Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

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{{Infobox Film | name = Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence | image = Innocence Ghost In The Shell Poster.jpg | director = Mamoru Oshii | writer = Shirow Masamune
Mamoru Oshii | starring = Akio Ôtsuka
Atsuko Tanaka | producer = Mitsuhisa Ishikawa
Toshio Suzuki | distributor = Go Fish Pictures | released = March 6, 2004 | runtime = 100 minutes | language = Japanese | imdb_id = 0347246 }}

Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (Japanese title: Template:Lang (Innocence), or Template:Lang (Innocence: Kōkaku Kidōtai)) is a followup to the anime movie Ghost in the Shell, but not primarily a sequel.

Innocence is a movie that explores inanimate objects and representative forms as artificial life.

Released in Japan on March 6, 2004, with a U.S. release on September 17, 2004, Innocence had a production budget of approximately $20 million (approx. 2 billion yen). In order to raise such a large amount of money, Production I.G.'s president asked Studio Ghibli's president Toshio Suzuki to work on the project as a producer. The movie is directed by Mamoru Oshii, with a story loosely connected to the manga by Masamune Shirow. The movie was produced by Production I.G., which also produced the original movie and the spinoff TV series Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex.

Alongside the movie, there was a book published that served as a prequel to Innocence called After the Long Goodbye.

Contents

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Story

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Image:Innocence-gits.jpg

Much of the storyline is taken from the original Ghost in the Shell manga, from a chapter called Robot Rondo, albeit heavily modified from the original tale. The story of Innocence begins in 2032, when cities are inhabited by the dwindling races of humans, purely mechanical androids, and cyborgs like Batou who still have a ghost (the in-universe term for the human spirit), but are vulnerable to ghost hacking. In an interesting stylistic twist, all of the cars in the film have a 1950s design while everything else is ultra-modern.

The movie features several characters from the preceding movie, like Togusa, the most organic member of the team, Chief Aramaki and Batou, as the protagonists. Batou was usually partnered with Major Kusanagi, who disappeared at the end of the first film. He's now teamed with a reluctant Togusa, who says he never asked for the assignment and that he knows he could never compare to the Major.

Image:LocusSolus.JPG

The special officers of Public Security Section 9 are investigating a cyborg corporation called LOCUS SOLUS (from the novel of the same name by French author Raymond Roussel) and its gynoids - androids made in the form of young women, used as sex dolls - that have killed their owners and, as soon as they realize they have a spirit, start to think of suicide.

Batou's body is fully artificial. As the movie's trailer dramatically posits, "the only remnants left of his humanity, encased inside a titanium skull shell, are traces of his brain, and the memories of a woman called Motoko Kusanagi." Major Motoko Kusanagi, the protagonist of Ghost in the Shell, is listed as missing, although government agents are still looking for her as she has confidential knowledge on Project 2501. In the film, Batou explains to Togusa that he helped the Major escape because Section 9 only cared about what she knew and not her as a person.

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Mamoru Oshii on Innocence

Innocence is Life
"...untested, but virtue is innocence tested and triumphant." (W. H. Griffith Thomas, 1962)

On the origins of the movie, director Mamoru Oshii says:

When Production I.G first proposed the project to me, I thought about it for two weeks. I didn't make Innocence as a sequel to Ghost in the Shell. In fact I had a dozen ideas, linked to my views on life, my philosophy, that I wanted to include in this film. [...] I attacked Innocence as a technical challenge; I wanted to go beyond typical animation limits, answer personal questions and at the same time appeal to filmgoers.

Innocence begins with a quotation from Mathias Villiers de l'Isle-Adam's Tomorrow's Eve (1886):

"If our Gods and our hopes are nothing but scientific phenomena, then let us admit it must be said that our love is scientific as well."

The movie is filled with references to fantasy, philosophy and Zen and addresses aesthetic and moral questions. The numerous quotations come from Buddha, Confucius, Descartes, the Old Testament, Saito Ryokuu, Max Weber, Jacob Grimm, Plato, John Milton, Zeami, Villiers de L'Isle-Adam and others.

