It's been almost 15 years since Mamoru Oshii
blessed the world with his adaptation of the Ghost in the Shell manga.
A true anime milestone and a film that flared the hunger for anime in
the West. For the 2.0 version Oshii revisited his masterpiece and
granted it a little polish job. Question is, did he kill off his own
masterpiece or was he actually able to improve on it?
Touching a classic is always dangerous. Just ask Ridley Scott or George Lucas. You're bound to piss of some angry fanboys who consider the film more than a simple film but a relic of its time. On the other hand, you might reach a new audience which doesn't really feel the need to try out the films of yonder. Sound and color touch-ups are usually quite harmless, but Oshii also decided to redo some sequences to connect it closer to the second film.
Ghost in the Shell was my favorite film ever for a long, long time. When I first saw it, I was quite blown away with the structure and lack of narrative urgency. My favorite scene has always been the long trek through the city in the middle of the film. Five minutes of good solid atmosphere to lose yourself in. But over the years some cracks appeared. Innocence was every bit as good as its predecessor and some scenes became a little murky and gray. So if done right, I wouldn't really mind the new paint job.
Visually some important changes were made. The most obvious one is the switch from green overtones (the wireframe views and intro) to sepia, diminishing its imposed relation to The Matrix and tying it closer to Innocence. Apart from that, some extra CG scene were included, mostly in the beginning of the film. While the CG is nice enough, it's not the same quality as in Innocence and it doesn't always blend it too well. The whole new intro isn't really an improvement, the helicopter flight (with the shark-copter) on the other hands looks a lot nicer.
Some extra cleaning was done, making the colors more vivid and the city views more crisp. There's more detail in the backgrounds, enhancing the overall visual impression of the film. As for the audio, some of the effects were obviously redone, capturing more of the surrounding noises and giving more audio feedback of what's happening on screen. They even redid some of the voices, most notably the Puppet Master himself who received a more fitting voice. It's these neat little things that give the film a more polished feel.
Overall I would say that the polish job resulted in a draw. The CG is somewhat intrusive and doesn't always add anything new to the film, the smaller touch-ups hold more value but aren't really all that groundbreaking. For people new to the series, I believe 2.0 is probably the best place to start, as it gels better with Innocence and narrows the gap between both films just a little.
It was a while since I last watched Ghost in the Shell, but the film still feels like a dream. It's a collection of stellar scenes and passages, drenched in atmosphere and showcasing a level of maturity not often seen even in live action films. The 2.0 version is good and a worthy attempt to make it easier to appreciate for younger film fans. Older fans might be a little disappointed by the lack of groundbreaking changes, but shouldn't fear a demolished masterpiece. Oshii did quite good.
Touching a classic is always dangerous. Just ask Ridley Scott or George Lucas. You're bound to piss of some angry fanboys who consider the film more than a simple film but a relic of its time. On the other hand, you might reach a new audience which doesn't really feel the need to try out the films of yonder. Sound and color touch-ups are usually quite harmless, but Oshii also decided to redo some sequences to connect it closer to the second film.
Ghost in the Shell was my favorite film ever for a long, long time. When I first saw it, I was quite blown away with the structure and lack of narrative urgency. My favorite scene has always been the long trek through the city in the middle of the film. Five minutes of good solid atmosphere to lose yourself in. But over the years some cracks appeared. Innocence was every bit as good as its predecessor and some scenes became a little murky and gray. So if done right, I wouldn't really mind the new paint job.
Visually some important changes were made. The most obvious one is the switch from green overtones (the wireframe views and intro) to sepia, diminishing its imposed relation to The Matrix and tying it closer to Innocence. Apart from that, some extra CG scene were included, mostly in the beginning of the film. While the CG is nice enough, it's not the same quality as in Innocence and it doesn't always blend it too well. The whole new intro isn't really an improvement, the helicopter flight (with the shark-copter) on the other hands looks a lot nicer.
Some extra cleaning was done, making the colors more vivid and the city views more crisp. There's more detail in the backgrounds, enhancing the overall visual impression of the film. As for the audio, some of the effects were obviously redone, capturing more of the surrounding noises and giving more audio feedback of what's happening on screen. They even redid some of the voices, most notably the Puppet Master himself who received a more fitting voice. It's these neat little things that give the film a more polished feel.
Overall I would say that the polish job resulted in a draw. The CG is somewhat intrusive and doesn't always add anything new to the film, the smaller touch-ups hold more value but aren't really all that groundbreaking. For people new to the series, I believe 2.0 is probably the best place to start, as it gels better with Innocence and narrows the gap between both films just a little.
It was a while since I last watched Ghost in the Shell, but the film still feels like a dream. It's a collection of stellar scenes and passages, drenched in atmosphere and showcasing a level of maturity not often seen even in live action films. The 2.0 version is good and a worthy attempt to make it easier to appreciate for younger film fans. Older fans might be a little disappointed by the lack of groundbreaking changes, but shouldn't fear a demolished masterpiece. Oshii did quite good.
I totally agree and am glad I forked out for the Japanese BluRay which included the original (call it 1.0 if you like) in High Def as well.
Getting the original Ghost in the Shell redone completely in the same style as Innocence sounded like a dream, and a dream it remains. The 2.0 doesn't even go halfway towards Innocence, it more-or-less sticks at a third. Old sequences and new sequences jar badly. I would have preferred it if they had redone the whole film from scratch, using the old designs but not the drawings.
Still, I like a lot of what I see and especially hear. The remix in 2.0 is awesome.
I don't understand this review. You say something, but then you draw the wrong conclusion.
Innocence is really bad compared to the first movie. The reason is that Mamoru Oshi felt like a philosopher in vacation, he really wanted to transmit his convoluted and unnecessary pseudo-philosophy. That crap managed to ruin the sequel to one of the most important cyberpunk movies ever. As a plus, Innocence is just a rehash of two episodes from Gits: Sac series.
Ghost in the Shell (1995) is perfect at it was in the original. I'm not a fanboi, but the 2.0 version looks like crap. The reason is the sudden change from CGI to manual drawing. It really wasn't necessary to change the first movie. Thank God that I can watch the first movie without any of this crap. Right now, Mamoru Oshi is overrated and he must bring something new to the table.
I just watched this and I thought that most of the so called improvements are very garish and don't really do anything to improve the movie. The redone cg sequence at the beginning of the movie was terrible. I much preferred the green wire frames. As far as bringing it more inline with innocence I think that the original is much more visually striking. Honestly I was never that impressed with innocence. Some of the new sound effects were really cool, but are mostly overly loud and distracting. One that really pissed me of is when the dude with the hv filled smg shoots at the van with Motoko and Togasa. The old one had this sweet bullet slamming noise and they totally covered it up with this new blasting gunfire noise. Also the scene with the tank has atrocious noises. If you have the option I would recommend turning down the dynamic range on your stereo as the new sound effects will blast you out of your seat when vocals are at a comfortable lever. Project 2501's new voice is awe full. Another ting that really bothered me was this sort of atmospheric perspective or blurriness that they have added. The original had this sort of hygienic white crispness to it that sort of added to the whole cyborg thing. The whole movie looks kinda brown now.
Over all I guess that I don't think that making a move towards the visual style of innocence is a good thing. There are a few cool improvements, but overall I just didn't like it.