Ghost in the Shell live action movie

[Keith&Co.]

and you'll get pilloried online if you admit to enjoying it.

Wel, that's my favorite part.
Watching a movie and leaving the theatre, not knowing if i enjoyed it until i can access the experts online to tell me if it sucked or not, and everything the director/cast/marketing/writers/lighting guy got wrong.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

http://asianfilmist.com/12-films-remade-in-asia/
http://www.themalaymailonline.com/showbiz/article/five-notable-asian-remakes-of-hollywood-movies

not a single white face to be seen in any of these asian remakes of hollywood movies.
when will the sort-of-caramel-brownish-washing end!?

OTOH:
crying about "whitewashing" is fucking stupid, because every movie studio casts the predominant native ethnicity for movies being marketed to a given country.

A movie studio typically wants to run with an actor that can bring people into the seats, lots of people.

That said, can this be said of people who crapped their pants over Annie or anytime a "white" role is replaced with a person of "color"?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

http://asianfilmist.com/12-films-remade-in-asia/
http://www.themalaymailonline.com/showbiz/article/five-notable-asian-remakes-of-hollywood-movies

not a single white face to be seen in any of these asian remakes of hollywood movies.
when will the sort-of-caramel-brownish-washing end!?

OTOH:
crying about "whitewashing" is fucking stupid, because every movie studio casts the predominant native ethnicity for movies being marketed to a given country.

A movie studio typically wants to run with an actor that can bring people into the seats, lots of people.

That said, can this be said of people who crapped their pants over Annie or anytime a "white" role is replaced with a person of "color"?

I recall there was one time when a Broadway version of Harry Potter cast a black Hermione and all the delicate snowflakes online were freaking out so badly, you'd have thought they saw a Muslim walking around their town.

 

[blastula]

The acting was very wooden in the original, it's not like they needed anybody with great acting skills to stay true.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The good news is that she'll probably handle the role better than Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Now, can someone tell me why Sailor Moon and company were all white girls?

and you'll get pilloried online if you admit to enjoying it.

Wel, that's my favorite part.
Watching a movie and leaving the theatre, not knowing if i enjoyed it until i can access the experts online to tell me if it sucked or not, and everything the director/cast/marketing/writers/lighting guy got wrong.

In looking up the Black Widow "controversy" I found out that Avengers: Age of Ultron was a complete waste. I wish I knew this before I liked it.

 

[Keith&Co.]

In looking up the Black Widow "controversy" I found out that Avengers: Age of Ultron was a complete waste. I wish I knew this before I liked it.

I know, right?

Or the movie ET? A reviewer criticized it for having the kids use profanity, and double-criticized it because the profanity didn't make sense, which ruined the movie.
I hadn't noticed the movie was ruined, but then, i didn't find 'penis-breath' all that confusing. Maybe if i'd led a more sheltered life....?

Anyway, his next column was to thank everyone for sending in written paragraphs, drawings, photographs, magazine subscriptions and other explanatory aids to help him understand 'PB.' But he didn't go see the movie again to see if making sense of the vulgarity brought the movie together in the end... So i still don't know if the movie made any sense.

 

[Underseer]

See the movie.

If you are not familiar with the source material, you'll find it a good-looking action movie with a few big ideas and a cookie-cutter plot.

If you're familiar with the source material, suffice it to say that the Americanization of the story was a thousand times worse than the white washing of the main character. They made it a generic Western story about the power of individualism when the source material was about the exact opposite.

 

[repoman]

See the movie.

If you are not familiar with the source material, you'll find it a good-looking action movie with a few big ideas and a cookie-cutter plot.

If you're familiar with the source material, suffice it to say that the Americanization of the story was a thousand times worse than the white washing of the main character. They made it a generic Western story about the power of individualism when the source material was about the exact opposite.

Have you seen this "Shining" trailer? Turns the movie into a whimsical comedy. Is that what you meant by opposite?

 

[Underseer]

Sorry for the typo.

See should be seen.

I do not recommend this movie.

 

[repoman]

Watching this Kermode review and the "deep dive" clip he shows is all wrong. Kusanagi would be either stoic or mildly intrigued to do it.



"Consent" and human emotion about it?!? Kusanagi is a bad ass cyber warrior as ready to do that as jump off a building for an assassination.

I would say that Robocop reboot seems like it will be less objectionable to me than live action GiTS when I finally get around to seeing it.

 

[LordKiran]

If I have no knowledge of the source material whatsoever, am I allowed to like the movie?

