Solid State Society

[marto_motoko]

I felt let down.

I never got a chance to talk about it, since quite frankly this place was beyond dead at that point compared to before.

Honestly, not much about the movie amazed me. It felt like it droned on and on and on... there wasn't really any great about it. Yeah the visuals were pretty, but they paled in comparison to the eye candy that was Ghost in the Shell Innocence.

The plot line was interesting, but was presented in a very dull way. If you're to make a movie, you cannot expect simple dialogue to keep you going, with the other part being very weak, and often unimpressive action. In innocence we had decapitative gynoids massacring people, giant crap-claw cyber-baddies, Batou owning people with a machine gun, Kim's freak-house, Batou duking it out with a gynoid for a short, yet oddly tremendously memorable time that had become the iconic scene of that movie, probably on par with the parade.

Yet, in Solid State Society, the only time I ever felt excitement was at the return of the Tachikomas. That's a little sad....


I think that I would have liked that six million invested in an extension to the TV series rather than the movie, because unlike the show, the movie really fell short on offering the action that SAC distinguishes itself with, and instead gave us something rather bland at most times, with a plot-line that couldn't be described in any other way than a weak retelling of an already told story, one which was told on a much more impressive level through Oshii's adaptation of it.

And I was also irked, because even though I know it's a separate universe, nothing was unique about the movie. Granted, Innocence was inspired by a chapter of the first manga, but went completely way out there in creativity, while SSS simply recreated Human Error Processor (more interesting than SSS, yet still rather a let-down to me), and at the end randomly, and very ineffectively throws in the Puppet Master story.

Thoughts?

[Epiphany]

The worst part of SSS was the ending. The Tachi's talking in the background left me wondering what they knew that I don't. It did seem like it was a little heavy on the narrative. The Major/Batou relationship got more foggy.

Also who the Major really is got all twisted around.

I don't think anything compares to "Innocence" the graphics were terrific and the story was very strong. Plus the Batou rich story-line was great It was nice to see a little more of his life. I do think there are a lot of hints as to who/what the major really is hidden in "Innocence" Now that I've read this thread I guess I need to go watch them again

[GhostLine]

Yeah, SSS was a turn of events. There were some cool things going on, but nearly as exciting as some of the episodes. I liked the part when Saito squares off with the merc sniper...that was cool. I enjoyed it, but lackluster compared to the buildup that the two seasons had generated.

[marto_motoko]

Yeah, SSS was a turn of events. There were some cool things going on, but nearly as exciting as some of the episodes. I liked the part when Saito squares off with the merc sniper...that was cool. I enjoyed it, but lackluster compared to the buildup that the two seasons had generated.

Bah humbug. I hate to be a grouch, and surely am very pleased that we DID get all that we did, but there's just so much that we could have received from this that we simply didn't. At least a more dramatic explanation of things would have been fine, but the show felt like a pilot for season three, and that season three should have been announced soon-after. Granted, it wasn't, and we were left with the looming thought of "what....that's it?".

Visuals were great, but story was just too poorly executed.

Either way, it wasn't bad, just nowhere near as wonderful as I'd hoped it'd be.

Tell you what though:
I'm going to go rewatch it tonight, and that way I can also look for its strong points, so at least I can also share my opinion on its redeeming factors.


mm