Ghost in the Shell: White Wash Complex

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > Ghost in the Shell: White Wash Complex

DeimosRising: Oct 17, 2005; �Hola SEA!

I don't know poo poo about or care for Ghost in the Shell but the degradation of his art is depressing. Those early pages, especially the one with the space marine cops and the lead dissolving into the cityscape/lights are really great.

# ¿ Apr 21, 2016 19:03

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 19:30

DeimosRising: Oct 17, 2005; �Hola SEA!

Mithaldu posted:

There's more to acting than how you move. How you talk is also extemely important. And while the original Major moved peculiarly, she made up for it with wit and character in voice. Jo is both moving too humanly, and not talking humanly enough. (Altho it seems they're also dropping perfect opportunities for acting, e.g. the smile during the jump, on the floor for no discernible reason.)

Discernible...from the trailer?

# ¿ Jan 18, 2017 19:11

DeimosRising: Oct 17, 2005; �Hola SEA!

Snowman_McK posted:

I've generally found that any movie that puts a comparison to another movie up front, like, on the poster or DVD case or whatever, is terrible. Frequently irredeemably so.

I doubt it. People who really think highly of the matrix are probably aging out of the viable movie-going demographic. I was blown away by it when it first came out, and I'm just shy of thirty now.

I'm fascinated by the idea that people in their 30s are...too old to go to the movies?

# ¿ Feb 7, 2017 09:19

DeimosRising: Oct 17, 2005; �Hola SEA!

mastershakeman posted:

having to find a babysitter is a huge pain in the rear end

I'm fortunate in that my mom lives with us and our neighbors have a kid the same age as ours. Childcare isn't an issue, privilege rules

# ¿ Feb 9, 2017 20:17

DeimosRising: Oct 17, 2005; �Hola SEA!

cosmically_cosmic posted:

My big problem is that you can't use the marxist framework as the be all end all of quality. Now I love communism as much as the next guy, but when cribbing from people like Zizek you have to keep in mind that he is a philospher first and foremost, things like The Perverts Guide are to him 'Tie-ins' (his own words) to his philosphy books.

You can apply the analysis and get a greater understanding of a work, but when you reduce a films overall quality to it's Zizekian marxist purity you're going to lose out on massive parts of film analysis and criticism. A movie is a lot more than it's (really up for interpretation) economic message.

I don't really view Gits as being a marxist series (Though SAC has some great sneaky socialism moments), it's a crime-noir movie in a sci-fi setting. Things like it's visual direction, it's beautiful animation, it's great sense of mood and tension, as well as an interesting sci-fi crime mystery with the puppetmaster, that makes full use of it's sci-fi setting (And is also beautifully designed prop-wise) is what makes it an above average movie.

There is a great moment about half-way through the movie, where the Major is on a boat (I think) going through the city, and noticing people who she look similair to her. Now some of the writing in GITS is clunky and expository (Though that may be a side affect of the translation) but this one moment is a great example of how the movie really does well with it's cinematic medium, it's a quiet tense scene, and the silence makes you experience it the same way as The Major does, she is powerless in the face of the uncertainty of her own unique consciousness, but you experience that doubt and curiousity in a very personal way with a character that is otherwise kept at a fair distance (At least until poo poo starts popping off at the end).

EDIT: And one last thing, saying 'they don't overthrow the dystopian nightmare society at the end so it must be pro-dystopia' is a really childish way to view fiction. The 1984 elements of GITS are clearly intentional, and not glorified. I mean come on people, it's a noir story, it's supposed to take place in a dark depressing setting where evil wins more often than not.

Hell the whole 'The whole thing ends in a draw' always seemed like a really intentional anti-climax to me, the world is in a state of perpetual deadlock, but the Major's rebirth may be the first step in the creation of a new possibly different world. It's a very tiny victory, but feels appropriate for the setting and tone.

Who are you responding to?

# ¿ Mar 9, 2017 18:23

DeimosRising: Oct 17, 2005; �Hola SEA!

Young Freud posted:

So where does Mamuro Oshii being a former priest in training cone into this. You know, where pretty much all his films have some bibilical reference in them? Patlabor 2 famously has "I haven't come to bring peace but division/a sword" and a conclusion to Thomas Aquinas' "Just War".

He's mentioned the Bible several times and quoted Corinthians, but apart from that are you suggesting it is impossible to interpret or understand Ghost in the Shell if you don't know Oshii's biography?

# ¿ Mar 9, 2017 23:36

DeimosRising: Oct 17, 2005; �Hola SEA!

HIJK posted:

She's pretty and seems like a pretty okay person compared to other actresses but she's no great shakes at acting. And since GITS is a Japanese story about Japan, even the idea of adapting the movie for a Western audience in the first place is a little nonsensical.

How do you feel about The Bad Sleep Well and Ran?

# ¿ Mar 16, 2017 02:49

DeimosRising: Oct 17, 2005; �Hola SEA!

ufarn posted:

That his IMDB pedigree is poo poo, and "assume the dude knows what he's doing for whatever reason" is how he got the job in the first place.

He's 45 and this is his second movie, ffs

# ¿ Mar 21, 2017 15:04

DeimosRising: Oct 17, 2005; �Hola SEA!

Mean Bean Machine posted:

Wrong. The "transformation" in the movie from Asian Major to her White version is obviously a commentary on the boom of plastic surgery in Asia, as millions of women are undergoing procedures in an attempt to look more Western, to drift away from their "real selves" into something artificial for acceptance and self-fulfillment. Very sad.

