SHITHOT

The Animation:

As far as I could see, there was no visual improvement in the fluidity, clarity or overall look and feel of the original animated sections, which still comprise of the bulk of the film.

CGI Inserts:

The first major thing I noticed about the CGI inserts was that they removed any of the digital green, white and black style HUDs and title sequences that were in the original. The unfortunate thing about these is that the style was so abosultely ripped off in The Matrix, which was more maintstream and therefore that aesthetic has rather unfairly become synonymous with The Matrix and not Ghost in the Shell. I remember in one documentary I watched about GitS, the guy who designed the title sequence saying the binary code that turns in to the credits was actually the correct binary coding for each person’s name. Such a good touch and an original idea unfairly appropriated by The Matrix. Still undecided if removing the aesthetic associations with The Matrix was a good idea or not, I guess it comes down to who is viewing the film. I like to tell people that I watch GitS with that they did it first. So removing that takes that small pleasure away from me, but more importantly I think it takes a chunk out of the original film that made it so unique and briliant.

The same priniciple can be applied to the CGI inserts in the film. Yes I am used to seeing CGI and traditional hand drawn/painted animated side by side on screen now. So, had I not seen the original GitS I probably wouldn’t have blinked. But, having seen the original, I feel they actually detract from my enjoyment of the film. Firstly, the sections of animation they replace were so beautifully drawn and imagined, that the CGI feels clunky in it’s place. Also CGI is so commonplace now that - even though it is very good CGI - it just doesn’t feel as special as those original hand-drawn sequences.

Also, the CGI sequences are relatively sparse in the film, and because the major sequence is at the beginning during the credits, they almost feel like they are framing the main story, and not part of it. The opening sequence in CGI feels a lot like those big budget title sequences in Hollywood movies, interesting, but not really part of the rest of the film. The original sequence was incredibly powerful and grabbed your attention in the same way CGI does, but aesthetically it blended in to the beginning of the story and as such, for me, was more effective.

Ultimately it was an interesting experience, and I will never tire of watching GitS, but I think next time I would return to the original version.

On a side note, the subtitles track was definitely different in 2.0, the narrative was a lot cleared and some of the messy dialogue from the original made more sense. So the story was a lot easier to follow, and this might be one thing that would make me recommend it over the original, if someone was particularly dumb. However, in a purely sentimental way, I kind of liked the clunky and slightly confusing original subtitled track.

See now why I couldn’t have fit this in to 140 characters!