Well, that and the Live Action FMA movie wasn't even that good with stuff beyond the actors.
I suppose another hit against GiTS was that the movie's plot was pretty cliche and generic, a Robocop riff, whereas if they'd done a straight up translation of the original anime film it might've been better received.
Or the critique would be that the movie took no risks in not deviating.
Sounds like another no-win scenario.
I think it’s better than that, but people only do surface reads (though the change to story in post production making the baddie in Hanka probably confused things a bit.) and find it easier to say ‘eh robocop’ than look at all the stuff around identity and consent. Personally I would be hard pressed to really find anything truly like robocop in it.
The stuff about identity being in the eye of the beholder is right on the GiTS money as far as the anime is concerned, and the way that is spread to the other characters a little is also quite cool. I really love the scene with Bateau getting his eyes and worrying about the dogs, even though it’s like an origin scene we didn’t need.
The consent stuff is pretty good too. How can she consent when she is living a false identity? Mira might consent, but under that, Motoko didn’t consent to being Mira. And neither of those is entirely content in being the Major at this point, but they accept it as (a) they are expected to and (b) it gives them power. In the end, she refuses her consent to Kuze, and Major becomes the way in which both Motoko and Mira exist without wiping either out...after all, from the characters perspective they both feel as valid. It’s bit like a reverse Psylocke. (Whilst Mira might be a false construct, she feels real, was treated real, and therefore is real...whereas Motoko was definitely real, but her memories are lost or buried....the synthesis person is Major, and is *still* valid, because she too has an identity. It’s very interesting, and very Gits. The Major, essentially, is also the Puppet Master, and has sort of jumped ahead to the Motoko Aramaki stage by the end of the film in a way.)
I think the plot only looks cliche (though to be fair, evil corporation stuff is cyberpunk fare, and there simply aren’t enough films in the genre for it to really be a cliche.) rather than is. Outside of the other GiTS stuff, I would be hard pressed to find another film with anything close to its plot. (Robo has cyborg with repressed identity eventually finding his family again, and bad guy corporation...but that’s it.)
