'Ghost in the Shell': When Live Action and Anime Don't Mix

I've been known for keeping an open mind when it comes to movies. I have been pleasantly surprised more than once, and even the bad stuff at least gives me experiences worth talking about. Such is the case when my girlfriend and I sat down to watch the 2017 live adaptation of Ghost in the Shell. The original anime from 1995 would show up on both of our lists of the greatest animated films of all time. Needless to say, we were likely to be very critical, and it didn't take long for things to come up that angered us. I wouldn't go so far as to call the live action version the worst movie ever or anything; as far as I'm concerned, nothing's worse than The Black Dahlia. However, its issues absolutely disgusted me.

For those unaware, the story in both versions revolves around looking at the separation between humanity and cybernetics. The focal point of this examination is Matoko Kusanagi, a Major in Section 9, a government bureau that deals with cyberterrorism. While most people have one or two cybernetic enhancements in the near future presented, Kusanagi is one of the few who are almost entirely artificial with a human brain running things. While both versions have a plot dealing with tracking down a dangerous hacker (the Puppet Master in the anime and Kuze in the film), that's really not the point of either movie. Kusanagi's perception of her own identity, whether human or machine, is what's important and why the story is the milestone that it is.

Before I get rolling on my analysis, I need to get this out of the way right now. No, there was nothing wrong with casting Scarlett Johansson as Kusanagi. She had the look and performance down. In fact, with this, I was actually reminded of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Host." The Trill symbiont, the "brain" of that species, had three entirely different bodies in that one episode, one of which was female. Unlike the whitewashing present in films like the live-action version of The Last Airbender, Kusanagi's "ghost" getting into a non-Asian-looking body is entirely plausible in the universe. So, there will be no bashing the film for having a white Kusanagi. Besides, there are more important things to harp on.

As far as I saw, there were two absolutely fatal flaws with the 2017 version of Ghost in the Shell. While one of the flaws involves direct comparisons with the 1995 anime, the first one I'll bring up is one anyone can notice. The film is largely painful to look at. I understand that the filmmakers were trying their damnedest to recreate the futuristic look of the anime. However, the results were headache-inducing. The colors were so bright and oversaturated that my eyes screamed in protest. It was the same issue that I saw with the look of the Milla Jovovich movie Ultraviolet. On top of that, the almost random use of slow-mo kept giving me whiplash. For the record, I saw this on Blu-Ray. Maybe the DVD version would be less harsh on the optics.

The second issue is much more severe. The newer film dumbed everything down. Mamoru Oshii's anime used the visual medium so well that a lot of Kusanagi's examination of her identity could be understood without any spoken dialogue. What dialogue is there can be a little overbearing at times, but it's smartly written. It treats the audience like intelligent adults, providing the means for people to give their own interpretations on the film's core philosophies. The new version clubs people over the head with what's going on. The first conversation before Kusanagi's construction between Dr. Ouelet and Cutter just flat-out explained the whole crux of the movie in the first few minutes. Ally & my jaws dropped. I had to pause the movie just to ask if the filmmakers thought we were total idiots.

The dumbing down extended to the films visuals as well. The anime was known, particularly among adolescents in the 90s, for the many times Kusanagi got nude. Kusanagi was designed to look almost indistinguishable from a human. An almost-perfect human look that she knows is artificial is a major part of Kusanagi's identity crisis and provides much of her need for philosophical answers. In the live-action version, there's no mistaking her for a machine. When she strips off, the robotics are plain as day. I'm sure the reason it was done that way was to get the movie down to a PG-13, but that reasoning makes it even worse. Kusanagi's self-reflection ended up ringing hollow. Sure, she still had the human mind in the machine, but the drama was still weakened enough to anger me.

There have been much worse adaptations and remakes of other works in the past, but the 2017 version of Ghost in the Shell was definitely a low point. I was actually unpleasantly reminded of the remake of Total Recall which also dumbed down its philosophical messages and toned down its adult content with disastrous results. If you want the true experience of this landmark sci-fi story, just watch the original anime from 1995. Even if you just wanted to see ScarJo naked in a movie, there are better options like the thriller Under the Skin. This was a movie that simply didn't need to exist.

Am I off-base here? Was there something about it I missed? Let me know, and take care.