Sure, but if it isn't as good as the source material then why even waste your time? Gits has plenty of one-off animated movies you could just watch instead.

When it comes to the consumption of media, I think it is important to treat your time as the finite commodity it is which you exchange in return for enjoyment.

 

[James Brown]

If I have no knowledge of the source material whatsoever, am I allowed to like the movie?

Sure, but if it isn't as good as the source material then why even waste your time?

Because if I'm not familiar with the source material, there's no way I can compare.

 

[LordKiran]

Sure, but if it isn't as good as the source material then why even waste your time?

Because if I'm not familiar with the source material, there's no way I can compare.

Which is why you ask around. You have the internet. There's like a thousand websites that you could turn to which would gladly spend hours comparing and contrasting individual movies because fans are obsessive to a fault.

 

[prideandfall]

Because if I'm not familiar with the source material, there's no way I can compare.

Which is why you ask around. You have the internet. There's like a thousand websites that you could turn to which would gladly spend hours comparing and contrasting individual movies because fans are obsessive to a fault.

which raises an interesting question: why in the hell would he do that?

i mean okay, if you're already big on the original anime i understand that you'd be interested in this, but if you're just some random dude who saw a trailer for a cool looking sci-fi thing and wanted to go see it because it looked cool, even if you're vaguely aware it's based on a 30 year old cartoon movie why would you give any shits about that or about how it compares to the original?

if you've loved GITS for years and have longed for a good live action adaptation, yeah you have some legit reasons to be obsessive and nit-picky about it.
if you're totally unaware of the original movie or have seen it but were never particularly enamored with it (such as is the case with me) then its existence is irrelevant to the fact that there's a cool looking sci-fi action movie out.

side note about GITS:
i have a friend who is my movie buddy, and she's been super excited about GITS since the first trailers hit because she likes sci-fi and geeky stuff and is a movie nerd and enjoys all that sort of thing, the trailers made GITS look right up our alley.
i saw the original about two decades ago as a teenager and thought it was badass (just like with akira) but it didn't blow my mind (just like with akira) - so last week i fired up a stream of GITS so we could watch it before going to see the movie.
man... GITS is fucking unwatchable now.

it's definitely an unfortunate case of a media property spawning ripoffs and imitators and have disseminated into the cultural zeitgeist so much over the years that the original plays out like a really boring by-the-numbers cliche of a sci-fi film, even though it's the film that spawned all the cliches in the first place.
there's also a ridiculous amount of the run time dedicated to still shots of a cityscape or a face where nothing is happening whatsoever.

we got like 20 minutes into it and had to turn it off, it was stupidly painful.
that movie does not hold up at all, especially not when watching it through the lens of a newcomer who's seeing it for the first time.

 

[Underseer]

If they aren't going to bother honoring the source material, why pay all that money for they intellectual property in the first place?

The reason that they pay for the intellectual property is because the public is already familiar with it, and they want to translate that familiarity into butts in seats.

We've seen this a thousand times before. If you don't show that you care about what fans like about the source material, this is what happens.

Non-fan: Hey, they made a movie about Panty Ninja Warrior. I heard of that before. I'll ask Ed. Ed knows all about that Panty Ninja Warrior stuff.

Fan: OMG it sucks! It's terrible! Her panties are supposed to be blue, not purple!

Non-fan: well, if that movie sucks, I will spend my hard-earned money on watching Fast and Furious 16: VW Beetles For Justice instead...

If a movie studio wants to buy an intellectual property to get more butts in seats, then great, but if they don't care enough to at least make a pass at pleasing the fans, then they're probably not competent enough nor passionate enough to make a good movie out of said property. Why spend the money on the rights to something if you're not going to put in a modicum of effort in doing what it takes to leverage that intellectual property into greater profits?

A good example of this is I, Robot. If they had just removed all references to Isaac Asimov, changed all the names, and called it an homage to Asimov instead of an adaptation of his work that used the title of one of his most famous stories, then what they would have had was just another fast, funny, and smart action movie typical of a Will Smith movie from that time. I would have been perfectly ok with it. But they had to put Asimov's name on it, and in my opinion, I had no choice but to judge the movie as an adaptation of the story I, Robot, and in that it falls miserably.

 

[Underseer]

The Matrix got it right. Take the name off, call it an homage instead of an adaptation, and you can steal ideas but still have the freedom to make as many changes as you want.

 

[Underseer]

The Matrix was a better live action adaptation of Ghost in the Shell than the movie that actually bears the name.

The Incredibles is a better adaptation of the Fantastic Four than any of the movies that actually bear the name.

