I had a lot emotions when I was watching the scrolling credits for Ghost in the Shell (2017). It was surreal. I felt a mixture of satisfaction, relief (that the movie was over), and really overwhelmed. For some backstory I had been sitting on watching this film ever it’s announcement to its release date. I hesitated as most of my other APIA friends did because there was no way in hell any of us where going to support this film with our hard earned coin. We didn’t do it for Aloha so logically we wouldn’t do it for this film. On the other hand, watching the movie gave a different perspective. Originally the my reasons for putting off the movie as bad because 1) I believed it was going to be terrible overall (nothing good about), 2) it wasn’t going to be true to the original story and 3) the obvious whitewashing of the movie.
Don’t get me wrong some of these points still ring true but I’ve shifted in my exact reasons why this movie was a trainwreck which is what I’ll be getting into.
So we learned in class that when watching the film we should try to see both its intrinsic value and extrinsic value which is how I’ll be shaping the rest of this article. I think its best to start with the intrinsic value as it is going to be a case where I start with its best points and move on to where it failed. (Unfortunately there were some things I enjoyed about this movie.)
INTRINSIC
THE SOUNDTRACK
If there is anything in this movie that holds any sort of value to me it would definitely hands down be the soundtrack of the film.
I’ve always enjoyed sci-fi/cyberpunk films but I believe the thing that gives them the most life and builds the worlds is their unique soundtracks. The way I would describe the Ghost in the Shell sountrack would be atmospheric. It had a presence especially during key moments in the movie. The scene I feel that this would be the most appropriate would be the beginning scene or the “shelling” scene where we watch the process of Major’s “shell” being created and then the installation of her brain. The soundtrack builds slowly during the scene transitioning from off putting noises, mechanical noises and voices, heavy dark sounds, and eventually moving into more familiar orchestral sound and even singing at one point. The scene is a scene about rebirth, the rebirth of Major and also the creation of something new. Birth is a concept as old as time as time and its an ancient almost sacred process. But the context of Ghost in the Shell, its not just birth but rebirth and also not a natural one. The soundtrack plays on this by mixing sound of harsh grating mechanical and industrial sounds with the sound of traditional music and singing that I could only describe as religious (if we are playing with the idea that the concept of birth is sacred) in nature. Overall, the soundtrack was very much a cyberpunk spectacle of our current day.
CINEMATOGRAPHY
So disclaimer I am in no way a film critic nor can I deeply analyze and understand the composition of the visuals presented in the film. Regardless of that, I’m pretty confident in being able to identify a pretty movie when I see one.
I think a lot of what makes a good sci-fi film is visual world-building. I think world-building is essential in any genre but I focus on the necessity of it within sci-fi because sci-fi is usually set in a distant (or not so distant) future so it really requires a lot of imaginative power when it comes to creating a visual that makes you feel Believe that this is what our world could look like in the future.
Ghost in the Shell is in my own words a really really pretty film. I think the visuals were what really got me into the world of Ghost in the Shell (coupled with the soundtrack of course). I think the combination of compostion, color, CGI, etc. really had the ability to draw audience in visually. The creative choices in how certain concepts were filmed were really interesting. One of my favorite scenes is the Deep Dive scene where Major needs to find information on the location of Kuze from within the memories of a geisha bot. The scene really plays on the idea of a “deep dive” as it shows Major (or technically Major’s mind) actually diving into the geisha bot’s memories like how you would dive in a pool.
I think thing to think about this film is where it stands as an adaptation specifically in this case about the cinematography. In my opinion, while I feel the director really had some of is own unique ideas I really think the visuals in this film were piggy backing off of scenes from the original movie especially critical scenes. A couple of scenes to name would be the “shelling” process scene, the first time we see Major activate her camoflauge, the scene where she fights the garbage truck man, the scene where she is floating in the ocean, etc. Now was this bad that they did this? Not exactly. The scenes themselves where completely the same. I was have a hard time deciding on what seems right and what doesn’t when it comes to adaptations especially when its film to film.
ACTING
Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. That’s what I thought of the acting for the most part. It wasn’t bad per say but it didn’t really add or detract from the movie in any significant way. I don’t have much to say about the acting other than that if we were talking about how well Scarlet Johannson did as Major was okay. Just okay.
PLOT
I could go into a lengthy post about I felt overall about the plot but I think we all know that the only significant thing to talk about plotwise is the plot twist.
