[ChristopherDAC]

Since it appears nobody else has done so, I thought I'd start this off with the capsule review I wrote for the Anime Discussion thread, based on my viewing the film last night at the Inwood theatre in Dallas.

CAPSULE REVIEW
The show was subtitled and presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 [or possibly DD-EX 6.1, the only sign in the theatre was for "Dolby Digital" so I can't be sure, but am fairly certin it was not dts or dts-es in any case]. Subtitles were plain white, with no borders, and tended to get lost in bright scenes. Interestingly, once something [there are recurring short lines of dialogue and Chinese inscriptions] had been subtitled, it was not subtitled upon repitition. Sound quality was excellent, and the mix made full use of the surround channels, including routing Kawai's music to them. New English credit sequences had been prepared, and there are plenty of credits. The Eirin [Japanese film censorship board] number was not in evidence. Family names were listed last, and this was a little bizarre when it rendered the well-known pseudonym of the creator as "Shirow Masamune". The whole chorus for the vocal BGM sequences [some of which are heavily referential to the original Ghost in the Shell score, but with interesting twists] is credited.
The film is largely comprehensible and rewarding without watching the original film first, but I do recommend it. The plot may be described as a straightforward [!] detective/police procedural centering on the characters of Batou and his new partner Togusa as they attempt to solve a string of bizarre homicides, interleaved with extended riffs on the nature of consciousness and humanity. The pacing strikes me as awkward, drawn out almost unbearably in some sequences and excessively rushed in others. There are some sequences which may be puzzling or simply insanely irritating

Spoiler:

such as the whole business with Kim and his nested illusions.

One thing to watch out for is that a huge fraction of the dialogue is quotes, aphorisms, and proverbs. There was a little of this present in the first film, but it feels like a good two thirds of this one's script is repitition or adaptation of carefully-chosen stock phrases, some of which are not obvious as such without a strong familiarity with Japanese, although Western material tends to be placed in quotation marks. Given the heavy reliance of Japanese language and society upon rote phrases, this is an aspect which fails somewhat to resonate with the foreign viewer. There is a great deal of violence, some of it of a plainly psychotic order, and quite disturbing.
The visuals are bizarre. Production I.G. has superimposed flat, coulour-unsaturated cel animation [or mock cel animation] of characters over hyperrealistic 3D video-game-style computer animation. Mecha designer Takeuchi [one of several old AIC hands on this production] has a real ball and creates some splendid items which must have been hell to render; watch out for the VTOL landing sequence. Personally I suspect this jarring juxtaposition to be one of director Oshii's pet conceits, meant to make a point about the unreality of the cyborg lives these people lead, or the Kantian ambiguity of sensory data [which shows up several times, in more or less sinister guises]. It did, however, detract somewhat from my enjoyment of the film, mostly by making it physically more difficult to watch.

All in all, it was worth the hour each way and $5.50 [student rate] admission to me, but might not be for everyone.

[Paul_Sjordal]

I'll probably catch this one in the theaters, but I am a little apprehensive in that the movie seems to have received mixed reviews from the critics.

RottenTomatoes: 57%

MetaCritic: 67%

[Tony_Ramos]

If you don't mind films that incorporate a lot of philosophy, or you can at least tolerate it until you get to the action, you will likely be amazed by the film.

Those who like to be challenged by movie's will find the movie to be quite thought provoking, although, much like Eastern Philosophy, the film asks more questions than it does provide answers.

As for how it compares to the first film, I found it larger in scope, but with a more intimate relatinship with the characters. It is slightly less intelligible philosophically. The basic plot is much more faithful to classic film noir. And the anime is even better than the first film.


Anime and sci-fi fans would be wise to see the film in a theater, before it gets grimy and faded. Judging from the lackluster DVD of the first Ghost, as well as more recent Miyazaki anime releases, it will likely be Hi Def DVD before we see another faithful representation of the films excellent visuals. The audio mix is somewhat lacking, however, with very rarely used surrounds.

[TheLongshot]

Quote:

I'll probably catch this one in the theaters, but I am a little apprehensive in that the movie seems to have received mixed reviews from the critics.

Doesn't surprise me. From the reviews I've read, it probably isn't for everyone. Some slowness and lots of philosophy about what defines life isn't for everyone. I'm not the biggest fan of the original, but I am looking forward to the new film.

Quote:

Anime and sci-fi fans would be wise to see the film in a theater, before it gets grimy and faded. Judging from the lackluster DVD of the first Ghost, as well as more recent Miyazaki anime releases, it will likely be Hi Def DVD before we see another faithful representation of the films excellent visuals.

Not sure why you say that, considering Manga and Disney respectively did those dvds (and the original GitS DVD was also one of the first anime DVDs to be released, so it is understandable if the transfer is lackluster). Dreamworks is distributing this one, and I thought they pretty good transfer with Millenium Actress.

Jason

[Tony_Ramos]

Jason, if you thoguht that the Miyazaki and previous GitS releases looked good, I don't know what to tell you. I can sight numerous faults with nearly any anime transfer out there, but if they didn't hinder your enjoyment then I'm glad.


Another problem with Innocence is that the philosophy borders on sophistry, like most anime. Apparently, Director Oshi only reads philosophers that ask questions and not those that have answered them. For instance, the film first asks the question, "do we exist," without noticing that asking the question disproves the premise. something has to exist in order to question its own existence.

