SSS questions

Discussions about the first film (Ghost in the Shell) and the second (Innocence)

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Epiphany
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SSS questions

Post by Epiphany »

1st Question: Is the Major the Puppeteer ????????????

2nd Question: Does Batou know the answer to my first question?

3rd Question: What are the Tachi's talking about in the last scene? They seem to be deep in conversation but the english and japanese versions don't give any dialog for them.

4thQueston: Is there going to be another GITS movie or series? Seems SSS left a lot more unanswered questions than the other movies and series.
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Post by Elmo_Redux »

wow, that's alot of questions :)

The first one is hard because they left the pupeteers identity so ambiguous :? um.. but as I see it there are two main possibilities.
Firstly it could just be Takaaki Koshiki who, as you are told in the final conversation with Batou, worked from home with his cyberbrain connected to the solid state society but he died without anyone noticing - this leaves two ways that the puppeteer could be him;

* He could've uploaded his conciousness into the solid state society so he could become the puppeteer.
* The collective-unconsciousness of the solid state society could've taken his dead consciousness(whilst he died still directly connected to the SSS) and used it as it's "solid state" in a similar stand alone complex to the one created when Kuze used his mind as a hub for all the refugees.

The second option(and my favourite) is that Motoko is the puppeteer. After leaving section 9 she has retreated into the net, acting out in the physical world through remotes(sometimes two at a time- this is important). Due to her being such a genius hacker with a good knowledge of stand alone complexes, the part of her subconscious that is frustrated with working within the confines of the system and wants to take the law into her own hands starts to act out her dreams in the physical world via a remote in the image of the newly dead Takaaki. - remember that Motoko passed Takaaki Koshiki in the hallway of her building? when she enters her room there's ominously one unaccounted for remote, and at the end of the film you see an identical remote leaving her room. As she later suggests to Batou she "was only projecting my frustration at [her]my helplessness onto the system." This is why she is one step behind the puppeteer for much of the story line, her subconscious was acting before she could e.g. when she goes to assassinate the general only to find it already done. Also prehaps this explains why the Ma Shaba mistook her for the puppeteer and attacked her.

I personally like this explanation as her subconious's excapades in the physical world have served the public good and done what she would've done if able to take the law into her own hands to that degree, as Batou points out both the problems are brought to public attention by the conspiracy and would now get solved. Also it ties in with the theme of SSS ending in the same state that the first film begins;- with Motoko back at section 9 but feeling frustrated at the system(happier than before though) and a mysterious mirror-image of her mind prowling the net.

...there is a third option, but I'm not a big fan of it. The puppeteer could be an amalgam of the subconcious selves of all the people it shows the face of at the end including Motoko. But tbh i just think that's meant to be the puppeteer messing with her mind and showing her the various elements of her life that led that part of her mind to take the actions it did e.g. Kuze's death(maybe) and rejection leaving her disillusioned, Batou and Togusa who chase the same ideals as her and are restricted by the system and the law(especially in Togusa's case) and finally herself.

It's been a long time since I watched SSS though so I could be wrong..
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Re: SSS questions

Post by Elmo_Redux »

Epiphany wrote: What are the Tachi's talking about in the last scene? They seem to be deep in conversation but the english and japanese versions don't give any dialog for them.
I guess that's just to make them seem a bit conspiratorial after Batou tells the major that the Tachis deleted all record of the conversation. They're probably just discussing the meaning-of-life like usual. :wink:
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Post by Raxon »

1st) I don't think the Major was the Puppeteer. Afterall, why would the Puppeteer have any need to link to her, if the puppeteer is her. I think it was a delaying tactic so his mind would white out before she could get the information she was looking for.

2nd) Batau knows what she knows but isn't certain what to make of it. I think, just incase, he covered for her.

3rd) No clue, maybe the advisability of covering for the Major as contrasted by what she might do to them if they don't?

4th) More movies wouldn't hurt my feelings any.
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Post by douyang »

I started another topic on the issue of who the puppeteer is on the Stand Alone Complex Forum, here is what I had to say:
douyang wrote: I just finished watching SSS for the 2nd time. I'm wondering who everyone thinks the puppeteer really was. I personally believe it wasn't just the collective unconscious of the Noble rot senior citizens, or that of motoko's, but of the everyman in Japanese society. This is heavily implied in the scene where Motoko talks to the utterly commonplace, ordinary looking government bureaucrat at the end, who in response to her question of who he really is and how he knows so much about her, morphs his face into a wide variety of individuals who felt they could change the world for the better on a massive scale, culminating in her, which I feel implies he means the wider "gestalt", or whole that is seperate and more than it's individual parts, of their entire society.

