I love "Ghost in the Shell." I've always loved "Ghost in the Shell." It hit theaters right as I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life after graduating from school. I caught it during its original American arthouse run, and when I did a month-long, unpaid stint as an intern at Manga Entertainment in 1996, spirits were high from it having hit number one on the Billboard video charts -- unheard of for an anime at the time. It was seen as the next big thing and represents the first time an anime designed for adults really went mainstream in the 'States. Memories of the film are deeply entwined with My Youth in Suburbia, so it was with bated breath that I awaited a polished and tweaked re-release: "Ghost in the Shell 2.0," which opened in Tokyo last Saturday.
You know the story, so I'll cut to the chase. Described by Production I.G. as a "complete cut and total renewal," the tone is set right in the iconic opening scene: now Kusanagi's trademark nude backflip assassination routine has been totally replaced by 3D CG animation. Any scene that featured computer graphics in the original has been totally redone as well. The sound design is new, with a crisply remastered soundtrack and completely new sound effects, both courtesy of Skywalker Studios. And there's a host of other tiny visual and audio tweaks here and there. The sights on the end of the snipers' rifles no longer blink with artificial eyelids, but feature winking laser beams; the aircraft have been replaced with CG rendered vehicles; and the Puppet Master is now, somewhat inexplicably, voiced by a young woman (if you recall, it was a guy in the original version). The last in particular I really don't get: the shock of hearing a middle aged man's voice come from a young female body highlighted one of the main themes of the film -- that the body is essentially a throwaway receptacle for consciousness -- and you kind of lose that whole angle with a female voice. I would be really, really curious to hear the official reasoning behind this change.
Here's the deal: I've never been a big fan of revising old films. I can understand a remake, or a "director's cut," but not the drive to try and make a ten year old film look like it rolled out of the studio last week. It seems like an endless, uphill sort of battle; any CG effects you replace are going to look equally dated ten years down the line. (Even now, the visual gap between twenty-first century CG and early Nineties cel art is readily apparent -- the transitions, particularly at first, are more than a little jarring.) And speaking as someone who actually enjoys experiencing older films as products of the times in which they were created, the new soundtrack/special effects don't really appreciably improve the experience for me.
Still, I can't bring myself to dislike the film. Even if you don't like the changes, there's plenty to enjoy, and seeing it on the big screen again was a trip. I just wish they'd gone for the subtle approach...!
holy cow! I have been away from anime too long. I didn't even know they were doing this! don't know how I feel about Lucas-type revisitations to the original GITS. It works for the Star Trek 60s old shows SFX as a novelty but seems like it would be distracting with GITS...
hmm...looking forward to the domestic release.
Posted by: ChrisM | July 28, 2008 at 11:34 AM