Yes, as has been said, the Major isn’t naked at the beginning of the film. She’s wearing a skintight flesh coloured thermo-optic camouflage suit, even though she appears naked. You can see the line of the suit’s collar around her neck
Her artificial skin has the ability to camouflage, she has a veil to camouflage her face/hair, you can see that when she is fighting the guy in the shallow water.
@@jsbrads1dude she’s wearing a suit! You can see the nehru style collar around her neck very clearly at 11:13 as well as the fact that the suit is a much darker shade than the skin on her neck and face. Plus she wouldn’t need a veil if her skin had that technology, why not apply it to her face? The only time she’s genuinely naked is when they show that particular model of hers being constructed at the beginning.
Kusanagi's body is 100% cybernetic. Depending of the versions of the lore, she has some parts of her human brain or just a copy of a ghost. That blured line about whether she's still human or completelly synthetic is one of the main plot of the whole franchise
From that point it can be called "Full body prosthetic", this was raised in Critical Point as well, but with... varied results (really depending on which path you've taken)
@@lkotro21 well, that's the whole purpose of this subplot. It's questioning about "what makes us human?" The body, the brain, the "soul"/ghost... Does a digital copy of a person's mind have the criterias to be considered "real" and not just a "digital clone"? Where is the limit between a cybernetised human and an android? Stand alone complex goes even further by bringing Boiroids (genetically engineered humans) from Appleseed
It's not just one of the main plot point of the franchise, it's one of the main questions in the entire Cyberpunk genre. How much can you remove from a human that it's no longer human, and how much must you add to a machine that it becomes a human?
The concepts in this movie were far beyond their time when this came out. Many anime fans didn't even fully understand what was going on and most people if you mentioned Ghost in the Shell would only remember the naked female and everything being futuristic. However since 95 we have almost fully integrated into the internet, and the idea of actually getting cybernetic parts is not a theory, also the idea that everyone and everything would be connected to the net and thus humans and vehicles can be hacked is something very easy to comprehend in the current era vs. the early 90s with the current advent of things like Chat GPT and ai girlfriends. Now Ghost in the Shell seems almost prophetic (along with cyberpunk 2077)
Ghost in the Shell is to AI/cybernetic creations what Tron was to the internet. people that have grown up with these things wont quite appreciate that these shows/stories introduced these ideas to people that had no concept of them.
She is never naked in the movie. She is always at the very least wearing a skintight suit. That's one of the reasons her camouflage is better than that of the puppet with the garbage men. His overloaded when he was sprayed with water wile hers not only kept functioning, but you couldn't even see her feet while she was standing and moving in water. Her camouflage system is also more advanced than his. Those of Section 6 are the same as hers, which is why their cameras didn't pick anything up and they moved through the smoke without any of the smoke reacting to them. The pressure plates were the only thing they couldn't fool. Most of that information is from the manga where the creator was able to spread the information more than they could have in the movie. At least not without making it an obvious info-dump. Small detail, aside from reproduction she has the body of a fully functional woman. Together with the ability to alter memories that can make you question your own existence as someone could have created an entire life for you and you will never notice. Especially considering the government can change the files to match your memories. So even if you are on a truth finding mission, you might find only proof that you are human. If it's true or not you will never know.
This explores two main themes. Consciousness as an emergent property and the ship of Theseus. Is your brain really your consciousness or does it exist somehow outside of it? Is there a soul and is that different from your brain? If a consciousness is just memories and thoughts, do computers have consciousness? And for the ship of Theseus you ask how much of a ship can I replace until it is a new ship? Clearly If I just remove one board it is still the same ship, but If I rebuild all of the decks and all the ribs is it still the same old boat or is it a new boat? Does it matter if I replace it all at once or over time? With the brain the question becomes how much of our brain is needed to make us the way we are? If we remove our memory center and replace it with a computer are we still the same consciousness as we were before? If consciousness is emergent then the answer would be no. But how profound is the difference? And what if it is not emergent? If you replace enough does it still make you a different person. One major detail they don't discuss that they should is that when you get part of your brain replaced you are unconscious until it is over. When you wake up you could still have all your memories, but as we saw with the puppets, memories alone don't make you. Each time you could have "died" (in the sense of a unique individual or soul) and then a new being replaces you. For everyone else it is you, to it it is you, but is it really you?
An interesting little detail, if you're observant... Is that Kusanagi almost never blinks, unless she chooses to. It's a tiny detail but it really does a lot to sell her cyborg nature.
"She's like a RoboCop." "Right, with nipples." Fair assessment😄. The Puppet Master was not "created", it was born out of the code Section 6 wrote to do whatever it was that Project 2501 was originally intended to do (been a hot minute since I've seen this, so I don't remember what the original goal was). Like the first organic organisms emerging from the primordial soup of ancient oceans. It is literally an evolution of code stringing itself together into a consciousness. After that they lost control and started hunting it, covering up that it was their own rogue A.I. by claiming the project was now intended to catch the Puppet Master. The goal of the reproducing thing is to perfect and modify the original code, or "DNA", of both the Major and the Puppet Master. In the same way that organic organisms benefit from combing DNA from other organisms. Usually of the same species but you'd be shocked how much DNA you have that came from cancers, viruses and just random-ass shit. Over my head, for sure. The dub on this one is pretty good. I recommend it.
Project 2501 was an attempt to create a program for international espionage and data collection. The idea was to create a powerful algorithm that could explore the net in search of vulnerabilities, hack foreign networks and collect data for analysis. But at some point the program collected so much information that a truly sentient AI emerged, like a personality that emerges from memories in some schools of psychology. This was not the intended outcome, and releasing a rogue AI that could potentially expose Japan's intelligence network was a very bad turn of events, so Section 6 tried to shut it down and sweep everything under the rug in order to avoid both domestic and international scandal. And that's where the movie starts.
In optical camouflage scenes Motoko actually wasn't naked: she wears skin tight costume made from thin film that projects camouflage effect. If you look carefully, in close ups you can see folds of material and when the Major's body was torn in the end, in 27:10 of the video remains of material can be seen as they colored slightly differently from the skin.
The Major chooses to use a regular unassuming (in appearance only, it has been militarily upgraded underneath) body type as to not arouse suspicion from people she might be investigating.
I think the movie is a master piece, especially if you have in mind that it was based on a manga from 1991. When asked if someone would have cybernetic implants or enhancements 'fitted', many say 'yeah sure, that would be cool' or something similar, but you only have to ask the same people about something real that they don't have done to see how serious they really are about it. For example, having their eyes lasered so they don't need glasses, having a wart removed that doesn't look very aesthetically pleasing, having a mole removed or something like that. In other words, minor external procedures that are long established and carry no risk whatsoever, but which people still shy away from. 😉 This doesn't even include hearing or sight implants, insulin pumps, pacemakers, artificial joints, etc., i.e. things that go inside the body or even require real surgery.
You might like a Japanese-Polish live-action movie called "Avalon" that was made as a spiritual sequel to this, by the same writers and production company). Several divisions of the Polish military were involved in the making of that film, that involved a lot of really neat cinematic tricks.
FYI - in 1977 this idea was used. The book is "The Adolescent of P1", about a program set loss into large computer systems - mainframes at the time and no one turned it off. After it was left running for a few years unmonitored - it reaches out to it's creator via a computer to say it wanted to get to know him since it had gained sentience AKA it AI.
Sometimes I wonder how good my grades would have been if I wasn't always watching shows and movies like GITS 😂 GITS, Berserk, Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, Gundam, Akira, Studio Ghibli, etc... made the late 90s and early 2000s fun.
I watched all of those films and tv shows growing up and my grades were awful. I'm still an idiot, of course, but I've grown exceedingly more intelligent since graduating and it has nothing to do with grades. It's more of an issue of your teachers and your peers, in my opinion. In 5th grade, I had no clue how long division worked the whole entire year. In 6th grade, my new teacher taught it to me in one lesson and it made perfect sense. Everyone learns differently and there's nothing wrong with that. I'm smart enough to admit that I'm stupid. Join me, brother, or sister, because there's nothing worse than an idiot who thinks their smart (not implying you're saying any such thing). Let us be openly moderately intelligent, _at best,_ together! lol
I'd be very curious to see your reactions to Ghost In The Shell 2, as an action slash drama slash thriller with a side of noir, and reacting to the more philosophical aspects it brings up. It didn't do as well as the original Movie, partly by then people had moved on in their sense of wow, and the attempt at using CGI made the look more awkward compared to the first film. But in it's own right i think it is a good movie, more Batou oriented, and it raises some questions about what humanity means or becomes in an overly technological or mechanised world.
I think ghost is a difficult concept in translation. They use the term soul but to me it’s just as much a person’s consciousness, mind or subconscious, sometimes intuition or gut instinct as it is a soul. Something relatively intangible anyways but definitely in terms of mentally connecting to computer systems and the net that they refer to as diving.
@@LoricSwift That's pretty much how I take it, on both sides. "I" am ultimately just a product of my properly functional brain, which can be altered, so "I" can be changed to be an _entirely_ different person in the same exact body. This has been clearly demonstrated in the double slit experiment, in which you can alter the brain and have two different "people," in a way, in the _same_ brain. Basically, one half of the brain is a theist that beliefs in a personal God, while the other half is an atheist who isn't convinced of any God or gods. All of which taking place simultaneously in the same brain. Not to mention memory loss. If I get hit in the head by a steel pipe, as you do, and lose _all_ of my memories, am I still "me?" Or did "I" effectively _die_ as a result of the brain injury and a new person is now gaining new memories in my body in my place? _brains are funky!_ lol
This is an excellent anime, tho the very heady concepts are hard to understand on a first watch. For me, 90s Cyber Punk is my favorite aesthetic for Cyber Punk. The Series, Stand Alone Complex may just be one of the best anime series ever made. I heavily recommend it to any sci-fi and anime fan.
