Ghost in the Shell (2017) with Christian Douglas

On this episode of Movie Smash!, we discuss 2017's Ghost in the Shell directed by Rupert Sanders and starring Scarlett Johansson. The film follows Major Mira Killian, the first of her kind cyborg as she works to solve the mystery of a cyber hacker assassinating company executives.

Hosts: Christopher Roberts and Fergel Amayo

Guest Host: Christian Douglas CEO of Unpopular Comics

Unpopular Comics Kickstarter

Edited By: Christopher Roberts

Produced By: Off Panel Creations, LLC

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
It's fergalicious.

(00:01):
I wanna jump head first right into the conch verse
that hit this movie when it first came out.
There's a six pack in all of us.
Mine's just covered with a level of groceries.
Uh, some monkeys with a tail that is red.
People aren't this smart.
Let's dumb it down.
Probably smoked a big fatty before I went.
Let's get them.
Hello and welcome to movie.
Hello and welcome to movie smash, the show where we dive head first in the comic book

(00:33):
movies outside the MCU.
If you're new to the show, thanks for joining us.
If you've been here before, you know the drill.
Each episode, we're going to smash their movie whose source material is either from a graphic
novel or a comic.
Are these movies worth revisiting?
Should they be forgotten?
Let's find out.
This is movie smash.
I'm one of your hosts, Chris Roberts, founder of off panel creations with me this evening.

(00:54):
I have Fergula Mayo.
What's up?
I'm Fergula Mayo owner and founder of Gotham Night Comics, where we get our nerd on.
And on top of that, we do love me some manga, especially this manga and our guest host tonight
all the way from Ireland, Christian Douglas, CEO of unpopular studios.
Christian.

(01:14):
Hello, Christian Douglas here.
I'm the CEO and one of the founders of the unpopular studio located in Ireland.
So glad to be here.
It's a pleasure to be part of the podcast.
Thanks for joining us.
So our movie today is 2017's Ghost in the Shell starring Scarlett Johansson and directed
by Rupert Sanders.
There was an attack.
You were dying.
We saved you.

(01:35):
And now you save others.
Everything they tell us is a lie.
You had a family.
Remember that.
But I.

(01:58):
You are.
They did not save your life.
They stole it.

(02:18):
So guys, actually, before jumping the movies, Christian, you chose this movie for us.
Why did you pick this movie?
Well, the thing is that it's one of my favorite mangas of all time.
One of my favorite animes for two.
But and the things that my first idea was, hey, let's do Akira.
That's like the gold standard of manga, of anime, at least in my book.

(02:40):
There's nothing.
It cannot get better than that.
It has so many iconic scenes and so many iconic themes and the characters.
It's spectacular.
So it was out of out of the ballpark.
And I said, OK, well, we're going to do something to be live action.
OK, so let's see the thing.
Live action.
And the things that you do, a lot of the ones I already won, like you did 300, you did 30
years of nine.

(03:00):
And so we went like kind of back and forth.
I said, OK, let's go.
Let's do Ghost in the Shell because when we're talking about it, I haven't rewatched the
movie and I haven't seen how bad it is.
I don't even remember how what it was.
I thought it was a lot better than actually.
And I said, OK, let's talk about Ghost in the Shell.
So how familiar were you guys with the Ghost in the Shell genre from the anime or from

(03:24):
the manga?
So I'm not a huge manga person.
I just I am not.
There are some mangas that are epic like Akira.
Right.
It's just it's epic.
It turned me on the comics, not just mine, but like if you make my ones like that.
This is one of the few that was Ghost in the Shell, Appleseed.
This guy made Masume Shiro as his pen name made quite a few.

(03:48):
He's prolific.
I have that same bike.
I literally want to go get that now.
He's prolific, man.
This is an amazing manga.
This is an amazing story.
And now we just completely spun off into Akira.
Best movie ever made.
As I was mentioned before, it's one of my favorite mangas of all time.
I just re-bought it because I used to have it in the original format.

(04:08):
You know, the mangas, they sell like small books.
Yeah.
And I think I sold one of the movies because I have to wait too many things and especially
because I used to live in Spain.
So to move all those books is not a good idea.
So most of my collection have to sell.
But I repurchased recently in the whole hardback format.

(04:31):
And it's one of those editions that starts in color and then goes back to black and white.
So I'm really familiar with the manga for sure.
And the anime, we were talking before we started the program, I have seen it at least 10 to
15 times.
So I was really familiar with the source material.
I didn't remember as well as I mentioned before the movie we were going to talk about.

(04:52):
And when I re-watch it for the program, I was like, oh, okay, this is a lot worse than
I thought.
No, I'm going to completely turn it on its head.
I'm going to give you one thought process today.
From a character development standpoint.
Only one thought process for a go-for-it?
Yeah, it's going to be extended though.
It's going to go out a lot.
It's going to branch out.
It's like a go-for-it.
It's going to make some multiple holes.
The movie visually was stunning.

(05:14):
It's stunning.
It's beautiful.
It's well put together.
Character wise, you could have did a lot better.
You could have done a lot better on fleshing out who the make us like them.
I think Kuze was probably the most interesting character in that entire movie.
Why don't we save that until we get that part of the show.
So me personally, let's circle back from my experience with this.

(05:34):
I did like a lot of anime from the 90s.
Ghost in the Shell, Akira and such.
Sort of the big titles, Alita, Battle Angel.
But I was not really familiar with the manga.
Manga wasn't really a thing where I was.
My daughter is a huge manga fan.
But nonetheless, so for myself, the only real experience I had was Ghost in the Shell as
the anime.
Had you seen this movie before?

(05:54):
In the theaters.
Yeah, me too.
I was excited.
I said, hey, of course, Ghost in the Shell.
Yeah.
Yes, please.
Yes.
Go.
Yes.
I think it was premiere night or like the following day or something like that.
So yeah, I was really, really excited.
Probably snuck the big fatty before I went.
Yeah, for myself, this was actually my first time watching it.

(06:17):
I had not seen it in theaters and it sort of, as we'll talk later on, it sort of went
into theaters and disappeared out real fast.
Yeah.
Yeah, it did.
Yeah, you can fool like people the first weekend, but that's it.
After that, you're gone.
Word of mouth social media just killed this movie.
Which is interesting.
It's number two in streaming media.

(06:37):
It's still holding awards in streaming media.
Do you have any history for us about this manga itself?
So again, manga is not necessarily my thing, but this particular creator of manga is my
thing.
He's Appleseed.
And I felt like my son brought Appleseed.
So I had been a fan of Ghost in the Shell comics.
I just think they were well made.

(06:59):
I think the story fleshed out, the way they created the characters really fleshed out.
They world build in that story.
And the guy is amazing.
He's prolific.
Right, Masumi, Masami Oto or Masami Shiro is his pen name.
And he just 1989 had a run.
It's gone on for years.
And if you look back, this movie has been adapted in every format from games to anime

(07:22):
to film.
And I actually think at some point in the future, it'll probably get remade again.
Yeah.
And also had like reimagination and go back and forth.
And even the anime, you have several.
It's kind of a great runner too.
It's one of those seminal books that like permeates everything.
Quick spoiler warning.

(07:42):
If you're first time joining us, just a heads up.
We'll be discussing the plot of this movie.
And with that, we may discuss certain elements of the story that might consider spoilers.
So consider yourself warned.
Spoiler spoilers.
Exactly.
So Christian, as our guest, would you like to go over the sort of plot of this movie
for us?
Sure.
And the whole idea, this is the story of the of the character, the major.

(08:05):
And she's a part of the experience as a person that dies or a regular human that dies.
And she's using her thoughts, her minds, incorporate into a machine.
And we follow her along the whole process.
And also the most important thing, what she does as a machine.
She's part of a kind of like a secret agent spy task force.

(08:28):
And the whole idea of is that she is a failed experiment.
She was like a poor on the underground or something like that.
And she's like, pick up without her consent and put this in machine to work for.
And of course, this whole thing, idea of the big corporation, the bad corporation, is just

(08:49):
using poor people to pursue their agenda of global domination or whatever you want to
call it.
That's where the character development problem is that he could give the entire story in
about two sentences.
Yep.
Speaking of characters, why don't we jump into it?
I think I want to jump head first right into the controversy that hit this movie when it

(09:10):
first came out.
One of the big issues, there was a lot of Internet feedback, at least in the States,
about a whitewashing of the character of the major.
So the question I have for you guys is, what were your thoughts around that?
And how do you think Scarlett Johansson did at the end of the day?
I think it was, this is where Christian and I will completely agree.
I mean, no matter, she's a good actress.

