Review of Ghost in the Shell (2017) by Yakusokunoji — 10 Apr 2017

This movie does not deserve the low rating it gets. Maybe if we would live in a world were people would not think "oh this does not meet my view of the original (views that most of the time are wrong anyway because fans often misunderstand their favourite fictional pieces anyway without admitting it) so I have to hate it instantly" then this movie would actually stand the - ghost of a chance. I went to see the movie and the first thing I have to say: I think Scarlett Johannson is definitely not de-placed in this movie. She does a splendid job. Second - I flat-out loved the movie and already demanded a sequel while actually watching this one. Third, I am glad that what many people praise so much as "philosophical and existential theme" is touched but only a bit. Truth be told the movie did a very solid job at saying "we implanted you, so your consciousness in this body so we actually managed for your very self to remain". So many stories nowadays live of pseudo-philosophical, pseudo-existential and pseudo-moral questions. Many of these things are very self-explanatory though. Such is the truth about the existence of the very self. It is a basic psychological thing. Our consciousness is our instance to perceive reality. Our "Ego" is our instance to perceive reality. It is flat our very self. So it is already obvious from the very beginning that if "this" is moved to somewhere else and not just some copy, then it is the original self. There is no necessity in touching this even more because it is extremely essential. Being conscious is psychologically living. And as long as it is ours it is us. So in this case I was very glad they just said during the first few minutes "We managed to retain your ghost". With this it was slightly touched but could also instead focus on another thing: The question what person she was before she became a cyborg. It was all a very nice mix and a good spin with the one we had to assume to be the antagonist that brought in another tragic element. The visuals were stunning and of course I do not talk about the beauty that Scarlett Johannson alone is, no, of course I also mean the way the movie was made to look and the entire futuristic theme very much is something I like a lot. I know the movie is different and I still have not come around to see and read the original but in general I am a person that is very fine with adaptions not being 1:1.

All I can say is that I can very much recommend this movie and it already is a favourite of mine - though it definitely could have been longer.