The characters and character names contain many allusions to earlier works. For example, the "Hadaly" model robots refer to Tomorrow's Eve, the first book to use the word android, and which features a human-like robot named Hadaly. The police forensic specialist, Haraway, is most likely named for Donna Haraway, author of the "Cyborg Manifesto".

Dolls are an important motif in Innocence; many beings have a "spirit" of some sort, but at the same time are not quite human. The female dolls are based on the art of Hans Bellmer, which is the pioneer of ball-jointed dolls. Bellmer's name briefly appears in one scene on a book cover. As Oshii comments, "They want to become fully human — but they can't. That dilemma becomes unbearable for them. The humans who made them are to blame. They try to make a doll that is as human as possible — but they don't think of the consequences." Even the human or partly-human characters move in doll-like ways, grants Oshii. Oshii also planned an exhibition to commemorate the film. The exhibition showcased several Japanese artists' work of ball jointed dolls.

It could prefigure a new century with people facing "towards a humanity of hard disks and memories" [1] when animate and inanimate start to merge in new forms like "interconnected 'living dolls'".

While pursuing the truth behind the crime incident that happened in the course of the movie, Batou and Togusa, flying to Etorofu, a special economic development zone, make the following observation: [2]

"If the substance of life is information, transmitted through genes, then society and culture are essentially immense information transmission systems, and the city, a huge external memory storage device."

On his narrative intentions Oshii comments:

"For Innocence, I had a bigger budget than for Ghost in the Shell. I also had more time to prepare it. Yet despite the economic leeway, abundant details and orientations, it was still important to tell an intimate story. [...] Personally, I adore the quotes in the film. It was a real pleasure for me. The budget and work that went into it contributed to the high quality of imagery. The images had to be up to par, as rich as the visuals."
"This desire to include quotes by other authors came from Godard. The text is very important for a film, that I learned from him. It gives a certain richness to cinema because the visual is not all there is. Thanks to Godard, the spectator can concoct his own interpretation. [...] The image associated to the text corresponds to a unifying act that aims at renewing cinema, that lets it take on new dimensions."

Kenji Kawai's technologic music greatly contributes to the film's futuristic atmosphere, and reinforces its link to Ghost in the Shell: for example, the opening theme echoes the ubiquitous "Birth of a Cyborg" piece from the first movie.

Some others turn to more modern jazz fusion and romance like the song "Follow Me", which is used in the trailer and became popular among fans of the movie.

Mamoru Oshii's concept follows in the tradition of the romantic myth of the manufacture of a creature, which is at the same time human and artificial, such as Frankenstein's monster. There is a substantial amount of religious and philosophical musing on this general topic, which arguably gives it a more mystical tone than most cyberpunk.

Oshii said the film was first inspired by bleak thoughts of economic recession and violent crime. He imagines a world where humans have been replaced by their virtual selves.

"Distinguishing the virtual from the real is a major error on the part of human beings. To me, the birth and death of a human being is already a virtual event," the 52-year-old director told a news conference on 2004 Cannes Film Festival. "I think that accepting that what we are seeing is not real will open the doors of truth for mankind," he added.

Innocence achieves a unique spatial atmosphere which is also worthy of mention. Panoramic views are enveloped in orange light and deep haze. Sunlight seldom falls on Batou, who wanders in solitude at ground level, bathed in yellow light, red neon, and blue electric light, effects which enhance the movie's atmosphere of film noir beyond its obvious reference to Blade Runner.

Unlike with a filmed movie, the creators of an animated movie must envision and create all the detailed elements that make up a scene, and the movie comes to life. Innocence approaches this challenge with some weird 3D scenes softly integrated to 2D characters; but it is said that "in some scenes there was intentional direction from Oshii to make 3D environment look unreal to describe ghost-hack and such complicated concepts."