(09:32):
And believe me, The Island was an amazing movie.
She was about the hottest she ever been in that movie.
But for this particular role, it was a bit of a slap in the face.
I mean, it's manga.
I mean, it's one of the most, in Japan, this is considered one of the most celebrated top
10 manga in the country.
So this guy is like a legend in the same vein as the flyaway character, the spirit away

(09:54):
character movie director, and the guy who did Akira.
He's just he's a very well celebrated guy, and to just kind of slap it around and put
her in it, I just don't think she fleshed the character out closely or even there.
It just didn't work.
Yeah, sadly, it's not her fault.
The material is terrible.
And she shouldn't have agreed to do it on the first, like out of principle, just because,

(10:20):
no, dude, this is like a very, very well known character, very well known work.
Fantastic.
You have a really good adaptation, really good anime.
You have series as Virgil was saying, you have a lot of adaptations.
So what are you doing there in that movie?
Why?
Why?
Oh, because it's an audience.
One of those.
This is a movie.

(10:40):
This is a perfect case study of what happens when you have too many people staring the
pot, too many people with ideas.
Oh, it will be good if we did this.
And what about we don't do that?
No, no, no, no, no, no.
This is how you destroy an IP.
This is how you destroy a good brand name, a good product by just bringing a lot of,

(11:02):
I don't know how to call them.
I call them suits normally with ideas because they have money.
So they think they're going to be going to improve something.
They want to reinvent the wheel.
I don't know, the wheel works perfectly, sir.
You don't need to reinvent it.
You can play as it is.
That's it.
It works.
And it's something that happens a lot with until I think until the last of us, for example,

(11:26):
came about.
They love to do this with video games, for example, that they destroy whatever the source
material they just want, the name recognition.
And they say, oh, why don't we don't do this?
The last of us was a great example.
What happens when you leave the person who did it on the first to direct the at least
to supervise the whole thing?
So you're going to get a good product.
He knows what he's doing.

(11:46):
We might as well just say Marvel for the last three years.
That would be a great way of just saying exactly.
You can boil that down to one word.
Yeah, yeah, it's called greed.
Yeah.
Now, the interesting thing is the original director for the Ghost in the Shell, the 1995
version of it, he was actually quoted as saying that because he was asked about Scarlett Johansson
playing this character.

(12:06):
He said that he believed having Scarlett Johansson play Mocha Mocha.
Was it Mocha Co?
I'll mispronounce that name.
Moto Katsunoko.
He thought that was the best possible casting for the movie.
So it's interesting.
The one I read that same piece in preparation for this, I was going to go on back to some
of my notes and I'm looking at that and then I'm going I actually dove a little deeper.

(12:28):
So he did make that comment.
She exceeded expectations for the role, but then no voices from the guy who made the comic,
no voices from the people in origin.
So there's you know, I think they trotted him out because cash does speak and you can
bring this guy out.
And I mean, now again, I'll say this, let me separate from the fact that did you guys
know Ghost in the Shell was on a short list for an Academy Award for visual effects?

(12:51):
Oh, yeah, it definitely was.
I didn't remember that.
No, no, the movies is as Christopher was saying, the movies is aesthetically good.
But the thing is that for me, it's a little bit too much because he wants to like he wants
to imitate Blade Runner.
So he said, oh, we're going to we want to do Blade Runner, but we're going to give it
going to push a little bit more.

(13:11):
And if you see, for example, the Villeneuve second part of 249 Blade Runner, that's that's
how you do it.
You have the source material good.
You don't touch it, but you want to expand something and say, OK, I want to show you
a little bit more.
If you if you turn a little bit to the side, I want to show you this story now.
I'm not going to destroy everything that is already there.

(13:33):
I think we're going to use the main character, two of the main characters of the first part.
And I'm going to show you something else.
And that's how you do it.
And you don't overcharge.
You don't make it more because you want because you are a genius.
No, it just is because it was very disturbing when I was watching the movie.
And then I rewatched the anime.
This is not nothing.
Why?

(13:53):
Where did they take this thing from?
The whole animation of characters moving around?
What is this?
This is nothing.
I don't remember anywhere.
But but I think they want to.
I think it's going back to the to the suit thing.
I think it's a guy in a room and say, hey, why don't we use like we did in that movie?
Why don't we put it back here?
You know, it's like, OK, that looks cool in Blade Runner.

(14:16):
Let's do it here, too.
Yeah, let's do it.
And the things think about that, those Blade Runner 20 with 20, 49, I think is the number
for now.
Yeah, it's not a retelling of the first Blade Runner.
It's a it's takes place 20, 30 years later.
And it's a it's a so there's no like there's nothing to step on.
When this movie released in Japan, Ghost in a Shell, that is the new one.

(14:36):
They got better reviews than the 1995 version of it.
This movie got better.
This movie got better reviews than the original Ghost in the Shell movie.
Now mind you, the original Ghost in a Shell movie was an anime.
This was live action.
And also they had Scarlett Johansson on the lead, which is really there, I think, to push
her as an international star.
But it actually did get better reviews in Japan than the original Ghost in a Shell.

(14:57):
Then it would have been the single Japanese character, the one or two Japanese characters
in the movie.
I think it was the the Colonel, the guy who had it, Section 9.
He would have been the character that would have pushed that audience number up because
he was the coolest character in the movie.
He was cool.
Dope.
He was cool.
But I don't think that was what made it go better.
Let's put the controversy to the side.

(15:18):
Just as a movie, how did Scarlett Johansson do playing the character of the major, which
is basically a robot with a brain?
She missed.
She was good, like action wise, Scarlett Johansson's already made it so she can do the action.
We have no question on the action.
The face that and I'm literally as I'm talking to you guys, I'm kind of because I always
like to keep a movie on the background.

(15:38):
And you're right, Christian, they just did not follow the comic at all or even the first
movie.
So it just it didn't make a lot of sense.
But she just kept too much of a straight face.
There was no emotion in her.
It's almost like she went out of her way to take out.
So I just watched an interesting movie, Quiet Place Day One.
I came into that movie thinking it was something that it was.

(15:59):
It was not.
But what it was was amazing because the eyes, the character, you didn't do a lot of talking,
but you definitely felt a lot of emotions.
This movie just is visually stunning, but that's about it.
Well, you know, I watch all the behind the scenes.
She played the character of the major as basically that her body didn't feel right to her.

(16:20):
That was the point.
That's why if you see her walking, she walks kind of clunky.
She walks, she leans forward into her things.
It's sort of like it's think of it.
Basically her brain is running a mech.
It's not a brain running a body.
It's because her brain does not, the body she has in the movie, Scarlett Johansson's
body is not the body she had when she was alive.
They don't look the same.
They have the same height, same build, anything.

(16:41):
So it's supposed to be, she's trying to portray the fact that it is alien to her and she's
running it like a machine.
She even says at one point, you know, I'm a weapon.
She's not saying I'm a person.
I'm not anything else.
So she's Scarlett Johansson and for the various movies she's done, she's trying to portray
the fact that this entity, the major, is no longer human, but it wants to be human, but
it walks and like she controls a body like a mechanized unit.

(17:04):
I think she's struggling a lot as an actor because I think I have it on my nose.
She's struggling with, is she a human pretending to be a machine or is a machine pretending
to be a human?
I think she doesn't like pick a side, the whole thing, and it shows a lot.
I don't think she read the manga.
I don't think she read the manga.
Actors don't read the source material.
That's an easy question to answer.

(17:26):
Just read the damn source material.
She had just finished movie, what?
She played Lucy.
She played, what's the one where she plays basically Siri from your cell phone?
Her.
Her.
That's a fantastic film.
That's a fantastic.
So I was like a little bit surprised how bad she did in this one because she has the chops.
As Ferg was saying, she can do the action no problem at all.