Of course what the movie is trying to say, is that the women like these, who will go to any lengths to conform to a more widespread standard of beauty will do so while sacrificing their identity, and will only realize it when it is already too late, as is the case with Major. This was a genius move by the director and writers, and only deepens what is shaping up to be a great movie. Can't wait to watch it.

Boy what a clever and incisive parody of the basic idea that movies are about things. Funny stuff

# ¿ Mar 27, 2017 01:48

DeimosRising: Oct 17, 2005; �Hola SEA!

Junior Jr. posted:

One scene I REALLY didn't get was the scene with the african human-synthetic prostitute(?), so Motoko gets a room with her then gets up close and touches her face...and that's it. the trailers implied she was possibly making out with her, but they removed that from the final cut. WHY was it even there to begin with? Was Motoko trying to discover what it's like to be human because she's just a cyborg, or did she have some fondness or fetish for human skin? It's never brought up again and didn't really progress her character arc. If that was supposed to be one of those artsy philosophical moments like the '95 film had, then that scene was utter poo poo!

How Batou got his eyes was also a joke, so him and Motoko head down to the strip club basement to find Kuze and it was a booby trap rigged with bombs, she takes most of the damage but apparently it also affected his eyes too...but how? Did the fire from the bombs burned off his retinas, did some shrapnel precisely hit him and made him blind? This was a poor explanation. Though the dialogue afterwards was slightly funny.

Final things to mention...I'm still annoyed that they didn't explain how everyone can understand each other in different languages instead of speaking the same language, even if that was previously explained in the GITS lore, I'd expect they'd briefly mention it just so that's established, other than 'they have advanced tech implants'.

Do you really need a sourcebook and some expository dialogue to explain "his eyes got hurt" or "they speak multiple languages" or the concept of hiring a prostiute for human contact rather than sex?

# ¿ Mar 30, 2017 22:46

DeimosRising: Oct 17, 2005; �Hola SEA!

whatever7 posted:

There is nothing in this movie worth talk about. The script is so amateurish written and empty.

I can't even

# ¿ Apr 3, 2017 01:33

DeimosRising: Oct 17, 2005; �Hola SEA!

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

This is getting silly, because people are operating under the weird premise that the ads are only visible from the air.

The ads are plainly visible to the poorer communities living on the other side of the bay, whose apartments face this distant skyline. The ads are also visible to people on the street, looking out of skyscraper windows, driving along the elevated freeways, and so-on. We have like dozens of shots of characters walking near these very-readable ads.

As Bugblatter already pointed out, if you've been to Hong Kong you'll realize they already have ads on the entire sides of skyscrapers for the same purpose, and do a bunch of weird lighting and laser show poo poo that doesn't look like anything from below but is visible across the bay. This isn't speculative, the billboards are just holograms now cause it looks cool.

edit: lol I could have just refreshed and seen him repeating himself

# ¿ Apr 4, 2017 07:27

DeimosRising: Oct 17, 2005; �Hola SEA!

It's also a blood brain barrier reference, with the implication that it's hard to penetrate and designed not to be, and doing so is almost invariably harmful or even fatal

Edit wrt hacking the barrier, obvs

# ¿ Apr 5, 2017 03:14

DeimosRising: Oct 17, 2005; �Hola SEA!

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

SAC is incredibly, obnoxiously talky, especially when a lot of what it's conveying is just Theory of Mind 101.

Conversely both Rupert Sanders films I've seen go completely all-in on visual communication and have incredibly awkward, if not objectively bad, dialogue.

If there's one thing I've learned from this thread, it's that a subject can only be "explored" in a movie through extensive dialogue.

# ¿ Apr 5, 2017 21:16

DeimosRising: Oct 17, 2005; �Hola SEA!

Mantis42 posted:

I could almost see it saying 美国人不好, which means "Americans are bad" but its not really in a straight line nor is it the obvious order of characters, and the characters themselves are kinda blurry.

The only possible bu is down in the bottom left, looks like gibberish to me, definitely nonsense left to right but that left column is hard to read for up down.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2017 21:28

DeimosRising: Oct 17, 2005; �Hola SEA!

LashLightning posted:

I thought the point raised in this thread was that gits16 had pretty visuals that were completely wasted thematically and the story was a lovely mashup of two other stories. He doesn't press on that the casting of the Major was inappropriate as much as this thread does, but I don't see this thread's opinion of the movie being that much different.

The thread doesn't have an opinion and lots of people have disagreed with those people who did make similar arguments. Clearly goldengun does too

# ¿ Aug 7, 2017 00:09

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 19:30

DeimosRising: Oct 17, 2005; �Hola SEA!

tweet my meat posted:

I'm really trying to make this as simple as I can. It felt like a straight up remake of the original movie and a brand new story from the same universe cobbled together in a haphazard way, how much simpler do you want me to make it? Would "movie bad, me no like" work for you? I feel like you're being willfully obtuse and keep just trying to split hairs on vocabulary.

I think he was hoping for more detail, not less. Like, what themes did you feel were being underserved or confused because there were two stories competing? What was confusing about the plot because of this intermingling you're perceiving? I know what you're saying but what are you saying it about, what you've said so far leaves anyone reading to guess which elements of the movie are which in your serving two masters schema.

And heck, if you don't wanna write about the movie in detail far be it for me to give a turd but SMG is gonna give you the Socrates with a hangover treatment until you do

# ¿ Aug 7, 2017 05:34

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > Ghost in the Shell: White Wash Complex