Absolutely pointless!

.

MRCAB

MrLister

DSTRYA

ithidet

markhgn

/sarcasm

Urael

besides, we already have an english remake of ghost in the shell. it's called "the matrix." :P

arachnophilia

Akira, Ninja Scroll, Princess Mononoke, Nadesico, Cowboy Bebop all need the Wizard of Oz admiration. There's no need to remake them.

Eva... seeing as it's getting another treatment/ make over it shouldn't be touched till Anno is done with it.

BlindKarma

And the major had to make the concious choice to give it all up - give up her position, her authority, her prowess, her body - to truly understand that when she took on that tank and tore her body apart.

Yeah, I'd say that's pretty cyberpunk, if not spiritual. I have absolutely no faith whatsoever that Spielberg can capture that, or distill it for an audience that might not get it at first stroke - Mamoru Oshii was able to drill that into the movie all over the place.

From the major's display of power and prowess but her unemotional behavior to her own inner crisis of individuality and uniqueness among a world where she sees duplicates of herself everywhere - where the opening sequence (to Yoko Kanno's beautiful music) proves that a life like hers can be manufactured in moments - we come to the end where the only way Kusanagi is able to truly reclaim her individuality is to make the hard choices and face the consequences - consequences that in the end may actually be enlightenment.

Sorry - I used to host seminars on cyberculture and show this movie. It was AMAZING discussion material.

phoenix

But, really, War of the Worlds was ... painful.

Ghost in the Shell - is ANIME and the feel is in the images - it doesn't need to be remade in the big budget tradition.

gintmfgb

tezby

I watched Red Zone Cuba last night though.

Seth L

(slumps off. Defeated)

Plague

I was being too generalist, that wasn't my intention. I'm sorry.

I do think it's disengenous to say that GITS cannot be improved upon with live action though.

I doubt it will, but that shouldn't stop someone from trying.

And if Yoko Kanno does the soundtrack, I'm buying a ticket. Even if Coleman Francis were directing.

Seth L

MickyK

It's pretty clear that should Spielberg directs this material it won't be for the cynical objective of just making money. I would contrast Michael Bay, cringe, with Spielberg for being guilty of this and for completely eviscerating any value from any script he has ever touched in favor of explosives and stupid one-liners.

Spielberg has a lot of range as a director and to condemn him off hand merely because some of his diverse portfolio includes Raiders of the Lost Ark and Goonies as one dimensional or overly commercial misses his talent and skills as both producer and director.

I really could see such an uproar over Michael Bay, or Tony Scott who is directed the Andromeda Strain remake. Spielberg is the type of guy who accepted this project in order to broaden his range and meet the challenge, not to make a quick buck which he could do more easily and effectively with any other number of titles.

Logan5

zorazero

As for GitS specifically several of the slow moving city shots were designed specifically to invoke a static image.

tetracycloide

GitS is amazing, he will ruin it. If he HAS to make it live-action it better take place in Tokyo.

RogueJustice

True, but in this case I think the source could be improved upon.

Animation isn't intended to be static, right? I mean, that could be the intent of some shows, but I don't think it was here.

Seth L

I'm seeing an excellent SNL sketch in the making.

FrankenPC

tetracycloide

+ Watch video

Just found out that this video (not a fan vid) was actually from Ghost in the Shell a couple of weeks ago. 11 year old song, still awesome stuff

twreckx

augie1

FrankenPC

No.

joemono

kstop

brianeisley

augie1

Even as good as the animation is, and it's aged extremely well, it has limitations, and often feels more like a collection of stills then something dynamic.

Seth L

plus which one is he remaking? the original movie? the sequel, or any one of the stories from the tv series?

njudah

augie1

Belabras

As for disliking E.T. at 9... are you implying that all 9 year olds should clap their hands and believe in fairies?

Even then, I hated how the dead-pet weepiness was crammed down your throat. Oh, look! Your beloved pet is dying! Oh, how sad it is that your cutesy little pet is dying, sad child of divorce! But wait... he's not really dead! He's coming back to life! Hooray! My dead pet is ascending to heaven!

Like WotW, the ending is a complete cheat, without room for the viewers emotions. It's what pompously well-intentioned adults think soft-minded children should have crammed down their throats.

By contrast, 15 years later, I sobbed at the ending Iron Giant, which has a similar pathos with a vastly better execution.

