Controversial Opinion: the Live-Action Ghost in the Shell is the most Cyberpunk movie ever

[Vagabond Elf]

So, look, I'm not saying the 2017 live-action GitS is the best movie ever. I mean, it's absolutely beautiful, but even if one divorces it from the rest of the GitS franchise and tries to take it on its own merits, it's a pretty simplistic plot, the villain is a caricature, the ensemble cast is too large and doesn't do anything, and the way it tries to ask big questions at first and then wrap them all up super neatly feels saccharine at best.

I also don't think it deserves the hate it gets. No, it doesn't move the franchise forward at all; the questions it asks about the nature of being human are re-treads of other forms of the story and the answer it offers is too neat and simplistic. But it's such a love letter to all the elements of GitS. There are references to the original manga, to Man-Machine Interface, to the 1995 movie, to Stand-Alone Complex, even to Arise. Some of these are recreating iconic visuals or scenes; some are using those moments and twisting them (like the stealth helo with the sniper team at the end of the film being flipped to be a Hanaka team instead of JSDF), some are simple nods like Saito's eye-socket smartlink, Togusa's revolver, or Kusanagi's red outfit from Arise. I honestly don't think there's a single frame that doesn't have some kind of reference or nod or easter egg in it.

Heck, even the much-protested white-washing of Kusanagi (by casting Johansen in the role) can be seen as reinforcing one of GitS' actual central messages, which is a protest against the Americanization of Japan during the 80s and 90s - a detail that I know a lot of western fans don't pick up on, because of localization problems.

Anyway. No, it's not a great movie, but it is beautiful, and if you're a serious fan of the series there's a lot of pleasure to be had in the fan-wankery of it all.

But I would argue that it's much more Cyberpunk than most versions of Ghost in the Shell. Think about it. What are the tropes of Cyberpunk?

• Cybernetic transhumanism and huge questions about the line between human and machine
• Comically evil transnational corporations that can defy governments and operate their own armies.
• Actual Punks waging street-level resistance to the corps, screaming the truth through music or manifestos at an indifferent, complacent public
• A collapse of law and order, resulting in "no-go" zones where governments can't function and corps can't be bothered to.
• And, most importantly Style over Substance.

Most versions of Ghost in the Shell only hit that first checkbox. Some of them get the corporation, to a secondary extent. Others get the collapse of law and order, though that's rare.

None of them favour Style over Substance

This last element is so very, very present in the 2017 movie. It's arguably the entire point of the film. It's certainly why the GitS fanbase in general wasn't all that impressed and fair enough.

But... GitS isn't normally a clean match to the Cyberpunk genre. It has elements in common, but GitS is more part of the broader transhumanism genre rather than the specific subset that is Cyberpunk.

And yet, the 2017 movie is very, very Cyberpunk. At least in my opinion. And it seemed worth typing this up and sharing that opinion.

 

[Set Harth]

There are references to the original manga, to Man-Machine Interface, to the 1995 movie, to Stand-Alone Complex, even to Arise.

Don't forget the 2004 film.

Spoiler

 

[camdudetenger2018]

when i saw it i think there was a few scenes in the movie that kinda explained why mira was white

it had to do in the beginning when they were creating her in that machine then in the flashback there was small glimps of mira being japanese before her accident via capture that changed her from japanese to white

the live action movie thought in my opinion was better than i expected as in the action scenes and the story that was kinda like from the anime althought i have not watched the anime verison in a while

 

[Rowdy Roddy McDowall]

Would CLOUS ATLAS be considered at least 16.5% cyberpunk?

 

[Charlie Xmas]

I was at Barnes & Noble today and picked up this month's copy of Otaku USA. They had a page or so about Fortress Macross: DYRL and I got struck down by an avalanche of nostalgiaberries. I hadn't watched that in a while. This was always playing at Cons in the '90s. DYRL and Akira is how I got into Anime'.

 

[Vagabond Elf]

Would CLOUS ATLAS be considered at least 16.5% cyberpunk?

There are definitely Cyberpunk elements to Cloud Atlas. I haven't watched it in a while, though. Still, I don't recall cybernetic transhumanism in Cloud Atlas. There are other kinds of transhumanism, what with the whole "Are artificial people actual people" plot in the near-future-dystopia stuff. But I don't recall cyberware. Nor do I recall any megacorporations-running-the-world details... though I'll concede the "evil copr/businessman" trope is heavily present in the age-of-sail events.

So I'd put Cloud Atlas next to Blade Runner (or GitS) in being Cyberpunk-adjacent but not a true capturing of the genre.

 

[Set Harth]

Blade Runner and Gibson are the godfathers of the genre.

 

[Vagabond Elf]

when i saw it i think there was a few scenes in the movie that kinda explained why mira was white

it had to do in the beginning when they were creating her in that machine then in the flashback there was small glimps of mira being japanese before her accident via capture that changed her from japanese to white

the live action movie thought in my opinion was better than i expected as in the action scenes and the story that was kinda like from the anime althought i have not watched the anime verison in a while

None of that actually explains why Mira or Kuze are white, though. They're artificial bodies, yes, so they can look like whatever the creator wants. In all other GitS media, Kusanagi looks Japanese. In the original manga, her body was originally built to be a sex doll, so it's extremely attractive - but still Japanese looking. (In later versions of the story the sex doll element gets quietly dropped, since really it was just an excuse for Shirow to draw Kusanagi mostly naked.)

We can make extrapolations. Perhaps the Hanka execs did so strategically, to help hide the minds' true identities. Perhaps they did so unthinkingly - it's worth remembering that all the Hanka decision makers are white, so maybe it just never occured to them to make the bodies look Japanese.

Likewise, I've never seen any interview with the writers or directors where they explain the decision, other than as a studio choice to put a big name actor in the lead role. Still, it can be argued that on the Doylist level, it's meant to show how Hanka dismisses the Japanese as a whole as being "inferior." Or heck, maybe it's even a callback to the sex doll origin and a reference to the widespread fetishisation of well-endowed white women that was all over Japan in the 80s and 90s. Who knows?

But the actual text of the movie doesn't give us any answers to these questions. It tells us how Kusangi Motoko ends up in a white woman's body. But it doesn't tell us why.

 

[Vagabond Elf]

Blade Runner and Gibson are the godfathers of the genre.

Gibson is more than a godfather, I think. Most of the core tropes of Cyberpunk are present in Neuromancer. In my view, Gibson is at least a grandfather and very arguable (along with Donaldson) a father of the genre.

And yes, Blade Runner and Do Androids Dream are both very foundational to Cyberpunk, albeit in different ways, but neither is really there yet, the same way Maltese Falcon or The Big Sleep aren't quite film noir.

 

[Vagabond Elf]

Don't forget the 2004 film.

Spoiler

True enough, though you can also argue those elements being references to the manga or SAC rather than Innocence. But yes, it's very clear the production team knew all of the GitS stuff. Mostly I skipped mentioning Innocence to make the sentence flow better.

 

[Set Harth]

In all other GitS media, Kusanagi looks Japanese.

Not really, not with the large blue eyes in the 1995 film. And the body inhabited by the Puppet Master is clearly intended to look white, so when we get the scene that juxtaposes them and intentionally shows how similar they look, that says something.

True enough, though you can also argue those elements being references to the manga or SAC rather than Innocence.

Well, I couldn't find an image of Dahlin's 'ashtray' cup where she stashes her used cigarettes, but the whole Dahlin character is directly taken from Haraway in Innocence.
I also didn't mention things like the little-girl voice coming out of the geisha or the orange coloration of the holographic computer displays/interfaces.