2 posts tagged “ghost in the shell”

Odd. I guess I'm not the only who has recently renewed her obsession with "Ghost in the Shell" (see my post from April 6). Now Wired is reporting that Spielberg plans to remake this classic into a 3-D live-action film.

 
All the more reason to savor this classic once more – the films, TV series, manga, graphic novels – before we let the Hollywood blockbuster overcome our memories of the original masterpiece.

My fascination with this manga story has been revived.

Last night, we watched the first movie adaptation, the 1995 anime film: Ghost in the Shell.

Why do I love it? The dark, Blade-Runner-ish mood. The haunting music. The brooding characters, especially Kusanagi, the tough chick female lead who blows enemies up to smithereens without so much as flinching. But the most seductive is the creators' vision of the future, where the line between computer and human is increasingly blurred – and their exploration of the existential crisis that ensues.

Maybe that makes you think that GitS is just revisiting the same themes that Blade Runner did. But the setting and nuances of the issues explored are very different. GitS paints a future where a vast computer network is all pervasive. Crossing between our minds and the network is increasing fluid. Cyber-terrorism is a major threat – and a powerful tool for voices of dissent. Beyond exploring AI versus humanity, GitS explores what happens when society depends on technology to overcome and compensate for all our human weaknesses. What, then, is the value of being human? What does free will, memory and individual identity mean, when those things are easily augmented by technology, monitored by government, and hacked into by cyber criminals?

I guess I'm captivated by the story because it doesn't sound too far from the world we live in.

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Wanna join us in our deep dive into the world of GitS? You can get DVDs of all the movies and TV shows from Amazon or Things from Another World. You can also download Season 1 of the TV series at the iTunes Store. And if you're inclined, you can bitTorrent it all. And if you're obsessive about what order to watch everything to follow the story, here's what we're doing:
1) Ghost in the Shell, the first movie (1995)
2) Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, movie sequel (2004)
3) Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, season 1 TV series (2002-2003) (the storyline for the Stand Alone Complex TV series and movie 3 is set in an alternate universe than the first 2 movies, that's why we're watching this after movie 2)
4) Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2nd Gig, season 2 TV series (2004-2005)
5) Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex Solid State Society, movie 3 (2007)

Of course, if you're truly obsessive, you probably want to read the original manga series first. English versions come from Dark Horse Comics. You can buy them from Things from Another World. They are:
1) Ghost in the Shell, volume 1
2) Ghost in the Shell 2: Man/Machine Interface
3) Ghost in the Shell 1.5: Human Error Processor

After which, if you're still hooked, you can read the graphic novel spin-offs and play the video games – you can read more about them on the GitS wikipedia page.