Ghost in the Shell VS. Innocence

[Motoko Kusanagi]

Hi all,
this is my first post here, although I visited this site for over 2 years I am a newbie to both the GitS or anime... Actually, the first real piece of anime I watched was GitS... And it stunned me... I was fascinated by it's depth, and especially by the character of Major Motoko Kusanagi (I think this is prety much obvious ). I voted for Ghost in the Shell over Innocence and I can't really say why. I find both movies visually stunning, and very thought provoking. All I can say is that GitS really made an impact on my life and that I really felt "in touch" with the Major... I had a personal reason for this more than any other as I was going through similar "questioning" of myself and my place in life. I never read any manga or watched the TV series. And I don't want to because I want to know her like she was in GitS. I guess that's it, the first movie carries a personal note for me, as well as teh fact that it's a great movie. I agree that Innocence had a few places with "out of place" CG, but in the end, I don't mind it as long as the story, dialogs, characters etc. are done right.
Cheers
Ghostless
aka
Praetorian

[GhostLine]

it's kinda funny, that GitS is one of those razors that thinly divide those who don't get it, thus don't care... or those who love it and drink in everything about it.

All I can say is that GitS really made an impact on my life

the medium may be anime, but the story and the soul-longing is far-reaching and risk-taking than what one finds in your average characters and screenplay.

[Tonks_kittygoth]

I picked Innocence for personal asthetic reasons as well as philosophical ones.

I like "old style" anime fine but I Love film noir which I think Innocence was greatly based on, hence the old cars, the jazz, the muted color scheme, the sense of surreality of the mixed cgi elements, the connecton with Belmers work, the Yakuza (read mob) contections, the sense of unrequitable longing, and on and on.

Thank you V. much Mr. VanWorden for the Belmer link and info. I knew about him before the movie but not much, and hadnt found as much as I wished since. (yey Wiemar Republic)

Also Blade Runner is my favorite film, and this borows heavily in many ways from the tone, lighting and other aspects, as Blade Runner borrows from Noir films. (The container full of eyeballs in Haraway's office are a nod to BR)

Philosophically while Im interested in the themes of GitS, those of Innocence are more up my alley. The equality of worth of all sentients, the force givin to non sentient mater by involvement w/ sentients, loss and longing..

And it has a puppy!

Finnaly a niggly little point. The Gynoids were ugly partially cause they didnt have thier skin on. Remember the first one ripping her skin off? She looked much more pretty and High tech before... which I suppose is obvious, no one looks too hot w/out thier skin, do they....
*visions of Frank from Hellraiser...shudders*

[])R@G()N]

I picked Innocence for personal asthetic reasons as well as philosophical ones.

I like "old style" anime fine but I Love film noir which I think Innocence was greatly based on, hence the old cars, the jazz, the muted color scheme, the sense of surreality of the mixed cgi elements, the connecton with Belmers work, the Yakuza (read mob) contections, the sense of unrequitable longing, and on and on.

I totaly agree. when I first sat down to watch Innocence I had no idea what is was gonna be like content waise, and seeing as the Major had changed I was expecting some big changes in what was gonna be shown. I was really hoping they didnt change the vibe of the soundtrack as that almost made GitS for me. when I heard the jazz vibes come in, the rich, warm, subtle tones of upright bass and sax I was blown over. They had added to the soundscape and far from it taking awya from it it just took it to another level. i had invisaged this film was probably about Batou, and I was worried about how much I identified with him, but the whole jazz element really struck home with me. It made me think on bladerunner a lot actually and I watched bladerunner twice in a row right after I watched innocence.

Belmers stuff is very creepy, I have always thought dolls were creepy. I think humans indentify greatly with the human form, so when u see a doll u indentify with it greatly like you would a human, but at the same time you know its lfieless and that feeling of indentity almost hightens how lifeless it is. I saw the video for all is full of love before I was Innocence and found the robots in that very creepy, that video wierded me out first time I saw it, it was obviously influenced by Belmer also.

http://www.marvelligallery.com/img/BellPou2.jpg

..this pic of belmers is the one I find most disturbing, is thats the right word for it, i think I am intreegued as I am put off.

