First Picture of Scar. Jo. as Major Kusanagi in GitS Movie

[Paragon Fury]

On a side note, I'm curious as to where this persistent notion that the Major is trans keeps coming from, since it popped up in this thread again.

I first encountered it myself when I had to explain the Major's origin to a trans friend of mine (she was quite disappointed) and I've seen the theory pop up more than a few times since.

While SAC is the most explicit, all versions of the a Major share the same basic framework; major vehicle accident, young Major and a young boy are only survivors and prosthetic bodies. Boy is much better at using his body than the Major is, drives the Major to try and master prosthetic bodies to the best of her ability.

 

[Major_Tom]

...it's interesting in a Blade Runner/Roy Battey kind of way...

And that's precisely why I like it.

Really? People are upset that there are humans who don't have typical anime facial structures?

Or hair that hasn't been physically possible since the '80s.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

...it's interesting in a Blade Runner/Roy Battey kind of way...

And that's precisely why I like it.

And it's good; no denying that but I can't imagine it being able to carry a film for two hours in the current blockbuster market and if I'm honest I liked the more, self-aware I suppose you could call them, musings the Major of Stand Alone Complex encountered. Treating them more like fascinating detours or side-roads but otherwise seeming content with who she is. In fact it was the Tachikoma tanks that did the heavy philosophizing in the show and I felt it came across better.

That said, you could do worse than going shot for shot for Oshii's film.

 

[Alleged_Alec]

Those whining about the hair colour: duh. You guys do understand that the reason that strange hair colours are given to characters is because it makes them easier to recognize while still allowing much of the characters to be drawn the same? Gintama had a funny post-episode "Ask Gintoki" about lampshading that.

Yeah, it helps with their generic, easy to draw templates. I preferred mostly older designs, like Motoko from the movie up there, Jin-roh, Cowboy Bebop, Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Trigun, Studio Ghibli, Serial Experiments Lain, Monster, Shigurui, Azumanga Daioh, Planetes, Wicked City, Samurai Champloo, Akira and even simpler stuff like Ebichu. The characters didn't need rainbow hair because the animators put effort into the designs. You could easily distinguish them from other characters in the show or from other shows. Stand Alone Complex Motoko barely has has a face from some angles.

Indeed. It's not just the designs though: especially in stuff like Cowboy Bebop, you can recognize characters even by how they move. They did some exceptional work on the animations there as well.

It's a shame, really. The plot of SAC was much better than the movie, imho. However, the animation budget was slightly too low to pull it off.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

Those whining about the hair colour: duh. You guys do understand that the reason that strange hair colours are given to characters is because it makes them easier to recognize while still allowing much of the characters to be drawn the same? Gintama had a funny post-episode "Ask Gintoki" about lampshading that.

Yeah, it helps with their generic, easy to draw templates. I preferred mostly older designs, like Motoko from the movie up there, Jin-roh, Cowboy Bebop, Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Trigun, Studio Ghibli, Serial Experiments Lain, Monster, Shigurui, Azumanga Daioh, Planetes, Wicked City, Samurai Champloo, Akira and even simpler stuff like Ebichu. The characters didn't need rainbow hair because the animators put effort into the designs. You could easily distinguish them from other characters in the show or from other shows. Stand Alone Complex Motoko barely has has a face from some angles.

Indeed. It's not just the designs though: especially in stuff like Cowboy Bebop, you can recognize characters even by how they move. They did some exceptional work on the animations there as well.

It's a shame, really. The plot of SAC was much better than the movie, imho. However, the animation budget was slightly too low to pull it off.

Which is ironic because I recall at the time of the show's release that it was once of the most expensive anime series ever produced - or was that bullshit?

 

[Alleged_Alec]

Those whining about the hair colour: duh. You guys do understand that the reason that strange hair colours are given to characters is because it makes them easier to recognize while still allowing much of the characters to be drawn the same? Gintama had a funny post-episode "Ask Gintoki" about lampshading that.