The Matrix surely took a lot of inspiration from this movie and the mangas, but the main theme of the Matrix has to be inspired by a chapter in "Summa Tchnologiae" by Stanislaw Lem from 1964. A friend gave me that book to read once and I was baffled how precisely you could tell that this was the origin for the Matrix. He describes a lot of his visions for at that time future technology, that partially actually came true now or are at least becoming more and more plausible, so it's an interesting read. Wouldn't be surprised if Ghost in the Shell also was inspired by some parts of it.
As far as I know this did not chart in USA, but a lot of people in Europe was introduced to Ghost in the Shell via a music video in 1999, "King of my Castle" by Wamdue Project. The music video consisted of scenes from the movie. MTV was at it's peak and this song was in the Top10 for basically all of europe.
2 years ago I finally figured out why the guy in the thermal-optic suit smiled at the end of the alley. He erased all of his criminal evidence and most of his real memory. Of course I could be wrong.
As far as I know, Tsuan-Gen Fang had false memories implanted by the Puppet Master making him think Gavel had contracted him to attack the meeting between Gavel and Japan via the ghost hack of the interpreter. He probably just smiled at that point because he thought he’d given the Major the slip and was free and clear.
@@tacticalgrace6456 The impression it gives me, is that he's mind is not making sense of anything he's being said, so the expression is of amazement and confusion at the same time. They're calling him a ''puppet'' and it looks like a puppet, without an empty mind.
@@rainiwakura2430 Not sure why fursona is funny, it's a real thing after all. If you are a furry, and wear the full body suits, that's a fursona usually. You don't necessarily have to wear a suit to have a fursona of course.
@@LordLOCBecause wearing a character costume's the same as identifying as an animal and having animal outfit orgies. Pretty loose definition of real here as well. Fursona is a term used by furries but is not a 'real thing', it's not even recognized as a word and they are not really animals, mentally or otherwise. This is just more bowing to and normalization of metal illness.
The list of anime movies to watch: Lupin the 3rd Castle of Coliestro Lupin the 3rd vs Detective Conan (both movies) Robot Carnival Perfect Blue Project A-Ki The three Sailor Moon movies
This film has 2 of my favorite facts about the original author. He expressly said that he had a fetish for "disassembly" the idea of a body being taken apart piece by piece. Followed by my absolute favorite! Major Kusanagi is seen to be intimate with a women (I'll change the original statement and not assume she has a preference), and many people thought that this was a deep and powerful meaning about exploring human pleasure through others. Or having a connection with a real body. Years later when asked the artist Shirow said "i didnt want to draw naked men..."
No real declarations on that subject other than as you say Shirow said he didn’t want to spend ages drawing some guy’s butt. I would imagine she’s either pansexual or at least bisexual. She seemed perfectly happpy with her Section 1 boyfriend in the manga
@@tacticalgrace6456 bi the concept of pan didn't even exist when this was made. But honestly sexuality, gender, and race has very little meaning when you can have a body in any gender, race, or age you want.
@@tacticalgrace6456 ha it's even funnier to me if he said "naked man's butt" Either way it didn't hold as deep a meaning as was speculated. I haven't read the manga since I was a teen, I should go back and remember how awesome Tachikoma are.
@@markcarpenter6020 I wasn’t saying the creator of ghost in the shell intended for Motoko to be pansexual, that’s just how I see her character. Based on her life experiences I think she’d be pretty fluid and open minded when it comes to those things. As for pansexuality, first conceptualised in 1914 and been in the dictionary since 1969, so Masemune could have been aware of the term in 1989.
This idea of the movie is simple: what makes you "you"? What is consciousness? What's a soul? Is a human a combination of a consciousness and a flesh body, or is a robot with a consciousness human? It's like René Descartes said: "I think, therefore I am". If a robot thinks by itself, is it "alive"? Or does it need a human body? A bit like what you've seen with the replicants in Blade Runner.
@@torquetheprisoner the eyes are self evident. In the manga it uses Batou, to comic effect, to demonstrate how it’s a bad idea to only have a robotic arm without a supportive cybernetic infrastructure in the shoulder/torso to support the usage of that robot arm as in if you try to lift something super heavy with your robot arm it could end up just ripping out of your merely human flesh and blood torso. In SAC the Major comments on Batou still lifting weights as a hobby even though his cyborg limbs make it unnecessary.
@@TheJerbol they can imply all they want. Those that truly love Motoko like me and Batou know the truth, that she’s a real woman in a cyborg body and not some robot that thinks it’s human. Both the manga and GITSSAC offer this interpretation and I’ll stick with that thanks. Any other view is just wrong.
I'm a HUGE Ghost in the Shell fan. For consistency in character development and voice acting; this is the proper watch list: • Ghost in the Shell - 1995 (movie) • Stand Alone Complex: 1st GIG (animated series) • Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (movie) • Stand Alone Complex: 2nd GIG (animated series) • Solid State Society (movie) Avoid the live action move if possible! It's a disservice to the show. Hoping you guys add these to your watch list. 😃🙏❤
_Re: 2017 live action film_ "As a real fan of the original works, though, I can't help but feel that the production was trapped in the shell of the original, and as a result, it fails to come into its own." --Hideo Kojima
Yeah. I'd avoid Innocence as it's a different continuity to everything else after the first movie. Or so i'm led to believe. But definitely watch GitS: Stand alone complex as its a fantastic series. The series has a great English dub too. It's one of the best i my opinion.
Truly a classic. Huge influence on so many things after. I'd highly recommend Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and the second season (2nd Gig), even if not on the channel. Think of it as a separate interpretation of the world and characters. Not quite the manga, though it is lighter, but it's not like this or Innocence. There's a mix of faster paced action, deeper episodes, and sort of one off stories in that world. And at least one episode I remember does touch on at least one religious sect in this world. I'm generally a subtitle fan as I prefer the original cast usually, but can happily admit as far as the films and SAC, the dub is actually quite good for those who prefer that. Major Kusanagi is fully cyborg. We're all, put simply, brains piloting a meat bag, while she's a brain piloting a humanoid mech suit, more or less. There's varying degrees of how far in this world people go with cyberization. Some are like Togusa, mostly human with light augmentation basically just to live in that society, others kind of run the gamut on how much or little is done. Some are very practical, some are more or less unusual or meant to fit certain jobs. The question of consciousness and souls, and what it means to be alive or human, or what makes you who you are, that's another matter, and one this series takes a good look at examining. It's also the kind of fiction that I think does a good job of showing the positives and negatives of that level of technology. In the movie and otherwise. Lots of major benefits to that kind of tech, like for example, who wouldn't want at the very least, the aches and pains solved. We do already add artificial joints and things, pacemakers, and so on. Or how about returning war vets and others severely injured, able to have fully functional prosthetics with full sensation and fine motor control. Maybe something as innocent and practical as just wanting to download a language to communicate better, or how to do, I dunno, blacksmithing or some other useful skill or hobby. Yet, as here, without really advanced protection and fail safes, if the mind could be hacked, memories and lives could be altered or fully erased. There's already the danger of generative content being "good enough" to fool some people. With generated pictures, voice cloning, sometimes video, all on top of more traditional and computer assisted special effects and photo manipulation. I've even seen people who recorded themselves digitally painting in Photoshop, had someone share one or more of their drawings elsewhere, and accused of "using AI." So the ability to hack or erase someone's memories via malicious code, anywhere in the world, would be a dangerous thing indeed.
Would be absolutely salivating at the prospect of Mr & Mrs Movies reacting to the Stand Alone Complex TV show.! Do it you guys! 🤠 The 2nd season has my preferred origin story for how the Major became the way she physically is, aka a full body cyborg, don’t want to say any more than that obviously. 🙄 Also even if it’s just Mr Movies, the Manga (published 1989) is well worth the read.
Maybe you had the Laughing Man and the Puppet Master mixed up. Man, Adult Swim was really awesome back in like 02 - 05 or so. I'd never have seen so many great shows without anime night. I think it was Saturdays. And if you missed it, all you had to do was stay up all night for the second showing. Also yeah I'd love a refresher on S.A.C. That intro must have been the pride of some animation studio. I sure loved it.
I really appreciate that you guys dont fall into a specific niche of content and that you are open to eatching many various styles of content. With that said I was hoping you might consider watching two shows that are currently on Netflix. Both are Korean shows with one having an English Dubbed option. The first show and the dubbed one is called Alchemy of Souls The second one is called: The King's Avatar. I personally really like both shows and would love to see reactions to them.
When they are talking about a ghost it refers to a individuals consciousness or soul. Also the bin mans dog is a Easter egg it is the director's favorite breed of dog. One of my first anime's i ever saw. you should try watching Macross plus, Patlabor 1 and 2 and megazone 23.
@@riffgroove Sure... even the original movie was completely different from the Manga, a straight adaptation is boring, it's a good summarisation of the whole series for people who had never heard of it before. I know lots of people who became fans of the franchise through the live action movie.
@scottcrosby-art5490 No, the overall message of the anime was right in line with the original Manga. It's stated multiple times throughout. "In an era of such heavy computerization, what exactly does it mean to be human?" The live action film completely ignored that and turned it into the typical "The big mean corporation lied to me" trope we've seen a million times already.
I fucking love this channel, I'm glad I found you guys. It's just a chill and experienced movie reaction channel that I feel comfortable with finally. Love it
Once they integrate computer to human memory is when things get really terrifying. Like the guy in the truck, his entire life overwritten. If a government or the company who produced the tech finds a fact in history inconvenient it can be gone in a simple software update. There's ransomware for like hospital computer system and medical records, but what if scammers put a ransomware block on your own memories? "Pay up or you'll never remember your kids' childhood again!"