Also, you see him stepping out from the row of cyberbodies Motoko keeps at her hideout, which range from the Chroma form to a young girl, representing a type of crosssection of the population, if you will. Then he talks about a "we" having connected with many different consciousnesses in the past, and the time being right to become an vanishing mediator and play an active role in the new society. I think this is all pointing to the collective subconscious of their entire society taking on a life of its own and instigating these crimes of kidnapping and murder as part of a massive attempt to solve the equally massive common problems facing Japan.

Finally, Motoko's statements to Batou at the ending pool scene imply this is the case, and the third party of the collective unconscious, seperate from the individual and the group, and beyond mere shared culture, the one theme underlying the whole Stand Alone Complex series.
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Post by GhostLine »

what a surprise ending. i got the gist that it was motoko's subconsciousness that was the puppeteer. you got to say, that the Laughing Man, Kuze, and Gohda got things done specifically outside the box...that all of their "heroic complexes" were something that motoko couldn't deny. Kuze and his beckoning to the new superstructure spoke to Motoko's other self to beckon her into to the vastness of the net. the Laughing Man also underscored how the super-hacker could bring to light certain societal wrongs...as did Kuze who broke the out of the virus. Batou and Section 9 seems to be the only reason Motoko may ever stay in her physical body...but even then she has her other foot in electric eternity.
i really hope there will be more of SAC and hopefully some stuff on the americam empire.
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Post by Epiphany »

I've watched SSS about twenty times now. Dubbed in english and Sub-titled in english. I can't for the life of me figure out if the Major is the puppeteer or not. There is so much that points you in both directions. :evil: Has anyone heard if there is anything else GITS related getting made now. It would be cold hearted to leave it hanging like that :cry:
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Post by Saito »

The DVD is sat on my desk, frankly it's been so long since I watched it there are hole starting to appear in my memory banks for SSS. I really need to watch it in English (unauthentic though it might be) to make more of understanding it. Being hard-of-reading makes watching Japanese w/ Subs damned hard work. I'm pretty sure I missed a lot of the dialog in the final scene.
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Post by sonic »

I've watched SSS about twenty times now. Dubbed in english and Sub-titled in english. I can't for the life of me figure out if the Major is the puppeteer or not.
Actually that ending just annoyed me. They're deliberately making it all vague and screwy with hints in multiple directions in order to be "clever"; it's not you it's just a shaky bit of storytelling in the end in my opinion, designed to get fans salivating and scratching thier heads because they've got to pick one of the options thrown out there in the last minute.

"It" (the Puppeteer) says it's a gestalt of Motoko's unconcious self come to life and all the people she's ever um... crossed minds with at some point (assumably any dealing she's ever had with anyone in her cyberbrain).

They (Motoko and Batou) had thought it was they guy Motoko linked with at the end, but at the last moment the threw it out there that the real him had "been dead for 2 years" and taken over or whatever.

Then there was that "collective conscious will of the Noble Rot citizens" or whatever jumbled stuff...

...And the possibility that it was all of the above somehow; but it's all irrelevant anyway as no single explananation was given from a source of any real authority in the film. I basically don't like any of the explanations on offer anyway, or even really care. The Puppeteer referencing is cute and fun for fans of the original GitS film (and I love that the robot dupe body in the office *actually* looked like the Puppet Master body from the film), but none of the explanations for what it is are as satisfying to me as the original Puppet Master story/background. And it just generally bugged me that it wasn't well-told the way it was all presented towards the end, but that's something that bugs me about SAC in general; the film is like a microcosm of the series in that respect (really brilliant interesting bits and threads, but then they'll go about pursuing it and adding more to it in a way I find a bit jarring at times). At the end of this film, I just felt like they where trying to throw too many things and "twists" into it... for the sake of it (and definately opening up a convenient plot thread that future SAC series could pursue).

Ah- no, no- I don't mean to sound like I hate the film. The first half felt incredibly boring -lots of hacker geek stuff-, but I actually got really interested and into it for most of the second half. I liked Aramaki's words to Batou in the car, and then from the Noble Rot (keep wanting to call it "Aged Rot" for some reason, lol) citizen intrigue onwards (from that really dark scene where Togusa finds the child on the floor with the old man suddenly lurching out and saying "It's all I have! You can't take it away..."), I got quite interested. The music bothered me, however. Seemed like the hip series music was not appropriate to the story, and that something more moody that suited it would have been better. I think a serious story should avoid shooting for the "cool hip angle" on top of everything. We both gawked when the -for lack of a better word- 70's cop track came on as Batou was driving in an emergency scene- we were like, "Miami Vice Batou, lol- this is just wrong!" No disrespect to Yoko Kanno, I think her work is great normally.

