We Made You a New Body. A Synthetic Shell. But Your Mind, Your Soul, Your “Ghost,” It’s Still In There: Ghost in the Shell (2017)

We made you a new body. A synthetic shell. But your mind, your soul, your “ghost,” it’s still in there.

So I had never seen this film before but my sister wanted to watch it during our Dystopian Future film fest during the beginning of shelter in place. I did remember the film as the controversy was huge. People were extremely upset over them casting Scarlet Johansson instead of an Asian actress, then getting mad when they tried to CGI a more Asian face, and so on.

Grab your torches and sharpen your pitchforks!

 

So I watched this and…I hated this.

I was so bored fell asleep halfway through and then tried to watch it again, but just couldn’t connect to it. I couldn’t even tell what was going on.

I watched the anime film and that was much, much better. It is a high concept but it was understandable and much easier to follow. I was riveted to that story.

The biggest problem with this film was Scarlet Johansson. She was horrible.

She was so wooden and acted robotic. I don’t know if the director was overcompensating for making her not Asian and trying to say it wasn’t about race, if it was because of the CGI they planned to add and removed, if she just struggled with being robotic in her body and voice instead of just focusing on the voice like in Her. I mean there is a way to have a person be a robot/cyborg and still be able to connect to them and understand what they are experiencing and going through. Look at Robocop, look at the Terminator, etc. All those were much better depictions. I don’t know where the blame truly lies-director or actress, all I know it was awful…just a mess.

I don’t know…

I also felt the story really strayed from the original concept and became like a ripoff of Robocop meets Blade Runner.

It just was a big mess, and I’d skip it.

For more Dystopian Future films, go to Any Longer Out On That Road and I’m One of Them, You Know? A Terminal Crazy…: Mad Max (1979)

For more cyborgs, go to This is a Bad One, the Worst Yet. I Need the Old Blade Runner…: Blade Runner (1982)

For more Scarlett Johansson, go to We’re Mad Scientists. We’re Monsters: Avengers, Age of Ultron (2015)