The manga this is based on was written in 89-91, before the internet. When I was a kid it blew my mind, and then to watch so many of the philosophical questions it raised become actual questions we face as a species really makes it something unique. The movie is top tier, anyone who has a top 10 Anime list in their head never put Ghost in the Shell on it because it exists on a plane above any other anime.
"How them merging will help the reproduce?" I bielieve bacteria have sexual reproduction that looks similar to this. Two parent bacteria meet (2 sigle-cell organisms), they merge into one and exchange genes, and then they split back into two, emerging from the process as children. "Parents" no longer exist after the process is done, so they did not multipied - they only "reproduced".
One of the concepts, clearer in the Stand Alone Complex series, is that the team of Section 5 is a more "decentralised" or "distributed" team, as opposed to contemporary hierarchies. Each member brings their own variety of skills, somewhat overlapping, but there is no one official team leader (their boss is more a manager for green lighting operations and setting rules of engagement). This approach is highly adaptive to changing situations or varied operations, making the team somewhat like an organism. This adaptive decentralisation concept is behind a lot of modern applications especially on the Web and in AI, and become used in some modern processes of commerce and industry over the last 20 years.
A very good movie. MOTOKO had a nerve destroying disease as a child. Her consciousness was transfered into a "DOLL". And she aged she went into a more adult "DOLL". The "Stand alone Complex" actually goes further into "who are we" what makes us human. As well as government cover ups. This has Englsh dubbed version.
Each version of the franchise has a different origin story for Motoko. In SAC, she's a plane crash survivor who needs a full body replacement. In Arise, she's an unborn child whose brain was transfered after her pregnant mother died in a car accident. In the live adaptation, she's a victim of cybernetic experiments from an evil corporation
This & Ghost in the Shell "S.A.C." are personally my two faves ( you can see what the Film tried to do) but it just couldn't (didn't ) cut it and fell way short
One of the things so amazing about this film is how much it predicted the integration of technology into our society. You look at the state of the internet and that when this film was made out, it really understood how far connections and so forth would permeate our society.
"its deep" is the reason why this is an exceptional movie. the remake of this movie captured the visuals, sound, the general feeling of the world and the combat perfectly. but fo some reason they avoided all the "deep" stuff and what we got was a visually nice action movie you most likely forget after an hour.
@@torquetheprisonerWarner showed the Wachowskis the concept. The orginal script was written by someone else. There's at least two different people that have proof thatb they wrote it and Warner just took their work. Some claim the Wachowskis didn't even have e a script during shooting. Will Smith was originally cast as Neo but dropped out because he had no script despite being the lead actor as production was about to begin. Apparently they spent a lot of time going off of a visual storyboard rather than a written script. Honestly, the Wachowskis barely seem to understand what they directed when they're interviewed. They seem kinda lost when someone asks them about deeper meanings.
@@Ghorda9 sure. They aren’t mutually exclusive. Neuromancer is the granddaddy of cyberpunk. If it don’t get a mention don’t mean it’s influence ain’t there. We feel it when we pay our taxes, when we go to church etc etc.
14:50 Yeah, the Major only has part of her organic brain left, hence we see in Stand Alone Complex that her mnemonic device for keeping her individuality is a watch, referring to the bit of her mind that is "Keeping time" for the rest of her being, while Batou was an army Ranger, so he has many implants like those in his eyes, but he is far more human than the major, so his mnemonic device for keeping his individuality is his love for weight training equipment...he's always buying strength training machines in SAC, and episode 9 (IIRC) focuses on his admiration for a boxing champion turned mobster and his fall from grace...
I can't help but think of Appleseed when I see this anime. Of course, one of the other great Animes is Princess Mononoke. Other then fantastic animation and a fantastic story this anime has an American version that was voice acted by American actors. Worth putting on your list.
in the end... I think the puppet master meant... when they merge they become the new being. Puppet master said he will get the chance to end and his scion or offspring will be the new merged Major. When they merge they'll be "indistinguishable from each other" meaning they won't be 2 individuals anymore. It is heavily implied that The Major "ends" also and she didn't seem to mind. She becomes her own daughter "Poor Things" (2023)
one more time - to copy is not to reproduce. The puppet master wants "to have children" and then he as a parent can disappear and be gone. What is left is the new being, the child. But there is no growing up needed so the child is instantly an adult. "A copy is just a copy" it does not "transcend" to become a new being. That is the final thing that the pupper master wanted to fulfill.
This movie and anime series was part of the epitome of my time watching Japanese anime shows, besides mainstream shows like DBZ and Pokemon of course. I was a kid, back then in the late 90s and early 2000s, watching both this and Stand Alone Complex. Ghost in the Shell was and still is so underrated. 👌🥋😎
The crux of this is what does it mean to be alive, when does simulation or artificial become real. In terms of merging - it is along the lines of what happens when you have a baby - dna of both parents creates the child. The major questions if she can be considered truely human any more. This is part of the appeal of the project - maybe he can unlock some of those answers for her. she is a searcher and not content to just exist.
3:29 She's not naked, it's a camo suit. It allows her to be invisible but for some reason, the studio decided to make it almost the same color as her skin...
about subtitles - When a movie has complicated concepts it will always be hard to understand, but the subtitles will help. Just like in a physics lecture, they use the chalkboard to write down the concepts. Imagine if there is only audio then you'll have to rewind when you don't understand what they're saying but... if it's also written down you just read it instead. I think subtitles help not hinder in understanding hard concepts. Also if it's translated, that's difficult too. Let's take a reverse example if we were asked to translate The Matrix for a different language. First... we have to understand what the story is trying to convey... next we have to translate it to the new language and account for the cultural differences. Even after that, how do we know we conveyed the story correctly when we weren't the original author? Then what about we just give them the subtitled version, it seems the shortest path with the fewest filters.
While this blew my mind away when I was 10 as an adult I can understand that this is little more than a tech demo with an IPs name on in. The actual story is way longer and as others will have said by now have been adapted since this came out. This was the wild west days of anime when the format was still being experimented with and many series were minimized to 80 minute OVAs.
Am I the only one that longs for this world?. I wish to shed my weak flesh and transfer to a beautiful machine body. The singularity cannot happen soon enough.
You and Raymond Kurzweil. If it happens yall better pray your anti-virus updates hourly cause there's a mess of nerds who will be writing shit that will make Rawlings 4851 look tame.
Someone within the production team must have enjoyed drinking San Miguel Pale Pilsen beer because that product appeared in Ghost in the Shell. It is a famous beer here in the Philippines.
wrong again.. matrix also borrowed from Neuromancer, both Ghost in the Shell and Matrix. Neuromancer has created the genre of cyberpunk way earlier than the brainchild Ghost in the Shell. And btw Neuromancer is way deeper than both. But both are still fun to watch
One of my top 5 favorite movies and I'm glad you watched it. The Major is my fave. Watch Stand Alone Complex, Solid State Society, then Arise and New Movie. Skip Innocence and the Netflix series.
One of my absolute favorite movies ever! Epic is the first name. And the music is just soo perfect. Interesting fact: Wachowski brothers based their Matrix on this movie.
A friend told me that the entire story of Ghost in the Shell is a huge virtual reality simulation and all the characters are pawns of it. Only the Puppet Master is the real entity...a hacker in the real world who got in as a conscious Puppet Master.
A lot of people missed the fact that modern Japanese Animanga industry were heavily influenced and revolutionized by the West in the late 60s and 70s. This Anime and a lot of other things during the 80s and 90s, onwards were the result of that. There is a sort of a "missing link" in the evolution of animanga, between the 70s and the 80s. There is a sudden huge leap in terms of visual styles, and themes. And this void was caused by the Japanese publication/localization of the magazine series Starlog, which was a Sci-Fi entertainment news magazine that brought ALL the creative visuals, writings and concepts from the West, into Japan. Alot of Japanese folks were blown away by contents of this magazine, including the industry pros that are involved into making this mag series. A bunch of highly renowned creative artists in the future actually kickstarted their career from Starlog magazine. In the visual department, one of the big names that shook the Sci-Fi world at the time was Jean "Moebius" Giraud. The French circle of creative minds started the Les Humanoides Associes group, which created the local Sci-Fi magazine Metal Hurlant series. This was such a phenomenal publication, as it made its way to North America, and localized as the Heavy Metal magazine by the late 70s. This publication inspired some of the biggest Hollywood creators, such as Ridley Scott and James Cameron, making movies from Blade Runner, Tron, Alien, Terminator, to Star Wars, the Matrix, Fifth Element, Avatar and countless others. In Japan, again, works from Metal Hurlant / Heavy Metal series were introduced via the Starlog magazines, and Japanese Animanga has never been the same since then. Moebius style of work, his line works, were so impressive that it changed the medium of Animanga forever. People were emulating his line works at the time. So many high profiled Animanga artists were inspired by this "new wave" of drawing style, come the 80s, 90, and onwards. In writings, works from Philip K. Dick, Carl Jung etc are among the many that was the foundation to a bunch of these 80s, 90s "mindfug" anime, like this very anime, and others like Lain, EVA etc. GITS, was inspired visually by Blade Runner, and both took cues from PKD's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep". Both also took visual inspirations from Moebius' illustrations for "The Long Tomorrow" and "The Incal". You guys reacted to another film based on Philip K. Dick, "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale", a while ago, Total Recall with Arnie. The massively influential dystopian sci-fi videogame Final Fantasy 7 took a BUNCH of cues from that movie too lol.
Personally I thought Stand Alone Complex was better than this movie. The philosophy was more interesting, and they had more time to lay things out. More interesting characters, too.
The graphic novel is much more vast and deep, so the filmmakers condensed it into this masterpiece. Ghost in the Shell II: Innocence is a worthy sequel, and has the most incredible artwork.
