|
I know this can be kind of hard to understand, but i am undecided whether her body is canonically caucasian or japanese. That means i am not perfectly sure whether there is a strong case that she should've been played by a caucasian, or whether she should've been played by a japanese. I also did no such thing as acknowledge that there is a strong case, since i don't see such a thing. A strong case for me would be Masamune Shirow saying "her body was XYZ", but the closest he's come to expressing an opinion about it was when he said regarding her body "it's a mass production outerior intended to not draw attention, with a lot of mods inside". He doesn't even come close to adressing ethnicity, just whether it looks distinctive or not. If you are absolutely certain that The Major must have a japanese body, then you must know something i don't and should share your knowledge. Now, as to the white-washing of the other cast, the city and its population, that's absolutely a thing and shouldn't have happened.
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 16:34
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 15, 2024 16:06 |
|
|
K. Waste posted:Major's over-identification with the title of Major is because her 'personal identity' is literally indistinguishable from her geopolitical function, which is to keep the contemporary globalist regime in power and to cover up whenever it inevitably turns inward against itself. She herself doesn't know where Motoko ended, and Mira ended, and Major began. It's cult/brain-washing imagery, like a cyberpunk Martha Marcy Mae Marlene. This is much closer to how I read it than reading the Major as a revolutionary figure subverting (e: reclaiming?) a position of authority. On the other hand, I thought maybe I was being unduly influenced by my familiarity with other Ghost in the Shell media (where she's pretty much just a government enforcer who, as you say, is more about keeping the state in power against its own rogue elements and the occasional activist-terrorist than anything else.) Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 16:55 on Apr 5, 2017 |
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 16:38
|
|
|
Olympic Mathlete posted:the only thing I'm interested in is Batou's car which is a futuristic modified Lotus Esprit from the 80s... Mithaldu posted:If you are absolutely certain that The Major must have a japanese body, then you must know something i don't and should share your knowledge. If you go by SAC, then she received a cyberbody prosthesis as a child due to disease or injury, so she's not really had a self-image to project on to her adult body (and likely a generic model suits her purposes anyway since it's already a fortune to upkeep). Shirow's comment about the quality of the body is correct in its dodge about ethnic identity. FilthyImp fucked around with this message at 17:08 on Apr 5, 2017 |
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 16:59
|
|
|
Junior Jr. posted:Recently, we're seeing a lot of popular movie stars who are specifically white and black, so there aren't many asians to look up to, the only new ones I can recall are Karen Fukuhara from Suicide Squad, and Tao Okamoto and Rila Fukushima from The Wolverine. But they haven't yet reached the same amount of fame as Scarlett Johansson.. Speaking of Rila Fukushima, there was much fanfare last year about being cast in the movie, but it turns out she was only used for her likeness in modeling the robot geishas. Even her role was done by white actresses with her face.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 17:15
|
|
|
That's hosed up.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 17:17
|
|
|
Young Freud posted:Speaking of Rila Fukushima, there was much fanfare last year about being cast in the movie, but it turns out she was only used for her likeness in modeling the robot geishas. Even her role was done by white actresses with her face. Guys, help, actual cyberpunk capitalism and all its horrific flaws is eating fictional cyberpunk capitalism and all its horrific flaws.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 17:20
|
|
|
FilthyImp posted:I know it's not a popular opinion, but I love the gently caress out of those angular 80s cars. Especially the ones with pop-up headlights. Wedge car trend started in 1968 with the Alfa Romeo Carabo (which is glorious) and carried on well into the 80s. My car is from 1988 and has pop up headlights, they're the coolest thing. I pulled up to park on a street and a little lad was staring at the car, I flicked the headlights up and he lost his poo poo, jaw dropped, hands on head...  Wedge cars and pop ups are forever cool.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 17:34
|
|
|
Mithaldu posted:I know this can be kind of hard to understand, but i am undecided whether her body is canonically caucasian or japanese. They got ScarJo to play the lead role. And the movie went to weird lengths to justify the choice.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 17:39
|
|
|
Echo Chamber posted:What is and isn't canon doesn't change the main problem.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 17:57
|
|
|
Tuxedo Catfish posted:Guys, help, actual cyberpunk capitalism and all its horrific flaws is eating fictional cyberpunk capitalism and all its horrific flaws. Exactly: the film is a perfect overlapping of form and function. They speak directly the audience and say "the patriarchal corporation made Motoko white because they consider it more marketable." The irony the film is that people ITT have bought entirely into the corporate logic and are now arguing that 'authentic' Japanese identity is superior because it's even more marketable - literally that the movie would have made more money with an authentic Japanese on the posters. In this view, Cutter was bad not because he was using billions of tax dollars to vicisect people for profit, but because he failed to make enough profit for his shareholders. He was not exploitative enough - he did not 'Think Different". Cutter's sneering racism is unfashionable, and so his Caucasian deathbots were left in the dust by the burgeoning Japanese-Looking Fucktoy industry. gohmak posted:Don't discount that this movie was based on a cartoon with [Japanese] tits and [Japanese] blood and failed to deliver on both accounts. Geishabots are "natural", whereas Mira is an unnatural outsider who does look or behave like a true Japanese. Even actress Kaori Momoi lacks the Japanese essence, does not display the correct Japanese emotions. How can she love this monster?
