if somebody has already adressed this. I've got to comment on it, though, because it's one of my buttons:

Quote from: positronic on 07 April, 2017, 09:34:47 AM

Don't give her a Japanese name then, if you're not going to cast someone that can pass as Japanese. The concept is the same.

Look up 'Kusanagi' on Wikipedia. I would be EXTREMELY surprised if you'd find many people in Japan who wre born with that name.

In the source material, it's an assumed / appropriated name given to the character, just like her body is given to her. Seeing folks all over social media saying 'she should be played by a Japanese actress if she has a Japanese name' has been a MASSIVE source of irritation to me.

As always, though, not saying this to get on anyone's case. Just trying to put accurate info out there.
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SIP

Quote from: HdE on 10 April, 2017, 07:25:18 PM
Skim reading the thread, while drinking coffee, and waiting on edits to come in for a comic. As I'm washing up. So my apologies if somebody has already adressed this. I've got to comment on it, though, because it's one of my buttons:

Quote from: positronic on 07 April, 2017, 09:34:47 AM

Don't give her a Japanese name then, if you're not going to cast someone that can pass as Japanese. The concept is the same.

Look up 'Kusanagi' on Wikipedia. I would be EXTREMELY surprised if you'd find many people in Japan who wre born with that name.

In the source material, it's an assumed / appropriated name given to the character, just like her body is given to her. Seeing folks all over social media saying 'she should be played by a Japanese actress if she has a Japanese name' has been a MASSIVE source of irritation to me.

As always, though, not saying this to get on anyone's case. Just trying to put accurate info out there.

Yup, that's kinda where I was coming from too.

Keef Monkey

Interestingly, the film has been recieved really well in Japan, where people don't seem at all bothered by the casting - http://www.polygon.com/2017/4/10/15245488/ghost-in-the-shell-live-action-box-office-japan-review

jacob g

The best thing I read about Hollywood GITS -  it's bad GITS movie but kinda well crafted Robocop reboot.

I know it's joke but there's some truth in it.

My problem with this movie is simple, this movie's better when it's trying to tell their own story. All viusual throwbacks to anime looks nice (with one exception but I'll leave it for now) but feels kinda empty and shallow. But last part of the movie

(between termination order to seconds before spider tank arrival)

feels like decent action movie, with aspects more in the vein of GITS SAC and Arise, where whole team stands up for themselves. Damn, I think that this movie should abandon all sentimental bullshit from 1995 anime version and go full SAC/Arise. That kind of story is more natural for big budget movie.

One last thing...

Spider tank scene was horrible, I hoped they abandon this cuz I knew for sure this is the moment from anime where you can't translate it good for movie and what I saw was... even worst.
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