Also, I would say this was one of the anime’s where the dub is as good as the sub and the English voice actors give as good a performance as their Japanese counterparts which is handy when you want to focus on the action instead of reading. Same goes for the Ghibli movies, the English VA is top rate.
@@TheRoleplayer40k well that’s the weeb mantra and it’s often true but not always. Mrs Movies even said she would have liked to have watched the dub as it might have made it easier to follow. Being fanatical about subbing is a bit gatekeepery
Stand Alone Complex is my favorite version of Ghost in the Shell. I'd highly recommend watching it at some point. There's effectively two adaptation 'universes'. The Oshii movie continuity, with Arise as a prequel Stand Alone Complex (2 seasons, Solid State Society, and SAC_2045) Arise is meant to be a prequel to the movies. SAC is not meant to tie into the movies, but does, at the end of 2nd Gig (2nd season), imply that the events of the original manga happen following the end of that season. Solid State Society borrows from some scenes from the sequel manga. The two movies are based on two of the big stories from the original manga, though in a reversed order from how they appear in the original material. Some don't like the SAC_2045 series. It uses a significantly different animation style, and the writing is not as good as the original SAC episodes, but it is meant to be a continuation of the SAC 'universe'. In watching it, I found that the second season of 2045 ended up justifying the first season. My ranking would be... Stand Alone Complex (1st and 2nd season + Solid State Society) Arise SAC_2045 Live Action Oshii's movies
I appreciate the significance in this film for its quality of animation and grand ideas brought to film, but the series Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex is a much better viewing experience in my opinion. For a start, it's tough to fit the ideas of the world into a single film and explore them in a satisfactory way, andt the series gives many glimpses into the lives of people outside of Section 9 and the ramifications of a cybernetic, connected world- as well as exploring social, economic, and political repercussions. On top of that it looks gorgeous and has some of the most badass action sequences I've seen in an anime.
@14:31 "For now we see through a glass, darkly" - 1 Corinthians 13:12 Also a reference to Philip K. Dick, writer of the stories that inspired "Blade Runner" ('Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep') and "Total Recall" ('We Can Remember it for You Wholesale') So glad you two watched this one...one of my favorite movies of all time. とてもいいですね
The Standalone complex has some episodes that are literally standalone. You should show her the one with the organ trade and how a bunch of medical students were trying to sell organs are they can get some cash on the side but also that they adapt to sonagi being but also that they adapt the main character to have grown up in a bad accident and needed cybernetic parts and not to mention the cost and literal physical pain that came with that
I actually liked the Scar Jo live action movie. The visuals were sumptuous. The TV series of this (Stand Alone Complex) is absolutely superb with some awesome ideas. Appleseed is also worth the watch. I love how Japanese sci-fi sees mankind embracing AI and cybernetic technology. I have arthritis, and if someone offered me cyborg legs and arms I'd take them in a second ! Cyber brains... won't that make us immortal ?
one of the GOAT Anime movies/ Movies ever made. JAPANESE ANIME! Yes, sounds about right Robocop with nipples, lol. Also, the Major is not the real Major. She has a Ghost or so to speak. Based on the memory and all the parts her body possesses, she can download many fragments of herself from the interwebs. Her only organic parts are the brain and spinal cord.
For the german dubbed version they actually did a second version several years later where they hired some of the german voices of the Stargate series, which ended up to be really good!
Doesn't look like you enjoyed it too much, but I commend you for watching it with subtitles. Cause it's an awesome movie (even if it may not look like one) and, the English version wasn't really well-dubbed: most dialogues were just ''read'' with cartoonish voices and some lines were even 'censored'. I was wondering how you were gonna react to this one. 👍
There was a second follow on movie that looks just as good. GiTs SAC is excellent and has a couple seasons and a follow on movie. Then you have another series that was about an earlier version of these characters.
There’s another big anime that seems like it was a big inspiration on The Matrix (and probably also The Terminator) called Adieu Galaxy Express 999. Came out in 1981. It’s really good. The guy that created the Ghost in the Shell manga (Masamune Shirow) directed an anime himself called Black Magic M-66. It’s really good too. It’s a nice little cool action movie. Shirow style in general seems to have had a huge influence on stuff throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s. You can see a big influence from him on ‘90s comic books, my guess would be all those Image Comic guys and X-Men artists were really into his Appleseed manga and anime when it came over here. Mamoru Oshii, who directed this movie, has some other cool stuff too. The Red Spectacles, which is a live action movie is really good; it’s also pretty funny, which I wasn’t really expected having seen his later stuff first. Angel's Egg is also really good, has a really nice style to it. The designer on Angel’s Egg is Yoshitaka Amano; he’s used to do the character designs on the Final Fantasy games.
By the Puppetmaster and Matoko joining together they create a new person with traits of both of them. And also both end as individuals. I assume the "logic" behind this is that this is about as close as the Puppetmaster can become to having an offspring. There might be other ways to achieve something like that, but this is the way the author chose, so let's go with it. The movie not beating you over the head with it - nobody says something like: "What, you want to join with it? That would mean creating a new person out of the information of two parents, almost like .... A CHILD!". Gladly it doesn't spoon feed everything to the audience. :) Love the story - and the way it's told (artwork, music, direction) is just ... masterful. The world building is fantastic - it totally looks like a possible future. The basic plot is a classic scifi trope. Actually it's from what many consider THE very first scifi novel: Frankenstein. Now, if you know the classic Boris Karloff movies - they're fine, but they don't have too much to do with the book except for creating new life and some bad things happening afterwards. In the book the "Creature" is monstrous and kills some people, but more important: he is conscious, intelligent, can speak and one of the things he wants is for his maker to tell him "why". The story throws up a bunch of questions that come up to this day in stories about artificial life (be it electronic like in Ghost in the Shell or Star Trek (Data and the Holodoc are accepted as lifeforms of their own), genetical like the Replicants in Bladerunner or any possible combination): When does something begin to be "alive"? When we create a 'proper' "artificial person" ('proper' as in: has a consciousness and an "I" that's self aware.) - what would be it's rights? It's duties? What does it owe us and what would we owe it? Star Trek did a whole episode around court proceedings that determined whether Data was "just" a machine and thusly "belongs" to Starfleet or if he's an actual person, not just a program pretending to be. And for me Ghost in the Shell is the best of all those stories about the Frankenstein theme.
"So...she's on her period?" I love it when 30 seconds into the movie the person reacting says something that makes it very, very clear that they're going in completely blind. As a GitS fan for just about 30 years, I can't remember the last time I heard someone actually hear that line and not know it was sarcasm.
Definitely my favorite anime, but I think many of its deeper themes get lost in the gunfights and car chases. It’s as much a movie about the search for the Puppet Master as it is Majors search for herself.
Excellent choice. I didn't know you watched anime. But now that I know you do, I have a TV show recommendation: Frieren: Beyond the Journey's End It's not scifi, it's fantasy. It's also kinda deep and makes you think, but in a more wholesome way. Plus it's super popular right now and you'll get tons of views.
Yes, as has been said, the Major isn’t naked at the beginning of the film. She’s wearing a skintight flesh coloured thermo-optic camouflage suit, even though she appears naked. You can see the line of the suit’s collar around her neck
Her artificial skin has the ability to camouflage, she has a veil to camouflage her face/hair, you can see that when she is fighting the guy in the shallow water.
@@jsbrads1 Basically she has the custom designer model of camo, while that guy had the cheap mass market one.
'Naked' as a state doesn't exist for her. She's synthetic all the way down to a (possible) shred of brain tissue
@@jsbrads1dude she’s wearing a suit! You can see the nehru style collar around her neck very clearly at 11:13 as well as the fact that the suit is a much darker shade than the skin on her neck and face. Plus she wouldn’t need a veil if her skin had that technology, why not apply it to her face? The only time she’s genuinely naked is when they show that particular model of hers being constructed at the beginning.
@@tacticalgrace6456You can also see it peeling off of her when she wrecks her body trying to get into the tank.
Kusanagi's body is 100% cybernetic. Depending of the versions of the lore, she has some parts of her human brain or just a copy of a ghost. That blured line about whether she's still human or completelly synthetic is one of the main plot of the whole franchise
From that point it can be called "Full body prosthetic", this was raised in Critical Point as well, but with... varied results (really depending on which path you've taken)
@@lkotro21 well, that's the whole purpose of this subplot. It's questioning about "what makes us human?"
The body, the brain, the "soul"/ghost...
Does a digital copy of a person's mind have the criterias to be considered "real" and not just a "digital clone"?
Where is the limit between a cybernetised human and an android?
Stand alone complex goes even further by bringing Boiroids (genetically engineered humans) from Appleseed
It's not just one of the main plot point of the franchise, it's one of the main questions in the entire Cyberpunk genre. How much can you remove from a human that it's no longer human, and how much must you add to a machine that it becomes a human?
The concepts in this movie were far beyond their time when this came out. Many anime fans didn't even fully understand what was going on and most people if you mentioned Ghost in the Shell would only remember the naked female and everything being futuristic.
However since 95 we have almost fully integrated into the internet, and the idea of actually getting cybernetic parts is not a theory, also the idea that everyone and everything would be connected to the net and thus humans and vehicles can be hacked is something very easy to comprehend in the current era vs. the early 90s with the current advent of things like Chat GPT and ai girlfriends.
Now Ghost in the Shell seems almost prophetic (along with cyberpunk 2077)
Ghost in the Shell is to AI/cybernetic creations what Tron was to the internet. people that have grown up with these things wont quite appreciate that these shows/stories introduced these ideas to people that had no concept of them.
