GHOST IN THE SHELL (film 2017)

GHOST IN THE SHELL (film 2017). Rupert Sanders, dir. Based on the comic The Ghost in the Shell by Shirow Masamune (as Masamune Shirow). Jamie Moss, William Wheeler, Ehren Kruger, script. Jan Roelfs, production design. USA: Arad Productions, DreamWorks, Paramount Pictures et al. (production) / Paramount Pictures (US and UK distribution), 2017. See IMDb for details on shooting locations and production and distribution. Languages: English and Japanese. See also GHOST IN THE SHELL (animation, 1996).

Storyline provided by Paramount Pictures on IMDb: "In the near future, Major (Scarlett Johansson) is the first of her kind: A human saved from a terrible crash, who is cyber-enhanced to be a perfect soldier devoted to stopping the world's most dangerous criminals. When terrorism reaches a new level that includes the ability to hack into people's minds and control them, Major is uniquely qualified to stop it. As she prepares to face a new enemy, Major discovers that she has been lied to: her life was not saved, it was stolen. She will stop at nothing to recover her past, find out who did this to her and stop them before they do it to others. Based on the internationally acclaimed Japanese Manga, 'The Ghost in the Shell.'" A significant error in the Paramount summary is that Major in this version of the story is not a cyber-enhanced human but a robot with a stolen human brain, which could raise philosophical questions of identity, memory, and humanity when a human personality (brain/mind/spirit/soul) finds itself in a cybernetic mechanism: as in as in the Total Prosthesis in "Masks," with a male protagonist, and "No Woman Born," with a female, and, arguably, the original ROBOCOP (1987). In GHOST 2017, we have Major's quest for her identity and true memories (in the sense of just whose brain was stolen), and the motif of the reunification of a family when Major finds her (Japanese) mother. As in the earlier animation, there is unproblematic belief here in what the characters refer to as 'the ghost'" (using Gilbert Ryle's phrase, "the ghost in the machine")—i.e. "the indefinable quality that forms the human soul" (Dan Persons, Cinefantastique 28.1: 49).

Note images of the superimposition of the robotic upon a human reduced to her brain, transgression of bodily integrity with injections in implanted infusion ports in the back of the neck, and visually "busy" cyberpunk visions of cities of augmented realities. Since Major frequently appears in what looks like a thin, white Kevlar bodystocking, she is definitely gendered female — a point stressed by having her in frame with Batou, a large male character with a hypermasculine body.

Compare and contrast I. Asimov's U.S. Robotics Corporation and robot psychologist Susan Calvin with Hanka Robotics' still sympathetic but more problematic Dr. Ouelet. Note well the arachnoid imagery with the murderous geisha-bot early in the film and the spider tank at the climax; note suggestion of a web with the implant cords running into Kuze, the apparent villain for most of the film. It is arguable that the suggestion with Kuze of a web with him the deadly spider at the focus is very properly ambiguous since Kuze turns out to be "more sinned against than sinning" (to quote King Lear) and more victim than villain.

For a discussion of the philosophical limitations of the film by an author working in the field of robotics, see "Ghost in the Shell Thrills but Ducks the Philosophical Questions Posed by a Cyborg Future." For the hotly debated issue of the "Whitewashing" of the story by casting Western actors in key roles — possibly referenced by what we have called the "thin, white Kevlar bodystocking" warn by Johansson's Major — see, e.g., the Guardian article by Steve Rose, "Ghost in the Shell’s whitewashing: does Hollywood have an Asian problem?".

RDE, Initial Compiler, 3Apr17, rev. 5Apr17, 17Apr17 03/IV/17