Ghost in the Shell

Philosophy is timeless, ideas and concepts are things that can be honed and perfected. Some classics are pioneers that introduce novel ideas that are then further improved upon by later works. Other classics are timeless masterpieces that define entire genres as the gold standard; Ghost in the Shell isn't something that is able to meet that standard. The overly simplistic philosophical narrative of GITS just doesn't hold up very well in modern times while other classical pieces have. Ghost in the Shell is a movie driven by concept, a concept that is shown, not told, in a slow, vague approach that requires attention, thought, andpatience. Yet, despite the effort needed to fully understand the film, it offers a surprisingly simple and disappointing payoff. This is a movie that did not provoke thinking or cause me to question my existence or my self worth as a human being, it just wasn't complex or deep enough to change my views on humanity, and instead the topics it brought up seemed obvious to me. This is a movie that tackles human existence on a purely scientific level, which essentially boils it down to a simple fact: that our consciousness, memories, and emotions are merely created from electrical pulses within our brains. Humanity is separated into two parts, our consciousness and our physical body. For us, technology hasn't reached a point where these things that make us distinctly unique can be controlled and artificially replicated. The fact that we can't lends upon contemporary humans a certain sacredness to our existence, to birth, to life, and to our intelligence. The moment technology crosses that barrier, what makes us human will no longer be special or unique. This technological barrier is something that has already been crossed in the GITS universe, and with it, they decide to squander the potential of the setting, and only ask one question: What is a difference between man and machine? At some point, there really is no practical difference, and ultimately, this is the answer the movie provides, and disappointingly, this is the only answer it provides with very little elaboration. What truly scares me, would be if humans will be responsible enough to guide us on the correct path of evolution once we become powerful enough to control it ourselves. Will society be destroyed by the folly of man when we obtain the power of "god"? Or will we evolve into a more advanced species? Will humanity be willing to throw away the primitive identity of what makes us human for the sake of transcending into a higher organism? How will society compete in a world where cybernetic parts are far superior to the organic ones we are born with? How can we trust anyone or anything, how would we know what is real and what is not once our memories and senses can be completely replaced? This movie sort of touches a serious topic, when hackers steal the memories of others for personal gain. This is to show that a human's soul can be modified, just like a program, and it is a situation that is only presented in response to the movie's central, existential question. But besides this the movie doesn't touch any remotely serious topic at all, and most of the movie spends it's time focusing on needlessly building upon a rather pointless existential crisis sort of thing. Because the movie ignored addressing actually important and very real issues future technology will impose on humanity, the movie simply fell flat to me. The setting was immersive and well made, and the story had potential to go a different and much more interesting route. But instead, it took a very simplistic philosophical approach and made it needlessly convoluted. However, while the movies narrative fails to stand the test of time, the design of the futuristic world it builds is breathtaking and thoughtfully well done. The cinematography of this movie is ahead of its time, and its a movie worth watching for its beautiful visuals alone.

Ah...Ghost In The Shell. I'm writing this JUST after finishing it. If you watched the original Matrix and went "Holy Jesus this is the most amazing movie i've ever seen IN MY LIFE" then Ghost in the Shell will dropkick you in the face. Seriously. Story: This is the kind of stuff that university essay could be written about. I'm going to have to watch this again just to completely understand everything about this movie. Now, just so you understand, the storyline isn't amazing. But the science and the mythology this anime is based on is so incredible. I believe,according to a few sources, that if you took all the footnotes in the manga they total to over 30 pages. Or was it 200? The point is that the science that's used in this movie is absolutely amazing. Art: The art is old. The art is...Akira old. It's very old, but the details that are in it are incredibly amazing. The art is old but it doesn't seem stale. It's that good kind of old....classic. They used some really cool effects in here...especially when some people turned invisible. Oh..major plot hole if anyone notices...there's a guy who turns invisible...with all of his clothes on. Whereas the girl....needs to strip naked...which she does QUITE often. The nudity in this is tastefully done...it's not like Elfen Lied (no offense) where Nyu shows her boobs every couple of scenes. Sound: Oldschool.....classic. Character: There is major character development for two characters. Batou and the Major. No one else really gets developed too much. Sometimes they'd show you a character who did one thing and then you'd never see them again ever. I'm not complaining too much, it never bugged me at all. But you do get a real sense of humanity from these characters...that's a funny thing to say though, if you watch the anime you'll figure out why. Enjoyment: I guarantee that almost anyone who enjoys anime will also enjoy this. Anyone who liked the Matrix will enjoy this. It's an incredibly amazing anime, it's deep, it's slightly frightening. The single thing that this anime does not have is comic relief...never once did I laugh. Never once did I actually want to laugh. This movie is so serious that if any attempt was made at making it slightly funny the attempt would surely fail. Seriously, go...watch this anime right now, and I promise...that you will not be disappointed.