Yeah, it helps with their generic, easy to draw templates. I preferred mostly older designs, like Motoko from the movie up there, Jin-roh, Cowboy Bebop, Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Trigun, Studio Ghibli, Serial Experiments Lain, Monster, Shigurui, Azumanga Daioh, Planetes, Wicked City, Samurai Champloo, Akira and even simpler stuff like Ebichu. The characters didn't need rainbow hair because the animators put effort into the designs. You could easily distinguish them from other characters in the show or from other shows. Stand Alone Complex Motoko barely has has a face from some angles.

Indeed. It's not just the designs though: especially in stuff like Cowboy Bebop, you can recognize characters even by how they move. They did some exceptional work on the animations there as well.

It's a shame, really. The plot of SAC was much better than the movie, imho. However, the animation budget was slightly too low to pull it off.

Which is ironic because I recall at the time of the show's release that it was once of the most expensive anime series ever produced - or was that bullshit?

Then I was entirely wrong. I looked it up, and apparently season 1 of SAC had a 800M yen budget. It's been a while, but I seem to recall that they used some cheesy CGI scenes from time to time (the intro is a good example), which would've been fairly expensive to produce back in 2002.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

Those whining about the hair colour: duh. You guys do understand that the reason that strange hair colours are given to characters is because it makes them easier to recognize while still allowing much of the characters to be drawn the same? Gintama had a funny post-episode "Ask Gintoki" about lampshading that.

Yeah, it helps with their generic, easy to draw templates. I preferred mostly older designs, like Motoko from the movie up there, Jin-roh, Cowboy Bebop, Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Trigun, Studio Ghibli, Serial Experiments Lain, Monster, Shigurui, Azumanga Daioh, Planetes, Wicked City, Samurai Champloo, Akira and even simpler stuff like Ebichu. The characters didn't need rainbow hair because the animators put effort into the designs. You could easily distinguish them from other characters in the show or from other shows. Stand Alone Complex Motoko barely has has a face from some angles.

Indeed. It's not just the designs though: especially in stuff like Cowboy Bebop, you can recognize characters even by how they move. They did some exceptional work on the animations there as well.

It's a shame, really. The plot of SAC was much better than the movie, imho. However, the animation budget was slightly too low to pull it off.

Which is ironic because I recall at the time of the show's release that it was once of the most expensive anime series ever produced - or was that bullshit?

Then I was entirely wrong. I looked it up, and apparently season 1 of SAC had a 800M yen budget. It's been a while, but I seem to recall that they used some cheesy CGI scenes from time to time (the intro is a good example), which would've been fairly expensive to produce back in 2002.

That may have been the Tachikoma's, and there's a lot of small incidental effects (usually with robots and the like) that are obviously CGI but still look really good - may have to go and watch it all again.....

.....fuckin' woe is me right

 

[Alleged_Alec]

Those whining about the hair colour: duh. You guys do understand that the reason that strange hair colours are given to characters is because it makes them easier to recognize while still allowing much of the characters to be drawn the same? Gintama had a funny post-episode "Ask Gintoki" about lampshading that.

Yeah, it helps with their generic, easy to draw templates. I preferred mostly older designs, like Motoko from the movie up there, Jin-roh, Cowboy Bebop, Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Trigun, Studio Ghibli, Serial Experiments Lain, Monster, Shigurui, Azumanga Daioh, Planetes, Wicked City, Samurai Champloo, Akira and even simpler stuff like Ebichu. The characters didn't need rainbow hair because the animators put effort into the designs. You could easily distinguish them from other characters in the show or from other shows. Stand Alone Complex Motoko barely has has a face from some angles.

Indeed. It's not just the designs though: especially in stuff like Cowboy Bebop, you can recognize characters even by how they move. They did some exceptional work on the animations there as well.

It's a shame, really. The plot of SAC was much better than the movie, imho. However, the animation budget was slightly too low to pull it off.