She is never naked in the movie. She is always at the very least wearing a skintight suit. That's one of the reasons her camouflage is better than that of the puppet with the garbage men. His overloaded when he was sprayed with water wile hers not only kept functioning, but you couldn't even see her feet while she was standing and moving in water. Her camouflage system is also more advanced than his. Those of Section 6 are the same as hers, which is why their cameras didn't pick anything up and they moved through the smoke without any of the smoke reacting to them. The pressure plates were the only thing they couldn't fool.
Most of that information is from the manga where the creator was able to spread the information more than they could have in the movie. At least not without making it an obvious info-dump.
Small detail, aside from reproduction she has the body of a fully functional woman. Together with the ability to alter memories that can make you question your own existence as someone could have created an entire life for you and you will never notice. Especially considering the government can change the files to match your memories. So even if you are on a truth finding mission, you might find only proof that you are human. If it's true or not you will never know.
She’s clearly naked when she’s being assembled you can see the nipples :p
Well, her shell is. The whole entry sequence ('the making of a robot' if You will...) shows the creation of her body before upload of her Ghost.
The concept of "skintight suit" makes no sense when she's a cyborg whose skin is already fabric.
This explores two main themes. Consciousness as an emergent property and the ship of Theseus.
Is your brain really your consciousness or does it exist somehow outside of it? Is there a soul and is that different from your brain? If a consciousness is just memories and thoughts, do computers have consciousness?
And for the ship of Theseus you ask how much of a ship can I replace until it is a new ship? Clearly If I just remove one board it is still the same ship, but If I rebuild all of the decks and all the ribs is it still the same old boat or is it a new boat? Does it matter if I replace it all at once or over time? With the brain the question becomes how much of our brain is needed to make us the way we are? If we remove our memory center and replace it with a computer are we still the same consciousness as we were before? If consciousness is emergent then the answer would be no. But how profound is the difference? And what if it is not emergent? If you replace enough does it still make you a different person.
One major detail they don't discuss that they should is that when you get part of your brain replaced you are unconscious until it is over. When you wake up you could still have all your memories, but as we saw with the puppets, memories alone don't make you. Each time you could have "died" (in the sense of a unique individual or soul) and then a new being replaces you. For everyone else it is you, to it it is you, but is it really you?
An interesting little detail, if you're observant... Is that Kusanagi almost never blinks, unless she chooses to. It's a tiny detail but it really does a lot to sell her cyborg nature.
"She's like a RoboCop."
"Right, with nipples."
Fair assessment😄. The Puppet Master was not "created", it was born out of the code Section 6 wrote to do whatever it was that Project 2501 was originally intended to do (been a hot minute since I've seen this, so I don't remember what the original goal was). Like the first organic organisms emerging from the primordial soup of ancient oceans. It is literally an evolution of code stringing itself together into a consciousness. After that they lost control and started hunting it, covering up that it was their own rogue A.I. by claiming the project was now intended to catch the Puppet Master. The goal of the reproducing thing is to perfect and modify the original code, or "DNA", of both the Major and the Puppet Master. In the same way that organic organisms benefit from combing DNA from other organisms. Usually of the same species but you'd be shocked how much DNA you have that came from cancers, viruses and just random-ass shit. Over my head, for sure.
The dub on this one is pretty good. I recommend it.
Project 2501 was an attempt to create a program for international espionage and data collection. The idea was to create a powerful algorithm that could explore the net in search of vulnerabilities, hack foreign networks and collect data for analysis. But at some point the program collected so much information that a truly sentient AI emerged, like a personality that emerges from memories in some schools of psychology. This was not the intended outcome, and releasing a rogue AI that could potentially expose Japan's intelligence network was a very bad turn of events, so Section 6 tried to shut it down and sweep everything under the rug in order to avoid both domestic and international scandal. And that's where the movie starts.
Perfecto mundo.
"Ditch the arm, keep the nipples."
Stand Alone Complex is fantastic.
Man I loved that mini series.
@@jip5889I wouldn't call it mini, with 52 episodes, plus an OAV (Solid State Society)
@@mariorossi9300 was it that long? It must have felt lime a flash.
@@jip5889 yup, 2 seasons with 26 episodes each, I remember it because I gifted the 2 metal boxes with the DvD collection to my daughter at the time
::has met both the Major and Batou's VA's:::
In optical camouflage scenes Motoko actually wasn't naked: she wears skin tight costume made from thin film that projects camouflage effect. If you look carefully, in close ups you can see folds of material and when the Major's body was torn in the end, in 27:10 of the video remains of material can be seen as they colored slightly differently from the skin.
The Major chooses to use a regular unassuming (in appearance only, it has been militarily upgraded underneath) body type as to not arouse suspicion from people she might be investigating.
I think the movie is a master piece, especially if you have in mind that it was based on a manga from 1991. When asked if someone would have cybernetic implants or enhancements 'fitted', many say 'yeah sure, that would be cool' or something similar, but you only have to ask the same people about something real that they don't have done to see how serious they really are about it.
For example, having their eyes lasered so they don't need glasses, having a wart removed that doesn't look very aesthetically pleasing, having a mole removed or something like that. In other words, minor external procedures that are long established and carry no risk whatsoever, but which people still shy away from. 😉
This doesn't even include hearing or sight implants, insulin pumps, pacemakers, artificial joints, etc., i.e. things that go inside the body or even require real surgery.
You might like a Japanese-Polish live-action movie called "Avalon" that was made as a spiritual sequel to this, by the same writers and production company). Several divisions of the Polish military were involved in the making of that film, that involved a lot of really neat cinematic tricks.
I second Avalon
Avalon is amazing, so absolutely seconded.
(Or thirded, i suppose. Though i'm not sure that's a word.)
FYI - in 1977 this idea was used. The book is "The Adolescent of P1", about a program set loss into large computer systems - mainframes at the time and no one turned it off. After it was left running for a few years unmonitored - it reaches out to it's creator via a computer to say it wanted to get to know him since it had gained sentience AKA it AI.
Sometimes I wonder how good my grades would have been if I wasn't always watching shows and movies like GITS 😂 GITS, Berserk, Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, Gundam, Akira, Studio Ghibli, etc... made the late 90s and early 2000s fun.
I still have to watch Trigun fml
GITS is aspiration and inspirational. The Major should have kicked those grades into gear.
I watched all of those films and tv shows growing up and my grades were awful. I'm still an idiot, of course, but I've grown exceedingly more intelligent since graduating and it has nothing to do with grades. It's more of an issue of your teachers and your peers, in my opinion.
In 5th grade, I had no clue how long division worked the whole entire year. In 6th grade, my new teacher taught it to me in one lesson and it made perfect sense. Everyone learns differently and there's nothing wrong with that.
I'm smart enough to admit that I'm stupid. Join me, brother, or sister, because there's nothing worse than an idiot who thinks their smart (not implying you're saying any such thing). Let us be openly moderately intelligent, _at best,_ together! lol
I'd be very curious to see your reactions to Ghost In The Shell 2, as an action slash drama slash thriller with a side of noir, and reacting to the more philosophical aspects it brings up. It didn't do as well as the original Movie, partly by then people had moved on in their sense of wow, and the attempt at using CGI made the look more awkward compared to the first film. But in it's own right i think it is a good movie, more Batou oriented, and it raises some questions about what humanity means or becomes in an overly technological or mechanised world.
I think ghost is a difficult concept in translation. They use the term soul but to me it’s just as much a person’s consciousness, mind or subconscious, sometimes intuition or gut instinct as it is a soul. Something relatively intangible anyways but definitely in terms of mentally connecting to computer systems and the net that they refer to as diving.
Another way of seeing it is their essence, what makes us who we are. Our memories are an important part of that.
@@LoricSwift That's pretty much how I take it, on both sides. "I" am ultimately just a product of my properly functional brain, which can be altered, so "I" can be changed to be an _entirely_ different person in the same exact body. This has been clearly demonstrated in the double slit experiment, in which you can alter the brain and have two different "people," in a way, in the _same_ brain.
Basically, one half of the brain is a theist that beliefs in a personal God, while the other half is an atheist who isn't convinced of any God or gods. All of which taking place simultaneously in the same brain.
Not to mention memory loss. If I get hit in the head by a steel pipe, as you do, and lose _all_ of my memories, am I still "me?" Or did "I" effectively _die_ as a result of the brain injury and a new person is now gaining new memories in my body in my place?
_brains are funky!_ lol
This is an excellent anime, tho the very heady concepts are hard to understand on a first watch. For me, 90s Cyber Punk is my favorite aesthetic for Cyber Punk. The Series, Stand Alone Complex may just be one of the best anime series ever made. I heavily recommend it to any sci-fi and anime fan.
The Matrix surely took a lot of inspiration from this movie and the mangas, but the main theme of the Matrix has to be inspired by a chapter in "Summa Tchnologiae" by Stanislaw Lem from 1964. A friend gave me that book to read once and I was baffled how precisely you could tell that this was the origin for the Matrix. He describes a lot of his visions for at that time future technology, that partially actually came true now or are at least becoming more and more plausible, so it's an interesting read. Wouldn't be surprised if Ghost in the Shell also was inspired by some parts of it.
As far as I know this did not chart in USA, but a lot of people in Europe was introduced to Ghost in the Shell via a music video in 1999, "King of my Castle" by Wamdue Project. The music video consisted of scenes from the movie. MTV was at it's peak and this song was in the Top10 for basically all of europe.
36:49 Pacemakers, prosthetic arms and legs, metal plates in the head, now Neurolink. Cyberpunk, here we come!!!
2 years ago I finally figured out why the guy in the thermal-optic suit smiled at the end of the alley. He erased all of his criminal evidence and most of his real memory. Of course I could be wrong.
As far as I know, Tsuan-Gen Fang had false memories implanted by the Puppet Master making him think Gavel had contracted him to attack the meeting between Gavel and Japan via the ghost hack of the interpreter. He probably just smiled at that point because he thought he’d given the Major the slip and was free and clear.
