For those that have seen Innocence and all of GitS: SAC, does Innocence spoiler SAC in any way?
No. SAC appears to take place before the first GitS movie, in an alternate world with more dialog but inferior animation.
I still haven’t seen this yet, but I have a Ghost in the Shell manga book that I picked up at Barnes & Noble a couple of years ago that has like 13 of the comics in it. It seems like the first GITS movie took about half of the story line from that manga and that GITS2 is taking the other half (not in order) from the scenarios you are describing.
I saw a pretty bad fansub as well. I’m totally with you on the whole children dubbing thing. Coolest part of the movie. Kusenagi evolved because she combined with someone else. The children are degenerating because it’s one set of genetics getting copied over and over and over again. Like saving a JPEG 1,000 times.
What?
Computer code doesn’t exactly randomly recombine. A copt is a copy, 100% identical, except for your timestamps.
The recursion bit was fuckin awesome though.
Apparently the people copying the souls of young girls into androids weren’t doing CRC checking. They should have used QuickPAR.
I think because of the complexities of the human brain, there will always be problems transfering or maintaining the ghost through transfers, etc. Ghostdubbing is the same way, except on a massive scale.
Anyway… Innocence and SAC are not in the same universe (it’s a Japanese anime tradition to tell the same story with the same characters in different universes), though there is a ghostdubbing storyline in both.
Haven’t seen the English dubbed version yet, only a fansub’d version of Innocence that seemed to lag (the subtitling) in some places. It wasn’t bad. The story is okay, even slower at times without being particularly meaningful. It’s not terrible but I don’t think it’s great either - the SAC storylines are better IMHO.
If you thought the 3D integration and animation was good, wait till you see Appleseed. Of the two Shirow-based movies this year, this was supposed to be the better one.
The “3D integration” was lacking, most likely deliberately.
Don’t bother. It sucked, in almost all ways possible. Unless you are highly interested in what will be remembered as an abortion in the evolution of 3d anime, skip this one.
Eh? A lot of Innocence had 2D and 3D elements, and in SAC it’s practically everything that’s not organic. Were you watching the same movie?
As for Appleseed, you’re the first I’ve yet to hear to say so.
— Alan
I certainly wasn’t saying it didn’t have 2D and 3D elements. What I said was that the integration of the 2D and 3D imagery (often) wasn’t good. I don’t mean to sound condescending… but traditionally, good integration means perfectly matched and seamless.
The thing is, he was able to produce many shots that effectively integrated 2D and 3D, and many that didn’t. Given his previous movies (especially Avalon), I’m willing to believe it was all deliberate. And a close reading of which elements contrasted where would probably reveal some further Oshii madness. But I’m just can’t take that look, given it’s long association with crappy SFX work.
As for Appleseed, it’s been half a year since I saw it, but I still remember vividly just how wrong the characters look. In a creepy, worse than Final Fantasy the Movie sort of way.
Yeah, I have to suppose the GITS non-integration of 2D/3D was deliberate too, perhaps some kind of commentary on the differences between organic and inorganic, and mind and not-mind – that was after all the point of the film.
I don’t think the visual differences actually worked out all that well, in the actual event, but it’s hard to believe they really wanted the two layers to be seamless considering how much time and effort went into the film,and how visually distinct the layers actually were.
Finally saw this tonight.
It was gorgeous. There’s no doubt that Anime is now a 2D/3D art form. If you go back and look at something from 2000 or before it’s almost jarring.
The plot was cool, but kind of didn’t go anywhere. It felt like a really nicely animated episodes 8-12 of something, you know? The first film had real change in the world and characters. Basically at the end of this one we know that Batou is going to keep his dog after all…
Spoilers here
I think there’s progression in that Batou learns to accept Kusanagi’s presence as an entity as her method of being with him, whereas at the beginning of the movie he’s feeling like she’s absent. Note that she’s warning him of what’s going on in various ways throughout the film until she finally appears to him in “person” by taking over the body of the doll in the factory ship. It’s her reminder to him that she’s always with him that lets him regain his regard for day to day existence, and possibly humans themselves.