Which is ironic because I recall at the time of the show's release that it was once of the most expensive anime series ever produced - or was that bullshit?

Then I was entirely wrong. I looked it up, and apparently season 1 of SAC had a 800M yen budget. It's been a while, but I seem to recall that they used some cheesy CGI scenes from time to time (the intro is a good example), which would've been fairly expensive to produce back in 2002.

That may have been the Tachikoma's, and there's a lot of small incidental effects (usually with robots and the like) that are obviously CGI but still look really good - may have to go and watch it all again.....

.....fuckin' woe is me right

Yeah, those looked pretty good indeed, but that's also due to CGI looking much less unnatural on robots than it would on androids such as the Major. However, I think they racked up some pretty huge costs by doing those with CGI.

 

[Worgen]

Geeaghh... I am just so blechh on this movie. I love GitS to death, Stand Alone Complex is easily my favorite anime. But a Hollywood movie fills me with an unfortunate apathy. Scarlett seems fine, I guess, but the fact they cast a pretty bland Caucasian actress as the Major is a bad sign.

Sometimes it's okay to use white actors for non-white characters, mostly when the ethnic background doesn't matter to the characterization. But despite its pretty universal themes and appeal, GitS is deeply, firmly rooted in Japanese culture. It cannot be separated from it's sociopolitical origins. So whether they are transplanting it to America or just pretending that the cybernetic bodies makes a good excuse to use white actors, they have already betrayed the essence of the property.

GitS can't survive a typical Hollywood adaptation that takes truly unique, foreign ideals and concepts and distills them into a broadly North American mindset. That's one of the things I love so much about it. It's quintessentially Japanese, and in a way that anyone from anywhere can understand. I learned more about the Japanese zeitgeist from GitS than from any other more overtly loljapanese show I've ever seen.

It would be funny if all the actors were american except for Bato and they made him Chinese.

 

[Laughing Man]

who cares as long as they have some Tachikomas in the movie I am good

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

SNIP

I still haven't forgiven her for Lucy. That was an absolutely terrible movie.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

What can I tell you, looks good to me.

 

[Cruickshank]

at this point, id rather they pull a last airbender and ruin the whole thing, screw any chance of a second movie and let us all sit here smugly.

that being said, whoever cast batou needs to be shot (or worse, receive a stern talking to, that'd show them), the actor resembles the character even less than their kusanagi casting.

 

[Fappy]

The picture actually isn't that bad, and the casting doesn't irk me too much. That said, I don't expect much out of this production. A Hollywood adaptation of GitS could work, but history shows us that these adaptations almost always suck. I guess time will tell. Worst case scenario is that we get another excuse to hate Hollywood. I highly doubt a Hollywood flop would damage the brand, especially because most Japanese fans will likely ignore it anyway.

 

[Objectable]

I'm sure that all the white nerds who protested the idea of a black Johnny Storm are gonna be SCREAMING over this, right?
RIght?

 

[Ihateregistering1]

I'm still wondering what her actual name is going to be. She's supposed to be Matoko Kusanagi, but she obviously doesn't look Japanese, so how are they going to get around that? Are they just going to call her 'the Major' and forego her name entirely, are they going to call her 'Kusanagi' and hope her Japanese esque hairdo will sell it, or are they going to pull an 'Edge of Tomorrow' and just give her a Western name?

None of that matters. The entire schtick is that Matoko Kusanagi is just a consciousness inside a cybernetic body (hence the "Ghost" in the "Shell"). She can be any enthnicity or gender she wants because it's a synthetic body. Hell, she could probably be implanted in a cyborg dog if she wanted to be.

Yeah, but she is still a Japanese looking cyborg in the original source material, with a Japanese name. You can say it doesn't matter since she's a cyborg and can inhabit any body her consciousness can be implanted in, but she isn't, she's in this particular body that makes her recognizable as Matoko Kusanagi. It could actually be an interesting idea for this movie to have her switch from body to body, thereby making her question her own identity since she's always changing form, but I doubt they'll go that direction as the movie obviously wants to make the most out of ScarJo's draw.

