Ghost in the Shell

One thing’s for sure about the new Ghost in the Shell movie: There’s gonna be a whole lot of cyber. Cybercrime, cyber-people, there all is cyber. The plot hinges around, among other things, an android with a human mind investigating a string of brain-hacking crimes that leads her to a bunch of realizations about the nature of consciousness and humanity. Ghost in the Shell imagines a world where the line between human and machine is blurred almost to the point of nonexistence, with corporations selling body-augmentation technology amongst colleagues at fancy dinners. That’s where the opening of the movie finds Major, played by Scarlett Johansson, surveilling a corporate meeting that goes terribly wrong.

The whitewashing controversy surrounding Ghost in the Shell may keep it from becoming 2017’s big box office hit, despite how faithfully the filmmakers have recreated some of the most visually-arresting scenes from the 1995 original. It’s a bummer that Motoko Kusanagi is now Mara Killian because the movie looks absolutely gorgeous, as evidenced in this new clip, which takes its cues directly from an iconic scene in the original.

After nearly six months of writing about teasers, trailers, and rumors for Paramount Pictures’ live-action Ghost in the Shell film, I figured it was time to sit down and actually watch the original 1995 animated movie. And I am here to tell you that it cleared up nothing for me. I’ll admit, the animation, production design, and soundtrack are all as impressive as rumored  —  the manga’s influence on the Wachowski Sisters is pretty hard to ignore in hindsight  —  but one movie was not enough to clear up my confusion regarding the Ghost in the Shell characters and universe as a whole.

While I don’t typically pay attention to the box office tracking numbers for upcoming releases, I’ll admit, I’ve checked in a few times on Ghost in the Shell. The blend of intriguing trailers and negative publicity surrounding the film make it a tough cookie to crack; those who would normally be excited by the prospect of a blockbuster action movie starring a woman have good reason to stay at home, while the fans who might normally boost its box office numbers may be disappointed that Paramount is tinkering with a classic. As of right now, Ghost in the Shell is estimated to bring home about $105 million domestically, a very poor showing for a project of this size. I’m fascinated by the whole thing.

As a general rule of thumb, people should avoid watching movies in anything other than the original language. No matter how good a voice actor may be, a film loses a bit of its nuance and timing when the movements of the original actors no longer perfectly match up with their spoken words. It may be a little uncomfortable at first, but turning on subtitles allows you hear the full inflection of each actor without losing any of the dialogue or plot developments as they occur. There’s a reason film nerds get so cranky about dubbed versions of films.

Now that March is officially part of the summer movie season, the deluge of blockbuster marketing has started earlier than ever. We used to be able to wait until the summer to comb through a batch of brand new television spots for new footage from upcoming releases; instead, with Ghost in the Shell landing at the end of this month, we’re being treated to the same escalating series of theatrical trailers and short television spots. No wonder the climate seems to be changing so rapidly: if Mother Nature gets her news from basic cable, she’d be forgiven for thinking it’s almost Fourth of July weekend.

Blockbuster movie season is officially upon us, kicking off this week with the release of Logan and continuing all month long with a flurry of major (no pun intended) titles: Beauty and the Beast, Kong: Skull Island, and, last but far from least, Ghost in the Shell — the live-action remake starring Scarlett Johansson, who has surprisingly (but delightfully) become the queen of sci-fi. We’re unlikely to get a new trailer between now and the end of March, but how about some new motion posters to help you get acquainted with the film’s cast of characters?

With increasing pressure on studios to hype their big blockbusters as much as possible before their release, some are pulling out some new tricks to keep the wave of excitement flowing. Paramount has announced that it’s offering a free preview, in IMAX, of Scarlett Johansson’s Ghost in the Shell, in fourteen cities nationwide before the film officially hits theaters.

The government is not to be trusted, not at present and certainly not in the trippy future Japan of Ghost in the Shell. Major Motoko Kusanagi (Scarlett Johansson) has been led to believe that she endured some manner of terrible accident in life, and the police department salvaged her body by augmenting it with cybernetic implants. In exchange for a second chance at consciousness, all she has to do is devote herself to fearlessly cleaning the street of crime and to surrender what’s left of her free will; naturally, she has some doubts about this. And when she meets an enigmatic stranger warning her that all is not what it seems, her whole understanding of who the bad guys are starts to shift.

Two movies steeped in the very same kind of controversy are about to hit theaters: The Great Wall, whose casting of Matt Damon in the lead role of a movie ostensibly about a fantastical spin on Chinese history is laughable at best, and Ghost in the Shell, which cast Scarlett Johanssen in a role that is, for all intents and purposes, a Japanese woman. Well, robot-woman. Both sets of actors from both films have tried their best to find ways around this whitewashing issue, with many involved in The Great Wall calling it a “cross-cultural” story of “an outsider.” Johanssen recently addressed accusations of whitewashing leveled at her own movie, and unfortunately she doesn’t really get it.