Ghost In The Shell

Anime.
Watched the two series, thought they were very good.
Art, voice, script, concept, characters, music, everything, spot on.

Then I bought the trilogy with the epilogue-like Solid State feature in it.

They butchered the two series in editing, trying to turn them into features. It looks like they chopped up the two series and stuck them back together with playdough. Solid State was quality, though not as good as the series.

If you like/love Ghost In The Shell, I advise you to not buy this trilogy box set, if you can find them by themselves for more money, it’d be worth it.

bike_seat might be interested in this info, if that is indeed Batou on his avatar.

Of the three movies - I liked innocence the best. Ghost in the shell a close second, despite the heavy handed (and fairly shallow) philosophic bent.

Solid State bored the crap out of me so badly I still haven’t managed to stay awake through the whole film.

The series were okay, but somehow, whenever I watched I was always waiting for something I dunno - biggerbettermoreexciting. They made whatsherface too asexual, poor ol’ bartou never got his rocks off and she, despite slinking about in next to nothing, never really pushed the right buttons. Maybe that was the desired effect they were aiming for, but even if it was, it was the wrong effect. You can’t have a cold, sexually unavailable prick-tease as a main character without damaging the overall appeal of the show.

As in life, eventually, you’ve got to put out.

Ghost in the Shell just so happens to be one of my favorite films of all time

it works on so many levels and you can watch it over and over again and get so much out of it each time

I recently pre-ordered the Blu-ray version of Innocence. I’m stoked

if you have any questions regarding the film, then please do ask

Love both the series and the features but found reading the manga tedious, too much gibberish and jargon…

But that’s the whole point. Ghost in the Shell isn’t meant to be a “get your sex, get your action, and drool the whole time” kind of series (manga or SAC) or movies. It’s point is to use that futuristic dystopian atmosphere as a back drop to explore the implications of cybernetic modification, physical, psychical, social, et cetera. A series relying heavily on Descartes, La Mettrie, Dawkins, Haraway (who is even portrayed in Innocence), Deleuze and Guattari, Koestler/Ryle (where the series derives its name), Confucius, Buddha, Milton, Plato, et cetera is not targeting the same audience as Transformers, starring Michael Bay’s explosions. If this is what you were expecting, you picked the wrong damned series. This is a thinking series, more akin to Hard Scifi than anything, it is the fictional exploration of a hypothesis–it is philosophy, not recreational masturbation for your adrenaline junkie.

I was appalled by this review.

Wow, in terms of an internet forum this is an Old thread. I watched innocence with the English subtitles and also watched both T.V. Series. I haven’t read it but apparently in the Manga the Major is more of a sexual character though it is largely hinted that she has a sexual relationship with a another woman in the series (some nurse IDK).

I don’t really care for how weak they make natural humans look in that series though.

I don’t know that it makes naturals appear weak in and of themselves, just when juxtaposed to a partial or full prosthetic.

Well for instance when they went up against Humanity first(?) to rescue some CEO’s daughter, they just kill all the opposistion while barely getting a scratch and then Batou just says something along the lines of “For people without prostetic body parts they sure aren’t afraid too die”. That annoyed me a little… damn cyborg

Precisely. You wouldn’t be surprised to see an armored tank shrug off a frag grenade while it completely obliterated a human, right? It’s just that this tank looks like a human. And even then, there are limits, like when the Major shreds herself (both in the first film and one of the SAC series… episodes) attempting to rip the top off a smart-tank. They’re not invincible, but in comparison to a natural human, they are a tank in human form.

Humans are, how do you say? Squishy?

Bah, Infantry can defeat tanks with the proper equipment an tactics.

Yes, but the proper equipment and tactics are paramount here.

Watched the whole series, it was great. This is a must see for fellow Futurist philosophers.

The series is great, but it really reaches a peak in Innocence.

I like all quality Cyberpunk across all types of media i.e. Literature, Anime, Film, Music, and Video Games. As far as literature is concerned I read William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Neal Stephenson, Bruce Bethke, Rudy Rucker, and Ken MacLeod. Neuromancer, Schismatrix, Snow Crash, Headcrash, The Ware Trilogy, and the Star Fraction are all quality examples of these authors. With anime I’m into Ghost in the Shell and Akira. Film would have to be Blade Runner, Johnny Mnemonic, the Lawnmower Man, Hackers, Tron, and the Matrix. I listen to most Cyberpunk and find Front Line Assembly to be conceptually stimulating. For Video Games Deus Ex Machina and System Shock are excellent interactive renditions of the genre.

Cyberpunk is as relevant as any mainstream genre to academia. As Hard postmodern SF which lies more on the ‘extrapolative’ than the ‘speculative’ side it is a rich genre for study in Literary Studies, Literary Theory, Media Studies, Cultural Studies, and various combinations. My interest in Philosophy is rooted in taking a theoretical approach to examining Cyberpunk especially as intersects with Postmodern theory. The thinkers that I find relevant come from many different backgrounds but I focus a lot on both the Marxist and Postmodern traditions, their roots and implications. Some relevant critics are Brian McHale, Frederic Jameson, and Linda Hutcheon.

For me Ghost in the Shell is as much about identity as it is about hacking, noir, dystopia, or cyberspace. The focus on the philosophical implications of the human-automaton interface are what makes it really interesting and useful. Ghost in the Shell goes further than other on-screen Cyberpunk. Further than the replicants in Blade Runner, the techno-slaves of The Matrix or the robot in Artifical Intelligence. The cyborg post-hero does not seek to refind a “missing” human nature. Nature is created. In Ghost we are talking about a brave new post-human world. Individual self integrated into a larger being. Echoes of Overman, will-to-power, and the Buddha.

Just because Cyberpunk is postmodern doesn’t mean it is dead.

Time to spray-bomb another slogan.

cyphe

For anime series, Texhnolyze is decent, while Ergo Proxy and Serial Experiments Lain are phenomenal (Ergo Proxy is one of my all-time favorites). Last Exile is amazing for a steampunk (with hints of non-steam tech) series. Blame! is an insane manga…a must read if there ever was one (also Biomega and Noise by Nihei). If you haven’t checked those out, I would do so as soon as possible.

I will definitely check those out. Thanks.

Ergo Proxy storyline is horrible, imo. I quit watching after episode 4 or 5, due to the “outside city” plotline. They should have kept the story in the city and focused on the proxy.

If you quit at 5, you have no criteria to judge the entire show by. You have no idea what a proxy is or their relationship to the cities for quite a while. Horrible place to stop, in my opinion. But to each his own, I guess.

The facetious side narrative of the ghetto outside the city, and the convoluted premises they offered in terms of returning the main character female girl, was too unrealistic for my patience. If the series later had any redeeming qualities, then so be it. To each his own.

The city council idols was a pretty interesting concept though.

Wait, let me get this straight. That was what struck you as unrealistic? The premise that a woman raised from birth in a veritable hypoallergenic Petri dish would be somewhat susceptible to harsh outside conditions that her body has never experienced before? Or that someone as important as her would be retrieved, especially considering her genius brother’s attachment to her? Oh wait, episode 5? Lil hasn’t even gotten sick yet. I feel you’d be making a mistake not to give the rest a chance, but you have my express permission to skip #15. You haven’t even experienced any of the other domes. You haven’t even seen the land-sail boat thing.