Review of Ghost in the Shell: The New Movie (2015) by Kean C K — 17 Nov 2015

I'm going to assume that anyone looking to see Ghost in the Shell: The New Movie (2015), is already a fan of the original 1995 anime as well as the original animated series. This is a movie for the fans, so if you're not yet familiar with the series, definitely hold off on this title for now. With that out of the way, I'm going to begin by saying "The New Movie" is not a 'bad' film, but it's not a film that's going to sit well with most fans.

First, "The New Movie" picks up where the Ghost in The Shell: Arise series left off. Watching the 4 Arise episodes is not a prerequisite, but it will help you out if you're wondering why the team isn't working for Arimaki (yet). The new movie also carries on with the animation style, voice acting, and music of "Arise", so if you've watched the series, there are no surprises here. Unfortunately, most of my gripes have to do with the fact that they're continuing to use the "Arise" style.

The animation is superb, I'll give the movie that, but if you were hoping for the super-detailed, hand drawn animation of the 1995 feature film, you're going to be disappointed. The animation in "The New Movie" is super slick and a tad lifeless, like all modern anime, but it managed to wow me with great use of lighting, detailed character expressions, and immense detail in fast paced action scenes (which there are a lot of).

Moving on, the highlight of the film is easily the music. Cornelius' soundtrack creeps into the forefront and becomes much more than background music. Each track provides the perfect mood for GITS's haunting futuristic world. Like the Arise series, there's an emphasis on electronic instruments and ambient soundscapes. It's a far cry from the almost tribal sounding score in the 1995 original film and it's refreshingly modern without trying to cater to any specific genre or audience. I'm actually listening to the soundtrack as I write this - it's that good.

Now for the bad points. If you're a real GITS fan, you're going to be really sore about the fact that Kusanagi's voice actor from Season 1&2 of the animated series is present.....but she voices another character! A MAJOR character at that (no pun intended). The voice we've all come to know and love as The Major is ever present in "The New Movie", and it's that presence that ends up confusing the audience as to who's speaking. She even narrates the opening scenes of the film. It just seems like a big "eff you" to all the people who watched the original series. For the life of me, I can't understand why they would make this decision. To make matters worse, the cast of voice actors is not very characteristically diverse. The members of Kusanagi's team sound so similar that I could barely tell who's speaking, especially when they speak 'telepathically' through their cyber brains for half of the movie. And to top it off, Arimaki's voice actor, I think, was just not very fitting. He sounds way to tough and not at all like the wise old man we've come to adore. Arimaki's VA could have just as easily played Batou; it's absurd.

Finally, I need to talk about the plot. My feelings are mixed on this one, as I feel the film definitely gave us a taste of the philosophical crime drama that is the heart of GITS; it did that well. But for me, the plot was just too chaotic to follow. At any point in the movie, I was never really sure what the team's goal was or exactly who they were looking for. There investigation leads them to a lot of different theories and suspects, but even after all was said and done, I'm not really sure what was going on and what everyone's motives were. GITS by nature is always a little hard to follow, but the entire plot just went over my head on this one. I didn't feel like I was uncovering clues WITH the team; I just felt like I was watching them do it and hoping they'd fill me in later *sigh.

To make things even worse, "The New Movie" continues to molest the original plot line. As we know from Arise, the origin story of Kusanigi's team has been completely changed, but they go even further this time. They change the story of Kusanagi's cyberization. In the original TV series, many clues are given as to how/when/why Motoko became a cyborg. They never explicitly say it, but (if my memory is correct) were lead to believe that Kusanagi's parents died in an accident when she was a small girl. The Major survived, but was forced to migrate into a fully prosthetic body. The story is similar in "The New Movie", but slightly changed, and not nearly as emotional for the viewer as the original story.

Finally, *spoiler alert but not really, the last scene of the movie is the opening scene of the original 1995 GITS. They copy it almost verbatim, which would be a cool little nod to the fans, if not for the fact that the scene's inclusion suggests that we're supposed to consider the events of "Arise" and "The New Movie" as cannon. As a die hard fan, I just cannot accept that the Arise series and new movie are a true part of the GITS universe. They just don't measure up to the classic franchise at all, making the final scene of "The New Movie" feel more like a punch in the face rather than a fist bump.

Despite the negatives, watching Ghost in the Shell: The New Movie (2015) was still a fun and enjoyable experience. It's only downfall is that it (and the Arise series) continually teases and taunts die hard fans, almost as if to say "Your beloved series is dead, muahaha". If I were a first time GITS watcher, I might have loved this film; sadly, this film is MEANT for fans, so I'm forced to judge it in that light. It manages to get a 3/5 for me, and only because Cornelius' soundtrack is more captivating than the movie as whole.