The transition to live action is leaving me cold. I have a feeling this is going to be another Johnny Mnemonic for me. I felt disappointed and let down when I saw that.
I’ve watched the trailer a few times and a few negative things jumped out at me right away:
I don’t remember robot geisha’s from Ghost In The Shell, but there were similar cyborg/mechas in GITS2. That immediately took me out of the story and it was the first two shots of the trailer.
The Major’s camo/invisibility suit looks dumb. It worked for me in animation. Not so much in real life.
Batou’s glasses/goggles/implants look dumb. So does his hair. Again, I think some things don’t work in real life that are easily accepted in drawings. Also, will Togusa have a mullet?
Major waking up in bed. The anime had almost zero detail. It was black and white, sillhouettes and shadows. In the trailer Major unjacks herself and is wearing some sort of bulky clothing. The scene is sepia and hazy where it should be stark.
I don’t think I am buying Scarlett Johannson as the Major. The Major is shown to be quite muscular in a few scenes.
The puppet master is in a male cyborg body?
The large groups of people(?) cyborgs(?) tethered up Matrix style but looking like meditating buddhist monks . I think I know where the story is going there based on the dialogue but I don’t remember that in the anime.
A few things I did like:
The river fight scene. I thought the coming out of invisibility effect was pretty cool.
The final fight using the columns for protection. I knew exactly what it was and was doing a mental “oh yeah!” when I saw that.
The Blade Runner like street advertisements. This film will look good for sure.
So based on one trailer there was more negative than positive for me. I want this to be a good movie but I’ll wait for reviews and discussion here to decide if I’ll go to a theatre to see it.
All this is imho obviously. And I have only seen the first two features, none of Stand Alone Complex or any other features, episodes if there are any.