(17:51):
She's not a bad actress, she's gorgeous, a gorgeous woman.
So what happened here?
And I think there's a problem with this, first a problem with source material and a problem
of not understanding exactly what her role is in the film.
Yeah, I think a lot of the problems are going to end up having her to be in the scene or
the plot itself.
But one of the characters I always enjoyed from the anime, which I like the representation

(18:11):
of this, was Batuu.
What do you guys think about that character?
All right.
I mean, again, I think because there was a lot of distractions to so many of the stories
and the characters, so many plot holes that were going on in this thing, I was focused
more on just how Major was moving through.
But I thought this character played all right.
Again, I'm focused on the characters that stand out to me as the guy who leads Section

(18:35):
9.
Yeah, I think they even changed this in the movie.
So it was one of the first things I noticed they changed.
In the manga, he has the eyes since the beginning.
There's no accident, there's no explosion.
Nope.
We're talking about the thing of the I'm a weapon.

(18:55):
That's really the weapon on the team.
She needs to be more like the brains and who puts everything together.
But he's more like the weapon of the team, especially the heavy weapon of the team.
You bring the big guns.
Yeah, I think he was always meant to be the heavy of the group.
Now, guys, I have a question for you, and this has always sort of confused me.

(19:17):
The head of Section 9, he's the guy that always speaks Japanese.
And whenever he speaks Japanese, people speak English back to him, and then he responds
back once again in Japanese.
So why don't people just switch to the other one's language?
It just doesn't feel natural to me.
I think there's so much.
So this movie or just the manga itself inspired so many directors, Matrix, Avatar.

(19:41):
I mean, literally, it goes on and on.
James Cameron gushes, everybody gushes.
And they think that this is supposed to be the fusion of man, machine.
What is the line blur?
Where does it start?
When the ghost in the shell.
So I think the idea that he can speak in his natural language and everybody gets it is
because everybody's carrying around a universal translator in their brain.

(20:03):
Yeah, that's something I have in my notes.
What's with the Japanese?
And especially she's supposed to be a machine.
Is this a problem for the machine to change the language and speak the Japanese thing?
I don't understand it because in the manga, everybody speaks English or Japanese.
So you're watching the original version, everybody speaks Japanese.
But this whole thing of it's like one of these ideas to pander to the audience.

(20:27):
Oh, we have a guy that's true Japanese.
Hey, don't accuse us of whitewashing.
We have this really good character.
He's Japanese.
He's speaking Japanese.
So I think it's his force in this weird and strange doesn't make any sense.
Yeah, but I just seems like the comment has them.

(20:51):
No, it's it's more like when when someone speaks one language, if you understand, you
typically switch to that language.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's what it comes with.
It just seems like it just poor etiquette.
Yeah, especially if they all live in Japan.
This is not like international spy thing that they move around.
No, no, they all are in Japan.
Maybe this is like Neo.
I guess they're trying to mash up Neo Tokyo, Japan, because, you know, at that point, it

(21:14):
could be multibilingual across the board.
But to your point, what is going on?
I think it's got some faulty translator stuff going on.
Maybe that's the process.
Who knows?
Now, this movie, you touched on, I think the biggest fundamental problem this movie had
was that this movie was the inspiration.
That's the movie, the source material for this movie was the inspiration for an entire
genre of movie, the cyberpunk genre.

(21:37):
You know, where it goes to Blade Runner, you go with movies like Blade Runner 2049 or you
know what I mean?
Like that sort of future cyberpunk era.
Yeah.
And the problem is that it suffers from so when you're watching this movie, a lot of
the scenes you see, you're saying it's like, oh, I remember seeing that in insert any movie
here.
So it feels like it's stealing from a lot of movies, though, as a material, it is the

(21:59):
inspiration for those movies.
And I think it's just coming 30 years too late.
So much has been done in that genre that that has left that original source material behind
that it feels sort of empty.
And then the fact that there was something that felt off during the whole time.
And I think what it was, was that a lot of the scenes were there were to be lifted straight
out of the original, original anime, which there were beautiful shots like, like when

(22:23):
the guy's fighting in the shallow water or the pan and planes flying overhead or there's
a shot that you're like, that was straight out of the anime.
Problem was, they weren't put it wasn't the story wasn't pulled out of the anime.
So it's like someone said, let's take all these cool shots and show them together and
find a plot line that works.
That's what happens.
And I mean, you jump right on it.

(22:44):
I mean, I was again, I'm just thinking about it again, like James Cameron, the Washowski's,
Steven Spielberg.
I mean, this guy's done Jonathan Mostow surrogates.
I mean, so when you think about like all of that, and then this movie had big shows, you
know, it's interesting because we did the crow and this movie continues to underwhelm
like the buzz around this movie is not good.

(23:07):
I mean, to the point that like people involved in the first movie are saying, what are you
doing here?
You're just not taking the story.
And this is, you know, when you butcher IP, you squander opportunities.
When you butcher it in the name of a dollar, you squander opportunities.
And it's just, you know, I own a comic store.
I'm always going to say that as a gatekeeper to a multi-billion dollar industry, the story

(23:32):
matters more.
And if you don't get that right, the core fans fell in love with it for a reason.
You want to build that love out more.
You better keep it kind of true a little bit.
Yeah.
And it's bad for business because everyone who goes to see it because they love the source
material, they're going to get angry and pissed because what are you doing?

(23:54):
And then the person who doesn't know it are not really going to understand it because
it's so, there's so many things that have no substance in it.
So you just destroy it.
This is something we saw clearly in, for example, that I think the best example of this is the
rings of power.
So you have, we call it the shiny box.
So you have these beautiful shiny box with a fantastic bow and, and the colors and the

(24:20):
wrapping paper is spectacular.
And of course your hype is through the roof.
You say, wow, this one, I opened this is going to be amazing.
And it was going to be happy.
And then you open it and there is nothing in the box.
Piece of poop actually.
Maybe a piece of poop.
Ding dong in the box.
And of course you are very angry because it took you a lot of time to first to buy the

(24:44):
box to carry to your house, to unwrap the whole thing.
And you have this great expectation when you open, then it's what?
And it's like, excuse me, what are you doing, man?
What are you doing?
Especially when you have, because we're talking about this with Chris before we started, do
you want to tell another story?
Change the name.
That's it.

(25:04):
Change the name.
Call it something else.
Call it, I don't know, cyberpunk stories or loving the cyber space or whatever you want
to call it.
But don't call it Cussing the Shell because in the shell is a very specific thing.
It's not a thing that like yesterday a guy came in, Hey, I have this idea.
It's not, it's not an old IP.
The guy who created this comic makes nothing, but let's get this out of the way.

(25:28):
One of the reasons why he's so revered in Japan is Messamé Aito, the guy who created
the book.
He was a high school teacher and made comics.
He's a guy that became beloved a la Mario, a la the guys who created like legends to
that area.
And you just don't get to, and even though the reviews might've been up in Japan, I actually

(25:50):
think so much of the anime growth isn't even in Japan right now.
The anime growth is in the States.
And so there's a much, it's almost an inverse market.
Everything that's huge anime is huge here.
So and they fall in love with these original guys.
And so when you throw out movies where you just don't even read the source material and
the head atrix didn't read the source material, she gives the best performance she can, but

(26:14):
that's like saying I'm paying you $10 million to give me your B shot.
You're speculating off.
She didn't read the source material or not.
Behind the scenes, a lot of them are saying they have read the source material.
I think what it suffers from is, remember we just reviewed Alita a few weeks ago as
well.
Yeah.
And we did two different anime adaptations, two manga adaptations.
And one thing we discussed in that episode was there's a lot of things that don't translate

(26:37):
well from a Japanese medium to an American or Western medium.
Like just the way they, the common tropes that they have or no, the way they do exposition
just doesn't translate very well to Western cinema.
So there's a lot of translation you have to do when to make it work.
Me personally, I'm okay with remakes in general.
I'm okay with revisiting source material.
There's been enough time.
Like if it's been a couple of years, don't go back.

(26:58):
If it's been 20, 30 years, feel free to go back and retell the story and relook at the
story.
Cause a lot of times it does bring people who have never seen that original material
back into it again.
I mean, I would love to hear if there was, if people had come and watch this Ghost in
the Shell movie and said, yeah, it was pretty good.
I'm going to go watch the original anime and then fell in love with the original anime.
Yeah.
That's not a bad thing.
Now, I might say why they made this.

