Spielberg's Ghost
Steven Spielberg has apparently picked up the rights to remake the anime classic, Ghost in the Shell, in English and live action. Now, even as an unreconstructed dork-nerd-geek, I generally have only limited tolerance for anime. I tried watching a couple of episodes of Tank Police a few months back and realized very quickly that I’d rather be clearing out spam from my inbox. With a few exceptions, that’s pretty much how I feel about the medium as a whole.
But both Ghost and, to a lesser extent, its more recent sequel, are many grades above the genre’s usual Cartoon-Network-at-2am-fare, and the first one, especially, has long been begging for a live-action remake. I worry, though, about who Spielberg will tap for director. Spielberg could do it himself, but he’d have to resist his usual mawkish, saccharine urges. It’d have to be a Spielberg who didn’t tag the opening and closing of Saving Private Ryan with scenes that might as well have read TIME TO TEAR UP, one who refused to cut the original the final line in Minority Report about all the murders there were in DC the year after Precrime’s closing, a Spielberg who let the son in War of the Worlds die. Somehow, it’s a Spielberg I don’t think we’re likely to see.
I can think of only a handful of other plausible candidates: James Cameron, Ridley Scott, the Wachowskis, and Francis Lawrence. The first two probably wouldn’t do it. They have their own brands and their own projects. The Wachowskis are (fairly obviously) anime fans, and I have no doubt that they’d enjoy remaking Ghost in the Shell — an action heavy, visually spectacular sci-fi pic with ponderous philosophical overtones. But somehow I can’t see them — notoriously weird and press-shy — working with Spielberg. (Michael Bay, who did Transformers for the Beard last summer, was a much better fit.)
So that leaves Lawrence. He made a big splash with I Am Legend last year, a flawed film, but also a remarkably well-realized one. And his 2005 debut, Constantine, is thoroughly underrated. He’s got both an eye for spectacle — witness the opening car crash in Constantine, or Legend’s nearly flawless vision of a deserted Manhattan. But he’s also generally restrained — and, most importantly, visually coherent. Partly, he’s just easy to follow, an unfortunately rare thing in big effects films these days.
And unlike most of the mid-budget action hacks working today, he takes time to establish mood and character. Most directors would’ve rushed John Constantine to the scene of that film’s opening exorcism; Lawrence had the patience to let him step out of his car, drop a cigarette, and approach the building first. The shots he chose — an overhead long shot, close-ups of his feet, an upward titled close up of his hand — were perhaps too obvious in their attempts at iconography (this was no Raiders of the Lost Ark). On the other hand, the fact that anything like this made the film at all — and both of his films are full of these moments — is evidence that he’s willing to go beyond the usual explosions and one liners that comprise the majority of what mid-list action directors have been putting out for the last two decades.
Christopher Nolan?
Batman showed a good eye for nifty action sequences, but the unifying theme to all his films is characters facing – and having to live through – the gradual loss of their souls. What made “The Prestige” particularly horrifying is that it’s the only one where it comes as a deliberate choice.
— Independent George · Apr 15, 07:27 PM · #
Ghost in the Shell and the associated television series, Stand Alone Complex, present the most ‘realistic’ science fiction I’ve ever seen, in terms of a coherent vision of the impact of cybernetics, expanding information technology, and nanotechnology on our future. I look forward to the movie, as long as neither Bay nor the incoherent Wachowskis are tapped for the project.
— Wilson · Apr 15, 07:32 PM · #
Wilson is corect: SAC is an excellent show. Even better, the people who write it have clearly done some studying around terrorism and counter-terrorism. There’s a real John Robb sort of feel to their plots.
— James F. Elliott · Apr 15, 08:34 PM · #
Just so long as they let the Major wear some clothes this time…
— Ethan C. · Apr 17, 09:43 PM · #
If you can’t get into traditional anime, try Cowboy Bebop (or Samurai Champloo). Exxcellent fusion of east and west sensibilities with a quasi-dystopian future (or past, for Champloo).
— aborabum · Apr 18, 03:31 AM · #
Yea this is a touchy movie to try and make. Just like with the Akira movie. I suppose Dragonball Z will be the first film to see what live action anime will look like (that or the Chun-Li film with Kristin Kreuk). And indeed SAC was a very good anime series to watch. There are others of course but you do have to wade through the trappings of what another culture may find enticing that makes absolutely no sense to yourself.
And I think Motoko’s lack of clothes was simply, as the Japanese call it, fanservice.
— CTDeLude · Apr 19, 03:59 PM · #