DCI Gene Hunt

aspiringexpatriate

Shiryu

Also, it sounds like a lot of you are only happy if you're depressed when you leave the theater. What the fuck is wrong with movies having a happy ending?

@DCI Gene Hunt: If you walked out of ET at 9? years old and thought it was "manipulative tripe," then I think you grew up way, way too fast.

joemono

Seth L

If there is anyone out there who can do "Ghost in the Shell" justice, it's him.

Robert Rodriguez would make it too camp and Ridley Scott would make it all show and plot driven with one dimensional characters. He would miss the heart of the matter directly.

mekki

@DCI Gene Hunt: Its fair game, sure, but blaming Spielberg for what was a Kubrick fuckup is not, which is what a lot of people who dont even have a fucking clue of the story behind AI are doing here.

Kubrick wrote the screenplay somewhat based on a short story, he asked for a few people to add elements, some did, other told him to fuck off because they couldnt deal with working with him, but the director was always going to be Spielberg, even though for years he refused.

If anything caused the movie to have the ending it did, it was the fact the guy was dying when he finished up the script that probably had to do with it.

The original version was much lighter in tone than what we got, much of the darkness of the movie was added by Spielberg, and not Kubrick who had already died by the time the final screenplay was written.

Falconfire

tetracycloide

(at least I remember hating it... need to re-watch to see if I am still correct)

dirtybacon

Illuminatus

Much of the current hate, though, gets piled on Spielberg's later, failed attempts to be a 'mature' filmmaker. As a cheery, amusement park ride director, he's fabulous. He just can't "think" on film to save his life. "Close Encouters" is the best of his intellectually "deep" films, and that's over 30 years old. His theme-park ride films are fun, enjoyable, and forgettable minutes after you leave the theater.

If there never was a Hitchcock, Spielberg could be considered a brilliant innovator. Instead, he's just a distiller and a refiner of the prevailing Hollywood aesthetic. He's style without depth. Like Michael Bay, there's a place in the multi-plex for that, but when it comes to serious cinema, he doesn't even rate... and that's why you get the avalanche of haters.

DCI Gene Hunt

Blitzgal

Spielberg can bring a huge budget and great talent to bear on this picture, he may not be involved beyond that, like others have pointed out.

Seth L

williethewisp

It's like cooking - I can cook a Thomas Keller recipe, but what I'll produce in my kitchen will be a far, far cry from what a true master chef can create.

My problem with the ending of A.I. is that a talking teddy bear literally yanks a plot-point out of his ass. My problem with the whole film is that it's a pretentious and muddled mess. Spielberg confuses fairy-tale, story book love with obsession.

@aspiringexpatriate: Agreed. "The Pianist" was fantastic... a far better holocaust film, as is Night And Fog. Both of which put the chain-store simplifications of Schindler's List to shame.

You also hit it on the nose - Spielberg's skill is camera movement and choreography. It's also a fitting metaphor for what's wrong with his movies - he can dance the camera around the surface of his stories, but he can't get inside the heart of them.

DCI Gene Hunt

Garrison Dean, Mr. Privilege

nuromansr

Garrison Dean, Mr. Privilege

Slatz_Grobnik

Blitzgal

aspiringexpatriate

@Garrison Dean, King Awesome: By "slew" I was referring to how three films were made in the span of three years based of Dick's story, a ten year gap between Recall and Minority Report does not consist a slew.

As for your lists, well, at least you've thought it out. I do disagree, but I'm not going to convince you on here.

One thing that rebirthed my love for Spielberg is his ability to make a long take not seem incredibly long. Cuaron did this amazingly in Children of Men. Spielberg does this all the time. He reframes a shot while the camera is in motion 5 different times and keeps the suspense up. That is something that is hugely missing in modern MTV style filmmaking, and even though I am an editor, it's really sad to see it go.

aspiringexpatriate

Seth L

Blitzgal

The cold weird end that everyone hates is my favorite part. Of course I've had to explain to everyone I know that they weren't aliens so that may be part of it. The whole point of the film is the advancement of the robots as a being so to end it in the distant future with humans a mythological being, as studied by evolved machines was pretty friggin cool.

Garrison Dean, Mr. Privilege

5 bad Spielberg-directed films... simple.

Munich
War Of The Worlds
A.I.
Minority Report
Amistad

I'd include Private Ryan and Schindler's List on that rundown as well. The comment above about Kusterica's "Underground" explains it perfectly.