(27:19):
That's a visual thing.
I think honestly, Chris, that's where you're taken to the reason why it was shortlisted
for an Academy Award.
So all things aside, I know we're going to beat up and we do beat up on certain movies
when I think it's cause the loyal nerdness in us, we beat up on things that at the very
least and I am speculating, but it does feel like that sometimes.
And sometimes it's, it really is that, but this is visually beautiful.

(27:41):
Well, it's visually beautiful.
We'll get that in a bit, but a lot of the material, like the villain for this movie,
he's taken from the Ghost in Shell TV show.
He is an actual villain in that show.
That thing, that's a deep cut.
I didn't even know.
So that's been saying they are going deep into material.
Now, financially speaking, this movie was a failure in the box office.
It did not make its money back.
It did not do well.

(28:01):
That being said, it was number two in video home sales when it came out the DVD.
So it's almost like people didn't want to go see this thing in theaters, but definitely
want to own it and rewatch it over and over again.
And I'm really curious as to how that kind of thing happens.
Like, is this going to become a cult movie in 30 years?
Like people are going to look back and say, let's watch it.
That's how all the, I mean, there are, if you go on streaming now and you just look
at the top 10 in any given week, you'll see movies that you thought were dead on a vine,

(28:25):
right?
They just come back and they're jumping back to the top of the charts.
People rediscover them.
Movies that don't often translate well.
And I think, what is it?
Madame Webb did the same thing.
Madame Webb was horrible at the theaters and it came onto streaming and it actually did
extremely well in streaming.
Certain formats are more ideal for a movie to explode out.

(28:45):
So Ghost in Shell, it maybe, it just fits better.
I think it's, you know, it's people can, you know, we're in a weird society, man.
Everything's gone left field.
You never know.
No, and this is not something new.
There are a lot of movies who tank in the box office that are masterpieces.
Blade Runner did horribly in theaters.
And it's for me, it's my, it's my, in my top five.

(29:06):
That's the genre for science fiction.
That's the movie.
That's a film.
That's spectacular.
There's nothing, everything is perfect.
The original Blade Runner we're talking about, the Harrison Ford?
Yeah.
That's a brilliant movie.
That's awesome.
But when it came out, nobody liked it.
Nobody liked it because what's, what's complicated, how complicated piece.
Sometimes it's true that you, that you really are too, too, too advanced and people are

(29:29):
not going to understand it.
So that's why they have so many cuts that what they, they, they did the other version
that would, uh, Harrison Ford narrates the whole movie.
So that's because the, the Soul of Mazeera is not easy.
It's not an easy movie to watch, especially if you had never seen something like that.
But it's stunning.
Once you get into it and you, and you buy the concept, it's kind of destroy you, man.
It's kind of destroy your head.

(29:51):
I think Blade Runner, I know we're not here to talk about Blade Runner, but these two
movies are very similar.
Blade Runner, you mentioned the cuts are like five own, I think it's five cuts of that movie
for the director's cut to, but the thing about it is that that is a movie where definitely
the studio came in and said, people aren't this smart.
Let's dumb it down.
And like, I think for the original cut, Harrison Ford has to do a monologue during it just to

(30:14):
explain the world and later cuts that doesn't happen.
And I think because it had so much world building to do, it's, if you're right, it's a great
movie if you spend some time and you spend time digesting it, understanding it.
I love that movie, which is why I own all the different cuts of that movie, but I only
watch one of those cuts over and over again.
I think this movie had the potential to do that because there's a lot of meat to that

(30:36):
world.
They just did a terrible job of building up that world.
And that's why the characters feel flat because they're up against the world that feels flat.
Now that being said, it looks spectacular.
It is a beautiful rendition.
I like the world the way it looked better than Alita, that world.
The other thing too about it is that I think it just suffers from the fact that there is

(30:56):
so much in that universe of Ghost in the Shell that whoever wrote the script tried putting
what they could into it, but they didn't put enough sort of weaving the characters that
storyline, right?
Like, I think if you've seen the original, you're like, okay, I know who Batuu is.
I know who he's supposed to be.
I know where the dog scene makes sense.
But unless you've had that homework before going into it, it doesn't hit as well.

(31:18):
But the same problem is if you've done all that homework, it doesn't hit that well either
because you're like, that's what it could have been.
Yeah.
No, it's truly a failed opportunity because the source material is spectacular, it's deep,
and it can go many places.
And they just wanted to reduce it to kind of like a love story triangle with a person

(31:38):
knowing themself.
And then there's also this the evil corporation, there's a lot of like very basic tropes.
And it's not, it's not, we're talking about this before, Christopher.
I have, there's a friend of mine, I have this theory called, he called it the burger theory.
Like, I go to a restaurant, I go to the menu, I see and I order you burger, and I expect

(32:01):
it, I pay for the burger.
So if you bring me a sandwich, I'm going to be very angry with you because I told you
I pay for it, and I'm sitting here waiting for something.
So don't tell me you're going to bring me a burger and then you bring me a sandwich
or a roast beef or whatever.
I pay for the burger, man.
So give me what I pay for.

(32:22):
And this is what, this is one of the examples, you know.
I actually think you're a little bit right.
But I also, I think I would probably nuance that a little bit more.
I think they do give you a burger.
They just didn't give you any meat in the burger.
They gave you a lot of topping.
The burger was a different, it was a different, it was like a small, you're like, oh, I'm
sorry.
You're like, okay, this, they advertised a quarter pounder and they gave you a slider,

(32:42):
right?
And so you paid for it.
You paid for the big burger.
Because again, to your point, Chris, the world building, I was actually going to say the
world building was expressive and dynamic while the characters themselves were flat
within an expressive and dynamic world.
I even think some of the outside robots, they could have fleshed, it's just really cool
stuff in that area.
But I will say the other thing about Alita is that those are almost, that's apples and

(33:06):
oranges.
It's post-apocalyptic, no matter what, it's like post-war.
Whereas this is, you know, like cyberpunk.
It's just future gone amok.
Well, it's also, it is post-World War III though.
Ghost of Shell takes place after the third world war.
Oh, okay.
It's after the world's been destroyed.
That's why it's also the itself.
It's a rebuilding, I think.
That's why everyone is also, just like Alita, people are flooding to the city that has survived

(33:32):
the war, right?
That's why it's supposed to have a multicultural background to it.
So one thing, it's funny how we've had this burger analogy.
And if you just listen to our Green Lantern episode recently, we had a hot dog analogy
about shoving exposition down somebody's throat.
Well, that sounds a lot like it.
I think we need a food analogy on every episode going forward.
Well, and there was an apropos analogy for the hot dog and Ryan Reynolds, because what

(33:56):
he's getting ready to do on Deadpool.
So this is the example of passion in a project.
I had a moment, Christian, to go up on your site and see your stories of Pinocchio, the
different things you're doing, the way you put attention in detail, not just in the characters,
but backstories, how they're going to interact with each other, what he's trying to do.
It really does follow exact love, sex and robots and Ghost in the Shell.

(34:19):
It keeps that same thing.
When you passion something, it doesn't matter what it is.
If you can push...
James Cameron was unapologetic, right?
I mean, Ryan Reynolds, unapologetic.
When you passion in, from what I understand, that's the kind of thing that Jon Favreau
brought with Tony Stark.
When he brought Iron Man, that unapologeticness.

(34:40):
And if you do that, you'll create source material that you can technically...
And here's where I'll disagree with both of you.
You can keep the same name, tell different stories, but stay truth underneath all of
that.
Yeah.
I'm not saying that you do a shot to shot of the source material, but I think for me
one of the best example was Billy Neve, Blade Runner, because the source material is so

(35:03):
good.
I was very scared.
I said, oh, please, please, please, please, please don't destroy it.
Please don't destroy it.
Please, please, please.
It's got prayers going on.
Please, please, please.
I want to like this movie.
I really like this movie.
The first one I read it.
And he did a good job because as Ferg was saying, he understood the source material.
He stayed true to it so much so that he used the same main character from the first movie.

(35:29):
And Rachel's also there, kind of like in a CGI, blah, blah, blah.
But she's still also there.
And he just, okay, let's continue this and what will happen in the future.
So he stayed true to it.
And it's a fantastic film.
And I know it's very complicated, especially when you have something so beautiful.

