Ghost in the Shell: US Production White-Washes Kusanagi Character

[Ryan]

So why do you think Johnson got multiple chances and not Cho? Why Reynolds and not some guy we've never heard of? Do you think all this money is invested based on arbitrary decisions? We live in a world of big data. We might not be able to make predictions with 100% accuracy but we can at least quantify risk.

[Sarah]

This conversation needs to stop now. I will lock the thread if necessary but I would rather not.

[MrsJoseph *grouchy*]

Seriously. Ryan wouldn't know racism/sexism even if it bit him in the ass. Next thing we know, he'll explain to us that the Africans were in alt to get to come to the US colonies.

I'm done discussing this topic (with Ryan). Anyone want to have a real conversation?

[Ryan]

Sarah Anne wrote: "This conversation needs to stop now. I will lock the thread if necessary but I would rather not."

Clearly some of us are getting emotional and resorting to personal attacks.

[Sarah]

Ryan, I'm the mod and it's my job to stop arguments.

[Ryan]

And you're doing a great job Sarah Anne. There's nothing worse than when people disagree with each other.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

C'mon, dude. Why be sarcastic at the person whose terrible job it is to make sure that things don't go too far and break apart our largely positive, largely inquisitive community? Disagree away, but clearly no minds were being changed. That's not a discussion anymore, that's an argument, and there isn't a positive way to end those. Your points were heard, we know how you feel. Thanks for the counterpoints.

[Ken]

Michel wrote: " Scarlett Johansson's play was in character and the critiques who said that her play was wooden were out to lunch (she was playing a robot, for God's sake! "

Kusunagi is not a Robot. She's a human being in a mechanical body. Yes, there is a difference. In fact, that difference is the entire point of the series.

Ryan wrote: "I think it shows that if you're going to appeal to the lowest common denominator, as studios must if they want to maximise their ROI, then you have to go all out - dumb it down, spend huge money and get the biggest stars (and many of those are non-white, even if they're not East Asian)."

They certainly went this route with this film. It missed the point entirely.

Allison wrote: "It'd be like turning Casablanca into a romcom that takes place in his bar but it's not during WW2 and no nazis are stopping people from moving around."

To me, this is the argument we should be having. It's not about racial representation or demographics. This film will bomb because it gave the finger to its source material, a source material that its fans adored, and in doing so, eschewed entirely the themes and big questions that the story was all about.

[Tom]

Just came out of the movie, and wow! Wonderful visual feast with a more humanized/relatable set of motivations for the characters.

(view spoiler)[The new back-story for both the Major and the rogue AI/cyborg works just fine, and grounds the story in emotion rather than staying fully invested in the idea of a new form of life/intelligence. The original ideas are still there, but are pushed back in an attempt to make the characters more relatable to a general audience. Apparently it's still too abstract for the newspaper critics, which does not bode well for science fiction writers who want to keep exploring the idea of digital evolution. (hide spoiler)]

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

I found this to be a very, very interesting read. It tackles the messaging, the reception, the economics of it all...really thought-provoking questions and observations.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat...

[MrsJoseph *grouchy*]

Ken wrote: "Allison wrote: "It'd be like turning Casablanca into a romcom that takes place in his bar but it's not during WW2 and no nazis are stopping people from moving around."

To me, this is the argument we should be having. It's not about racial representation or demographics. This film will bomb because it gave the finger to its source material, a source material that its fans adored, and in doing so, eschewed entirely the themes and big questions that the story was all about.


I agree, mostly. I think it's both. Not so much "representation" but rather the belief that the movie - even though the source material's popularity hasn't dimmed in well over 20 years - could not be carried by Asian actors. Even though the source material IS Asian.

I am the audience for this movie: I love mindless action flicks and I like badass women kicking ass. But I have hesitated on seeing this because of my love of the original. I didn't see anything that made me think "Ghost in the Shell" but the haircut.

