‘Ghost in the Shell’ is more cyberposeur than cyberpunk – Engadget

Beyond the gunplay and set pieces, the Ghost in the Shell anime also set itself apart by throwing you into the deep end of a world where technology is completely integrated with humans. Most people have cyberbrains -- metal cases for their organic brains that allow them to "jack in" to computers and networks. The film doesn't slow down much to explain the concept of a cyberbrain to you, but you eventually grasp it by how characters use them. At one point, you see an official's hands expand into a multitude of robotic digits, which is clearly a big help for typing faster. While the remake echoes this imagery, it doesn't do anything thoughtful with it.

Take the character of Togusa, for example. In the anime, he's established as the least augmented member of Section 9, the intelligence group led by Major Kusanagi. He uses a traditional revolver, and his lack of cybernetic implants seems like a detriment when he's surrounded by literal supersoldiers. But as he starts to question why he's even on the team, Kusanagi makes an intriguing point: A system with standardized components will inevitably fail. If every member of her team was cybernetically enhanced in the same way, that leaves them open to an attack that could take them all out.

Togusa's mere presence is a check against that design flaw. The entire exchange is something we see often in cyberpunk: Technology doesn't always mean progress. In the remake, they point out that Togusa uses an old gun and that's it.

Perhaps the biggest failure of the American version of Ghost in the Shell is that it simply doesn't do anything new. Whereas the original brought plenty of innovative ideas to the table -- it was one of the few science fiction films to actually build on the Blade Runner aesthetic -- the adaptation is perfectly content with copying surface-level style while dumbing down deeper concepts. While the film has been praised for its style, ultimately it's basically just the original Ghost in the Shell aesthetic mashed together with Blade Runner and a boatload of CGI. The remake's vision of New Port City is also oddly sterile. There's none of the lived-in sense of grit you'd find in most cyberpunk stories.

Even the villain is far less interesting. In the remake, it ends up being yet another evil corporate plot. But in the anime, the "Puppet Master" is a completely synthetic life form "born out of the sea of information." He's not inherently evil, he's just trying to figure out who he is.

"It can also be argued that DNA is nothing more than a program designed to preserve itself," the Puppet Master says when someone claims he's just a computer program. "Life has become more complex in the overwhelming sea of information. And life, when organized into species, relies upon genes to be its memory system. So, man is an individual only because of his intangible memory... and memory cannot be defined, but it defines mankind. The advent of computers, and the subsequent accumulation of incalculable data has given rise to a new system of memory and thought parallel to your own. Humanity has underestimated the consequences of computerization."

Cyberpunk stories have rarely been about easy answers, and that's yet another concept the Ghost in the Shell adaptation fails to grasp. Every conflict ends up having a distinct conclusion, be it the villain or Major's place in the world. At the end of the anime however, Major Kusanagi doesn't defeat the antagonist in the traditional sense. She joins with him to create an entirely new being -- a union of a human soul and brain together with a purely cybernetic being.

After being transplanted into a new body, she looks out over the cityscape and simply asks: "And where do I go from here? The network is vast and infinite."

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'Ghost in the Shell' is more cyberposeur than cyberpunk - Engadget