Ghost in the Shell 2 in Theaters Late This Summer

Peter Williams writes "Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence is due out in theaters late summer 2004. The english website can be reached here."

Re:surprised

[Midnight Thunder]

Ghost in the Shell has nothing to do with Final Fantasy.

Warning...

[GillBates0]

severely Flash crippled site linked to. Suffocated my Firefox - severe resizing/etc. Even now when I change to the tab containing that site, Firefox resizes window.

Maybe a bug in Firefox, but I hate the jazzy, flashy movie websites anyway.

Re:Warning...

[MooCows]

You might want to turn off resizing in your javascript options. (Options -> Web Features -> Advanced)

Re:AWESOME!!!

[spacerodent]

you should also check out the "stand alone complex" series based off it. It assumes no familiarity with the movie but has the same chracters and a whole new plot. Right now theres planned 48 episodes but only 32 are translated by fansub groups. Very good anime unlike most the crap floating around.

Re:Warning...

[Midnight Thunder]

Adding to this, why does the 'skip intro' always have to be in the flash animaton. How do I skip if I have flash disabled?

Check it out ..

[z0ink]

If you are a fan of the Ghost in the Shell movie than you need to get your hands on the series. Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex is one of the most well produced anime series I've seen in a while. You don't need to be some total "Anime Freak ^_^" to watch these. Definatly some great stuff in here and better background on the GitS story.

Re:PG-13

[EyesWideOpen]

Wait. This thing is PG-13?...What was the first one rated?

According to Roger Ebert the original carried 'No MPAA rating.'

http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/ebert_reviews/1996/0 4/04122.html [suntimes.com]

For those who had never heard of it

[kingstalemuffins]

Ghost in the Shell [wikipedia.org]

Re:return-of-a-classic dept?

[sn0wman3030]

If you don't like anime, just turn off the anime stories in your slashdot preferences.

Re:Ghost on my mind

[ed1park]

Don't forget the music from Ghost in the Shell by Kenji Kawai! Best soundtrack since Akira's by Geinoh Yamashirogumi. Made the long distance drive the other day awesome.

I look forward to the new music.

GITS
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00 005NZZE/ qid=1088104694/sr=2-2/ref=sr_2_2/002-1798687-48680 65

Akira
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/deta il/-/B000 0076D8/ref=m_art_li_1/002-1798687-4868065?v=glance &s=music

Notes from the SIFF Premiere

[Batlord]

I was lucky enough to be at the North American Premiere as part of the Seattle International Film Festival. Brief impressions below:

The Crowd
The theatre (Cinerama) was packed. The rush line (people who didn't buy tickets in advance) wound around the corner. I don't think many got in.

The Presentation
Subtitles. Hooray!

The Movie
One of the few films that's substantially better than the original. I re-watched the original a few days before seeing this to refresh myself of the story (not necessary).

I don't want to give away any spoilers, so I'll just say that it's some of the best feature-length anime I've seen in a long time.

The things that bothered me with the original (like the gratuitious nudity and slow pace) were left out.

Overall
It's great that this film is making it to theatres, in any case, it would be a big hit on DVD. The big screen was a big help.

alternate trailer

[neoThoth]

Make sure to check out the japanese trailer [gofishpictures.com]. It's way better and ironically almost entirely in english.

Re:AWESOME!!!

[Chibi]

Or you can buy the retail version that comes out July 27th (in the US, region 1). Most of the US anime companies are very fan-friendly and do not carry the same practices as the RIAA/MPAA. Please support an industry that is fan-friendly.

Re:AWESOME!!!

[ceswiedler]

Actually, the English and Japanese dubs were done at the same time. I agree the voice acting is...stilted, but it wasn't a dub done after the fact. The movie was a Japanese / American / European co-production.

Re:Notes from the SIFF Premiere

[mratitude]

The things that bothered me with the original (like the gratuitious nudity and slow pace) were left out.

I don't know that nudity in anything from the Japanese is gratuitious. Nudity doesn't have the same stigma with them as it does in the West. If there isn't any nudity it's either a "western" influence (for western distribution) or it wasn't appropriate to the plot element even for Japanese.

Re:return-of-a-classic dept?

[IrresponsibleUseOfFr]

Ummm... I hate to break it to you. But GITS:2 is not 2D animated. By the end of 2D animation, Eisner means the process of hand-drawing every single frame. Pen-ing, Ink-ing then transfering to film.

I can safely say that 80% of the scenes in the trailer are definitely computer animated. The other 20% probably are also, but I couldn't say for sure.

Eisner is right, the old way of doing 2D animation is dead. It is too pain-staking, and frankly we can get a computer to do a better job at a lot of the things a human used to have to do.

If you mean that the 2D animation style is dead. Then you are wrong. And don't quote Eisner either since that isn't what he is talking about. He is talking about process. How much do we use computers in the process of making animation. Traditional 2D animation didn't use them at all. Today the answer is, we use them a lot, and they will be used more in the future. Hell, even South Park which is probably one of the most crudely animated series (it used to be done with construction paper) uses Maya.

A lot of work has gone into making computer animation look like traditional cell animation. Studios can do a pretty good job now. I guess fooling people into thinking it was done the old way means that studios been fantasitically successful. I however find it ironic that you lament the passing of the old way of doing things, by pointing to something that was clearly made by new means.

Re:AWESOME!!!

[BigFire]

The first 26 episodes are the first season. Manga Entertainment and Bandai Entertainment are releasing them next month.

The second batch of 26 episode (also known as The 2nd GIG) deals with another sets of problem, and is currently being broadcast in Japan 2 episode at a month on a PPV channel.

Mini review and thoughts from a viewer

[RC_Car]

I had the chance to see this film at the North American premier at the Seattle International Film Festival a couple of weeks ago. I won't reveal any spoilers, but I thought it was a great film. It's visually amazing! Some of the visuals in the film just made me want to wet my pants practically. The animators went through great lengths to make this film visually great.

Instead of confusing philosophy (like the Matrix sequels or the first Ghost in the Shell) they used Japanese poems to convey ideas in the storyline. The story feels pretty simplistic or at least enough to the point that you're not having to watch the movie three times to just understand everything that they're talking about.

Also unfortunately unlike the first Ghost in the Shell the storyline follows primarily Batou and also Togusa (who has become Batou's partner, but everyone has doubts about how the two operate together) instead of the Major in the first one (I guess it isn't really unfortunate since Batou seriously kicks some ass, but I really liked the first one how it followed the Major and the presence she gave in the first Ghost in the Shell).

Anyway, I can't wait to see this again! Great movie. I still don't feel it's as good as the first one, but definitely a good sequel to it.