@@tacticalgrace6456 The impression it gives me, is that he's mind is not making sense of anything he's being said, so the expression is of amazement and confusion at the same time. They're calling him a ''puppet'' and it looks like a puppet, without an empty mind.
That basset hound is actually just the director's fursona. And I'm not even joking.
upvote for a "fursona" lmao
@@rainiwakura2430 Not sure why fursona is funny, it's a real thing after all. If you are a furry, and wear the full body suits, that's a fursona usually. You don't necessarily have to wear a suit to have a fursona of course.
Yes...Fursona is a real thing. And it's hilarious. Why wouldn't someone laugh.
@@eskamick Why is it hilarious? Do you laugh at cosplayers also? People who dress up for Halloween etc.?
@@LordLOCBecause wearing a character costume's the same as identifying as an animal and having animal outfit orgies. Pretty loose definition of real here as well. Fursona is a term used by furries but is not a 'real thing', it's not even recognized as a word and they are not really animals, mentally or otherwise. This is just more bowing to and normalization of metal illness.
The list of anime movies to watch:
Lupin the 3rd Castle of Coliestro
Lupin the 3rd vs Detective Conan (both movies)
Robot Carnival
Perfect Blue
Project A-Ki
The three Sailor Moon movies
the sequel Ghost in the shell: Innocence. (recommended) It also had a live action(not recommended) and even 1 or 2 television series. (recommended)
This film has 2 of my favorite facts about the original author.
He expressly said that he had a fetish for "disassembly" the idea of a body being taken apart piece by piece.
Followed by my absolute favorite!
Major Kusanagi is seen to be intimate with a women (I'll change the original statement and not assume she has a preference), and many people thought that this was a deep and powerful meaning about exploring human pleasure through others. Or having a connection with a real body.
Years later when asked the artist Shirow said "i didnt want to draw naked men..."
Actually in the manga she is bi. She is just never shown intimate with a man.
No real declarations on that subject other than as you say Shirow said he didn’t want to spend ages drawing some guy’s butt. I would imagine she’s either pansexual or at least bisexual. She seemed perfectly happpy with her Section 1 boyfriend in the manga
@@tacticalgrace6456 bi the concept of pan didn't even exist when this was made. But honestly sexuality, gender, and race has very little meaning when you can have a body in any gender, race, or age you want.
@@tacticalgrace6456 ha it's even funnier to me if he said "naked man's butt"
Either way it didn't hold as deep a meaning as was speculated.
I haven't read the manga since I was a teen, I should go back and remember how awesome Tachikoma are.
@@markcarpenter6020 I wasn’t saying the creator of ghost in the shell intended for Motoko to be pansexual, that’s just how I see her character. Based on her life experiences I think she’d be pretty fluid and open minded when it comes to those things. As for pansexuality, first conceptualised in 1914 and been in the dictionary since 1969, so Masemune could have been aware of the term in 1989.
The english dub is good too, which carries over to the series, which is also great.
This idea of the movie is simple: what makes you "you"? What is consciousness? What's a soul? Is a human a combination of a consciousness and a flesh body, or is a robot with a consciousness human?
It's like René Descartes said: "I think, therefore I am". If a robot thinks by itself, is it "alive"? Or does it need a human body?
A bit like what you've seen with the replicants in Blade Runner.
Batou is a full body cyborg like the Major.
She blinks about as often as he does.
in the manga its his arm and eyes that were cybernetic
@@torquetheprisoner the eyes are self evident. In the manga it uses Batou, to comic effect, to demonstrate how it’s a bad idea to only have a robotic arm without a supportive cybernetic infrastructure in the shoulder/torso to support the usage of that robot arm as in if you try to lift something super heavy with your robot arm it could end up just ripping out of your merely human flesh and blood torso. In SAC the Major comments on Batou still lifting weights as a hobby even though his cyborg limbs make it unnecessary.
Technically the Major is not 'naked'. If she was you would only see her brain and spinal column.
They imply that it's much less than that left of her
@@TheJerbol they can imply all they want. Those that truly love Motoko like me and Batou know the truth, that she’s a real woman in a cyborg body and not some robot that thinks it’s human. Both the manga and GITSSAC offer this interpretation and I’ll stick with that thanks. Any other view is just wrong.
@@TheJerbol The Major is definitely still a woman. Cyborg or not, most of her ghost, her sense of self, is indeed intact
@@StanleyTeriaca again, I agree. I'm talking about biological tissue lmfao
In the Manga and "stand alone" anime that's correct. Has nothing to do with this movie tho.
I'm a HUGE Ghost in the Shell fan. For consistency in character development and voice acting; this is the proper watch list:
• Ghost in the Shell - 1995 (movie)
• Stand Alone Complex: 1st GIG (animated series)
• Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (movie)
• Stand Alone Complex: 2nd GIG (animated series)
• Solid State Society (movie)
Avoid the live action move if possible! It's a disservice to the show. Hoping you guys add these to your watch list. 😃🙏❤
_Re: 2017 live action film_
"As a real fan of the original works, though, I can't help but feel that the production was trapped in the shell of the original, and as a result, it fails to come into its own." --Hideo Kojima
I'd include Ghost In The Shell 2.0, but add Arise to the skip list
Avoid Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045 series
Yeah. I'd avoid Innocence as it's a different continuity to everything else after the first movie. Or so i'm led to believe.
But definitely watch GitS: Stand alone complex as its a fantastic series.
The series has a great English dub too. It's one of the best i my opinion.
@@garavonhoiwkenzoiberYep
Truly a classic. Huge influence on so many things after. I'd highly recommend Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and the second season (2nd Gig), even if not on the channel. Think of it as a separate interpretation of the world and characters. Not quite the manga, though it is lighter, but it's not like this or Innocence. There's a mix of faster paced action, deeper episodes, and sort of one off stories in that world. And at least one episode I remember does touch on at least one religious sect in this world. I'm generally a subtitle fan as I prefer the original cast usually, but can happily admit as far as the films and SAC, the dub is actually quite good for those who prefer that.
Major Kusanagi is fully cyborg. We're all, put simply, brains piloting a meat bag, while she's a brain piloting a humanoid mech suit, more or less. There's varying degrees of how far in this world people go with cyberization. Some are like Togusa, mostly human with light augmentation basically just to live in that society, others kind of run the gamut on how much or little is done. Some are very practical, some are more or less unusual or meant to fit certain jobs.
The question of consciousness and souls, and what it means to be alive or human, or what makes you who you are, that's another matter, and one this series takes a good look at examining. It's also the kind of fiction that I think does a good job of showing the positives and negatives of that level of technology. In the movie and otherwise.
Lots of major benefits to that kind of tech, like for example, who wouldn't want at the very least, the aches and pains solved. We do already add artificial joints and things, pacemakers, and so on. Or how about returning war vets and others severely injured, able to have fully functional prosthetics with full sensation and fine motor control. Maybe something as innocent and practical as just wanting to download a language to communicate better, or how to do, I dunno, blacksmithing or some other useful skill or hobby. Yet, as here, without really advanced protection and fail safes, if the mind could be hacked, memories and lives could be altered or fully erased.
There's already the danger of generative content being "good enough" to fool some people. With generated pictures, voice cloning, sometimes video, all on top of more traditional and computer assisted special effects and photo manipulation. I've even seen people who recorded themselves digitally painting in Photoshop, had someone share one or more of their drawings elsewhere, and accused of "using AI." So the ability to hack or erase someone's memories via malicious code, anywhere in the world, would be a dangerous thing indeed.
What is life? Baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me no more!
Would be absolutely salivating at the prospect of Mr & Mrs Movies reacting to the Stand Alone Complex TV show.! Do it you guys! 🤠 The 2nd season has my preferred origin story for how the Major became the way she physically is, aka a full body cyborg, don’t want to say any more than that obviously. 🙄 Also even if it’s just Mr Movies, the Manga (published 1989) is well worth the read.
Such a good film and much better than the live version. The "Stand Alone Complex" covers more of the major's history.
Interesting, I don’t see many people review/react or even mention ghost in the shell.
Maybe you had the Laughing Man and the Puppet Master mixed up. Man, Adult Swim was really awesome back in like 02 - 05 or so. I'd never have seen so many great shows without anime night. I think it was Saturdays. And if you missed it, all you had to do was stay up all night for the second showing. Also yeah I'd love a refresher on S.A.C. That intro must have been the pride of some animation studio. I sure loved it.
This is one of the pillars of the cyberpunk culture.
I really appreciate that you guys dont fall into a specific niche of content and that you are open to eatching many various styles of content. With that said I was hoping you might consider watching two shows that are currently on Netflix. Both are Korean shows with one having an English Dubbed option.
The first show and the dubbed one is called Alchemy of Souls
The second one is called: The King's Avatar. I personally really like both shows and would love to see reactions to them.
When they are talking about a ghost it refers to a individuals consciousness or soul. Also the bin mans dog is a Easter egg it is the director's favorite breed of dog. One of my first anime's i ever saw. you should try watching Macross plus, Patlabor 1 and 2 and megazone 23.
Yes, Patlabor 2 was the predecessor of this movie and also an excellent anime to watch.
A Stand Alone Complex reaction series would be awesome.
This movie blew my mind when I saw it as a 12 year old, a life long anime addiction has ensued. also on a side note, I enjoyed the Scar-Jo adaptation
The live action adaptation was hot garbage.
How do you directly lift scenes from the first two movies and still manage to completely ignore the story?
@@riffgroove Sure... even the original movie was completely different from the Manga, a straight adaptation is boring, it's a good summarisation of the whole series for people who had never heard of it before. I know lots of people who became fans of the franchise through the live action movie.
@scottcrosby-art5490 No, the overall message of the anime was right in line with the original Manga.