(35:50):
It's very easy to destroy.
Very, very easy.
So it takes a lot of talent.
And the problem with this one is not so much so I don't blame so much the director.
I blame all the producers behind it because I'm totally sure that there was a lot of meetings
like this.
Hey, why don't we put, I have an idea.
Why don't we talk about the mother?

(36:11):
And he was like, what?
Or let's make sure we get that spider in there.
Yeah, they put the spider tank in there, which yeah, that's just kind of.
Yeah, it's the spider thing that Kevin Smith talked about in Wild Wild West.
Oh, I want to put a spider in it.
Excuse me?
What are you talking about?
Have you read the thing?
What is this?
That's an entirely funny thing about the end of that movie, Wild Wild West.

(36:33):
But anyway, back then, so actually, since we said the spider tank, did you, you guys
are the production company, Bad Robot?
Yeah.
The show, the spider tank face looked just like the robot, the bad robot robot from their
logo.
It really does.
And I was like, please tell me they were the production company.
They were not, but that'd be hilarious if they made their robot, the spider tank.
So we talked a lot about the characters, the world building, but this movie has a lot of

(36:57):
action in it as well.
It is an action movie.
What was your, what were your top action scenes from this movie?
Again, rewatching it, I think for me, what I loved best was when she just disappeared,
flew into the, like that to me was probably the most seamless scene.
You know, it would be a beautiful ballet of running through that building.

(37:20):
And then you see her face and she's blank.
And I'm like, ah, come on, give me some emotion in there.
But it was a beautiful scene as she moved through that room and took out people everywhere.
Yeah, there are a lot of them.
The first, the opening scene when she jumps into the, the, the whole thing with the ambassador
and all that, that the first time we see the camouflage, also there's the scene with the

(37:41):
water that he beats up the other guy.
So there are a lot of them that are really stunning.
And, but the thing is, the problem with me is like, okay, it's like you go see a painting
and say, oh, it's a beautiful painting, but you try to move it.
There's nothing in besides that.
It's like just flat.
So that's the thing with me.

(38:01):
You have incredibly amazing comparisons.
I got to tell you, living in Ireland gives you an incredibly amazing world.
I love, I literally think we just became best friends on this call because I love your world
building comparisons.
They're amazing.
Okay.
Christian, don't take that seriously.
He says best friends with everybody.
I am best friends with everybody.
I'm named Fergal.
I have no choice.
So this movie clocks in at an hour and 47 minutes pacing wise.

(38:26):
Did it move quickly?
Was it slow?
How'd you feel about it?
I think it went to right pace.
I don't think it, it took too long.
You know, I didn't, again, as I'm sitting here looking at, as we're going through the
thing, it just, it's moving seamlessly.
Actually, it feels like it sometimes moves a little fast because you go from startup
to middle to her finding out to the, to the ultimate fight.
I mean, it just kind of moves quickly.

(38:47):
There should be a little bit more intertwining.
You could have almost predicted the first time you met Cutter that he was going to be
the ultimate bad guy.
And you could have predicted that the guy who was in charge of section nine was going
to do a man.
Yeah.
Well, that's a standard anime trope though.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There's a lot of like flat characters and things you see a mile away.
So the pace was good, but it's like, okay, they could do a little bit longer, little

(39:11):
bit short.
They wouldn't make a big difference.
You know?
Yeah.
Certain things like the Cutter being the bad guy, those are just standard anime tropes.
You got to have that.
You got to have also the old guy be a really good fighter out of nowhere.
It just happens.
I actually was looking for a bulletproof case, just a briefcase, just like I have a separate

(39:33):
one so I find myself in a situation where I'm like, Oh, I'm covered.
You mentioned that opening scene where she jumps out of the building, crashes through
the window and then fights off during this meeting between the ambassador from Africa,
I believe, and the head of the corporation or one of the executives at Hancock.
And there are those Geisha robots that are in there.

(39:53):
That's pretty cool.
The thing I brought that up is that all that is prosthetic, all that is practical effect.
I watched the behind the scenes of that is not CGI.
That's people in those costumes.
They have little batteries under the wigs that manage the thing opening up.
All that is practical effect.
And that stuff blows me away.
I mean, wait a minute, wait a minute.
Are you telling me that the faces and the people and they climbed up the walls?

(40:15):
Because I didn't know this because obviously, Chris, you are a resident deep diver.
So I will, I will just double.
You're telling me the people climbed up the walls and the geishas.
Those were real people.
Those are real people.
Those masks.
They were only allowed to have those masks on for no more than 10 minutes because it
got so hot in there from all the parts that moved around and the heat from not being able
to breathe inside of it.
So they tried using as much practical effects they could rather than CGI.

(40:38):
I know you hate them, but those people, those giant ads that are dancing and people moving,
those aren't CGI.
They just literally film people with motion capture to put on there.
I don't say I hate them.
The thing is that they look out of place because they want to imitate, because the thing is
that they want to imitate something and it looks weird.

(40:59):
It's like, like, give an example.
You're doing a movie about, I don't know, the jungle and you say, oh, why don't we put
some monkeys with a tail that is red?
Because I think it looks cool.
What's with the monkey with the red tail?
And you always like monkeys with red tails.
I trust them.

(41:20):
I think this movie, it took a lot like it obviously Ghost in the Shell original movie
was its source material and what it leaned into.
But I did think it took elements from like Blade Runner or from Robocop because those
are, which is funny because those movies leaned off of what they learned from Ghost in the
Shell originally.
So it's kind of like coming full circle.
So effects wise, are there any special effects that stood out to you guys?

(41:42):
What did you think of the effects?
You just made that thought process around the gaze.
I honestly have been looking at that movie multiple times.
I would have swore CGI.
I would have actually said flawless CGI.
It was flawless.
It came through as well.
And now I know why it was flawless.
Because it wasn't.
Because it wasn't.
But I think the 3D reconstruction scenes, I think those were probably some of the coolest

(42:04):
just, I don't know if that was not CGI or if that was just staying in an hologram.
Technologies come to a point now where you can do some dope stuff right within and not
make a CGI and still use technology in a really cool way.
And so yeah, I think the CGI here is awesome.
The effects were stellar.
That I will give an A. That's why it's a shortlisted for an Academy Award.
It was literally on, I think it missed it by a couple of votes, but to even be shortlisted

(42:28):
for an award meant that some part of this movie, that's probably why the director came
through and said it was great.
Because he was really more focused on how the movie looked.
Yeah, for sure.
No, no, that's nothing to do to go against the visual aspect of the movie.
That's really a solid nine, I would say, something like that.
So Fergal, for you, you might find this fact interesting.

(42:49):
At the beginning opening shot, we're basically showing her being created, when she like raised
out of that white- That's almost like Westworld lifted from
one to one.
Well, what's funny is, you say it, it's obviously myself, Ghost of Shell did that in the original
anime, right?
They had that scene and then Westworld stole from that.
And then the movie stole again from Westworld and made the combination of their adaptation.

(43:11):
But anyway, her body in that, that's not CGI.
They created a mold of Scarlett Johansson to mold that movie, that scene around.
So someone created an entire full body mold of Scarlett Johansson for that.
Is that available on eBay?
That statement, Fergal, was the only reason I brought that up.

(43:31):
I was just wondering, is there a sale on eBay on that body right now?
I don't know.
I was just setting you up for that one.
Any private buyers out there on this podcast know where I could find it.
Just send a request under movie smash.
No, the only thing I was, when I was seeing the movie, I was thinking, okay, they're not
going to show anything.
All right.
They said, yep, they're not going to cover.

(43:54):
Because they're an American audience and you cannot show a nipple for the life of you because
whoo.
Keep in mind in Europe, though, they read the news naked.
So there's a whole different set of genres.
Going across the sea, they read the weather with tits hanging out.
So we just got to keep that real.
I'm going to add that Americanism over here.
They're trying to really go for that PG-13 audience.

(44:16):
The violence, it's kind of interesting, though, looking at the level of violence in this,
just like with Alita, it has a ton of violence in it.
That's pretty graphic.
But the only reason I got PG-13 is because no blood.
They're not real people.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And of course, no immunity at all.
I guess it's the existential question.
Are they people?
Are cyborgs not people?
That's the rigidity of the movie review squad out there.

(44:37):
That's the rigidity.
You look at a category versus the nuance of a film.
And that's why so many movies get a 13 that quite frankly should be an R. And that's kind
of like you.
Because I've got kids.
I'm not sure, Christian, if you have children.
But yeah, as these guys will tell you, I would not be a malparent with the kids in the movies
because I am a nerd.
I took my son to Deadpool at eight.