The main philosophical question in the film is whether or not dogs and dolls are any different from humans, or even superior. Apparently, Mr. Oshi has not read any type of behavioral studies on animals which show that they do not notice the passage of time, and have very little creative thought. Mr. Oshi even concedes that animals and dolls are not self-aware through the character of Lin, and supposedly this is what makes them superior. In fact, most of science agrees that animals are governed by pure instinct with occasional emotion, while humans have been shown to be "hard-wired" for higher order thinking skills like language and imagination.

The film becomes slightly creepy when you realize that Mr. Oshi respects dolls nearly as much as other human life. Fortunately, the characters are somewhat more self-assured, and the ending has some emotional resonance. But it's Mr. Oshi's fondness for self-indulgent pseudo-philosophy that nearly derails the flim halfway through. The fact is, Innocence could have asked all these questions of the audience in much fewer self-important words.

[Chris Harvey]

I went to see it on a lark with a couple of friends -- I haven't seen the first one.

I was able to follow the general plot fairly easily, and picked up enough of the backstory from the first film to make sense of things (though I'm sure I missed some subtleties).

The initial post almost perfectly sums up how I felt about it: I'm glad I saw it, and there are some insanely wonderful visuals and sequels, but also stuff (the Kim bits) that seem practically designed to annoy the audience to frustration.

The philosophical quoting and endless musing also got old pretty fast. IMHO the Yakuza fight was the highlight of the film, not only for how it was staged but also because Batou just switched off his brooding, musing mode and went into crowd-pleasing kick-ass action. Given how it played out, I kept expecting him to respond to some of the later Kim musings with a wise-crack or something... but no.

My friends, who enjoyed the first GITS, absolutely hated this. With no prior knowledge, I liked it.... to a point.

[TheLongshot]

Quote:

Jason, if you thoguht that the Miyazaki and previous GitS releases looked good, I don't know what to tell you. I can sight numerous faults with nearly any anime transfer out there, but if they didn't hinder your enjoyment then I'm glad.

Tony, did you actually read what I wrote? I didn't say anything about the quality of those DVDs, but said that GitS 2 is owned by a different company, so I don't think those comparisons are fair. It is also not fair to assume that Dreamworks will do a poor job with the DVD transfer.

Course, often those things are out of the hands of US distributors, since they usually use whatever they get handed by Japanese distributors, tho I expect better from newer stuff.

Jason

[Tony_Ramos]

Sorry Jason, I thought that you were defending Disney's transfers on the miyazaki films. they nearly butchered them. They added a red cast to the films, added John Lasseter's intro integrated into the film, didn't clean up enough grime, used excessive filtering, etc etc.

[Jason Seaver]

¾

Mamoru Oshii has ideas. They're not his ideas alone, and he's probably a bit behind the Vernor Vinges and Charles Strosses of the world, but Oshii's ideas are grander and more interesting than most of what passes for science fiction in film today. He also has a real talent for bringing the pretty; there are several segments of Innocence that are gorgeous enough to make one wonder why he would ever have been interested in the limitations of live action. What Oshii doesn't have in abundance is the ability to put these ideas and visuals together so that they are not only interesting, but entertaining.

Take the dialogue. I will forgive a movie like Innocence, which takes place in a future world where technology has transformed many aspects of everyday life, if it is rife with exposition. When that happens, the story is at least supplying you with ideas. Here, though, the audience gets most of the background of the world explained to them with a few screenfuls of text in the opening (which should suffice even if this is one's first exposure to the franchise). What's frustrating about the dialogue is how much of it seems to be quotations, and how many of those quotations are oblique and metaphorical. Aside from how constantly putting someone else's words into the characters' mouths deprives them of having their own voices, I have to wonder whether the passages are common in Japan. After all, I'm reading subtitles so I can see the quotation marks; would a native Japanese speaker just think they were talking nonsense? Not that the "original" dialogue is much better; it varies between the utilitarian and the cliché.

The story isn't quite as ambitious as the world it's set in - there's been a recent spate of "dolls" (robots with the appearance of humans) killing their owners, in direct contravention of safeguards modeled on Asimov's Three Laws; investigators Batou and Togusa are assigned to the case. The "ghost" or soul of Batou's old partner had disappeared into the net after her body parts were all replaced with synthetics and her mind was augmented with an "E-brain" (which is common); Batou is more cyborg than man now, and the elite force has assigned family man Togusa as a partner in part to monitor him. The investigation involves shooting at some yakuza and the heading to the gigantic (but run-down) city where the dolls' manufacturer is headquartered.

After a long time holding out, Japan seems to be embracing CGI - almost all of Innocence's backgrounds and vehicles seem to be digitally rendered, while human/cyborg/doll (and canine) characters are primarily hand-drawn. The mix is often distracting, as the characters frequently seem to be lit differently than their environments; sometimes a character's gait doesn't match how quickly they move through a hallway. There are scattered shots that just seem to be showing off, such as an eagle flying close to the camera so that we can see just how much detail was used in rendering its eyes and feathers. The thing is, it doesn't match the rest of the living things we see.

There are some moments of great character animation, however. Batou's dog is an adorable bassett hound who steals every scene he appears in and buries them in the back yard; if there were an Oscar for "best animated character", the dog would win it hands down. There's a great, tense scene in a convenience store, and a couple of wonderful bits at the end which make up for a lot of the frantic (but relatively unexciting) combat that surrounds them. Oshii also does perhaps the best job in memory of visualizing cyberspace and making a scene that involves hacking suspenseful and active.

Science fiction has been called the literature of ideas, and Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence is richer in ideas and images than any two or three recent science fiction movies combined. If it had perhaps spent a little less time ruminating on and philosophizing about these ideas and more time actually exploring them, it could have been one of the year's best movies.

[Tony_Ramos]

Couldn't agree more Jason. well done!