Oshii says:

"I enjoy making the world [of the film] as detailed as possible. I get absorbed in the finer points -- like what the back of a bottle label looks like when you see it through the glass [demonstrates with a bottle of mineral water]. That's very Japanese, I suppose. I want people to go back to the film again and again to pick up things they missed the first time."

The dog Gabriel, looking one more time like the only real being, makes a key appearance, like in many of Oshii's movies. A scene of Batou feeding his dog is echoing Ash in Avalon and Mamoru Oshii in his real life, as the director himself admits: "Batou is a reflection of my own thoughts and feelings. Innocence is a kind of autobiographical film in that way."

He also explained the reason why all his films feature a basset hound -- his faithful companion in real life.

"This body you see before you is an empty shell. The dog represents my body. Humans can be free only if they free themselves from their body. When I am playing around with my dog, I forget that I am a human being and it's only then that I feel free."

Even if some of the characters from Ghost in the Shell are present, Innocence goes far beyond the themes of electronic networks and human-machine technologies. The usual downbeat story line of Oshii's movies could perhaps restrict the audience to technology and anime fans.

Mamoru Oshii also adds his own reflections about art and animation:

"I think that Hollywood is relying more and more on 3D imaging like that of Shrek. The strength behind Japanese animation is based in the designers' pencil[3]. Even if he mixes 2D, 3D, and computer graphics, the foundation is still 2D. Only doing 3D does not interest me."

The animation features a motif of figurative deformation of scenery — especially the massive cathedral-like Locus Solus building in the Northern Territories (Kurile Islands) and the Chinese parade, which will stay as one of the most amazing scenes in recent memory. Although the style is quite realistic and detailed, it mixes in startling distortions.

"The film is set in the future, but it's looking at present-day society. And as I said, there's an autobiographical element as well. I'm looking back at some of the things I liked as a child — the 1950s cars and so on. Basically, I wanted to create a different world — not a future world."
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Cannes Film Festival

Innocence was one of the feature films in competition at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival. It was only the 6th animated film to be featured at Cannes and the only animated film to be a finalist for the Palme D'Or award. The eventual winner that year was the very controversial choice of Fahrenheit 9/11.

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DVD Controversy

On December 28, 2004, DreamWorks released Innocence on DVD in the United States. Reviews immediately began appearing on Amazon and other websites criticizing the movie's subtitle track. Instead of including the overlay subtitles from the theatrical release, DreamWorks produced the DVD subtitles using closed captioning. The result was a script that intruded on the movie's visual effects; and in addition to reading dialogue, audiences saw unnecessary alerts like "Footsteps..." or "Helicopter approaches..." After receiving numerous complaints, DreamWorks released a statement saying that unsatisfied customers could exchange their DVDs for properly subtitled ones, postage paid; and that version 4 already had the proper subtitling.

Another complaint many people have with the release is the fact that the movie has no English dub. People argue that this ruins continuity, seeing as how the original movie and the TV series both have English audio versions. This is not new for DreamWorks, as the other anime movies in their Go Fish line (such as Millennium Actress) do not have English dubs either.

Manga Entertainment, which released the first movie and collaborated with Bandai Entertainment to release the TV series, released the movie with an English dub featuring the same cast as used in Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex in the UK on February 27, 2006.

