I still haven’t seen the movie, but I don’t see Jolie as Aeon from the animations. Not sure who would make a good pick, but she should probably have an eating disorder to match the Egon Scheele-esque physique.
And why would such a story not come from the American culture? Mobile Armored Riot Police sounds more like the U.S. than it does Japan.
P.K. Dick seems to be the origin of most of the elements of GITS. Can machines have a soul was the subject of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. The question of fatalism the major seems to struggle with is the main subject of Galactic Pot-Healer. etc etc etc
In fact, I’d go so far as to say that nothing in GITS originates in Japanese work. It all seems derivative of early American sci-fi and works hard to mirror that body of work. Did Masamune Shirow nihonjin-wash American sci-fi and the moral ambiguity of the U.S. in the 20th century?
How many of these characters would the average white American person assume is Japanese or Asian?
FTFY.
The Japanese see anime characters as being Japanese. It is Americans who think they are white. Why? Because to them white is the Default Human Being.
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If that happens, I swear to God I will go on a killing spree.
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William Gibson said of the Matrix
“I thought it was more like Dick’s work than mine, though more coherent, saner, than I generally take Dick to have been. A Dickian universe with fewer moving parts (for Dick, I suspect, all of the parts were, always, moving parts). A Dickian universe with a solid bottom (or for the one film at least, as there’s no way of knowing yet where the franchise is headed). It’s thematically gnostic, something NEUROMANCER isn’t.”
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[quote=“dacree, post:82, topic:49321”]
And why would such a story not come from the American culture?[/quote]
Because it didn’t, it’s simple causality. The same reason why it didn’t come from Malaysia of Brazil,
It might in the abstract. Check out the manga or the television of Shirow’s “Dominion Tank Police”, maybe you can convince yourself it is a transplanted US story.
[quote=“dacree, post:82, topic:49321”]Can machines have a soul…
The question of fatalism the major seems to struggle with…[/quote]
I don’t know, I don’t relate to those as being strong themes of the GITS world, except maybe by way of Oshii’s movies. But Oshii laid out his musings in a very direct, discursive style which didn’t strike me as Dickian.
Maybe you and I have differing ideas of what white washing is. You seem to be implying that if a story is first written or produced in another country, when it’s done in the US it becomes white washing.
Myself, I consider white washing appropriation of cultural themes and the replacing of ethnic characters with euro actors where the ethnicity of the original character is central to the theme or plot of the story. I do not see that here. I only see concern trolling by fans who don’t want to see their GITS story played with.
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Hand to my heart: I would be happy to see Lucy Lawless play the Major.
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BURN THE HERETIC!!!
ahem
Sorry, visceral reaction. 
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[quote=“dacree, post:89, topic:49321, full:true”]I only see concern trolling by fans who don’t want to see their GITS story played with.
[/quote]
There’s nothing wrong in principle with changing a story’s setting, just like there’s nothing wrong in principle with telling a story where all the significant characters are male (see Bechdel Test). The problem is that Hollywood adaptations almost always turn foreign stories into white American stories, not for artistic reasons but because they’re pandering to a perceived racist audience.
Also, I’m kinda sick of people using “concern trolling” to mean “any argument that I disagree with.”
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I don’t care what “white washing” may be, I think it’s a meaningless term. FWIW I don’t care what the actors look like, or how well known they may or not be.
That’s what I’m talking about. Although I don’t know if it’s because they’re pandering to xenophobes or simply bankrupt of ideas.
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What I’m concerned is not about GitS being “whitewashed”, but rather some good franchise like GitS that got a respectful revival like SAC to be turned to shit by other studios - something Hollywood excels in doing.
Do you think foreign work like All You Need is Kill needed its plot to be twisted into pretzel to turn a kid recruit protagonist to old geezer just to star Tom Cruise? You don’t see a problem with it either? You think GitS is PKD novel in Japanese skin? You can call me a troll all you want, but you are blind as a bat.
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Yeah, I get that. It’s kind of like people who claim white washing when Hollywood tells a story once told somewhere else.
Then why take the time to reply to my post stating that the white washing claims are B.S.?
So, a franchise you have nothing to do with, did not participate in the creation of, and have no personal stake in is being re-made and you are worried it will not be the movie you think it should be?
I think the fictional story called GITS borrows and builds on themes that are not culturally Japanese which is why I call B.S. on the white washing claims. But, I get it. Something you love is being re-created and that threatens you for some reason. I’ve come to understand that fanatics are simply like that.
Because I think people are missing the point - which is not to say that I don’t otherwise have an opinion. The original post only says:
[quote]A new motion picture adaptation of the popular Japanese manga/anime franchise “Ghost in The Shell” will star Scarlett Johansson.
“Ghost” began as a serialized manga first published in 1989, and an animated motion picture adaptation was released in 1995.[/quote]
Maybe I’d like to discuss the motivations behind it, behind remakes/adaptations generally, and where the production seems to be going without concern for whether or not the actress is/appears/should-be Japanese. I am apparently in a minority who doesn’t really follow or care about actors.
I’ve got to wonder why you appear to be so adverse to people having opinions about this, and calling them out on it.
A person doesn’t need to be a “threatened fanatic” to be critical. Like I said, re-creations can be inspired, but my experience is that they rarely are - and tend to be embarrassing cash-ins. If you find GITS to be so derivative and culturally neutral, and consider movies to be artless commodities, I am sure we can be mature enough to agree to disagree.
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Ben Wheatley. Ben Wheatley now for anything even remotely weird or that deals with anything that is outside the realm of current reality. At least, let’s see how he does with Ballard’s High Rise, and then let Ben Wheatley do all the things.
And he also called Amy Pascal, a grown ass woman, a girl… Shut up Rush…
[edited to add] Also, he says that Bond was a “real character, created by a real guy”, while Little Orphan Annie was apparently created by… imaginary, mythical beings?
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The difference being that I’ve seen quite a bit of demand for a Black Widow movie, and virtually none for Ant-Man (plus a lot of anger at Janet Van Dyne being pre-emptively fridged).
The only opinion I am adverse to is calling these kinds of movies white washing. That was the subject of the post to which you decided to reply.
If you’d like to discuss the motivations behind making the movie, I’m certainly not stopping you but you replied you disagreed with my post that the white washing claims are bunk by saying the story can only come from Japan, a position I think I covered in reply to which you had no response but to criticize me for posting further.
Your changing angles and weak straw man framing of what you want to believe are my opinions preclude any real discussion.