So to be clear, I already knew about the plot twist before I watched. Watching the film, I knew it was going to be eventually revealed. I didn’t know how or when but I knew it was coming. I did feel inclined to warn my friend next to me about the plot twist because I felt it would have been an injustice not to do so because I really think it was that bad.
This is where Ghost in the Shell really tanks for me. This is where it stood out from all the other whitewashing movies I’d seen or heard of before. You know at least with Aloha we just had to suffer watching Emma Stone enthusiastically describe her “ethnic background” (you know the scene) and every APIA person watching was probably thinking that she “whiter than off white paper”. See I’m used to that. Ghost in the Shell is probably the only movie where they actually try to explain the whitewashing in the plot.
There’s two things that this tells me: 1. They were aware of the whitewashing and didn’t even have the decency to pretend they didn’t and 2. They still didn’t care.
Now you might be saying what if was their intention to make a commentary about whitewashing in the movie. Symbolism and what not. But I want to differentiate between intention and impact. Maybe they intended to make a comment about whitewashing but the impact was that it just made most of APIA people really uncomfortable and frustrated.
I mean for god’s sake they didn’t even show the face of the original Motoko in the movie. And then the scene where ScarJo and the mother hug, that was…. A lot.
I think most of the comments I heard from other APIA folks were how visibly they were shaken about the plot twist. My friend was so uncomfortable and distressed about it they had to sleep it off after class. If this was supposed “commentary” I think the effect wouldn’t have been nearly this troubling.
I would also like to point out that it really matters who the commentary is coming from. If it was an APIA person who directed this movie, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that it probably would have been handled differently.
I know there’s been back and forth on the involvement of actual of Asian peoples in the movie whether by production or casting but looking at what the audience’s commentary has been so far it’s about fifty-fifty. And let me tell you on the other side of the conversation, it’s rough.
CRITICAL RECEPTION
Now not everyone is in agreement when it comes to the movies lack of diversity. Some would argue that the movie was very much diverse. I mean there was that black guy who appeared for two seconds. What was his name? Yeah I don’t know either. I also believe there was this Asian woman who might have been a secretary? Let’s not forget the yakuza men who were harassing Major in the club scene. I think a lot of people are confused about what diversity actually means.
Hollywood’s current definition of diversity is making sure the world around their main characters are diverse. A good example of this phenomenon could be described in the Gods of Egypt movie. This is also true of Ghost In The Shell. Diversity shouldn’t just be about making sure to fill up the cast especially the surrounding/supporting cast with people of color but to create characters of color with intention especially in ways the breaks stereotypes and shows us as complex people. And especially making an effort to put characters of color as main characters.
A lot of people didn’t see the problem with casting Scarlett Johannson as Major because they were looking at it as “she did a decent job and casting an someone who was Asian wouldn’t have made a difference in quality”. But I think people are misunderstanding what the issue actually is. This isn’t a “quality” issue. This isn’t about whether or not an Asian person could play Major better or not but more about white actors taking up opportunities that could be offered to Asian actors instead especially Asian American actors. In our current day and age, the association that “American” means “white” is very quickly becoming a false statement. America is a diverse nation and that’s not being represented in our media. And this is dangerous because media is what influences not only our perceptions of ourselves as a nation but also the perceptions of other nations as well.
One of the most frustrating things about this issue was the outright denial or unwillingness to discuss the issue especially among white people. Not only that but the shallow searching of “evidence” to prove that the lack of diversity was a nonissue. For instance, there’s a video on YouTube of people interviewing people from Japan on how they felt about the lack of diversity.
Or how there were dozens of articles referencing an interview with the original director of the 1995 Ghost in the Shell movie Mamoru Oshii also saw nothing wrong with the casting choice and even thought it exceeded his expectations.
The problem with citing the responses of Japanese people as legitimate reasons why there wasn’t a diversity issue is misleading because of one problem. THEY AREN’T AMERICAN. Think about it. Bringing a piece of American media to people in Japan (with no briefing on American issues/culture) and asking them to critically analyze it has no purpose. Japan is a country that has a mostly homogenous population and their media will always reflect that. They can’t relate to the experiences of Asian Americans who had to grow up in a country that either doesn’t represent them or only represents them as stereotypes and not as complex human beings. Not to mention Japan is rampant with colorism issues.(But that’s a whole ‘nother issue I could probably write a dissertation about
SO IN CONCLUSION,
it was a train wreck but the soundtrack and visuals were solid.