Template:Wikiquote

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Quotes

  • Dialogue extracts
    • "Life and death come and go like marionettes dancing on a table. Once their strings are cut, they easily crumble."
    • "Why are humans so obsessed with recreating themselves?"
    • "We weep for the bird's cry, but not for the blood of a fish. Blessed are those who have voice."
    • "Let one walk alone, committing no sin, with few wishes, like an elephant in the forest."
    • "One does not need to be Caesar to understand Caesar" (Aramaki) and later, Batou's own version: "One does not need to be Yakuza to pay a visit to Yakuza"
    • (When Togusa sees Batou taking out an M249 machine gun and loading it, before heading for a Yakuza headquarters on an investigation) "You planning on starting a war?"
  • Mamoru Oshii on his intentions:
    • "I'm happier if 10,000 people see the film 10 times each than if 1 million people see it once. I'm not making it for the general public, but for a core group of fans -- I hope it will make a big impression on them. If I can do that, I'm happy." (The Japan Times: March 17, 2004 full interview )
    • "This movie does not hold the view that the world revolves around the human race. Instead it concludes that all forms of life – humans, animals and robots – are equal. In this day and age when everything is uncertain, we should all think about what to value in life and how to coexist with others."
  • Mamoru Oshii on Japanese concept of tamashi [spirit] and the Western concept of soul:
    • A soul is not something someone can just show you. But if you believe in it enough, want to see it enough, it will appear.
    • In the West, people don't believe animals have souls, do they? That's not true in Japan, though. I myself believe that dogs and cats have souls -- but that has nothing to do with a specific religion.
    • Children have similar feelings about dolls -- if they love a doll enough, they feel that it's alive. That feeling is universal. It's not something they're taught -- they just feel it somehow. It's not connected with any religious belief.
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Trivia

  • Batou's access code for his car is 2501, the same number of the Puppet Master and, also from the first Ghost in the Shell movie, was the recognition code agreed on between Motoko and Batou after her fusion with the Puppet Master and before she disappeared. In Innocence, this is how Batou recognised that the infinite loop he and Togusa were experiencing in the Doll House was a trap - Motoko had slipped him clues in the hallway, one of which was '2501'.
  • Almost every picture of a dog in the anime (on dog food boxes, billboards etc) depicts a Basset hound - the same breed of dog as Batou's pet Gabriel and director Mamoru Oshii's pet dog. In fact, as noted in the main article above, the Basset is Mamoru Oshii's signature hound and is found in all his films.
  • Locus Solus seems to be a Cantonese outfit - the control robots of the factory ship's systems all communicate in Cantonese, and presumably so do the staff (the announcer over the ship's PA system, instructing the security teams to arm after the gynoids started activating themselves, spoke in Cantonese)
  • A real music box was used to create the music for the Doll House, using an 80-note disc-playing (as opposed to drum-playing on typical music boxes) machine. The music box was played and recorded in the studio; the recording was then taken to the Oya Stone Museum (a former subterranean stone quarry) where it was played back over a 5.1-speaker setup and re-recorded. The reverbration thus introduced was to mimic the vast expanse of the Doll House in the anime.
  • While Batou is in the Grocery Shop, as a hooded character walks past Batou, a voice tells him "You're in the killzone", many speculate the character is Motoko Kusanagi. In fact, in the 'special features' on the DVD, which documents the making of Innocence, Atsuko Tanaka (the voice actor for Motoko) is shown during one scene to be recording precisely that line in the studio. It therefore seems that the voice was indeed Motoko, Batou's guardian angel, warning him of Kim's impending hack of Batou's brain right there and then.
  • The ending of Innocence is similar to the first film, where the Major returns to the vastness of the net.
  • Batou constantily refers to Major Kusanagi as his Guardian angel.
  • Before heading out to the yakuza headquarters, Batou loads an FN Minimi machinegun. He then cocks it - a rather dangerous thing to do with a weapon before carrying it in a vehicle (which would likely encouter shocks and bumps on the way), especially with one that fires from an open bolt, like the Minimi (and many other machineguns).
  • Togusa uses a Mateba autorevolver, which is his trademark pistol in the Ghost in the Shell universe. It is easily identified by its barrel, which is aligned with the bottom of the cylinder instead of the top (as in other revolvers). This brings the barrel closer to the grip of the handgun, reducing the upward recoil/muzzle jump of the gun and thus increasing accuracy. A similar handgun is used by Vash in the anime Trigun.


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Books

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External links

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Related links

Template:Ghost in the Shellde:Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence fr:Innocence : Ghost in the Shell 2 it:Ghost in the Shell 2 - Innocence ja:イノセンス pt:Inosensu: Kôkaku kidôtai zh:攻殼機動隊2 INNOCENCE

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