(44:58):
We're going to go see.
We've got tickets already booked.
So we're already locked and loaded.
So you do not want to ask me questions.
But yeah.
So yeah.
I have a step son.
He's already 18.
So no worries in that regard.
But it's true that there you can see that, OK, this is a film done, is a movie done for

(45:19):
the American audience.
So there's no problem with the action or the violence.
But there's always a problem.
Oh, don't show this.
Don't say don't talk about this.
OK.
Well, I think that's one of the biggest problems.
It suffers from a problem that used to be really true about 20 years ago with movies
is where they're taking foreign source materials, they Americanize it.
And that really takes away from a lot of what the messaging was supposed to be about it.

(45:43):
And that's not that I need to see Scarlett Johansson naked.
I'm just saying that that there's a lot more that was left behind because that Americanization
of it.
Now, obviously, and you know me, I love the production process.
I like hearing what could have been what actors or actresses they were considering for things.
And Scarlett Johansson was not the first pick for the major.
It's Margot Robbie.
It was Margot Robbie.

(46:04):
God bless my question for you.
Would Margot Robbie have been a better major Scarlett Johansson?
Can I can I can I pick someone that is more white, please?
There is.
Wow.
What?
Well, I remember we are doing we're doing an American audience here.

(46:27):
So I don't know if you saw the Wolf of Wall Street, but Margot Robbie was not stunning
woman at the beginning of the podcast.
It's like how much white washing can you do?
It's like this is a Japanese character.
So why are you picking up such a blonde, completely different thing from the original?

(46:50):
I don't know, Fergal.
This show, Movie Smash.
Last I checked, it was number I think it was like eighty one in Ireland for film and film
and film and movie podcast.
So we're better rated there than we are the states.
So let's get us and let's get Maggie Q in that role.
I would take Maggie Q all day.
I think she's going to bulked up a little bit.

(47:11):
And I think Maggie Q had been phenomenal.
Now, the role of Batu was actually going to be originally played by our favorite Mathis
Schoonartz, who was actually in the old guard, which we reviewed recently.
Are you talking about the guy who was French?
Mathis?
Yes, he was the French.
He was not the two crusaders.
He was the young.
He was from the Napoleon Army.
Yeah.

(47:32):
Now, I think the from a size wise, this character probably fit better.
The bigger character.
I don't know.
I don't know a lot about that other character.
He was good in that movie.
He could have bulked up, had some protein shakes.
You never know.
You know, I'm working on that now.
He get on the Christian Bale thing, go from the mechanic movie to Batman.
Yeah.

(47:52):
Gain 100 pounds of muscle and six weeks.
I told my wife, my buddy actually said to me the other week, he said there's a six
pack in all of us.
Mine's just covered with a level of groceries.
There you go.
Well kept.
Guys, what do you love about this movie and what do you think they could have done better
to make it a better success?
I think we spent the whole thing talking about it.

(48:15):
Visually, it's stunning.
I would endure this movie again just to visually watch the studiness in the movie.
I think it's a nice look.
The overall world building, I think they did extremely well on.
I think some of the scenes were done well.
I think we just got a flat movie that it really does to Christian's point when suits get in

(48:39):
room and make decisions over the objections of other people or perhaps maybe it to your
point Chris, you can't assume that they didn't read the material, but there were definitely
objections.
Somebody somewhere said that shouldn't be in this.
And that there's probably a lot of cutting room floor stuff out there if you can find
it Chris.
It could have been a lot better if you had just given more attention to crafting out

(49:00):
who Major was, what the story is, how the teams divided.
Pick one of the many stories that were written and expound upon that.
Don't mess them all together.
Find one and expound upon that.
One of the things I like is the Michael Pitt take on the puppet master.
I think was good.
Also, how he the characters portray and all that.

(49:21):
So it's a little bit of a variation of the original manga.
As you mentioned, it was present in one of the adaptations.
So I kind of like that.
And of course the visual part is no doubt is really good.
The gages and there's a lot of visual things that are included.
But as Ferg was saying, the problem with this one is that they deviate way too much of whatever

(49:46):
avenue you should have taken.
And for me, it's not only that, it's that they put a lot of things that they think are
good ideas.
Hey, why don't we put them out there?
Hey, why don't we put a love story?
Hey, why don't we put up the evil corporation?
Hey, why don't we put up the evil rebels?
Hey, why don't we put up the evil pull?
And it becomes a weird part that doesn't make any sense.

(50:08):
It's like you try to make soup and then you put salad on it and then you put some pasta.
Soup salad.
Yeah.
Why don't we dry it out?
Hey, why don't we put a picture?
Hey, why don't we put a pig in it?
I know what I'm suggesting for dinner.
I know what's coming out.
Soup salad with pig in it.
Do we got some ham and bacon or some of some?
We've had hot dogs, burgers, sandwiches.

(50:29):
Yes.
For those who don't know, we are recording this during dinner time here on the East Coast.
Soup salad with hamburger.
So for me, I mean, it's stunning.
It's beautiful.
It's a beautiful movie.
But the issue I have is, and Christian, you've been touching on it.
As we've been talking about it, I've sort of solidified my thoughts around it.

(50:52):
What that is is it feels like it's made by committee.
Some people who I believe looked at the original source, people said, that's a cool thing.
That's a cool thing.
That's a cool thing.
Make sure it's in there.
Have a giant spider at the end of it like Wild, Wild West.
We need all those things because those are cool things.
It suffers from the problem that Green Lantern suffered from, which is that this is an origin

(51:12):
story.
You learn the origin of the major.
And typically, a good origin story we've seen in the past does not aim high on the villain.
You want a good solid villain that's grounded, but you don't want anything sort of huge that's
going to take things over.
And the problem this movie has is it really is sort of all over the place a little bit.

(51:32):
Like it's trying to hit all these cool things, it's trying to fit them all into the storyline,
but be more choosy about it.
Eliminate a couple items.
Pick a better villain, right?
Or make that villain more like...
The Puppet Master is a great villain from the original anime, but he didn't feel like
it in this because he was too much behind the scenes.
Like you haven't come out a little bit more.
Kind of out there, just not really...

(51:53):
He had great vocal presence, but you're right.
It fell under its own weight.
Yeah, he felt like he was a spoiled brat kind of thing, that he was angry about the life
he had, which I get.
His life sucked, but he was angry about it.
But the thing is, as an audience, whereas the rest of the people figuring this out,
they didn't really understand it too much.
So I think really just on the plot line, tighten it up a little bit, make the villain more

(52:17):
present, make us really hate that guy.
Or if you want us to really feel bad for him, make it so it seems that we should be feeling
bad for this guy.
The only reason we are feeling bad for him is because he looked like a broken doll.
But at the end of the day, the special effects, because they use so much practical effects,
were beautiful.
It's a stunning movie.
This is the kind of movie you can...
I was going to talk more about when you actually give us our reviews on this, but like Green

(52:41):
Lantern, you could put this on in the background and turn the volume off and it'd be a great
thing playing like screensaver for your TV.
It's always going to look good.
Overall guys, does this movie deserve all the hate that it gets?
No, I don't think...
I think I'm a cup half full guy.
So I can feel through the phone as I am in a very similar way with Marvel and DC, because

(53:05):
that's much...
I'm not as much anime.
I'm not as strong anime as I am about my other characters, so I can feel that passion come
through the phone.
But I am a cup half full guy, so I think we beat up a movie like this because we care
about the IP.
We are caring about the IP.
We are actually believing that there is a story to be told.
There could be many stories to be told.

(53:26):
And you mentioned Rings of Power.
You mentioned The Silver Shining Black.
Those that have read the Compendium pieces, those that understand the background, understand
where the ball fell in that story.
Visually, nothing better.
But story wise, so another great example in a different direction was Dune 2.
Dune and Dune 2, the newest remakes of Dune.

(53:47):
Probably I still love my first version of Atreides, mainly because I'm old enough to
still like that movie.
But from as close to what was supposed to be Dune in the story, wow.
Like wow, it made you want to go back and find out about the line of Atreides and everything
that the Emperor, the whole destiny.
I mean, it's amazing.
So I think someone's going to take another whack at this.