Note that when the little girl is finally rescued at the end, Batou’s main concern is for the androids who were destroyed as part of the children’s attempts to call for help. Kusanagi was nearly all android, as are the dolls, as is Kusanagi in the doll’s form, and Kusanagi was even a mass-produced model (externally). It’s maybe not until that scene that we realize just how far gone Batou is, and how upset Kusanagi’s absence has made him. She brings him back from that edge with her pledge to be beside him whenever he dives into the net.
One of the main themes of the film is the idea that humans strive to recreate things in their image. That the holy grail of robotics was a humanoid robot for decades, and now that such things are reality, the drive to make them believably human is so strong that companies are sacrificing humans to do so in the form of “ghost dubbing.” It is significant that the purpose of the illegal dolls was companionship. Much like some interpretations of the Creation story, it is implied that man recreates himself because he is lonely, and wants something to love him.
Kusanagi, however, is proof in the film’s world that “human form” is not as defined as we’d like to believe, and the shape of a human body actually has little to do with what makes us human. Batou understand this by the end, but he is still more or less human at heart. Hence the final shots at Togusa’s house. Batou declines the invitation to come inside, saying he’s not made for the whole “family” thing, but then we are shown the shot in which Togusa holds his daughter (recreation of himself), who holds her doll (recreation of human, surrogate “child” and object of affection). This is juxtaposed with Batou and the basset (surrogate family member, object of affection, replacement for Kusanagi as Batou’s “partner”). I’m not sure what Batou’s thinking in that last shot, but I imagine he’s finally drawing the connections the audience already has between the behaviors of the good guys and the behavior of the evil corporate ghost dubbers.
So yeah, it’s an internal motion rather than an external one, but I’d say Batou is definitely different by the end of the film.
That’s about the best explanation I’ve ever heard.
Thanks for writing that. I was kind of thinking like Andrew a bit in believing that the show kinda meandered and barely went anywhere… I kind of caught the basics of what was being said but didn’t really delve into it until now.
— Alan
Matt:
Hmm. That’s an excellent summary, and I think you’re right. Thanks for the analysis.
Having said that, I still like the visceral thrill of the “End of Evangelion” over the final episode of the TV series, knowhatImean?
But it is interesing that on a meta-level the animeted GITS is turning out to be much more about Batou’s journey…
Unquestionably. End of Eva is vastly better than the series ending. Because it, you know, actually ends the damn series.
I like the GitS movies a lot. They’re some of the most intelligent work being done in animation today. Overall, though, I have been preferring the Stand Alone Complex series. More action, more Kusanagi, and Batou has his sense of humor intact. It was really cool to see Batou do the badass thing in GitS2:I, but he really has changed to the point that he’s no longer the guy who blew that walking tank away and dismissed his superweapon as “your standard-issue big gun.” His progression in the films makes sense and is utterly believable, but he’s a lot more fun in the SAC series (in which the films never happened).
Is it a branched story? I thought SAC was prequel…
SAC is based in a different universe than the GITS movie series or the manga. SAC does share more resemblance to the manga than the movies, however, though the characters’ more dour demeanour (Kusanagi for instance, she’s much more open in the manga) is probably the most-borrowed trait from the movies.
— Alan
They also (thankfully) mirror the manga’s character designs more than the film’s. In other words, Kusanagi doesn’t look like a man with breasts.
I don’t think I hated her look that much, but I haven’t watched it in awhile.
Oddly enough, the character designs are basically the same, except for Batou, who sports a ponytail, which originally to me was very odd (also shared a design consensus with Innocence as well as they were being done at the same time). However, Batou in his youth in SAC (very briefly in “Jungle Cruise” and moreso in “Poker Face”) seen as he was in the manga and in the first GITS movie, with more of a crew/buzz-cut.
— Alan
Which is interesting, because I don’t believe enough time elapses between the films for his hair to have grown that much. Then again, in the GitS body-modding world, I suppose implanting longer hair would be a relatively minor process.