So how are they going to sidestep her "ethnicity" and (if maybe) her name, without basically making her an entirely different character? This wouldn't be so much of an issue if she wasn't the most iconic thing about the franchise. And that icon is a Japanese looking cyborg with a Japanese name.

Simple:
-Her last body got destroyed and she's temporarily using this one.
-She had to go undercover doing something where looking more like ScarJo was helpful.
-She wanted to try something else.

You could literally make up anything you wanted to and explain it in one sentence in the movie. This is no different than if they ever get around to making an "Altered Carbon" movie: the main character is just a consciousness in a shell, their ethnicity (hell, really their gender) doesn't even matter.

I'm sure that all the white nerds who protested the idea of a black Johnny Storm are gonna be SCREAMING over this, right?
RIght?

Is Johnny Storm a consciousness implanted in an artificial synthetic body?

 

[xaszatm]

I'm still wondering what her actual name is going to be. She's supposed to be Matoko Kusanagi, but she obviously doesn't look Japanese, so how are they going to get around that? Are they just going to call her 'the Major' and forego her name entirely, are they going to call her 'Kusanagi' and hope her Japanese esque hairdo will sell it, or are they going to pull an 'Edge of Tomorrow' and just give her a Western name?

None of that matters. The entire schtick is that Matoko Kusanagi is just a consciousness inside a cybernetic body (hence the "Ghost" in the "Shell"). She can be any enthnicity or gender she wants because it's a synthetic body. Hell, she could probably be implanted in a cyborg dog if she wanted to be.

Yeah, but she is still a Japanese looking cyborg in the original source material, with a Japanese name. You can say it doesn't matter since she's a cyborg and can inhabit any body her consciousness can be implanted in, but she isn't, she's in this particular body that makes her recognizable as Matoko Kusanagi. It could actually be an interesting idea for this movie to have her switch from body to body, thereby making her question her own identity since she's always changing form, but I doubt they'll go that direction as the movie obviously wants to make the most out of ScarJo's draw.

So how are they going to sidestep her "ethnicity" and (if maybe) her name, without basically making her an entirely different character? This wouldn't be so much of an issue if she wasn't the most iconic thing about the franchise. And that icon is a Japanese looking cyborg with a Japanese name.

Simple:
-Her last body got destroyed and she's temporarily using this one.
-She had to go undercover doing something where looking more like ScarJo was helpful.
-She wanted to try something else.

You could literally make up anything you wanted to and explain it in one sentence in the movie. This is no different than if they ever get around to making an "Altered Carbon" movie: the main character is just a consciousness in a shell, their ethnicity (hell, really their gender) doesn't even matter.

Ok, let's go with your idea. Let's say that the Major, for some insane reason, while living in Japan, decides to buck the trend and have a "white" shell. It's stupid, but fine. Can someone then explain why EVERY OTHER CHARACTER IN THIS MOVIE WITH EVEN A MINOR ROLE IS FREAKING WHITE!?! Why have a movie that takes place in Japan, stars "Japanese" characters, is still supposed to be entirely involved with Japanese imagery and culture. Yet every character just happens to decide that having a white "shell" is for the best!?! Even if it wasn't stupid beyond reason, it's incredibly arrogant thinking for a director to do this! And that's not even getting to the fact that the studio had the "brilliant" plan to use special effects to make all the actors look Asain! GAH! Fuck this idiotic idea! Just hire an Asian Actress!

 

[Casual Shinji]

Simple:
-Her last body got destroyed and she's temporarily using this one.
-She had to go undercover doing something where looking more like ScarJo was helpful.
-She wanted to try something else.

