[Review] Ghost In The Shell: Innocence
Nov. 3rd, 2004 11:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsOkay, so last night, rather than stay tense and watch the election returns, I watched Ghost In The Shell: Innocence And my principle reaction was: WTF‽
Innocence is a beautiful movie. It is a combination of CGI and traditional animation that is set about a year after the incidents in Ghost In The Shell, which is itself set a few years after Stand Alone Complex. Although all of the production teams involved claim that GitS, SAC, and the comic aren't related, it's clear that the characters of Ishikawa and Aramaki in the movie are heavily informed by the SAC series. There's also some material from the comics, but revealing what would be a spoiler.
This movie is heavily into philosophy. The characters argue with each other about what it means to be human, to be a robot, to be on the verge of the one with the other. In Shirow's universe there is a soul, an identifiable but irreproducible and unfathomable thing within the human being that grants us our free will. There are arguments about whether or not a robot would or should want such a thing, and there are discussions about whether or not you can be human without it. All around, for me at least, an utterly fascinating summation of everything I've been writing about for the past four years. I plan to watch it again very soon, this time with my finger on the pause button and a notebook in my lap.
The movie does have its slow movements. The filmmakers went a bit overboard with the "see how gorgeous CGI can be!" pauses. Remember in the first movie when Kusanagi went for a walk in the rain, and the scene was all about her trying to "find herself," her own identity, in amongst all the creatures who had the label "Kusanagi"? The core of that scene was the soundtrack, which was a reprise of the chant opening, and the scene was thematically important to the movie. That scene is lavishly reproduced in Innocence, but instead of being about anything it's just a CGI showcase of a parade through which Batou and Tosuga have to pass. Nifty, but thematically insignificant to the whole of the film.
Deep, rich, beautiful, and perplexing, with a simple police procedural plot driving the question of "who are we?", Innocence is either a love-it or hate-it film. I give it four out of five.
Innocence is a beautiful movie. It is a combination of CGI and traditional animation that is set about a year after the incidents in Ghost In The Shell, which is itself set a few years after Stand Alone Complex. Although all of the production teams involved claim that GitS, SAC, and the comic aren't related, it's clear that the characters of Ishikawa and Aramaki in the movie are heavily informed by the SAC series. There's also some material from the comics, but revealing what would be a spoiler.
This movie is heavily into philosophy. The characters argue with each other about what it means to be human, to be a robot, to be on the verge of the one with the other. In Shirow's universe there is a soul, an identifiable but irreproducible and unfathomable thing within the human being that grants us our free will. There are arguments about whether or not a robot would or should want such a thing, and there are discussions about whether or not you can be human without it. All around, for me at least, an utterly fascinating summation of everything I've been writing about for the past four years. I plan to watch it again very soon, this time with my finger on the pause button and a notebook in my lap.
The movie does have its slow movements. The filmmakers went a bit overboard with the "see how gorgeous CGI can be!" pauses. Remember in the first movie when Kusanagi went for a walk in the rain, and the scene was all about her trying to "find herself," her own identity, in amongst all the creatures who had the label "Kusanagi"? The core of that scene was the soundtrack, which was a reprise of the chant opening, and the scene was thematically important to the movie. That scene is lavishly reproduced in Innocence, but instead of being about anything it's just a CGI showcase of a parade through which Batou and Tosuga have to pass. Nifty, but thematically insignificant to the whole of the film.
Deep, rich, beautiful, and perplexing, with a simple police procedural plot driving the question of "who are we?", Innocence is either a love-it or hate-it film. I give it four out of five.