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 18:02
|
|
|
On thing that I did like about casting in this movie was that they did make Section 9 pretty diverse. I'm not saying this excuses or negates the whitewashing issue. I'm just saying I liked that the cast was a variety of ethnicities. Somewhat related, while it was filmed in Hong Kong, and looked like Hong Kong, they never name the city, or nation, that the movie takes place in. I listened real close on my second viewing. Which reminds me of the 95 film.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 18:09
|
|
|
Mithaldu posted:Then i think you need to explain what constitutes white-washing as you understand it, because i can't imagine what form it takes in your mind, and the things you're saying clash with any explanation i've heard yet. But by this movie's own logic, ScarJo is playing an asian woman. Even if they obscured that or went with a different plot twist, it still would have been whitewashing if it was still ScarJo playing the main character.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 18:11
|
|
|
I mean, Scarlett Johannson is playing a mechanical avatar of Justice (or possibly The State) who disavows her Japanese identity because (she says) it doesn't matter and she's totally alienated from it anyways. The scene where she meets her "mother" is awkward and rigid and she's visibly uncomfortable by the idea that she reminds this stranger of her daughter, while she fights and makes up with her unethical but emotionally involved corporate scientist mother (who is white, incidentally) in a very familial way. This is somewhat at odds with the way she reaches out to Kuze, but that's also partly because he's the only experience in the world similar to hers (and she ultimately rejects the option of taking his path anyways.)
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 18:15
|
|
|
So your personal definition of white-washing in film is what?
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 18:17
|
|
|
Snak posted:Somewhat related, while it was filmed in Hong Kong, and looked like Hong Kong, they never name the city, or nation, that the movie takes place in. I listened real close on my second viewing. Which reminds me of the 95 film. If that is true, I'd love to know what the writer's original intent was. If it was really supposed to take place in a futuristic diverse city, does that justify why everyone can understand each other's languages fluently without having the 'chinese room' feeling, and why somehow a western prosthetic body and likeness are considered a fantasy or an aspiration?
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 18:21
|
|
|
Echo Chamber posted:The movie decides what is and isn't canon. It's not always the best way to go if you want to decide whether something is and isn't whitewashed. By this movie's own logic, Scarlett Johansson is playing a character who is lead to believe she's an American refugee(???) and put in a body that looks like one. I straight-up agree that an American adaption of Ghost in the Shell with a white lead is whitewashing. Because when your lead character is Motoko Kusanagi and you cast a white person to play that role, it's whitewashing. Open and shut. I don't think we're actually disagreeing at all, I just don't understand what you mean by saying "the movie decides what is and isn't canon". If this wasn't an adaption of a property with a non-white lead, it wouldn't be whitewashing. Right? So the fact that Major is canonically Japanese is what makes Johansson's casting, and the writing changes that were made, whitewashing.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 18:28
|
|
|
Snak posted:when your lead character is Motoko Kusanagi and you cast a white person to play that role, it's whitewashing. Open and shut.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 18:34
|
|
|
Mithaldu posted:Body, or voice? Unless there's some kind of loving concrete proof somewhere that it's canon that Motoko Kusanagi, for some reason, has a white-person body, it doesn't matter. Since it's never come up in all the hours of tedious exposition in the GitS franchise that "oh by the way, Kusanagi doesn't look Japanese", there's literally no reason she wouldn't be. So when you take a character that has every reasonable expectation of being Japanese and make an adaption where they aren't, that seems like whitewashing. edit: ^ The way you are placing the burden of proof is literally a form of whitewashing "but no one said she can't be white!" edit: v cool 
Snak fucked around with this message at 18:39 on Apr 5, 2017 |
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 18:37
|
|
|
Snak posted:By this movie's own logic, Scarlett Johansson is playing a character who is lead to believe she's an American refugee(???) and put in a body that looks like one. But at the same time, GITS is one of those "what more proof do you need" examples of whitewashing. The people who made the movie still made specific decisions that led to the final product. I'm trying to talk about the micro, while acknowledging the macro problem also exists.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 18:38
|
|
|
