Runtime: 1hr 23min
Director: Mamoru Oshii
Release Date: 8th December 1995
Rating: 15 (UK), R (US)
After the release of the new Ghost in the Shell, today's Throwback Thursday takes on the original movie, and what my thoughts are on how it may have aged over time.
After the release of the new Ghost in the Shell, today's Throwback Thursday takes on the original movie, and what my thoughts are on how it may have aged over time.
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Having never watched Ghost in the Shell (1995) before, I luckily managed to go into the movie with a completely clear opinion, untainted by any other judgement than the "8/10" that imdb users have deemed the film as deserving. What I found was a slightly over-hyped yet interesting film which was completely unique to anything I had seen before.
The movie's plot follows Motoko Kusanagi, a heavily augmented "section 9" officer who in the year of 2029 must attempt to stop "The Puppetmaster", a hacker capable of hacking into the minds of the augmented and turning them into political assassins.
Not many films require much of a learning curve to get the gist of the plot like Ghost in the Shell (1995), which, while different to over-explained and obvious western films of today, is also a disadvantage since viewers may be unable to determine what is happening as they watch.
The animation does seem a little dated, but the style gives the movie a coat of authenticity (remastered animated movies can look unnatural), and the voice cast had tendencies to turn monotone at times (yes, I watched/listened to the English dub), but the film did make up for this with its' interesting story.
The film doesn't spend a large amount of time to ensure the viewer is maintaining an understanding of the plot, and with the dialogue not serving much more purpose than to build character for the main two roles, the only real explanation given is the environment these characters are surrounded by - the presence of cyborgs with cybernetic advancements is never explained as such, but is simply a norm in the world; the trade-off for a lack of explanation is an immersion environment and this was arguably the right choice.
As the film comes to a close, the climax is long awaited yet the ending is open-ended and offers little closure to the whole point of the movie. Ghost in the Shell (1995) does strive to be different sometimes even to the detriment of its' own storyline.
6.5/10
6.5/10