I'd love a new Oshii GitS film though too. In a different style again from the first or second ones. I enjoy the choices made in those films on every level- I guess I just like the level of polish on all that stuff in them.

Eh, that's just my thoughts on it all. You can't say I haven't done my part in trying to get the forums going full blast again, after my mega-posting session tonight. Something for everyone I hope (my penance for being gone over a year or so). :wink:
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Post by simon's ghost »

nuts. definitely.
Oh well.
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Post by Epiphany »

I watched "Innosense" again last night. I think when you combine the death of the Puppetmaster plus the death of Kuze with the appearance of Motoko in Innocence and her seperation from Section 9 at the beginning of SSS you can find reason to think the the Major really is the Puppeteer.
Or at least a part of the the Puppeteer.

I also think she has or is close to leaving behind the last parts of her humanity.
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Post by Saito »

Sylphisonic wrote: Actually that ending just annoyed me. They're deliberately making it all vague and screwy with hints in multiple directions in order to be "clever"; it's not you it's just a shaky bit of storytelling in the end in my opinion
I got totally lost at the end too. I can't help but t think the 'insufficient' ending was deliberate. It had to be. It was designed to be ambiguous I think. To set the wheels in motion. Then again maybe you are right, perhaps it was just a cynical attempt to get the fans into a kerfuffle :)
Sylphisonic wrote: The first half felt incredibly boring -lots of hacker geek stuff-
Hey, enough bashing on geeks, we have feelings too you know, and what's more we're actually perfectly nice people ;)

My overriding opinion is it that it was too short, and at the same time the story line lacked the same substance as the SAC Gigs. It was worth watching, for sure, but it didn't feel right somehow. Perhaps, again, this was deliberate. The 2 parts that touched me most were the sniper scene (being a Saito fan and all ;)) and the scene with Togusa and his daughter. That was a point that had real suspense in it in the whole thing. It was very well done.

Following on Re: the echos of the older material, there are a ton of echos from the Manga and the original film. A facility that brainwashes children? The assault on the brainwashing facility, complete with burly mech-suited guards? Those two alone are very familiar to me at least :)
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Post by Epiphany »

Saito wrote:
Sylphisonic wrote: Actually that ending just annoyed me. They're deliberately making it all vague and screwy with hints in multiple directions in order to be "clever"; it's not you it's just a shaky bit of storytelling in the end in my opinion
I got totally lost at the end too. I can't help but t think the 'insufficient' ending was deliberate. It had to be. It was designed to be ambiguous I think. To set the wheels in motion. Then again maybe you are right, perhaps it was just a cynical attempt to get the fans into a kerfuffle :)
Sylphisonic wrote: The first half felt incredibly boring -lots of hacker geek stuff-
Hey, enough bashing on geeks, we have feelings too you know, and what's more we're actually perfectly nice people ;)

My overriding opinion is it that it was too short, and at the same time the story line lacked the same substance as the SAC Gigs. It was worth watching, for sure, but it didn't feel right somehow. Perhaps, again, this was deliberate. The 2 parts that touched me most were the sniper scene (being a Saito fan and all ;)) and the scene with Togusa and his daughter. That was a point that had real suspense in it in the whole thing. It was very well done.

Following on Re: the echos of the older material, there are a ton of echos from the Manga and the original film. A facility that brainwashes children? The assault on the brainwashing facility, complete with burly mech-suited guards? Those two alone are very familiar to me at least :)
I think another series would be way cool but the few rumors around the net are "MAYBE" another movie ( and they aren't reliable rumors). I haven't seen any series rumors at all. So we may be forever left in the dark :cry:
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Post by sonic »

Yeah.. sorry for the bash. I did say "hacker geeks" though... you admitting you're a hacker geek then? LOL :wink:
A facility that brainwashes children? The assault on the brainwashing facility,
lol, when I watched this film the chapter from the first manga did go through my mind briefly, and it also did at the end of Innocence, too. The way they talk to the girl at the end of Innocence reminds me a bit of the way she talks to the little boy who wants them to rescue him in the manga (for some reason I never did like that chapter as much).

