Details on the Storylines That Inspired the Live Action GHOST IN THE SHELL Movie

Most of the conversation that I’ve seen among fans regarding the upcoming live-action adaptation of Ghost in the Shell is the controversy over Scarlett Johansson’s casting in the lead role. I’ve already shared my thoughts on why that might be the case here. Regardless of how you feel about her casting, the movie is happening, and judging from the series of brief teasers that I’ve seen it looks like it’s going to be awesome! 

For those of you who are fans of the manga and anime, you might be wondering what storylines from the source material director Rupert Sanders used for his movie. All we’ve had to go off of so far is the following brief plot summary:

Ghost in the Shell follows the Major, special ops, one-of-a-kind human-cyborg hybrid, who leads the elite task force Section 9. Devoted to stopping the most dangerous criminals and extremists, Section 9 is faced with an enemy whose singular goal is to wipe out Hanka Robotic’s advancements in cyber technology.

During an interview with Collider, producer Avi Arad revealed some additional details on the story of the film and what inspired it. He said:

“We’re not doing Puppetmaster. It’s not Laughing Man. It involves Kuze. The Kuze story. The big thing we are doing here is that we’re not necessarily doing an origins backstory, but we are addressing her sense of self and resolving how she defines herself in terms of memories. That’s one of the main thrusts in the story. Inspired by that episode of Affection in Second Gig. It’s bits and pieces of those mixed together.”

The “Second Gig” he’s referring too is the second season of the anime series Stand Alone Complex, and “Affection” is obviously an episode of that series. I doubt we’ll see a play-by-play of that episode, but we’ll certainly see elements of it. Arad also talked about some other things that fans will recognize:

“You’ll recognize some things from Ghost in the Shell: Innocence like the geisha bot. A lot of the time when you see futurist movies either it feels very beautiful and removed and clean or you have to go down a grimy, dystopic world. Rupert was chasing something else that was more similar to the source where it felt really tactile and tangible and you had things like cables even though wireless makes more sense. If you look at the original, the guys’ hands break off and type. Even in 1995 the idea that if you talked to a computer you’d type really, really fast didn’t make sense. That’s where we are coming from a lot of the time.”

As a fan of Ghost in the Shell, this is kind of exciting stuff to hear. I just hope that Sanders did a good job of putting it all together for the film. Arad also talked about the villains in the story and the meaning of their existence. He explained: 

“The villains in the story are people that are abusing this brave new world. The movie certainly addresses this whole idea of in the future, if you think about everybody’s biggest fear around technology is about getting your identity stolen (which is really just your credit record) as opposed someone hacking your brain could happen here. The more technology gets inside of you and the more it’s woven into your life the more that people can abuse it. So there are characters, both at a criminal level and a governmental level, who are abusing technology and doing scary things.”

Ghost in the Shell is set to open in theaters on March 31, 2017. Johansson will be joined by a great supporting cast that includes Takeshi Kitano, Michael Pitt, Pilou Asbæk, Juliette Binoche, Kaori Momoi, Chin Han, Danusia Samal, Yutaka Izumihara, and Tuwanda Manyimo.

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