I voted for innocence. I think GitS walked the line between action animation and a peice of film about visual and sonic beauty and imagry combined with some deep philosophical elements. I think the second film dove head into the second one and the action story took a big back seat to the deeper meaning being put out. I think it was a truer representation of what is ultimatly important to the director, though I am sure he is very proud of both. I think innocence was a much braver film to make, and i am glad in a world where terminator 3, alien resurection are considered worthy seequels someone is still willing to continue to explor and not just take the easy way out and rehash previous glories. the first film felt very short, and the plot rattled through very quickly, as much as I loved it I think Innocence was more of a considered package and gives the first film the further depth it needed, imo.

[niko86]

I voted for the original as it was the first manga film i saw. I found the story baffling at first trying to piece together what things meant and how parts of the story which at first didnt seem linked, came together. Although i thought that it had been made in the late 80's or early 90's because of how old the art looked. But the animation blew me away, its quite a shock to move from western animation to manga. Such care and attention is made to the movements and facial expressions.

Then i bought the first series of GITS:SAC (yes pretty new to manga ) and that again blew me away and i really fell in love with the character of Batou and Kusanagi. So when i rewatched the first film i noticed how flat the Majors character seemed, just moody and confused. Now im hopeing Solid State Society may explain why (no spoilers please ) she is like this or perhaps so much had to be cut out of the first film Oshii didnt have much time to fill her out.

So after going through the first movie then series 1 of SAC. I was eagerly awaiting Innocence. I had managed to get a japanese version of it but it had no subs or dubbing so i watched the first few minutes and gave up trying to understand, its bloody well hard enough on the english dub . So i saw the animation and thought it was a real step forward. Between that time and the release of the english dub in the UK i watched the remake of Appleseed. The animation and use of 3d and 2d, was brilliant IMO. So when Innocence finally came out i wasnt put off in anyway by the use of 3d graphics. The flyover of the Locus Solus building then the planes wings changing to flap was my favorite piece of 3d work in it.

In Innocence i also felt Oshii had more time to fill his character out and it was perfect how he developed Batou, unlike the major in the first film you could really simpathise with what he was feeling and thinking. Perhaps abit too much philosophy but i managed to get through it with partial understanding.

So overall i go for the first film as it brings back good memorys of "discovering" manga but i do believe Innocence is the better film.

[Black Mamba]

The original just ozzes atmosphere, its truely an anime classic.

Innocence was too confusing and lacked Motoko's awsomness.

Not to mention the absolutly crap that is the R1 realse.

[niko86]

Whats up with the region 1 release?

[Jeni Nielsen]

Whats up with the region 1 release?

What do you mean? Are you talking about the fact that it doesn't have a dub track?

[Black Mamba]

Whats up with the region 1 release?

What do you mean? Are you talking about the fact that it doesn't have a dub track?

Or the fact that it lacked proper subtitles?

Or the fact that the cover art was ugly?

Or just the overall all fact that Dreamworks abviously can't handle an anime realse?

[Jeni Nielsen]

Whats up with the region 1 release?

What do you mean? Are you talking about the fact that it doesn't have a dub track?

Or the fact that it lacked proper subtitles?

Or the fact that the cover art was ugly?

Or just the overall all fact that Dreamworks abviously can't handle an anime realse?

Well it was actually Go Fish pictures (a subsidiary of Dreamworks). They still haven't released Casshern as far as I can tell, so I certainly agree with you there.

[AI]

As per the question which is better range of answers in my opinion confirms that the Ghost in the Shell collection eg GitS GitS:SAC GitS:SSS etc are a large diversity and rather than continuing in a linear fashion they diversify drawing inspiration from each other ( like SSS and it's allusions to GitS) so to consider Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence a sequel is not entirely correct in the conventional sense.

Also what I have described above is similar to the Standalone Complex, spooky.