Munich was dreadful and tedious. The exploration of the morality of revenge killing was ham-handed and shallow. His populist taste had a field day with re-staging the 'kill' sequences, but between those, the film was as sensible as a Michael Bay flick.

And don't forget his less-than-stellar earlier works:

Hook
The Color Purple
Empire Of The Sun
1941

DCI Gene Hunt

And As much as I love him.. Here are your 5, and there are things I like about these movies, but they are pretty bad.

War of the Worlds
The Terminal
Always
The Lost World
and sorry to disagree, but Munich
If that doesn't suit your taste then
1941 or
AI

Garrison Dean, Mr. Privilege

And I'm not considering myself a "Spielberg apologist" or whatever that means. He's done somethings that aren't good, because everyone does, but he's done far more things that are incredibly good. So, I call him a great director.

aspiringexpatriate

But I am open to being wrong. Munich had a bleak ending and was a stronger film for it. So maybe lightning will strike twice.

Hooplehead

aspiringexpatriate

Every writer writes things that are crappy, wrong, unworkable, or misguided. Part of the artistry is releasing something when it's how the author wants it to be. Kubrick never released or filmed the ending to AI that he wrote - in fact, he kept bringing in writers to try and get it right, something that obviously, he never did.

DCI Gene Hunt

MenaceIISobriety

And I can't see my comment yet, but I think I might've said "sleuth" when I meant "slew" or however it's spelled.

aspiringexpatriate

[imdb.com]

Of the films he's directed, I challenge you to name 5 that are outright bad. I can easily name 5 that are incredibly good.

Sidenote: chances are he won't direct this, but produce it. Then again, it'll be Dreamworks's flagship 3D film. So he might.

Sidenote2: there is a lot of AI hate floating around the world, all focused on the "family friendly" ending. I'm still confused as to how that was a "happy" ending. And if my reading on the production was accurate, it wasn't Spielberg's ending, but Kubrick's.

aspiringexpatriate

Seth L

David Fincher. How has no one said David Fincher? You want gritty nihilism: Se7en and Fight Club. You want cop drama: Se7en and Zodiac. You want mind-bending: Fight Club and The Game. You want sci-fi: Alien 3 and Rendezvous with Rama. Some one find a flaw. Anyone. I dare you.

Illuminatus

I demand satisfaction!

Garrison Dean, Mr. Privilege

SavannahJack

Garrison Dean, Mr. Privilege

augie1

@topic ... how about Brad Anderson or Alex Proyas.
I just hope Yoko Kanno does the soundtrack.

osiris83

tetracycloide

Personally when I am in the mood for some beautiful animation (and Blade Runner vibe) I prefer the second movie.

Ghost in the Shell 2 : Innocence

Bato is the man!...borg

+ Watch video

jchasse

Yuppers. Plus Tachikomas. And Batou being all awesome.

And I think there's a Neon Genesis adaptation in the works, so lets go hate on that. Maybe Shamalyan will be the director.

Seth L

There is inherently no expression within a remake, for the most part, and by and large the only reason to do so is to recapitalize on the same idea. The interest in espousing the philosophical intricacies of the original will most assuredly be minimal no matter who directs, produces, or stars. The only reason this is being done is to make money and it will more than likely result in a film that is enjoyable but quickly forgettable. It is true that movies are not made to satiate the desires of fans but it is also true that movies that are made strictly for profit are rarely compelling in any real way because compelling just is not profitable.

Only one question remains, then, for a Spielberg remake: "Is Spielberg willing to make an unsuccessful movie to serve greater artistic expression?" I think his track record leaves that question very up in the air. Domestically Munich didn't do so well and I'm not sure that the international success that it received will be replicated with a live action GitS.

tetracycloide

I also think that Stand Alone Complex series would be better suited for a live-action movie than the original Ghost in the Shell movie. The Stand Alone stories are much more cinematic and action packed specifically the Laughing Man. How awesome is a character who no one can see or identify because he's hacked into everyone's brain and you can only see a logo over his face.

[wakaba.c3.cx]

BullfightsOnAcid

firesign

Least the movie is planned to be the actual story of the manga, unlike the anime which was like the first 2 books, except not quite even that.

Falconfire

Seth L

In fact much of the GOOD parts of the film where written by Spielberg, NOT Kubrick.