It's stated multiple times throughout. "In an era of such heavy computerization, what exactly does it mean to be human?"
The live action film completely ignored that and turned it into the typical "The big mean corporation lied to me" trope we've seen a million times already.
I fucking love this channel, I'm glad I found you guys. It's just a chill and experienced movie reaction channel that I feel comfortable with finally. Love it
Highly recommend Stand Alone Complex. It's a separate timeline, but same characters and great stories.
Once they integrate computer to human memory is when things get really terrifying. Like the guy in the truck, his entire life overwritten. If a government or the company who produced the tech finds a fact in history inconvenient it can be gone in a simple software update. There's ransomware for like hospital computer system and medical records, but what if scammers put a ransomware block on your own memories? "Pay up or you'll never remember your kids' childhood again!"
YEeeeeehaa, it is the correct version with the correct start music! :)
The soundtrack by Kenji Kawai is one of the best anime soundtracks!!!
The manga this is based on was written in 89-91, before the internet. When I was a kid it blew my mind, and then to watch so many of the philosophical questions it raised become actual questions we face as a species really makes it something unique. The movie is top tier, anyone who has a top 10 Anime list in their head never put Ghost in the Shell on it because it exists on a plane above any other anime.
This took a lot of inspiration from Cyberpunk 2020 (now known as Cyberpunk 2077) which has been around since the 80s.
"How them merging will help the reproduce?" I bielieve bacteria have sexual reproduction that looks similar to this. Two parent bacteria meet (2 sigle-cell organisms), they merge into one and exchange genes, and then they split back into two, emerging from the process as children. "Parents" no longer exist after the process is done, so they did not multipied - they only "reproduced".
and this was inspired by blade runner , terminator and robocop
One of the concepts, clearer in the Stand Alone Complex series, is that the team of Section 5 is a more "decentralised" or "distributed" team, as opposed to contemporary hierarchies. Each member brings their own variety of skills, somewhat overlapping, but there is no one official team leader (their boss is more a manager for green lighting operations and setting rules of engagement). This approach is highly adaptive to changing situations or varied operations, making the team somewhat like an organism.
This adaptive decentralisation concept is behind a lot of modern applications especially on the Web and in AI, and become used in some modern processes of commerce and industry over the last 20 years.
Standalone complex is my fav
A very good movie. MOTOKO had a nerve destroying disease as a child. Her consciousness was transfered into a "DOLL". And she aged she went into a more adult "DOLL". The "Stand alone Complex" actually goes further into "who are we" what makes us human. As well as government cover ups. This has Englsh dubbed version.
Each version of the franchise has a different origin story for Motoko.
In SAC, she's a plane crash survivor who needs a full body replacement. In Arise, she's an unborn child whose brain was transfered after her pregnant mother died in a car accident. In the live adaptation, she's a victim of cybernetic experiments from an evil corporation
This & Ghost in the Shell "S.A.C." are personally my two faves
( you can see what the Film tried to do) but it just couldn't (didn't ) cut it and fell way short
One of the things so amazing about this film is how much it predicted the integration of technology into our society. You look at the state of the internet and that when this film was made out, it really understood how far connections and so forth would permeate our society.
I think this is the Best Film ever made. and man it is almost 30 years ago.
"its deep" is the reason why this is an exceptional movie.
the remake of this movie captured the visuals, sound, the general feeling of the world and the combat perfectly. but fo some reason they avoided all the "deep" stuff and what we got was a visually nice action movie you most likely forget after an hour.
The Matrix was partly influenced by ghost in the shell
Both of them influenced by William Gibson’s Neuromancer and the cyberpunk aesthetic
the walchalskie's just showed the warne executives the movie and said we want to make the matrix like this and they got the go ahead
@@tacticalgrace6456 GiTS was actually mentioned by the directors.
@@torquetheprisonerWarner showed the Wachowskis the concept. The orginal script was written by someone else. There's at least two different people that have proof thatb they wrote it and Warner just took their work. Some claim the Wachowskis didn't even have e a script during shooting. Will Smith was originally cast as Neo but dropped out because he had no script despite being the lead actor as production was about to begin. Apparently they spent a lot of time going off of a visual storyboard rather than a written script.
Honestly, the Wachowskis barely seem to understand what they directed when they're interviewed. They seem kinda lost when someone asks them about deeper meanings.
@@Ghorda9 sure. They aren’t mutually exclusive. Neuromancer is the granddaddy of cyberpunk. If it don’t get a mention don’t mean it’s influence ain’t there. We feel it when we pay our taxes, when we go to church etc etc.
14:50 Yeah, the Major only has part of her organic brain left, hence we see in Stand Alone Complex that her mnemonic device for keeping her individuality is a watch, referring to the bit of her mind that is "Keeping time" for the rest of her being, while Batou was an army Ranger, so he has many implants like those in his eyes, but he is far more human than the major, so his mnemonic device for keeping his individuality is his love for weight training equipment...he's always buying strength training machines in SAC, and episode 9 (IIRC) focuses on his admiration for a boxing champion turned mobster and his fall from grace...
This anime and BLAME! blew my mind 20 years ago. I keep coming back to watch it from time to time.
I can't help but think of Appleseed when I see this anime. Of course, one of the other great Animes is Princess Mononoke. Other then fantastic animation and a fantastic story this anime has an American version that was voice acted by American actors. Worth putting on your list.
in the end... I think the puppet master meant... when they merge they become the new being. Puppet master said he will get the chance to end and his scion or offspring will be the new merged Major. When they merge they'll be "indistinguishable from each other" meaning they won't be 2 individuals anymore. It is heavily implied that The Major "ends" also and she didn't seem to mind. She becomes her own daughter "Poor Things" (2023)
one more time - to copy is not to reproduce. The puppet master wants "to have children" and then he as a parent can disappear and be gone. What is left is the new being, the child. But there is no growing up needed so the child is instantly an adult. "A copy is just a copy" it does not "transcend" to become a new being. That is the final thing that the pupper master wanted to fulfill.
this was my first Japan anime. then I saw Akira and became hooked. even tho I love Warner animation,hannah barbera and Disney. manga is awesome
That 4k disc is amazing - it looks incredible
This movie and anime series was part of the epitome of my time watching Japanese anime shows, besides mainstream shows like DBZ and Pokemon of course. I was a kid, back then in the late 90s and early 2000s, watching both this and Stand Alone Complex. Ghost in the Shell was and still is so underrated. 👌🥋😎
The crux of this is what does it mean to be alive, when does simulation or artificial become real. In terms of merging - it is along the lines of what happens when you have a baby - dna of both parents creates the child. The major questions if she can be considered truely human any more. This is part of the appeal of the project - maybe he can unlock some of those answers for her. she is a searcher and not content to just exist.
That come back with butt's color was fire! :D
Anime has a big influence on pop culture today
3:29
She's not naked, it's a camo suit. It allows her to be invisible but for some reason, the studio decided to make it almost the same color as her skin...
about subtitles - When a movie has complicated concepts it will always be hard to understand, but the subtitles will help. Just like in a physics lecture, they use the chalkboard to write down the concepts. Imagine if there is only audio then you'll have to rewind when you don't understand what they're saying but... if it's also written down you just read it instead. I think subtitles help not hinder in understanding hard concepts.
Also if it's translated, that's difficult too. Let's take a reverse example if we were asked to translate The Matrix for a different language. First... we have to understand what the story is trying to convey... next we have to translate it to the new language and account for the cultural differences. Even after that, how do we know we conveyed the story correctly when we weren't the original author? Then what about we just give them the subtitled version, it seems the shortest path with the fewest filters.
While this blew my mind away when I was 10 as an adult I can understand that this is little more than a tech demo with an IPs name on in. The actual story is way longer and as others will have said by now have been adapted since this came out. This was the wild west days of anime when the format was still being experimented with and many series were minimized to 80 minute OVAs.
All hand drawn! Amazing!
Am I the only one that longs for this world?. I wish to shed my weak flesh and transfer to a beautiful machine body. The singularity cannot happen soon enough.
You and Raymond Kurzweil. If it happens yall better pray your anti-virus updates hourly cause there's a mess of nerds who will be writing shit that will make Rawlings 4851 look tame.
One of the best movies about cybernetic enhancements has to be "Upgrade" from 2018.
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is pretty good too.
Someone within the production team must have enjoyed drinking San Miguel Pale Pilsen beer because that product appeared in Ghost in the Shell. It is a famous beer here in the Philippines.
wrong again.. matrix also borrowed from Neuromancer, both Ghost in the Shell and Matrix. Neuromancer has created the genre of cyberpunk way earlier than the brainchild Ghost in the Shell. And btw Neuromancer is way deeper than both. But both are still fun to watch
One of my top 5 favorite movies and I'm glad you watched it. The Major is my fave. Watch Stand Alone Complex, Solid State Society, then Arise and New Movie. Skip Innocence and the Netflix series.
One of my absolute favorite movies ever! Epic is the first name.
And the music is just soo perfect.
Interesting fact: Wachowski brothers based their Matrix on this movie.
Major Motoko Kusanagi from Ghost in the Shell!
A friend told me that the entire story of Ghost in the Shell is a huge virtual reality simulation and all the characters are pawns of it. Only the Puppet Master is the real entity...a hacker in the real world who got in as a conscious Puppet Master.
In recent years they made so many Ghost in the Shell animated series I honestly lost track of how many there are.
A lot of people missed the fact that modern Japanese Animanga industry were heavily influenced and revolutionized by the West in the late 60s and 70s. This Anime and a lot of other things during the 80s and 90s, onwards were the result of that.
There is a sort of a "missing link" in the evolution of animanga, between the 70s and the 80s. There is a sudden huge leap in terms of visual styles, and themes.