Snak posted:Unless there's some kind of loving concrete proof somewhere that it's canon that Motoko Kusanagi, for some reason, has a white-person body, it doesn't matter. Since it's never come up in all the hours of tedious exposition in the GitS franchise that "oh by the way, Kusanagi doesn't look Japanese", there's literally no reason she wouldn't be. So when you take a character that has every reasonable expectation of being Japanese and make an adaption where they aren't, that seems like whitewashing. I'm not saying these are proof that she's intended to be caucasian, but rather it looks more like Shirow doesn't give a drat and lore-wise either choice is valid. Snak posted:edit: ^ The way you are placing the burden of proof is literally a form of whitewashing "but no one said she can't be white!" Mithaldu fucked around with this message at 18:43 on Apr 5, 2017 |
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 18:39
|
|
|
Despite being an old person now, Scarlett Johansson is very attractive
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 18:41
|
|
|
Mithaldu posted:See, the thing is, there's tenuous evidence that she does not look japanese. Shirow said she has a mass-produced outerior that is intended to not draw intention, and in 1995 she is shown next to a caucasian body and looks identical aside from color details. (I saw your edit) If you mean the Pupper Master (who is the only female body in the movie I would say is definitely Caucasian), I think it's really funny that you say "identical aside from color details". Since those color details are that the puppet master is super pale and blonde. quote:I'm not saying these are proof that she's intended to be caucasian, but rather it looks more like Shirow doesn't give a drat and lore-wise either choice is valid. I actually agree that lore-wise, either choice is valid. But whitewashing isn't about lore. It's about artists. Asian-Americans are significantly under-represented in the hollywood A list. And, that's not one person's fault. Many lead roles don't specify race (sure, plenty do if ethnic issues are part of the plot, but that's not what we're talking about), but there are assumptions. Default expectations. So when you take a role that heavily implies an ethnicity, and then you cast a white person instead and adapt the script to rationalize it, that's still whitewashing. It doesn't matter if there's "reasonable doubt" as to the character's canonical appearance.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 18:50
|
|
|
Snak posted:Since those color details are that the puppet master is super pale and blonde.  Possibly the movie just made all female characters look indistinct of shape and similar, but my memory isn't good enough to remember any other women in gits. Can you think of any? Snak posted:when you take a role that heavily implies an ethnicity
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 19:01
|
|
|
In Arise she's clearly more defined as a Japanese person than other iterations. However, to see this you'd have to watch Arise. Also in the original manga she's more 'feminine'.  That's :Original Appearance, 95 movie, Man Machine Interface (manga), Stand Alone Complex, Innocence (movie), Solid State Society (sequel to SAC), and Arise. I like the design of Motoko for Arise but that's about it. frank.club fucked around with this message at 19:32 on Apr 5, 2017 |
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 19:22
|
|
|
frank.club posted:In Arise she's clearly more defined as a Japanese person than other iterations. However, to see this you'd have to watch Arise. DON'T DO IT!!!!! edit: Just to wrap up everything I have to say about this: It's not like a boycotted the movie. I think Johansson did a good job, and I really liked Pilou Asbæk's Batou. At the same time, I think it's a shame that this perfect opportunity for Asian-American actors and actresses wasn't. Beat Takeshi was awesome as always. Chin Han was great for his whole 30 seconds of screen time. edit2: ^ As pointed out in the reddit thread, Arise Motoko is about a foot too tall in that. She should literally be the height of the child body from Innocence. Snak fucked around with this message at 19:29 on Apr 5, 2017 |
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 19:25
|
|
|
This movie would've been a lot less awful had it not tried to anticipate being called out for white washing or whatever. It really hinders the plot once you realize the crux of it is built around that. Also, one of the strengths of the franchise to me is that each iteration is pretty unique- aside from the first and second manga having a similar tone. You're going to find a very different Motoko from each- in goals, personality, or audience interpretation. It's what's so frustrating about 2017 GiTS. It tries to pander to an audience who knows the old movie, which is dumb because if I want to see scenes of the old movie I can just watch it instead, and makes little to no effort in developing itself. frank.club fucked around with this message at 19:37 on Apr 5, 2017 |
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 19:30
|
|
|
frank.club posted:This movie would've been a lot less awful had it not tried to anticipate being called out for white washing or whatever. It really hinders the plot once you realize the crux of it is built around that. They could have also actually just... done anything with that plot. Made it the main plot, a story about identity. The main plot beats of this story are straight from RoboCop, except that both versions of RoboCop actually devote asstons of screentime to exploring what identity means and how or whether it can be taken from you. This movie just kinda... says "it's so sad ur a victim of identity theft" "Oh yes, it is sad" *Shoots a bunch of people* "My name is Major and I'm over it".
