Ghost in the Shell (2017)

[Goaty]

A new film out next year, some people wasn't happy about casting of Scarlett Johansson.


Fiver teasers for new film...

1# http://youtu.be/HapT0SKcyfY

2# http://youtu.be/q7Tm73m0VZs

3# http://youtu.be/_6NJJ6pMKVY

4# http://youtu.be/xziBGsIaWh8

5# http://youtu.be/vWDBpTB6T0Q

[Hawkmumbler]

'Quietly reserves judgement'

[Professor Bear]

I think it's great that Hollywood is making more films with Asian lead characters.

[von Boom]

I think it's great that Hollywood is making more films with Asian lead characters.

I must be tired. I can't make out if you're serious or sarky.

[M.I.K.]

If you're going to complain about a lack of Asian actors in films, there are probably more worthy examples to choose from than one based on a franchise with a main protagonist who's usually depicted with blue eyes and has an entirely prosthetic outer body that's never looked particularly Japanese.

[Professor Bear]

It'll probably be fine - lots of white kids are called Motoko Kusanagi.

[M.I.K.]

She's a robot. She could just as easily be played by a wheelie bin with the voice of Samuel L. Jackson and it'd make no difference to her given moniker.

[Hawkmumbler]

Also wasn't it established in the manga Mokoto was originally a western woman before becoming a cyborg (and later a full robot) and suffering a degree of amnesia and most importantly Mokoto wasn't here given name?

[IAMTHESYSTEM]

Apparently some interpretations of GITS [see what I did there] is that it's all about about transformation both external, hardware etc and internal,the individual becoming part of the inter connected cyber city despite their individuality. Maybe Scarlett Johansson will turn into Jet Li or Jackie Chan in the end.

[PsychoGoatee]

Also wasn't it established in the manga Mokoto was originally a western woman before becoming a cyborg (and later a full robot) and suffering a degree of amnesia and most importantly Mokoto wasn't here given name?

I forget if it was Stand Alone Complex, but there was one with a flashback of her as a child, and her getting her first robot body after the incident. She was originally a Japanese kid in the anime timeline, as far as I know. Been a while since I read the manga.

I think people saying an anime character "didn't look Japanese anyway" is always an odd argument, being stylized art. Like saying Charlie Brown doesn't look Caucasian etc. Nobody has huge eyes.  As for eye color and hair color, gotta mix it up for anime. She does have brown eyes in GiTS: SaC anyway.

That said, I personally don't mind ScarJo playing the role, more importantly I hope their movie has something to add or say, other than just presenting a basic remake for the masses.

Either way, regardless of the character's origins, it would be nice to see more Asian or Asian American (or Asian-English etc) actors get big roles in Hollywood. Just because you don't see it much, and it would be nice to spread out the roles you can get.

[M.I.K.]

She does have brown eyes in GiTS: SaC anyway.

I think you'll find they're actually more of a magenta colour.

But yes, generally speaking there's a distinct lack of East-Asian folk in mainstream films in the West.

Practically none on British telly neither, unless you count adverts for Chinese food, random fashiony stuff and anything that requires a wispy-facial-haired Confucius type.

I can think of only one relatively recent high profile series that had somebody of such origins as a main character.

She was a robot.

Her eyes were green.

[SIP]

The latest goat in the shell series, arise, has her never being born.  Her pregnant mother dies and the unborn foetus mind is downloaded.

[TordelBack]

I thought I knew nerdity.  I knew nothing until I came to this thread.

[Professor Bear]

I have a theory that Scarlett deliberately wanted a bit of yellowface controversy because it would distract from that other controversy where someone asked if she thought it was right that she was a human rights ambassador to the UN while profiting from an Israeli firm that racially-oppressed Palestinians and she said "you're right, that's hypocritical" and then quit as a human rights ambassador but kept on taking Sodastream's money.

Anyway, I loved Kung Fu and the Charlie Chan mysteries as a kid (Northern Irish television was showing those well into the 2000s).  I'm sure this will be fine.

[PsychoGoatee]

I thought I knew nerdity.  I knew nothing until I came to this thread.

I thought I knew insanity, then I read your post. 

(This topic is pretty normal, much more elaborate/niche/"nerdy" things have been discussed over the years.)