You could literally make up anything you wanted to and explain it in one sentence in the movie. This is no different than if they ever get around to making an "Altered Carbon" movie: the main character is just a consciousness in a shell, their ethnicity (hell, really their gender) doesn't even matter.

And none of those explainations even partially disguise the fact that it's just Hollywood white washing her for American audiences. And how convenient that this (emergency) replacement cyborg body has the same exact hair style as her previous one. Almost like it was expressly designed to look like a white version of her. That certainly is a completely new look for her. Great for undercover, too.

-'Hey look boss, that white woman has the same hairdo as that one Section 9 super cyborg operative. She's also wearing a leather jacket. Ya think that might be her?'
- '... Nah.'

It'd be a better idea to to go full-on American remake and just have it take place in furture Los Angeles with American characters. Change the title, and just credit it as an adaptation of the original. Heck, maybe that's what they're doing. But if they're going for a scenario where white ScarJo is Major Matoko Kusanagi in Japan among other secondary Japanese looking cyborg characters, that'd be painfully obvious not to mention ridiculous.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

I guess it looks ok to me, but I'm not especially attached to the source material. I respect fandom though, and by extension people's right to not like the ways that it differs from the source.

I've never actually been convinced by or really liked Johansson, so it's not exactly a selling point to me that she's starring.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

I'm still wondering what her actual name is going to be. She's supposed to be Matoko Kusanagi, but she obviously doesn't look Japanese, so how are they going to get around that? Are they just going to call her 'the Major' and forego her name entirely, are they going to call her 'Kusanagi' and hope her Japanese esque hairdo will sell it, or are they going to pull an 'Edge of Tomorrow' and just give her a Western name?

None of that matters. The entire schtick is that Matoko Kusanagi is just a consciousness inside a cybernetic body (hence the "Ghost" in the "Shell"). She can be any enthnicity or gender she wants because it's a synthetic body. Hell, she could probably be implanted in a cyborg dog if she wanted to be.

Yeah, but she is still a Japanese looking cyborg in the original source material, with a Japanese name. You can say it doesn't matter since she's a cyborg and can inhabit any body her consciousness can be implanted in, but she isn't, she's in this particular body that makes her recognizable as Matoko Kusanagi. It could actually be an interesting idea for this movie to have her switch from body to body, thereby making her question her own identity since she's always changing form, but I doubt they'll go that direction as the movie obviously wants to make the most out of ScarJo's draw.

So how are they going to sidestep her "ethnicity" and (if maybe) her name, without basically making her an entirely different character? This wouldn't be so much of an issue if she wasn't the most iconic thing about the franchise. And that icon is a Japanese looking cyborg with a Japanese name.

Simple:
-Her last body got destroyed and she's temporarily using this one.
-She had to go undercover doing something where looking more like ScarJo was helpful.
-She wanted to try something else.

You could literally make up anything you wanted to and explain it in one sentence in the movie. This is no different than if they ever get around to making an "Altered Carbon" movie: the main character is just a consciousness in a shell, their ethnicity (hell, really their gender) doesn't even matter.

Ok, let's go with your idea. Let's say that the Major, for some insane reason, while living in Japan, decides to buck the trend and have a "white" shell. It's stupid, but fine. Can someone then explain why EVERY OTHER CHARACTER IN THIS MOVIE WITH EVEN A MINOR ROLE IS FREAKING WHITE!?! Why have a movie that takes place in Japan, stars "Japanese" characters, is still supposed to be entirely involved with Japanese imagery and culture. Yet every character just happens to decide that having a white "shell" is for the best!?! Even if it wasn't stupid beyond reason, it's incredibly arrogant thinking for a director to do this! And that's not even getting to the fact that the studio had the "brilliant" plan to use special effects to make all the actors look Asain! GAH! Fuck this idiotic idea! Just hire an Asian Actress!

There's actually not even any confirmation the movie's going to take place in Japan at this point. The plot synopsis thus far is: "A cyborg policewoman attempts to bring down a nefarious computer hacker". That's it.