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 19:35
|
|
|
Snak posted:DON'T DO IT!!!!! Snak posted:I think it's a shame that this perfect opportunity for Asian-American actors and actresses wasn't. E: Wanna see a GITS adaptation that goes the way of the best movie i know: The Man From Earth
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 19:37
|
|
|
I could have gotten over how the Major looks in Arise, but not how she acts. She's a petulant child. After the first episode, I thought "wow, it's gonna be a ride seeing how this childish brat grows up into the hardcore professional Major we know and love" and then SURPRISE: She doesn't. She's just immature for the entire series.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 19:41
|
|
|
Yeah it's not great. Also, I was making sure that blonde Motoko was right from the second manga. And there's eye-searing early 90's CG rendering in almost every page lmao. See even 'classic' GitS can be sub par guys
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 19:44
|
|
|
The manga is honestly not very good. The 1995 movie is great, the show is great. The show's version of Kusanagi, as a character, is my favorite of all of them. She has a combination of confidence and curiousity that makes her encounters with adversaries such as the Laughing Man and The Individual Eleven/Hideo Kuze into these really cool journeys of personal enrichment. Which is part of her character in the 95 film as well, obviously, from how it ends, but SAC is necessarily different from the film.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 19:48
|
|
|
You all assume that the lesson Hollywood will learn is to recast it to the original culture when the far more likely scenario by historical evidence is just to adapt the story into a western setting with western characters ala "The Magnificent Seven" and a thousand other foreign films.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 19:58
|
|
|
Lol nobody expects anyone to learn any kind of lesson from this.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 19:59
|
|
|
What is the moral status of all these adaptations done over the years?
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 19:59
|
|
|
I don't think I've made any claims that "hollywood" is going to learn poo poo. I'm almost certain they won't.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 20:01
|
|
|
Snak posted:They could have also actually just... done anything with that plot. Made it the main plot, a story about identity. The main plot beats of this story are straight from RoboCop, except that both versions of RoboCop actually devote asstons of screentime to exploring what identity means and how or whether it can be taken from you. This movie just kinda... says "it's so sad ur a victim of identity theft" "Oh yes, it is sad" *Shoots a bunch of people* "My name is Major and I'm over it". Does Robocop have a bunch of scenes to that? It's been a while since I've seen the original, but I don't remember much dedicated to what identity means. I recall the part where the his partner tells him who he was, then he suddenly starts remembering his life, they talk about memories when Robocop is banged up, and then the bit at the end where he says his name is Murphy. There are OCP scenes where they talk about how he's a machine, not a man, but there are tons of scenes like that in GITS too (basically every single scene with Cutter), so I don't know if I can give points to Robocop for those. I saw the remake while super drunk so I couldn't speak to whether it had a bunch of scenes on the nature of identity.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 20:01
|
|
|
Alan_Shore posted:I dunno, I think "my consciousness was uploaded into a cyber brain, am I still me? Am I still human? What even is being human?" is more interesting than "Who am I? I don't remember, oh wait now I do." Also fucks up what Id means. It's the worst kind of McKee mediocre story writing, slotting everything into preordained holes.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 20:17
|
|
|
Zodiac5000 posted:Does Robocop have a bunch of scenes to that? It's been a while since I've seen the original, but I don't remember much dedicated to what identity means. I recall the part where the his partner tells him who he was, then he suddenly starts remembering his life, they talk about memories when Robocop is banged up, and then the bit at the end where he says his name is Murphy. There are OCP scenes where they talk about how he's a machine, not a man, but there are tons of scenes like that in GITS too (basically every single scene with Cutter), so I don't know if I can give points to Robocop for those. I saw the remake while super drunk so I couldn't speak to whether it had a bunch of scenes on the nature of identity. Ghost In The Shell 2017 actually has more scenes about identity than the 1995 film, or either version of Robocop. These scenes just, arbitrarily, 'don't count.'