(54:09):
I do believe it's too big a property that's not going to be whacked at again.
It will get whacked again.
I think hopefully whoever whacks it listens to movie smash, listens to Kristen, Virgo
and Chris and make a determination not to smash this one.
I think it deserves, I think it has a little hate for what it is.
It should be more hated because it's like you destroy something that is beautiful, man.

(54:34):
Because you think you know better than anybody else.
You know better than the creators and you just drag it all around the place, you know,
drag it to the ground and beat it down and put your ideas on and put your spin on and
you just destroy.
Yeah, for me, it was a huge disappointment.

(54:55):
Huge disappointment.
When I was watching it, I said, oh, this is why I forgot about it because it was so...
Did you want to hug Christian?
Because like I'm going to virtually hug you right now because I want your energy to be
so much more positive when you leave this meeting because I feel like you're going to
take this energy and redirect it somewhere else.
So I'm going to hug you.
This is post therapy, Virgo.

(55:16):
So there's hugs in this conversation.
Because the thing is, it's something you love.
I love the material.
I love the anime.
I love the manga.
You built an entire business.
You built an entire business on it.
So for you, it's so I built a comic store on Marvel.
I get it, right?
Like I've been screaming from the rooftop.
What happened to Marvel?

(55:36):
Where did you go?
And then they brought this Deadpool.
So I'm hopeful that, you know, Ryan, with as much power as he actually brought to the
film, could keep the suits at bay because the suits kill stories.
That's what they do.
They look for lunch boxes and toys and don't give a rat's ass about a fan.
Yeah.

(55:57):
There's something I think that I heard somewhere in an interview recently.
They say that, oh, the executive back in the 70s, they were good because they don't know
what they were talking about.
There was this old people and they really don't really understand what we're doing.
But now the new ones, because they read or they saw something, then now they think they
know more than the guy who's running the whole show.

(56:20):
So that's a big problem.
Yeah.
Big problem.
I probably saw the same thing you did.
I remember it was some interview where they were talking about in the 70s and 80s or early
80s, it was the studio heads were filmmakers themselves.
And then eventually all the MBAs started coming in, the business leaders, and they're looking
more about the profit lines versus the actual like art.
Cost to actually make a movie went up by gazillions.

(56:42):
So I mean, that's a hundred million is what this movie lost.
But I checked the number.
It was about 110 to make.
It's about 160 worldwide.
That's excluding marketing and promotional materials.
So this movie netted out a hundred.
I mean, that's a massive loss.
And if you look at the current box office trend, everything's the map.
You know, the biggest movie right now is Inside Out 2, right?
I mean, I think Quiet Place will start climbing as word of mouth gets out.

(57:04):
But the biggest movie is Inside Out 2.
And that's a pure movie.
Yeah.
Good rule of thumb as you look at a budget of a movie, in this case is 110 million.
You got to double it.
You have to bring in 220 to break even.
At least.
Exactly.
At least.
Not the guys.
What's kind of funny is this movie costs less than the new Star Wars Acolyte series that's
out right now, which is 180 million.

(57:26):
Don't mention that.
Don't mention that.
But they're going to cry.
People who make Ghost of Shell definitely made their money go far.
They took that money and they made a spectacular world out of it.
But Chris, now I need a hug because you brought the Acolyte.
So now I need someone to give me a positive.
Tell me I'm going to be OK.
Personally for me in this movie and the whole whitewashing controversy, all that sort of

(57:48):
stuff, I get it.
But I just want a good film.
I want to feel like I enjoy it.
It's beautiful.
It hits all the right marks.
And I think this is one of the things where on the surface it looks really good.
And you start, you open that box up as you put it.
You pull that ribbon off, that nice golden ribbon.
And it's not even spray the box with some perfume.

(58:09):
And you're like, this is going to be awesome.
And all of a sudden you get about 20 minutes into it and you're like, there's nothing else
to this thing, is there?
It's just the box I got.
I bought a beautiful box.
Yep.
And that's the thing I feel is the biggest shame about it.
And I wish they had done better with it, was just really around those characters.
But at least you got a beautiful box.
So again, let me bring the half full situation.
At least you got a beautiful box.
I don't know what you put in the box besides that, but I'm pretty sure if we can all put

(58:32):
our money together, we can get this Carla Traynhampton model and put her in the box.
And I promise you it would be a fun story to have.
Yeah, that would be a good result for sure.
For those of you that didn't make a Funko pop, so feel free to go find that one.
So my question for you guys is, this movie only came out about seven years ago.
Should they remake it, try again at this, take another swing at it, or should they just

(58:54):
make a sequel and keep expanding that universe and try making it better?
Remake it.
Yeah.
Remake the story.
Completely.
Start the story fresh.
Yeah.
You can even do a TV series about it if you really want to get into it.
And see, I think that might be a better move for them is to go the TV series route.
We've been doing the show now for about a year or so.
That keeps coming up.
Like a lot of these IPs, TV show avenue, like a series you could stream, might be a better

(59:20):
route to go because you could spend more time on the characters.
World-building.
Yeah, depending on the source material.
That's for example, I was very happy when, for the Sandman, for example.
Oh my God.
They've been trying to do a TV movie for years and they say, a movie's not going to work.
You need to do a series because there's a lot of things to tread here.
It's brilliant.
And it's a long series.

(59:41):
It is a great, that is, I purposely stayed away from the Neil Gaiman set.
I didn't want to watch the AMS series because it felt, I was a bit disappointed on Rings
of Power.
I did power through that.
I was kind of bummed out because I read the source material.
So I didn't want to touch the Neil Gaiman story.
I kind of like, ah, but I've been watching snippets and I just have gone back and started
very slowly pouring through this show.
And it is effing brilliant, bro.

(01:00:03):
It is out of control.
Just go watch it.
Just binge the whole thing.
It's worth it.
They're making another season of it.
And that's like only two books, I think, and they're like 10, 10, something like that.
Yeah.
So by the way, I would have to ignore all those duties.
I'm just going to tell my wife, I'm going to lock myself in my room.
Tell her you got a cold or something.

(01:00:25):
No, but that was another one that was very easy to mess up.
Very easy because the source material is deep and it has a lot of layers and you need to
take your time with it.
So it was really, really, really easy to mess up.
Even though I didn't like the Lucifer character, I don't know what that girl, the girl from
Game of Thrones was doing there, but whatever.

(01:00:47):
And then they changed death.
I don't know why too, but okay.
I got them.
Nails behind it.
So I gave it to him.
They are his character.
He can do whatever he wants with them.
But you need to say true.
The thing we go, we'll go back to the same point from the beginning.
You need to say true to the source material.
That's it.
That's it.
That's why you shouldn't remake the crow.
Crow should not have been remade because nobody would take a whack at the true source.

(01:01:10):
Like you're not going to do that and just try to go for the money genre.
You're going to blow up not only the new movie, but you're going to stain out a little bit
on the legacy of the original.
And that doesn't work.
It's funny.
You keep bringing up the crow.
The crow's legacy was killed a long time ago.
They made what?
Three sequels and a TV show.
They dipped in the IP so much, man.
I know you love that.

(01:01:30):
Nobody paid attention to those things.
That was okay.
I know you love Hot Topic the movie, Fergal, but I mean, come on.
I love Hot Topic the movie because I'm 50 and I'm trying to recapture my youth.
Should people go out and give this movie a shot, go watch it, or should they just ignore

(01:01:51):
it and let it fall away to history?
Watch it.
Watch it.
I think you should watch it because first, the everyday average person that doesn't have
like a dog in the game and they just want to see something cool, you're going to enjoy
the movie.
And I think what we do is sometimes, and that's the beauty and the hard part about being a
nerd in this thing, because we come at it from the nerd part.

(01:02:12):
And so if you're just an everyday average person and you're like, I just want to watch
a sci-fi movie, this will kid you.
This will give you the impact which you're looking for and you'll come away actually
happy.
But if you're someone who actually enjoys nerddom, you're going to have, and you haven't
seen it, which I don't know why, but if you have and have not, you're going to come away.
You want to watch this to then watch to your point, Chris, watch the manga after that and

(01:02:36):
you will be like, oh, okay.
I need to do something with this.
Yeah.
Probably, I don't know, probably because I see it from the other side, I will go directly
to the anime, forget about the movie.
But to a fair point of view, it's true that it's a good way to start in that genre, to
start in that whole world that is very deep and very, very full.

