Forum - View topicREVIEW: Ghost In The Shell: The New Movie
|
Goto page Previous 1, 2 Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Videogamep
 Posts: 564 Location: CA |
|
|||||
I've only seen the first two OVAs, but it seems like SAC Motoko is what Arise Motoko would be with more experience and a bit of mellowing. The core character is the same, but Arise Motoko is just younger and more hotheaded. |
||||||
|
||||||
Spore_777_Mexen
 Posts: 18 |
|
|||||
|
Yet to see it but I'm not the biggest Arise fan so I was always gonna go into the review (and the movie) with some scepticism and lowered expectations.
It reads like a fair review. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
Martin G.
Posts: 26 Location: Germany |
|
|||||
|
The A-rating in the Art-department is imo not justifiable. Yes, animation is smooth and the backgrounds are full of details but the whole visuals lack style. There is almost no memorable image in the whole Arise-franchise, neither in the OVAs nor in the movie (that looks almost the same as the OVAs). The banal and sterile look becomes especially obvious in the scenes that pay tribute to (or are ripped off from) the 1995 movie.
But it's not only the presentation that didn't excite me, it's the script. The story isn't that bad but it's lousily told and because of the fragmantary narrative it's quite a bit of work to follow the plot. I am not convinced I really got the final revelation. The action scenes are great, though, and I enjoyed the younger, harsher Kusanagi character. But if I compare the Arise series (OVAs and movie) to the Psycho-Pass series (TV and movie) the former just seems generic and confusing. |
||||||
|
||||||
gwdone
 Posts: 272 |
|
|||||
|
I have no issues at all with any Ghost In The Shell being on big screen. The music nor visuals of anime out there has never been able to top Ghost In The Shell - Innocence in my opinion. The production and continued haunting musical theme from the original Ghost In The Shell movie by Kenji Kawai that appears as a continuing theme in Innocence is set in stone as my favorite of all time both musically and visually.
Being an owner of all the Arise that's out there, both Japanese and English releases, I just kicked back in the theater and let myself melt right into the movie with no regrets. Anime that makes it to the big screen with the quality of the Arise production, even though it's not Innocence quality, sure beats the snot out of anything coming out of Hollybore. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
SHD
Posts: 1757 |
|
|||||
Pssst - it's "Motoko". I found the Arise OVA immensely disappointing (I haven't even watched the TV series), so I'm not sure if I should watch this movie. I came to know the GitS franchise with the first Oshii movie, which I loved*; then I read the manga that I also loved; then I met Stand Alone Complex which blew everything out of the water, it was so good. Compared to either of these, especially SAC, Arise was incredibly lackluster, featuring a strangely uncharismatic Motoko. *(I watched Innocence, too, but frankly I thought it was too overwrought in many ways to be actually interesting and enjoyable.) |
||||||
|
||||||
TarsTarkas
 Posts: 5912 Location: Virginia, United States |
|
|||||
|
Well, wasn't very happy with Arise's new character designs. So I have avoided watching it. The review and comments about the technical merits seem to warrant giving Arise a chance. Are the character designs better than the Arise TV show?
|
||||||
|
||||||
|
Martin G.
Posts: 26 Location: Germany |
|
|||||
No, they are the same. |
||||||
|
||||||
nobahn
 Subscriber Posts: 5135 |
|
|||||
"[A] big smile on her face"? Really?! I don't recall her being that way at ALL in either season of SAC. (Well, OK: There was that one time when she hacked Batou's body to punch his face, but that was IT.) |
||||||
|
||||||
|
DangerMouse
Posts: 3991 |
|
|||||
Yup. |
||||||
|
||||||
CoreSignal
 Posts: 727 Location: California, USA |
|
|||||
I attribute some of this to Ubukata. I'm fine with Ubukata going for the younger Motoko-angle but the problem is that I don't think Ubukata is a good enough writer to pull it off. As a result, his depiction of younger Motoko is mediocre at best. "Workmanlike" is a pretty good description of Arise as a whole. Again, I think it's a solid effort and I would still recommend the Arise series but this movie and Arise in general are definitely the weakest of the GITS anime adaptations. That said, GITS is such a strong franchise that even a merely average GITS anime is still better than the majority of sci-fi anime out there.
Agreed. #847198 is exaggerating here. Motoko is even more of a hardened soldier in SAC and I have no idea where #847198 got the impression that she's smiling all the time in SAC. |
||||||
|
||||||
Gatherum
 Posts: 773 Location: Aurora CO |
|
|||||
|
Arise is what Ghost in the Shell is when it's allowed a bit of breathing room to afford smiles. I go with the majority in proclaiming the monumental success of Stand Alone Complex over everything else, GitS or otherwise, as a fascinating, intricate plot that asks and attempts to answer hypothetical questions that could very well become relevant in the next several decades. Still, S.A.C.'s tried-and-true drawback was always in its characterisation and character development. Almost all the primary members of its cast, to include Motoko herself, are essentially cold caricatures of the philosophical/political thriller genre. In S.A.C.'s case, this works just fine because the overarching plot and themes are just so fascinating, but I don't think any writer would have been able to get away with repeating it unless it was a 3rd GIG.
Arise works, if not as spectacularly, because it is so different from S.A.C. and is not trying so obviously to be so high-concept (though it does still succeed at being that, as well). By characterising the Major as younger, more impulsive, more hotheaded, and with less experience to match her level of skill, the writers were given more opportunities to inject some personality into the other members of her squad, even if most of it is reactionary to her own. Not only that, but Arise is an action thriller, through-and-through: it gives us enough geo-political jargon to give us a backdrop, or at least the feeling that the state is as complex an entity as the average viewer would assume, but overall, more attention was given to putting the thrill in the thriller than spending ten minutes of runtime cutting between the members of Section 9 conversing about politics. It sounds like I'm being more critical of S.A.C. than I am. I'm not; it still sits up there, eternally duking it out with Ergo Proxy for the position of my favourite show ever. Unfortunately, though, it's hard to show it to your friends who aren't nearly as invested as you are in the hypothetical inner workings of the Japanese Ministry, the concepts of mind-uploading and second-order simulacra, and the like. Know what I mean? People are turned off when faced with something they know is more consumable by the masses, but in this case, it's still pretty damn good. At the very least, you can see why this wasn't made to be another S.A.C. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
gwdone
Posts: 272 |
|
|||||
What a good summery of the situation!! I sure loved Ergo Proxy, thanks for the reminder. I'm going to have to grab that from my shelves and watch it again for the 3rd time or so. I just simply can't complain about any GITS. I love them all and am a proud owner of them as well. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- nobahn Wrote:
My bad. I'm not used to forums. 
{Merged serial posts. ~nobahn} |
||||||
|
||||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group