Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (most assuredly spoilers)

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Crowley
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Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (most assuredly spoilers)

Post by Crowley »

Hopefully there are more people than just Artemio who can discuss this. The following rant is rife with sarcasm which tends to be a bad idea in purely written form.

I saw Innocence about a month ago and I wasn't impressed. Where to start... First of all the plot was very simple. "Androids are killing people. They aren't supposed to be able to do that. Oh, someone ghosthacked one of the investigators. Good thing too since they weren't getting anywhere. Let's track down the hacker and squeeze out the information. Ok, they're operating from a ship on international waters. Let's stop it. So they were making copies of human ghosts and imprinting them on androids." Um, who exactly were those guys and why were they killing those people?

Ok, maybe the plot was just an excuse to explore some deep thoughts. Very little of those here. That lady who inspected the android gave a weird monology about analogies between androids and human offsprings and so on... Batou and Togusa having conversations where they quote something at every opportunity (if I had a brain wired like that I would probably find better uses for it) which ends up unnecessarily cluttering the conversations.

And good God, why does everyone appear to be so completely apathetic, serious and depressed in this movie? The problem being that seems to be pretty much the entire spectrum of emotions anybody seems to have with absolutely no balancing opposites. Stand Alone Complex had some Philip K. Dick -style elements of machines being more human than humans. Something similar would've been needed here.

The ghosthacking sequences were cool, though. It would've been nice to extrapolate a little more on what exactly it means to have your brain connected to the future equivalent of internet at all times. Now it was just taken with the attitude "Meh, shit happens." What exactly are the benefits of that which outweigh such hazards? One the other hand, it is interesting to see a cybepunk world which doesn't preach about the "inhumanising effect" of having metal replacements to your body parts.

Overall the movie felt too long in proportion to the content it had. There were many of those silent (or rather not-talking) scenes showing some incredible computer-generated scenery. Problem was most of it felt out-of-place and empty. The scene showing Batou at his home worked well, and that was pretty much the only one. When Batou and Togusa were entering the hacker's (forgot the name) house, I couldn't help thinking "Who the hell would build something like that? Why? When was that built?"

Much less of Major Kusanagi here than I expected, but that isn't really a problem for me. Or maybe it wouldn't be if Innocence had more merits of it's own on which to stand on. As it is, the whole thing felt more elongated and pointless than David Lynch at his worst.
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Re: Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (most assuredly spoilers

Post by ReasonWhyNot »

Crowley wrote:First of all the plot was very simple. "Androids are killing people. They aren't supposed to be able to do that. Oh, someone ghosthacked one of the investigators. Good thing too since they weren't getting anywhere. Let's track down the hacker and squeeze out the information. Ok, they're operating from a ship on international waters. Let's stop it. So they were making copies of human ghosts and imprinting them on androids."
Still much better than that Will Smith film that followed the same premise of robots who attack people because they start to develop a mind of their own. It's a shame too, because I loved Alex Proyas' previous film Dark City. The Crow wasn't bad either.
Last edited by ReasonWhyNot on Fri Jun 24, 2005 11:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Artemio »

I've only seen the Japanese release (in theaters while at Tokyo and in DVD, and I must add that the DTS disc is the disc with most quality I've seen and heard in my entire life)

I've got high hopes on it, and what I know has not deceptioned me in any way. I will post in three days, when I've seen the American DVD (which by the ways sucks big time in packaging, art, and probably video qualitry).

I'll comment then.
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Post by FDIS »

I saw this a few days after it was released, and missed the opening. definitly wasn't as good as the first. the whole "every other sentence is a quote" was certainly not needed. the movie did LOOK very good, and i think i kinda liked that whole repeating sequence thing. over all it was a pretty good film (better than I, Robot just for not having will smith).
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Post by ReasonWhyNot »

Snatcher wrote:I've only seen the Japanese release (in theaters while at Tokyo and in DVD, and I must add that the DTS disc is the disc with most quality I've seen and heard in my entire life)

I've got high hopes on it, and what I know has not deceptioned me in any way. I will post in three days, when I've seen the American DVD (which by the ways sucks big time in packaging, art, and probably video qualitry).
It wasn't that bad. The packaging was garbage, but I don't really care about any of that. My biggest complaint is that they captioned all the sounds in the film on their ugly, yellow subtitles. Since the Japanese vocal track is the only language you can listen to, you have no choice but to use those subs (unless you understand Japanese). That's pretty shitty.
Last edited by ReasonWhyNot on Fri Jun 24, 2005 11:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Artemio »

I really prefer subtitled work over dubs; you might call me a purist there. It might be that I am used to it, and I rather listen to the original language (even so that I am Mexican, and the best dubs in the world are made here... along great subtitles).

I watched the movie last night, and I must say I really enjoyed it very much. I had already seen it twice in Japanese, and had an idea of the story... It turned out to be way simpler than I imagine in the surface, in the normal level. And I believe that was a great choice.

Indeed the simple plot was not something I expected, but was welcome since I believe that the real attractive of the movie is all its symbolism, the quotes and the possibilities it leaves open. GITS has never been a work that concludes, especially when treated by Oshii, it is a work that opens doors and leaves them open.

Regarding Motoko, I believe that the appearance at the level it happened was excellent, and it happened just the way it needed to.

I do feel that the movie does some serious questioning and that the quotes fit greatly to give you a deeper idea of what is happening, they are there to go as deep as you want investigating them, and all the references... not needed to understand the main plot, but needed to go deeper into the subjects.

I felt it go quite fast, and Oshii always uses those silent pauses for you to reflect or simply feel what is happening, that is classical Oshii (from the Patlabor movies, to Avalon, to GITS, etc).

I've always loved that.

I'll watch the movie a couple more times, the commentary and later on the Japanese extra DVDs (the four of them I'll see what I can understand =P)

Now regarding the quality... I can't believe how much the packaging sucks =) I think it is a trend of Oshii and Kojima for their American packaging to be bad this past year... though Innocence went all the way in this.

About the quality, video was above what I expected for the American release... around 3/4 of the quality in the Japanese special edition disc. It is around 3-7 mbps during the whole film, though the Japanese se one is always above 7 mbps... the audio, well, it is the original Japanese DD 5.1 track, but the DTS one just blows that one away, no comparison in quality there, though If you never listen to the DTS one, you'll live forever happy with the DD one though, it is a good audio track but not as high in quality.. A shame they decided to go on a single disc release, but understandable.

(and yes, the subtitle work is abd in the dvd, more irritating than bad I must say.,. since sometimes they are not corerctly timed, and it is not only a subtitle track it has some sound effects as earlier pointed)
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Post by ReasonWhyNot »

I'm with you completely. I'm a purist as well and I'm usually against dubbed tracks.
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