(01:03:01):
So maybe, yeah, if you come with blank eyes and no background at all, so maybe it's a
good gateway to get into the whole thing.
But I don't know, because then you probably will be betrayed.
Oh, this is not what I saw before and I thought this was the whole idea.
Back to the slider and the burger problem.
Back to the slider and the burger problem.
Just sit at the table, open up the sandwich.

(01:03:21):
These are some amazing toppings.
Where's my burger?
Yeah.
I don't know.
I don't know what to say in this case.
I would treat it as if you're flipping through the channels, you're watching a streaming
service and it's on, you don't have to turn it off.
I wouldn't go seek it out.
I mean, maybe to go, because if you want to see the effects of it, just go watch the trailer.
If you watch the trailer, you're going to see all the effects and how beautiful this

(01:03:43):
thing is.
And from that, decide yourself, you know what, it's beautiful, I want to see something that
looks pretty, then go watch it.
If you're saying to yourself, I want to know the material, go watch the anime.
Well, by the art book, I know there's got to be a fantastic art book about this movie
and you're going to see all the beautiful pictures and beautiful images, but that's
about it.
There might be.
I mean, I do know this movie got so much hate, they actually didn't even release the soundtrack.

(01:04:06):
They pulled it from shelves.
There was so much hate and the composer for it, Lauren Balfe, he actually released it
on Twitter.
So you can go download it if you want to for free because he loved all the work he did
on it.
But there was so much hate, they canceled their distribution rights to it because everyone
was so mad at this movie.
They thought it would lose, the soundtrack would lose money.

(01:04:27):
That was an AAPI thing.
I think the AAPI, honestly, again, just the idea that we started to be in the whitewashing
piece of it, which was really important.
And I think it was important because Cheng Chi was Asian.
I mean, you can find a great performing, I mean, a Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, you

(01:04:47):
can find great actors in a genre, right?
Everything everywhere at once.
And these are all great actors that confront films that are confusing in that genre.
But this movie got more hate because it just, when you're taking the main character, what
everyone loves, and you just completely turn it around, it doesn't make sense.

(01:05:07):
I'm watching her stand in front of her own grave site and I just realized, I know they
put her in a new body, but everything that screams inside of you and people have their
pre biases and they're like, okay, if she's an Asian person, she dies, she'll go into
at least a body that's somewhat Asian.
She didn't pick the body, that's the whole thing.
What makes you you?
Is it your brain or your body?
Oh me, it's everything.
It's Fergalicious.

(01:05:28):
It's just what we bring to the table.
I mean, come on, we can put a whole podcast on that.
That was my Barry White voice.
We're going to leave that at the table.
It's like, hey, you're redoing, I don't know, Huckleberry Fing and something like that.
And you do it in China.
So China is going to do Huckleberry Fing adaptation.
In this adaptation, Huckleberry Fing is going to be Chinese because it's going to pander

(01:05:51):
to the Chinese audience.
So that's how deep the problem is.
It's like, hey, you know, characters are well-established.
Everybody knows them.
Oh, you're going to change them because you think you have a better idea and it's going
to work better in this market.
No, dude.
Unless you do like a re-imagining kind of thing where you do it like a Shakespeare does.

(01:06:15):
They do a Shakespeare all the time where they'll take the story itself, put it in a whole new
like what was the one where the what's his name?
Leonardo Caprio.
Was there one we did like a Shakespeare?
Romeo and Juliet.
Romeo and Juliet.
Yeah, that whole scene.
They kept the verbiage identical and completely made it gangster.
I was actually going to say King Arthur, that Guy Ritchie's take on King Arthur.

(01:06:38):
It is fantastical to be fantastical, but grounded enough that a little bit just around that
legend that you can take liberties with it.
But it had to be this story.
It was a great story.
I was I own that movie.
I'm addicted to it.
So it can be done, right?
It can be done very, very well.
But when it when a suit sits in a room who never really cares about anything except a

(01:06:59):
dollar, it will not be done well.
Yeah.
And all the focus group, I know it tested well and this is tested well with this and
blah, blah, blah.
And that's not no, no, no, dude.
No, no.
Sorry.
You marketing people, you stay in the marketing department.
So for closing, guys, what's your rating for this?
Would you give a thumbs up, thumbs down?
I would go some three quarters downward, not all the way down, but I would I would actually

(01:07:24):
do it at about a 45 degree angle facing in the right direction.
As a half glass full guy, I thought you would go a quarter thumb up, not three quarters
down.
Like positive for if I was a half empty guy, it would be an all the way thumbs down.
And Christian and I would be holding up pitchforks and figuring out where this guy was to make
the movie, but I'm a half slightly empty and full guy.
So I'm going to give some credit to the Academy Award.

(01:07:48):
No, that's what that comes into play.
For me it's a five out of 10.
And just because the visual effects are good.
But if it's not for them, for Michael Bates is good and Scarlett does the best she can.
But it's very complicated to save this one.
See, I give it, I give it a half thumb.
I mean, we've seen worse movies.
We really have.

(01:08:08):
Yes, we have.
Yes, we have.
We've also seen better movies.
So I'd say it's like I said, half thumb for me.
So guys, as we head out of here, Christian, thank you once again for joining us on our
show today.
It's been a pleasure, guys.
Where can we find you and what projects are you currently working on?
Now I'm working on reimagination.
We talk about reimagination, stuff like that.

(01:08:29):
And the whole idea of a studio, we take classical folktales and we give it a spin to turn it
to the 21st century.
So what would these people, if they were alive today, what are we doing, what the Green Brothers
would be doing or Perot or in this case, Collodi would be doing?
And we're doing the second volume, the Spinochia.
And it's the whole idea of what if instead of being a puppet, it will be a machine?

(01:08:53):
And what if Geppetto and Spina, a woodworker, would be an engineer, a robotics engineer?
And what would if this will be in the future?
Not nowadays and after the war and all that.
So that's what we're working on.
We're going to release the Kickstarter next week.
So you can find it, it's very easy by unpopulartails.com.
So as it's unpopulartails.com, you can find it on the Kickstarter or you can do Pinocchia

(01:09:15):
on Kickstarter, you Google that and you're going to find it.
And that's a whole take.
So it's cyberpunk, it's science fiction, it's action.
So that's what we're working on right now.
So hopefully.
Yep.
And for timing for our listeners, your Kickstarter started next week, but by the time this episode
comes out, it probably would have been out for about a week or two.
So July the 18th, the guy who did the cover is the main artist in that movie, the Alien

(01:09:41):
Romulus, David Bentall.
So we have serial ballplayers in our book for sure.
I'm always a fan of the Alien franchise, even the bad movies.
This is going to be crazy because I have the opportunity to read the script.
The Romulus movie?
Oh, the Romulus movie?
Wow.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
The guy who made the, he's one of the art directors in that movie.

(01:10:03):
So yeah, he's a good friend of mine.
That's phenomenal.
We're very lucky that we can work with him.
That's phenomenal.
Fergal, where can people find you?
I mean, I'm on Facebook and I'm currently working on a new website now.
So I'm kind of rewriting out a website.
Lots of good stuff in that area.
You know, I'm Fergal.
I'm full of ideas.
Half full, full of ideas.

(01:10:27):
And for me, you can always find me at Off Panel Creations where we're always trying
to build some piece of nerdy furniture.
Christian, thank you once again for joining us this evening.
And I want to thank everyone for listening with us today and spending some time with
us.
Do you have any thoughts about Ghost in the Shell?
Do you prefer the manga better?
Do you prefer the anime better?
Or is this the best version of Ghost in the Shell that there is?
Let us know.
Just send us a note over at movie-smash.com.

(01:10:48):
We'll see you guys in a couple of weeks.
Thank you again for listening and I hope you enjoy the show.
This has been Movie Smash with Chris Roberts, Jeremy Parmentier, and Fergal Amayo produced
by me, Chris Roberts, executive produced by Off Panel Creations LLC.
Movie clips provided by their respective studios.
You can rate and review the show at Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

(01:11:10):
You might even find your review read on a future episode.
Got a question for us?
Visit us at movie-smash.com and send us a note.
It too can be read on a future episode.
If you haven't already, please subscribe to Movie Smash wherever you listen to your
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