Mostly in the SAC film, I saw what you were saying Epiphany in that the presence of both Oshii's GitS films was there. The Batou looking for the Major and wondering what her involvement in the case was was a direct nod to Innocence, as is the stuff about her going off and doing her own thing in her own way to help. And loads of references to MMI it seems too, with the way the various dummy bodies operate and get discarded, and the presence of Max and Musashi etcetera (who thankfully are not those weird doughnut-lipped bots 8) )

I don't see those movie elements as a direct explanation for this film's storyline however, as all of the SAC stuff and Oshii's films are intended to be *separate entities*- there are parallels, but things happen in very different ways. As of yet, GitS does not operate in the same way as the Leijiverse (Leiji Matsumoto) in terms of it all vaguely blending. The way they bring shades of the Oshii films in is both a tribute and a fun fan thing, but is also more intentionally perhaps an attempt to evoke the feeling of a theme of karmic fate and connection between the many threads different versions of GitS have gone along- perhaps a nod to what the Puppet Master says about karmic connection in the manga chapter. It's like they are acknowledging the 'spiritual succession' amongst GitS things, and that is very warm and sweet in it's execution, in a way.

Obviously also, these nods to Oshii film events, although they're backstory can't be acknowledged as a fact of this continuity, do help the fans along in enriching the hints to possible answers over the Puppeteer question and what really happened provided at the end, because if you are aware of the meaning of some of these references and they're background in the Oshii films, your mind will be racing trying to bring that non-SAC stuff into it and piece it together.

I was not confused by the ending (apart from one point where I was a bit like, "Huh? Why are you guys 'jumping tracks' so suddenly like that?"), I pretty much saw right away what they were doing and how they were doing it in the storytelling. In the ending (the last 10 minutes and under of the film), they actually give you several possible explanations for "whodunnit" (or what is really behind the events in the story, and even what really happened in the story) almost all at once one right after the other. In my opinion, they do not actually officially commit to one of the answers, nor to the "it's all those answers altogether" option either. You'd have to lean towards what the "Puppeteer" said about being the sentient unconcious blah blah blah, since that seems to be the stronger option, but they certainly do not commit to it, and in the last few minutes it'd be a bit blunt and weird if they did.

And of course it was intentional, btw- I think it is implied that it's deliberate in the way that it is. I'm not thrilled with it however as it seems like they are relying on some slightly annoying tricks and the audience/fans' willing participation in those to make it all work as an ending. Certainly it's a different kind of ending and I'm not saying it's entirely wrong for the way the film is to end it that way, it's just for me that -especially that kind of pacing- feels a bit shaky. And I still don't really like the explanations they gave that much, or the reliance on the "the net is vast" line feeling at the end of the film (an echo of a previous movie's plot set in a different continuity from the current one should not really be an explanation or an end unto itself- that is a bit "been there, done that" already; though at the same time I wouldn't say I hate revisiting an old friend with new mindgames... [argh, I'm probably not making any sense now]. And for now it's just irrelevent anyway, because it's not really set in stone until they do a follow-up. Maybe I sound hard about this matter, but even knowing how the SAC series operates, because this is being marketed as a movie my expectations are set very high; it is not like TV episodes where I could forgive things here and there, with a movie it should be a perfectly polished example of how the shows strengths can be made to be the best you can make them and showcase them. Or at least, it feels like you should treat a nice glossy production like this that way; I don't know I don't make up the rules for how to do a movie- there aren't really any except for personal ones. All I saying is that parts of the SAC movie -including the ending- fell a bit short of this for me, and I think I'm justified and fair in saying it (well- okay maybe you are only 'justified' if you'd made some sort of masterpiece of a film yourself; perhaps Mamoru Oshii would be allowed, lol- the rest of us should shut up if we haven't done it better?). However, there were some moments of greatness in it and overall I liked the film. The scene concerning Togusa and his daughter did make it a much stronger piece; very good moment.

Oh darn, this is the reason I stopped posting on boards list this for a while... I'm finding myself debating the finer points of the SAC film. Not something I thought I would have invested so much time in.

Eh... Bottom line, it was a worthwhile film to see, not perfect but I found some originality and genuinely good scenes in it to justify watching it. To date I haven't found any of the SAC stuff as polished or strong and perfectly-realised as the two Oshii GitS films though- maybe that's just my personal taste. It's also a TV series, and almost all longer TV series type anime have some stuff about them that could stand some trimming. Generally speaking SAC series, like the SAC film, do have some genuinely notable and stronger parts. I still like the episode about the movie theater in the first series ^_^

-> all puffed out over film discussing, now. Got to stay away from this place for a week; can't get to wrapped up in discussing movies, lol.
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