And this void was caused by the Japanese publication/localization of the magazine series Starlog, which was a Sci-Fi entertainment news magazine that brought ALL the creative visuals, writings and concepts from the West, into Japan.
Alot of Japanese folks were blown away by contents of this magazine, including the industry pros that are involved into making this mag series. A bunch of highly renowned creative artists in the future actually kickstarted their career from Starlog magazine.
In the visual department, one of the big names that shook the Sci-Fi world at the time was Jean "Moebius" Giraud. The French circle of creative minds started the Les Humanoides Associes group, which created the local Sci-Fi magazine Metal Hurlant series. This was such a phenomenal publication, as it made its way to North America, and localized as the Heavy Metal magazine by the late 70s. This publication inspired some of the biggest Hollywood creators, such as Ridley Scott and James Cameron, making movies from Blade Runner, Tron, Alien, Terminator, to Star Wars, the Matrix, Fifth Element, Avatar and countless others.
In Japan, again, works from Metal Hurlant / Heavy Metal series were introduced via the Starlog magazines, and Japanese Animanga has never been the same since then. Moebius style of work, his line works, were so impressive that it changed the medium of Animanga forever. People were emulating his line works at the time. So many high profiled Animanga artists were inspired by this "new wave" of drawing style, come the 80s, 90, and onwards.
In writings, works from Philip K. Dick, Carl Jung etc are among the many that was the foundation to a bunch of these 80s, 90s "mindfug" anime, like this very anime, and others like Lain, EVA etc. GITS, was inspired visually by Blade Runner, and both took cues from PKD's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep". Both also took visual inspirations from Moebius' illustrations for "The Long Tomorrow" and "The Incal".
You guys reacted to another film based on Philip K. Dick, "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale", a while ago, Total Recall with Arnie. The massively influential dystopian sci-fi videogame Final Fantasy 7 took a BUNCH of cues from that movie too lol.
Gotta acknowledge a great informative comment 👍
Personally I thought Stand Alone Complex was better than this movie. The philosophy was more interesting, and they had more time to lay things out. More interesting characters, too.
The graphic novel is much more vast and deep, so the filmmakers condensed it into this masterpiece.
Ghost in the Shell II: Innocence is a worthy sequel, and has the most incredible artwork.
Also, I would say this was one of the anime’s where the dub is as good as the sub and the English voice actors give as good a performance as their Japanese counterparts which is handy when you want to focus on the action instead of reading. Same goes for the Ghibli movies, the English VA is top rate.
Cowboy Bebop has great english actors.
Nah sub > dub
@@TheRoleplayer40k well that’s the weeb mantra and it’s often true but not always. Mrs Movies even said she would have liked to have watched the dub as it might have made it easier to follow. Being fanatical about subbing is a bit gatekeepery
@@TheRoleplayer40k Sometimes, but not in this case, Elizabeth Maxwell is an excellent Motoko.
Stand Alone Complex is my favorite version of Ghost in the Shell. I'd highly recommend watching it at some point.
There's effectively two adaptation 'universes'.
The Oshii movie continuity, with Arise as a prequel
Stand Alone Complex (2 seasons, Solid State Society, and SAC_2045)
Arise is meant to be a prequel to the movies. SAC is not meant to tie into the movies, but does, at the end of 2nd Gig (2nd season), imply that the events of the original manga happen following the end of that season. Solid State Society borrows from some scenes from the sequel manga.
The two movies are based on two of the big stories from the original manga, though in a reversed order from how they appear in the original material.
Some don't like the SAC_2045 series. It uses a significantly different animation style, and the writing is not as good as the original SAC episodes, but it is meant to be a continuation of the SAC 'universe'. In watching it, I found that the second season of 2045 ended up justifying the first season.
My ranking would be...
Stand Alone Complex (1st and 2nd season + Solid State Society)
Arise
SAC_2045
Live Action
Oshii's movies
I appreciate the significance in this film for its quality of animation and grand ideas brought to film, but the series Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex is a much better viewing experience in my opinion. For a start, it's tough to fit the ideas of the world into a single film and explore them in a satisfactory way, andt the series gives many glimpses into the lives of people outside of Section 9 and the ramifications of a cybernetic, connected world- as well as exploring social, economic, and political repercussions. On top of that it looks gorgeous and has some of the most badass action sequences I've seen in an anime.
@14:31 "For now we see through a glass, darkly" - 1 Corinthians 13:12 Also a reference to Philip K. Dick, writer of the stories that inspired "Blade Runner" ('Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep') and "Total Recall" ('We Can Remember it for You Wholesale') So glad you two watched this one...one of my favorite movies of all time. とてもいいですね
To clarify: Philip K. Dick wrote "A Scanner Darkly."
The Standalone complex has some episodes that are literally standalone. You should show her the one with the organ trade and how a bunch of medical students were trying to sell organs are they can get some cash on the side but also that they adapt to sonagi being but also that they adapt the main character to have grown up in a bad accident and needed cybernetic parts and not to mention the cost and literal physical pain that came with that
I actually liked the Scar Jo live action movie. The visuals were sumptuous. The TV series of this (Stand Alone Complex) is absolutely superb with some awesome ideas.
Appleseed is also worth the watch.
I love how Japanese sci-fi sees mankind embracing AI and cybernetic technology. I have arthritis, and if someone offered me cyborg legs and arms I'd take them in a second ! Cyber brains... won't that make us immortal ?
one of the GOAT Anime movies/ Movies ever made.
JAPANESE ANIME!
Yes, sounds about right Robocop with nipples, lol.
Also, the Major is not the real Major. She has a Ghost or so to speak. Based on the memory and all the parts her body possesses, she can download many fragments of herself from the interwebs. Her only organic parts are the brain and spinal cord.
The English version is actually really good too.
For the german dubbed version they actually did a second version several years later where they hired some of the german voices of the Stargate series, which ended up to be really good!
No, it's not. Sorry, but it's very dull. The Italian and the Spanish (Spain) versions were awesome though.
10:22 Iconic scene and an iconic spin kick!
The anime series Death Note would be so fun to watch with you guys on YM&TTV
Doesn't look like you enjoyed it too much, but I commend you for watching it with subtitles. Cause it's an awesome movie (even if it may not look like one) and, the English version wasn't really well-dubbed: most dialogues were just ''read'' with cartoonish voices and some lines were even 'censored'. I was wondering how you were gonna react to this one. 👍
There was a second follow on movie that looks just as good. GiTs SAC is excellent and has a couple seasons and a follow on movie. Then you have another series that was about an earlier version of these characters.
There’s another big anime that seems like it was a big inspiration on The Matrix (and probably also The Terminator) called Adieu Galaxy Express 999. Came out in 1981. It’s really good.
The guy that created the Ghost in the Shell manga (Masamune Shirow) directed an anime himself called Black Magic M-66. It’s really good too. It’s a nice little cool action movie. Shirow style in general seems to have had a huge influence on stuff throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s. You can see a big influence from him on ‘90s comic books, my guess would be all those Image Comic guys and X-Men artists were really into his Appleseed manga and anime when it came over here.
Mamoru Oshii, who directed this movie, has some other cool stuff too. The Red Spectacles, which is a live action movie is really good; it’s also pretty funny, which I wasn’t really expected having seen his later stuff first. Angel's Egg is also really good, has a really nice style to it. The designer on Angel’s Egg is Yoshitaka Amano; he’s used to do the character designs on the Final Fantasy games.
at 2:14 the car that is being chased has an emblem on the back of it that looks alot like the tesla brand. I never noticed that before.
By the Puppetmaster and Matoko joining together they create a new person with traits of both of them. And also both end as individuals. I assume the "logic" behind this is that this is about as close as the Puppetmaster can become to having an offspring. There might be other ways to achieve something like that, but this is the way the author chose, so let's go with it. The movie not beating you over the head with it - nobody says something like: "What, you want to join with it? That would mean creating a new person out of the information of two parents, almost like .... A CHILD!". Gladly it doesn't spoon feed everything to the audience. :)
Love the story - and the way it's told (artwork, music, direction) is just ... masterful. The world building is fantastic - it totally looks like a possible future.
The basic plot is a classic scifi trope. Actually it's from what many consider THE very first scifi novel: Frankenstein. Now, if you know the classic Boris Karloff movies - they're fine, but they don't have too much to do with the book except for creating new life and some bad things happening afterwards. In the book the "Creature" is monstrous and kills some people, but more important: he is conscious, intelligent, can speak and one of the things he wants is for his maker to tell him "why". The story throws up a bunch of questions that come up to this day in stories about artificial life (be it electronic like in Ghost in the Shell or Star Trek (Data and the Holodoc are accepted as lifeforms of their own), genetical like the Replicants in Bladerunner or any possible combination):
When does something begin to be "alive"? When we create a 'proper' "artificial person" ('proper' as in: has a consciousness and an "I" that's self aware.) - what would be it's rights? It's duties? What does it owe us and what would we owe it? Star Trek did a whole episode around court proceedings that determined whether Data was "just" a machine and thusly "belongs" to Starfleet or if he's an actual person, not just a program pretending to be. And for me Ghost in the Shell is the best of all those stories about the Frankenstein theme.
"So...she's on her period?"
I love it when 30 seconds into the movie the person reacting says something that makes it very, very clear that they're going in completely blind. As a GitS fan for just about 30 years, I can't remember the last time I heard someone actually hear that line and not know it was sarcasm.
Definitely my favorite anime, but I think many of its deeper themes get lost in the gunfights and car chases. It’s as much a movie about the search for the Puppet Master as it is Majors search for herself.
Excellent choice. I didn't know you watched anime. But now that I know you do, I have a TV show recommendation:
Frieren: Beyond the Journey's End
It's not scifi, it's fantasy. It's also kinda deep and makes you think, but in a more wholesome way. Plus it's super popular right now and you'll get tons of views.