Scott Hicks: Response to Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

I had been meaning to see this follow up to Mamoru Oshii’s cult hit from 1995 Ghost in the Shell when it was playing at the Kentucky Theater. However, with life being what it is the chance to see it in theaters escaped me and I kind of forgot about it until I saw it on the recommended movies list. With little thought I declared to myself, that would be the movie I would write a response to.

So I grabbed the movie from Blockbuster ran home and watched it. I spent 100 minutes of my life in awe of the pretty things I saw on screen and then sat down to write how awesome this movie was, but, I just stared at the computer screen. I decided I had writers block and watched the movie again. It was on this second run through the movie I realized why I couldn’t write about how awesome the movie was, because it wasn’t. This movie honestly just didn’t hold a candle to the original.

In 2000, five years after its release I saw Ghost in the Shell screenplay by Kazunori Ito and directed by Mamoru Oshii. I was floored by amazing special effects, intriguing dialog (watch it in subtitles), and a spectacular albeit convoluted story. Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence does manage to bring a few things from the original to the screen; amazing special effects, and a convoluted story. In fact the story is so convoluted as to be nearly impossible to follow.

I’m unsure as to the exact reason to why the plot faltered so heavily, mainly because there are so many possible reasons. The original writer from Ghost in the Shell, Kazunori Ito was not onboard for the second project. I definitely place part of the blame on this because Ito has done a fantastic job on several of his other projects; .hack//SIGN (2003), and Patlabor 1 (Oshii, 1989). It could also be the horrendously clichéd story.

In the near future a horrifyingly large mega-corporation begins to manufacture illegal sex robots with super advanced AI’s capable of sentient thought. However, everything goes wrong when they get too smart and start to kill people. Okay, I know it’s a lot deeper then I made it seem but that is the basic story for the movie, and I don’t want to spoil anything for the folks at home. Sadly I think I’ve seen this movie about ten or fifteen times before. I understand that it’s a nifty concept but I really I expected so much more from this movie. It’s not just the shallowness of the plot that gets me though, it’s the sheer convolution and pointlessness of many of the scenes in the movie.

The movie had to frequently save itself from derailing at key points through Deus ex Machina in the form of the key protagonists “guardian angel.” This was the part that bothered me that most. I understood the point and importance of this “angel” but I actually feel that this incredibly important plot point and in fact, my purpose for watching the sequel, was left nearly unexplained and was used merely as a tool to advance the mundane and clichéd story.

Okay rant done, the movie does have its moments though. These are usually in the form of short little scene setups where they use fantastic cgi to help set the location. The best of which is actually fairly long and helps set the scene and feel for a futuristic China. I found myself frequently distracted from the poor story by the stunning beauty of the backgrounds and animation. Sometimes little stories, like the man on the unicycle at the police station, unfolded in the background if you knew where to look.

All in all I feel that the ball was dropped here. I’ll stick to my DVD’s of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex(2004-05) which is the TV series based off of the original movie. If your really enjoyed the first Ghost in the Shell go ahead and watch this so you can stay with continuity, but it might piss you off.