Ghost In The Shell (2017)
Just for fun this entire movie I watched with my eyes closed. It still rocked as much as the original '90s experience that made me look for girlfriends who are as fit exclusively. I will not accept thin nor any other kind into my healthy life style, I am sorry big mamas. I might love you long time, but to be frank, and let's be frank ok, when you share your life with another, you share the food and many other habits. And since I'm the kind of man who with partial sight enjoys jogging at midnight, I can not in good conscience date someone who does not push themselves to an equal limit physically. To me, this is a sign of health. To you it might be something else, it might be artistic development or verbal skill. To me it is getting off the couch and pushin' tin. Lifting and lowering, repeatedly. Repeating katas until sweat pours out of your cement shoes. Fitness to me is health and this is the one bar I will not lower. Similarly, Scarlett and the rest of the crew for GITS did not lower the bar either - in fact, they raised it as is evidenced by merely listening to the OST of the film.
Now I am not an expert on manga, anime nor comic books as I rarely enjoy them. But this film blew my mind almost as much as The Matrix. Despite having seen the Holodeck in the '80s most people forgot about that concept and felt Matrix was way original. And it was and is and will forever be the best film, but the concept that life is a sim ain't exactly the icing on the cake. Or rather, it is the icing on the cake, but the icing on the cake isn't the icing on the cake. What I'm trying to say is, icing on the cake has been around for a long time, and I doubt anyone will reinvent it. Natives believed life was a dream. Now we have simulations. Some use drugs, some computers, some their imagination. You can even watch this entire film from that perspective. She died and was brought back as a cyborg, right? But what if her waking up is just her conscience waking up in a simulation? When she opens her eyes on a bed in front of the doctor telling her to "Breathe, breathe" that could be her opening her virtual eyes in a simulated environment. Watch the whole movie again from that perspective and notice how it's very, very, similar, to Dr. Strange. When Strange opens his eyes all mangled in a hospital bed, why can't that be the start of a computer simulation session? His body far mangled so they left him in a sim, right? Same applies to Ghost In The Shell. The Ghost aspect is merely the original conscience fighting for life. There are a million ways to perceive this "Hospital Bed Fi" genre. Matrix could be the same thing. Neo lays into his bed, after they put a bug in him, and wakes up to his alarm, only that waking up is him in another specially designed FBI Matrix, right? Basically whenever you see a scene where a dude is caught or mangled and wakes up in a bed it's a sign that it could be a dream or a simulation. The key is how do we as the audience know? We don't. We have to believe that it's not the case. Men In Black blew it all to hell when they made the entire universe we live in able to fit inside a little marble that the aliens play marbles with. Talk about a brain melt! We are just little simulations that balance the rotation of a marble during a game of alien marbles. Umm, thanks Will Smyth... Thanks indeed.
Ghost In The Shell, when not watched from this "Hospital Bed Fi" genre though, when addressed as a proper run through of a woman becoming a cyborg enslaved by the corporate entity financially until she makes herself worthy of freedom is in fact a very satisfying tale. But it's not mind blowing in that we all know this from our daily lives. It's another aspect of corporate life guiding family values. We had freedom even as students, and then we got a job and what the boss wants becomes more important than even what our own children want, even what our inner child desires. Many workers wish to play cards on beaches here and there, but that wish is subdued by the corporate requirements and national interests. I am not preaching that things be any other way, but it is what the movie can be hinting about. How do we have freedom, even in Canada, if after six decades of peace time, if we still must dedicate over 40 hours every week, a full half of our waking hours (24 - 8 = 16 waking ideal hours) to somebody else's vision of the future of our society? Maybe I don't want TD Bank to be Green, maybe in my world it is Neon Green or Forest Green? But I work at TD Bank because I want to feed my family and have a meesily two week vacation after years of stature. And for this fullfillment I must always produce myself at the office eight hours of every day. After transportation, dressing, grooming, and banter, my day has less than two to three hours at most for family and hardly any for myself personally. Is this enforced socializing or what? What if I'm an introvert with a family and I want to spend 3 hours composing music? How do I balance that? What if I wish to compose five hours? I can't always work from home. So in essence, as a banker I am a cyborg. Half of me wants to quit. Half of me wants to keep my job. This duality is well depicted in GITS. She doesn't want to be a cyborg, but the alternative is death.
Personally Ghost is about duality. Everything she does in the film is a direct result not of her own choices but those of the corporate entity. Even the battle with the hacker, it's not her choice at all. Similarly choices bankers make during their tenure are not their own. If they were given millions of dollars a year for nothing the dire straits of two weeks off a year would be grand canyons of fun. But there's no way to make a world where we all have millions of dollars and yet the currency is not devalued. If we all had this much mulla Canadian dollar would be weaker than the Japanese Yen. We'd need half a million just to buy a loaf of bread. For money is like water. There's only so many drops in the ocean. If we make more it looses it's value. If we make fake water we lose other resources like dirt or air. Thus we can neither make water nor money. Thus not all can be millionaires. Similarly bankers socially must be paid more than others for without them and their security we all would be at risk. As such Ghost presents this struggle very well. Without the cyborgs, the evil in that world struggling for dominance would over take the masses. Whatever is pushing evil isn't clear and it doesn't need to be presented at all. The key is that even in that future, humans, we, have had to go forward. It's sort of like human cloning. If North Korea were to make perfect soldiers via cloning, we would either have to follow suit or fail to protect our interests. If we replaced human cloning with nukes, well, that world you all understand. One power made the bomb, and now all almost have it. Similarly, someone made cyborgs in Ghost and now many humans are cyborgs defending their respective sides. Some defend America, some NK, some the inbetweens, some are used for other purposes like the Geishas, etc.
