Thoughts on Ghost in the Shell (2017)

It’s been many years since I’ve seen the original anime film (which itself is based on a manga which also spawned a TV anime series) but the story of the American live-action remake was much closer to the original that I thought it would be, especially compared to other American adaptations of anime such as the recent Death Note movie. From what I remember of the original, the backstory of both the Major and Kuze has been changed fairly significantly, although the overall narrative is similar. The cyberpunk themes about loss of humanity in a high-tech world seem even more relevant today than when the 1995 anime film released. Obviously the nationality/ethnicity of many characters has been altered although this didn’t change the feel of the movie as much as I had anticipated. When the casting of Scarlett Johansson was first announced, I was somewhat displeased as a fan of the original anime as well as anime in general. I talked to some of my Japanese friends to see what their take on this was. Surprisingly, those that I spoke with said that they didn’t care that a white woman was playing the lead character as they viewed this remake as its own film independent of the original, and being made for a largely non-Asian audience. While unnecessary and somewhat puzzling, I feel like that claims of whitewashing were somewhat overstated as the film seemed respectful of its source material and featured a fairly diverse cast compared to many Hollywood films. Nevertheless I would prefer to see a Japanese-American actor cast as the lead in a future Hollywood anime film adaptation. Overall this remake is one of the best anime adaptations I have seen.