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 20:20
|
|
|
Milky Moor posted:Are you serious, my dude? I thought it was terribly elucidating. The point about anything Japanese being used as only decorative scenery, the lack of interest of the director and writers to make anything substantial from the Japanese setting, the missed opportunity to really explore what the racial change could mean.... It seems more than a whiff. It seems like exploitation to me by the people behind this movie. edit: also lol at loudly announcing the inclusion of a Japanese actress, only to have be a face scan for a bunch of robot geishas. Haha
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 20:32
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 15, 2024 16:06 |
|
|
It's not about having "a bunch of scenes". RoboCop is about Murphy becoming RoboCop becoming You can even compare parallel scenes between RoboCop and GitS2017, but in RoboCop they are forming part of the films core narrative and emotional arc, and in GitS2017, they mostly feel like plot exposition. I don't think they mesh as well with the "hunting the bad guy" plot. (spoilers for both movies, I guess?) In both movies, encounters with the guy they are supposed to be hunting Clarence Boddicker and Kuze, lead to memory glitches, which cause them to start remembering their past lives. Technitions attempt to address these glitches. Then they visit their previous homes. While catching the Boddicker/Kuze, they learn that their creator is also a bad guy, and the take care of that poo poo in the end, claiming their new hybrid identity as their own. So what makes it effective in RoboCop and ineffective in Project 2017? There's a big obvious difference: In RoboCop, we see Murphy and get some insight into his character as a human before he's turned into a weapon. This is hugely important. When Kuze is yelling "What did they take from me?!" the audience answer is "I don't know". We never see the characters that Kuze and Major were before, so it's impossible for us to really connect with that loss. it doesn't matter that it puts us in the same boat as them thematically. The fact that our ignorance of the previous characters mirrors there's doesn't make it interesting. When RoboCop reaches the end of his journey and embraces being RoboCop informed by Murphy, we the audience can recognize that. When Major asserts her identity at the end of the film, it's a moment for the character, but not for the audience. She's essentially saying "yep, I'm the character that I was established to be in the film". It's a perfectly fine character arc, but it has no impact for us, because we don't see her past and we don't see much of who she is now. Most of the time that should be used to develop who she is now was spend watching her investigate her past, which we didn't know anything about and she ultimately (sorta) dismisses. It's easy to see what they were going for, but I feel like they failed to find a way to get us emotionally involved. And there were lots of opportunities. Build real emotional involvement with Mom Kusanagi or Dr. Oulet or both. They're just kind there. Build hatred for something and explore it for insight into Major's character. Show us her behavior in straightforward situations to give us insight into what she's like. Look at the differences between the action scenes in RoboCop and GitS2017. RoboCop's early action scenes establish him as a problem solver. He grabs people through walls or shoots their dicks off. He's a creative being. This demonstraits that he's not robot following mindless protocols. He's exactly what they wanted in both movies: A killing machine with the ability to innovate like a person. The action scenes in GitS are all over the place. They're not bad, but they don't tell us a whole lot about the character except that she's a risk taker? In the first scene she jumps off a building and hovers outside a window (???) and the burst through and does some Matrix-type poo poo from Kickass. Then in the next scene she pretends to be a victim so she can trick people for some reason? really it's to trick the audience into thinking she might be in trouble. So that they can reveal that of course she's not in trouble, she's a badass. Which we already knew. It's not like this charade was to get information or buy time or anything, really. She could have started kicking rear end right away. There's no good plot reason for it, it's just to "gotcha" us with "oh no, maybe Major is weak". Then she beats the poo poo out of a garbage man for fun. because it was in the original movie. Then she gets captured by Hanka without a fight because??? Then she fights a spider tank, because it was in the original movie. These action scenes did not help build a coherent sense of her character for me. That's like, action movies 101. It's rote. 101, man. The Terminator is characterized by his action scenes. Marion Cobretti is characterized by his action scenes. And in the original Ghost in the Shell, the Major is characterized by her action scenes. Because she's a different character and lifting the scenes that they lifted into this new narrative with this new character doesn't work as well.
|
|
#
?
Apr 5, 2017 20:35
|
|