I took the time watching the highly acclaimed Ghost in the Shell, which is pretty famous for its philosophical and thought-provoking themes. The story is set in a futuristic world where cyber-hacking exists, and one can control a person's actions through hacking their brains with an element known as "ghost". The film moves on a very slow pace almost throughout, alas a key factor in one deciding to drop it midway. The script is the weak point of the movie. It it too short and it fails to explain just what is going on in this movie. It starts well, it has great pacing and it buildsnicely, but then it grinds to a halt about midpoint and it never gets going again. The main premise of the movie remains unexplained: just what is a ghost and how does somebody hack into it? Are all humans cyborgs? Do they all have artificial bodies? Or just a few? On a deeper level, the script tries to touch on a more interesting problem: what exactly do humans feel, if you take away their body? Are they still humans? Or something else? Are they still capable of love and devotion? The music is great. The theme is haunting, it is surprising and quite stirring. It also complements very well the images on the screen. Ghost in the Shell has some of the best animation I've ever seen, and the character designs really fit the story. There are moments when the camera simply stops in place, lost in a long contemplation, as people go in and out of the picture. There is also the use of water as a mirror, reflecting the reality above, around and beyond it. The action scenes are well done, and during dialogues the camera has a way of focusing on the person who listens, not on the one who is talking, which may be confusing, at first, but then it becomes quite interesting. The camera moves a lot, and the director makes a point out of filling in the entire space around the characters. 20 years on after releasing, the art is still top notch and packs a punch. It might a bit dated by today's standards, maybe, but still very well done. The characters are interesting, and the surroundings are full of small, fine touches, of which some may seem like a little far-fetched, at first, but they all add to the atmosphere of the movie. The action sequences are also well done, but there's only a couple of them and they're short-lived. Then we're stuck with another long sequence of events which add-up to little. In the end, I come back asking myself just what is Ghost in the Shell? The answer to that is that it's a good action anime, that develops a midlife crisis.

In the year 1920, a Czech writer named Karel Čapek released a sci-fi play called R.U.R. (short for "Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti"). As you can tell from the title, this play introduced the world to the word robot. The play is about a robot uprising causing the extinction of the human race. The last act of the play tries to answer a simple question. Can a machine become human? The play was met with negative reception from critics, although that probably had more to do with the author's political leanings than the work itself. Either way, the play turned out to be a massive hit andits influence can be seen in sci-fi media to this day. Sci-fi as a whole has obviously changed over the years, yet to this day many authors try to tackle the same question Čapek did more then a hundered years ago. Ghost in the shell is one of these stories. With so many different books, plays, films, series, songs and video games insisting on exploring the exact same question, it must be a real head scratcher, right? Well no, not really. As you might have noticed by looking at my profile picture, I am a Christian. This is important, since from the Christian perspective, the obvious answer is "NO, it doesn't have a soul". You don't even have to be a Christian to arrive at the same conclusion. As long as your belief system includes some sort of spiritual element that makes us who we are, you are golden. You might counter this by saying that I didn't really answer the question, I just used my religious beliefs to dodge it. Alright, you might have a point there. So, for the sake of argument, let's assume that no such thing as a "soul" exists. The answer is once again obvious. NO, a machine by definition cannot be human. But since, as we already established, there is nothing special about us humans, the question becomes completely meaningless. A much better one to ask would be "Can a machine become conscious?". The answer to this depends on the setting, but it usually becomes blatantly obvious after the first five minutes. The robots in this story are either conscious or they are so good at faking it that they are completely indistinguishable from conscious beings. And at that point they would just be conscious *insert that Kaiki quote from Nisemonogatari*. Well, there you go, mystery solved. Now, contrary to what some of you might think, the purpose of my last paragraph wasn't to dunk on everyone with my huge fucking brain. In fact, most of the things I wrote didn't come from me and have been floating around for some time now. I wrote the whole thing to explain in detail that the story has absolutely nothing deep or philosophical about it. What it has is an illusion of depth that can be very easily dispelled just by thinking about it for a few minutes. But because online discourse, by its very nature, will always be dominated by midwits, most of the reviews on this site praise Ghots in the shell for exactly these qualities. What is even more frustrating than that is the fact that the movie manages to stumble upon an idea that would have made for a much better story. Early on, we find out that one of the minor villains had his memories changed. Now that's an interesting direction to take the story. This might be just me, but I am a sucker for stories that fuck with the characters memories. It introduces so much suspense, mystery and even some actually hard questions to tackle. Well, if you are looking for a story like that, I would highly recommend you watch Memento or read "There is no antimemetics division" because those stories actually do something with it. Here it gets immediately dropped. I honestly dont get it. Why would you introduce something this important and then never use it for anything? This is basic writing advice. The gun always has to go off, otherwise it shouldn't even be included in the story. And last but not least, we have the presentation. The presentation is the only reason I gave this movie a positive score. Sure, it has aged a bit and I have seen better looking shows over the years, but it still delivers when it needs to. Sadly, unlike Akira, Ghost in the shell cannot get by on animation alone and, as I already explained, the story is a meandering journey to answer a question you already know the answers to that came nearly a century too late to be innovative. What we are left with is a bloated mess with no meaning or message. If there is one thing I took away from watching this movie, it is that so called classics only rarely live up to their name. A lesson which I have already been taught too many times to count.