"The Major has you, Neo."
"Woah."
I just finished
watching “Ghost in the Shell: Solid State Society”. I'm not sure
how this one escaped me for so long. It was typical GITS fare, for
better and worse.
The worst of worse
is that GITS loves to hear itself talk, and besides throwing a lot of
terminology around expecting you to follow along, I'm not always sure
the translations of these little complexities come through as clearly
as they could. There were also some themes that are very prominent in
the current 'uh-oh sphere' in Japan, so I guess you get more out of
it if you're aware of that. Doubtless there's ton of Japan-culture
things going on that a gaijin like me won't catch.
GITS also has a
few of it's own tropes that make appearances... Motoko Kusanagi MUST:
-Jump on the back
of a walking tank to open up its hatch.
-Jump backwards
off a building, so we can watch from above as she engages optical
camouflage and disappears.
-Float in water
naked in the fetal position. Well... this was in the opening credits
thing, and it soon becomes apparent that she's not naked, and that's
not water, it's cyberspace, but the visual starts off very
reminiscent of the opening of the original GITS movie.
-Not be played by
ScarJo.
The smart tanks
eventually become involved, but have fewer lines than in the series,
so their squeaky voices don't get a chance to be annoying. It's the
Tachikoma smart tanks of course... I miss the Fushikomas. But alas...
not yet.
The main 'unsub'
is “the puppeteer”. Really? That had me wondering for a minute if
this was a retelling of the Puppetmaster story arc, but no. Was the
name just fanservice? Oh well... the puppeteer does use people as
puppets via hacking their cyberbrains... but this has to be a common
enough crime in that age. And you can't have ALL of them calling
themselves puppet-this and puppet-that.
Overall, typical
GITS fare. Even seeing its flaws, watching some GITS, (especially NEW
GITS) is darn near therapeutic to my nerdy brain.
Rating: Fanboy/10
.
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