The very fact that the movie is enjoyable with my eyes closed tells you just how magical the editing was and how wonderous the soundtrack is. I am thrilled to the nines with this production and think all the nay sayers should hear me saying "NAY!" loudly. Ooops, I just yelled it at 1am, and I almost got an eviction notice last time I did this. I hope I get to write more blogs without defending the Scarlett's of this world from the Nayarians.
Now I am not an expert on manga, anime nor comic books as I rarely enjoy them. But this film blew my mind almost as much as The Matrix. Despite having seen the Holodeck in the '80s most people forgot about that concept and felt Matrix was way original. And it was and is and will forever be the best film, but the concept that life is a sim ain't exactly the icing on the cake. Or rather, it is the icing on the cake, but the icing on the cake isn't the icing on the cake. What I'm trying to say is, icing on the cake has been around for a long time, and I doubt anyone will reinvent it. Natives believed life was a dream. Now we have simulations. Some use drugs, some computers, some their imagination. You can even watch this entire film from that perspective. She died and was brought back as a cyborg, right? But what if her waking up is just her conscience waking up in a simulation? When she opens her eyes on a bed in front of the doctor telling her to "Breathe, breathe" that could be her opening her virtual eyes in a simulated environment. Watch the whole movie again from that perspective and notice how it's very, very, similar, to Dr. Strange. When Strange opens his eyes all mangled in a hospital bed, why can't that be the start of a computer simulation session? His body far mangled so they left him in a sim, right? Same applies to Ghost In The Shell. The Ghost aspect is merely the original conscience fighting for life. There are a million ways to perceive this "Hospital Bed Fi" genre. Matrix could be the same thing. Neo lays into his bed, after they put a bug in him, and wakes up to his alarm, only that waking up is him in another specially designed FBI Matrix, right? Basically whenever you see a scene where a dude is caught or mangled and wakes up in a bed it's a sign that it could be a dream or a simulation. The key is how do we as the audience know? We don't. We have to believe that it's not the case. Men In Black blew it all to hell when they made the entire universe we live in able to fit inside a little marble that the aliens play marbles with. Talk about a brain melt! We are just little simulations that balance the rotation of a marble during a game of alien marbles. Umm, thanks Will Smyth... Thanks indeed.
Ghost In The Shell, when not watched from this "Hospital Bed Fi" genre though, when addressed as a proper run through of a woman becoming a cyborg enslaved by the corporate entity financially until she makes herself worthy of freedom is in fact a very satisfying tale. But it's not mind blowing in that we all know this from our daily lives. It's another aspect of corporate life guiding family values. We had freedom even as students, and then we got a job and what the boss wants becomes more important than even what our own children want, even what our inner child desires. Many workers wish to play cards on beaches here and there, but that wish is subdued by the corporate requirements and national interests. I am not preaching that things be any other way, but it is what the movie can be hinting about. How do we have freedom, even in Canada, if after six decades of peace time, if we still must dedicate over 40 hours every week, a full half of our waking hours (24 - 8 = 16 waking ideal hours) to somebody else's vision of the future of our society? Maybe I don't want TD Bank to be Green, maybe in my world it is Neon Green or Forest Green? But I work at TD Bank because I want to feed my family and have a meesily two week vacation after years of stature. And for this fullfillment I must always produce myself at the office eight hours of every day. After transportation, dressing, grooming, and banter, my day has less than two to three hours at most for family and hardly any for myself personally. Is this enforced socializing or what? What if I'm an introvert with a family and I want to spend 3 hours composing music? How do I balance that? What if I wish to compose five hours? I can't always work from home. So in essence, as a banker I am a cyborg. Half of me wants to quit. Half of me wants to keep my job. This duality is well depicted in GITS. She doesn't want to be a cyborg, but the alternative is death.
Personally Ghost is about duality. Everything she does in the film is a direct result not of her own choices but those of the corporate entity. Even the battle with the hacker, it's not her choice at all. Similarly choices bankers make during their tenure are not their own. If they were given millions of dollars a year for nothing the dire straits of two weeks off a year would be grand canyons of fun. But there's no way to make a world where we all have millions of dollars and yet the currency is not devalued. If we all had this much mulla Canadian dollar would be weaker than the Japanese Yen. We'd need half a million just to buy a loaf of bread. For money is like water. There's only so many drops in the ocean. If we make more it looses it's value. If we make fake water we lose other resources like dirt or air. Thus we can neither make water nor money. Thus not all can be millionaires. Similarly bankers socially must be paid more than others for without them and their security we all would be at risk. As such Ghost presents this struggle very well. Without the cyborgs, the evil in that world struggling for dominance would over take the masses. Whatever is pushing evil isn't clear and it doesn't need to be presented at all. The key is that even in that future, humans, we, have had to go forward. It's sort of like human cloning. If North Korea were to make perfect soldiers via cloning, we would either have to follow suit or fail to protect our interests. If we replaced human cloning with nukes, well, that world you all understand. One power made the bomb, and now all almost have it. Similarly, someone made cyborgs in Ghost and now many humans are cyborgs defending their respective sides. Some defend America, some NK, some the inbetweens, some are used for other purposes like the Geishas, etc.
The very fact that the movie is enjoyable with my eyes closed tells you just how magical the editing was and how wonderous the soundtrack is. I am thrilled to the nines with this production and think all the nay sayers should hear me saying "NAY!" loudly. Ooops, I just yelled it at 1am, and I almost got an eviction notice last time I did this. I hope I get to write more blogs without defending the Scarlett's of this world from the Nayarians.
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