And for god sake would people STOP SAYING THEY WHERE ALIENS ITS CLEAR THEY WHERE ROBOTS!!!!!1

I think that alone is what people fucking dont get about the AI ending. It was not aliens visiting our planet and finding the Osmond bot, it was robots who have by that point replaced humans as the dominate species on earth who where looking for artifacts of their CREATORS and found him.

They where worshiping him as a god because he had "touched" their creators.

Falconfire

Tiwa

Spielberg is a tissue-thin shlock artist incapable of capturing an intangible thought on screen. His films are as shallow as Michael Bay's, and recently, far less fun to watch.

His whole catalog of "serious" films are all awkward fumbles. He's pathologically averse to morally grey areas. His characters have zero nuance or subtlety. And no matter how hard he tries to hide it, ha can't let go of his instinct for glib, shopping-mall-multiplex crowd pleasing.

He stands alone on top of the list of overrated directors.

DCI Gene Hunt

Hear hear!

Jesus, you effin' WHAT IFers are acting like this movie was given to Uwe Boll- or Ulli Lommel is directing the goddamned thing.

I'd also like to point out that Speilberg only got Dreamworks to buy the rights- nowhere does it say he is directing.

And since he has four in the pipeline now, I doubt he will.

Sheesh.

Plague

Miranda Kali

reddingofish

Miranda Kali

monkity

Although I would be interested in seeing what Neil Blomkamp could do with it.

shini

I think that characterizing Spielberg as a director who has been succesful by throwing money at his projects is unfair. Spielberg has shown that he can take on movies with a serious subject matter and break expectations that have been imposed on him on account of his prior works. He's demonstrated that he has considerable range as a director. Here is a guy who not only directed Jaws, ET, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, and Close Encounters, but also Amistad, Minority Report, Schindlers List, Amistad, Catch Me If You Can, Saving Private Ryan, Munich, the Color Purple, and Empire of the Sun.

It's frequently the case that movies aren't made to satiate the desires of fans, and that will probably be true for Ghost in the Machine and Akira. In all liklihood Spielberg will do as any other director would, make a movie that is comprehensible and enjoyable to a larger, more diverse audience then the small subset of comic book fans. And in a few cases the material is compelling enough to actually benefit from that sort of treatment.

Logan5

dirtybacon

Also, has anyone noticed that the anime strips away any funny parts of the manga? It's a shame, but necessary I suppose.

dirtybacon

jp182

@Miranda Kali: Ridley would be AWESOME for this actually!

@NefariousNewt: actually Color Purple was good as was Empire of the Sun (i probably mistyped the title for that last one)

@SavannahJack: i don't remember the movie ending that way....
is that how Stand Alone Complex ends?

jp182

Cin

but between this, robotech, dbz and akira--well, i can't wait for My Neighbor Totoro to be brought into live-action with abigail breslein.

mitchel_stevens

I think anyone that's honest knows that the original ending won't survive Spielberg. I just don't see the mainstream audiences understanding it. The whole merging consciousnesses thing is going to be over the heads of most of the mainstream audience. They want to see the good guy win and the bad guy lose. In my book, the original film is one of the more prominent cases in which "good" and "bad" are significantly grey, and the ending leaves you not knowing who won.

Ghost in the Shell has always been about the grey. Spielberg is too much of an old school "the good guys wear white hats" director for me to think he's going to strike the appropriate tone with this.

Ma1agate

Right?

Please, god, no...

mwells54

Anyone want to stake a stab at who the cast might be?

cybereality

I say if there has to be a live action version, bring on Ridley Scott, who obviously wants to make money with his movies, but also clearly wants to make art. "Blade Runner" was a box office disaster when it was released (although it eventually in re-release and video sales did become profitable), but it was one of the great science fiction films of all time, and operates on an intellectual level that Spielberg can only dream of while easily matching him for production value, sfx, etc.

drmaybe

botanicidal

SavannahJack

I have faith that Speilberg will do well, sure it won't be entirely faithful to the original works, and might lose out on a lot of the deeper meaning. But it'll probably still end up being a damn good and enjoyable film.

CyRevenant

leepe

myrlin

Log1c

braak

deckard97

NefariousNewt

Miranda Kali

kevinjwoods

Darkedge

Is he going to happy-up the very cyberpunk and gritty ending like he does with all of his other movies?

Really - did we have to remake this one? Really?

phoenix

This seems unlikely.

braak