 

[prideandfall]

If they aren't going to bother honoring the source material, why pay all that money for they intellectual property in the first place?

a question i've often wondered when it comes to movies, given how utterly random and slap-dash it feels with regards to what properties they faithfully duplicate and which they totally screw up.

i'd imagine that GITS is a case nearly identical to john carter - someone in the process loved the source and passionately fought to sell the idea and somehow got it green-lit, then old white studio executives stuck their sweaty faces in the project and totally pig-fucked the entire thing trying to make it "more appealing to a broader audience."

 

[J842P]

If they aren't going to bother honoring the source material, why pay all that money for they intellectual property in the first place?

The reason that they pay for the intellectual property is because the public is already familiar with it, and they want to translate that familiarity into butts in seats.

We've seen this a thousand times before. If you don't show that you care about what fans like about the source material, this is what happens.

Non-fan: Hey, they made a movie about Panty Ninja Warrior. I heard of that before. I'll ask Ed. Ed knows all about that Panty Ninja Warrior stuff.

Fan: OMG it sucks! It's terrible! Her panties are supposed to be blue, not purple!

Non-fan: well, if that movie sucks, I will spend my hard-earned money on watching Fast and Furious 16: VW Beetles For Justice instead...

If a movie studio wants to buy an intellectual property to get more butts in seats, then great, but if they don't care enough to at least make a pass at pleasing the fans, then they're probably not competent enough nor passionate enough to make a good movie out of said property. Why spend the money on the rights to something if you're not going to put in a modicum of effort in doing what it takes to leverage that intellectual property into greater profits?

A good example of this is I, Robot. If they had just removed all references to Isaac Asimov, changed all the names, and called it an homage to Asimov instead of an adaptation of his work that used the title of one of his most famous stories, then what they would have had was just another fast, funny, and smart action movie typical of a Will Smith movie from that time. I would have been perfectly ok with it. But they had to put Asimov's name on it, and in my opinion, I had no choice but to judge the movie as an adaptation of the story I, Robot, and in that it falls miserably.

I make one exception for Starship Troopers. The director admitted he stropped reading the book after a couple of chapters, and indeed, the movie plays more like a satirization of the book rather than an homage or adaptation (the plot very loosely follows the books plot). However, despite being a huge Heinlein fan, I fucking love that movie.

 

[Underseer]

If they aren't going to bother honoring the source material, why pay all that money for they intellectual property in the first place?

The reason that they pay for the intellectual property is because the public is already familiar with it, and they want to translate that familiarity into butts in seats.

We've seen this a thousand times before. If you don't show that you care about what fans like about the source material, this is what happens.

Non-fan: Hey, they made a movie about Panty Ninja Warrior. I heard of that before. I'll ask Ed. Ed knows all about that Panty Ninja Warrior stuff.

Fan: OMG it sucks! It's terrible! Her panties are supposed to be blue, not purple!

Non-fan: well, if that movie sucks, I will spend my hard-earned money on watching Fast and Furious 16: VW Beetles For Justice instead...

If a movie studio wants to buy an intellectual property to get more butts in seats, then great, but if they don't care enough to at least make a pass at pleasing the fans, then they're probably not competent enough nor passionate enough to make a good movie out of said property. Why spend the money on the rights to something if you're not going to put in a modicum of effort in doing what it takes to leverage that intellectual property into greater profits?

A good example of this is I, Robot. If they had just removed all references to Isaac Asimov, changed all the names, and called it an homage to Asimov instead of an adaptation of his work that used the title of one of his most famous stories, then what they would have had was just another fast, funny, and smart action movie typical of a Will Smith movie from that time. I would have been perfectly ok with it. But they had to put Asimov's name on it, and in my opinion, I had no choice but to judge the movie as an adaptation of the story I, Robot, and in that it falls miserably.

I make one exception for Starship Troopers. The director admitted he stropped reading the book after a couple of chapters, and indeed, the movie plays more like a satirization of the book rather than an homage or adaptation (the plot very loosely follows the books plot). However, despite being a huge Heinlein fan, I fucking love that movie.

Starship Troopers is something I put in the same category as Blade Runner: terrible adaptation, but it has enough good about it that you can overlook the adaptation flaws if you pretend it's not an adaptation.

Starship Troopers works as a hilarious satire of the way American gung ho action movies glamorize a fascist viewpoint, and on top of that, it introduced a bunch of really annoying characters, then let's us watch them get violent dismembered one by one. If you recognize that the humans are fascists and cheer for the bugs, it's a comedy with a tragic ending.