[MrsJoseph *grouchy*]

Allison wrote: "I found this to be a very, very interesting read. It tackles the messaging, the reception, the economics of it all...really thought-provoking questions and observations.

http://www.hollywoodreport..."

Wow. That felt...almost like a kick in the gut. Thanks for the link.

[Sarah]

That's a great article. Thanks, Allison.

[Gary]

I watched it last night. Future Japan is very, very damp. Seriously, it's like they shot half the movie under a waterpark.

[MrsJoseph *grouchy*]

Gary wrote: "I watched it last night. Future Japan is very, very damp. Seriously, it's like they shot half the movie under a waterpark."

lol

[Alexandra]

Allison wrote: "I found this to be a very, very interesting read. It tackles the messaging, the reception, the economics of it all...really thought-provoking questions and observations.

http://www.hollywoodreport..."

Very thought-provoking. Thanks, Allison.

[Alexandra]

Gary wrote: "I watched it last night. Future Japan is very, very damp. Seriously, it's like they shot half the movie under a waterpark."

LOL.

And it looks a lot like Hong Kong... But that's intentional.

[Gary]

Like I said, I watched this thing the other night. Aside from any issues having to do with Hollywood white-washing, there's an important takeaway to be got from this film:

It's crap.

Now, I was a big fan of the original anime, so I'm trying not to compare/contrast the live action film too much with that version, but it's hard—and maybe pointless—to do that as this product is such a bastardization of that earlier version. The best parts of this film are almost certainly the nearly shot-for-shot recreations of the anime. The folks who made this thing clearly studied that original, but as often happens, they just figured they were better storytellers than the people who created a story and characters that reached across national, linguistic and cultural lines to inspire millions of fans, so they came up with their own story ideas, wedged them into the existing materials in a sad, hamfisted way, and tacked the original brand name on it to make a "New and Improved!" version that is just a watered down, dumbed down version of the original.

It's sad when someone spends $110 million to create something that is substantially crappier than what we had over two decades ago. Just go watch the anime again. You'll be better off.

[MrsJoseph *grouchy*]

Gary wrote: "Like I said, I watched this thing the other night. Aside from any issues having to do with Hollywood white-washing, there's an important takeaway to be got from this film:

It's crap.

Now, I was a..."


This was what I was thinking would be the truth. The anime is...pure genius.

I'll see this when it hits the small screen.

[AndrewP]

This just goes to show the hypocrisy of Hollyweirds left wing rants. They talk about diversity and equality but have no interest in putting their money where there mouth is.

[Michael]

Gary wrote: "Like I said, I watched this thing the other night. Aside from any issues having to do with Hollywood white-washing, there's an important takeaway to be got from this film:

It's crap."
Yeah, that's what I was afraid of just from watching the trailers. :-(

[Ken]

Their decision to have Aramaki speak Japanese with subtitles and have every other character reply in English was absurd. There's a lot wrong with this film and it's much more than just the poor choice of lead actor.

Kitano is a brilliant actor, and they wasted him by sidelining him as a subtitled foreigner.

[Stevie]

I haven't seen either version, but I found this article interesting. My favorite quote is: "Hirano, like most Japanese fans, had no issue with Scarlett Johansson's casting in the pic."

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/amp/...

[Ken]

Setting aside the race issue, Johansson is just a bad actor and her performance was incredibly weak.

[Aaron]

The Great Wall FEATURING MATT DAEMON got brought up earlier. I loved that movie and Matt Daemon was the worst part about that movie. But it would of done like shit in the west anyways because it was too Chinese.

This movie wouldn't of done well either because the ads weren't very good, and the movie wasn't good enough to catch on fire though word of mouth.

Neither of these mean I'm defending the casting, because obviously they didn't work with those castings. I just don't think A list movie stars have that big of an effect.

Ken wrote: "Setting aside the race issue, Johansson is just a bad actor and her performance was incredibly weak."

Ehh, I thought she did good in this movie. In fact I think everyone did really good in this movie except the writers that tried to do way too much in too little time resulting in a mess.