Koukaku Kidoutai 2.0

I'll only go into revisional details assuming you haven't ever watched GITS and checking out which version to watch. The major difference in 2.0 is the un-matrix-isation of it. GITS was a green movie, in revision it is shifted to a red hue. This makes it way more colorful than intented and a bit disrespectful to Oshii. The introduction sequence is mostly redesigned with 3D additions, it's quite good and gives the impression this will be a complete revision of the original (which is not the case). The credits Matrix copied over is completely taken out. Lack of transition between newly introduced 3D with the old2D is extremely uneven and confusing to the audience. There are some panoramic sequences of the city very similar to GITS: Innocence, they manage to fit in, but character 3D ruins it. I didn't notice any difference plotwise, so if any is present it should be minor. My dvd copy of the original has lots of artifacts, especially in the dark scenes. They did a good job digitally cleaning the film on 2.0. Overall this renewal feels clumsy and makes GITS more generic than it is. Only a blu-ray renewal should have been more than enough. If this'll be your first time with GITS I strongly advise watching the original first. If you are checking it for a rewatch there is no harm with trying 2.0.

This project seems like a surreal, highly coordinated, and well-funded attempt to marginally annoy people. Imagine your favorite movie. Now imagine that the studio that created it decides to rerelease a new version of it. Now suppose that the only thing they do is replace about 10% of the best scenes with weird 2000’s cgi versions of the previous scenes. Is the movie completely ruined? Not completely, no. Did any of the changes improve the movie in any sense? No. Is there any benefit at all in seeing this 2.0 version? No. Can you still watch and enjoy the original? Yes It’s such a strange decision to replace some ofthe best traditionally animated scenes in such an iconic movie with very out-of-place Shrek-era CG, it’s so jarring. I rewatched the original to see which scenes were so ‘bad’ that they needed replacing, and of course they all look fine and mesh well with the original film. Again, the decision to make this version is so strange and baffling. Obviously watch the original version, this is the easiest recommendation ever. Superior in every way.

WRITER’S NOTE: This review assumes that you’ve seen Ghost In the Shell (1995), as it simply focuses on the changes between the original film and this version. Ghost in the Shell 2.0 is to Ghost in the Shell what the Special Editions are to Star Wars, and while GitS 2.0 is nowhere nearly as egregious as the Special Editions, it still feels like a pointless exercise in updating a previous work. GitS 2.0 was released in 2008 in celebration for the release of The Sky Crawlers in theatres that same year, as a way for it’s director, Memoru Oshii, and studio Production I.G. to cross promote bothprojects. The intention of 2.0 was to “remaster” the original film in away, but it doesn’t really feel like a remaster, it feels like a project intended to make money of an established franchise. And what we got was a weird mix of 2D animation from 1995 mixed with 13 years worth of advancement in CGI attached to a film never intended to have it in the first place. The main difference between Gits 2.0 and The Sky Crawlers, besides the obvious subject matter and presentation, is that The Sky Crawlers was planned from the start to have CGI integrated with the 2D animation, and as a result, the mix between the CGI and the 2D animation for that movie mesh a lot better in that film. The biggest and most obvious change in 2.0 is that a few scenes have been replaced with fully 3D animated versions of those scenes. These new scenes conflict with the original, not only because the switch between the 3D and 2Dcan be a bit jarring, but the 3D is presented in a different style to the 2D. This wouldn’t have been so bad if it weren’t for the conflicting film making styles between the 2D and the 3D. The original film is almost entirely simple static shots, while the 3D animation has sweeping camera shots that don’t fit the style of the original at all, simply because the 2D animation wasn’t capable of these shots. The film was working with what it could the time it was released. It just feels weird going from smooth flowing movements with the CGI, to all of a sudden staring at a static couple of characters talking or plot happening. There are several other shots throughout the film that have had parts of them replaced with CGI, such as aircraft or certain background features like an aquarium. I guess these were used to heighten scenes, but like I said before, the original Ghost in the Shell film was never meant to have CGI, so it just feels out of place. I wouldn’t call the CGI awful, but it’s definitely just OK. It’s pretty clear the team behind the CGI added shaders onto it to try and give it a bit of a 2D feel, trying to wash out any detail the 3D models had, but it doesn’t help. A minor nitpick i have is the difference between look of the digital picture. It doesn’t match the grainy filmic look of the original footage. That sounds like a weird complaint, but it just shows the difference between something made in a computer and something made in an analog format by human hands (ironic). The only change that i thought looked good were the holograms throughout the film being replaced with the CGI. They were the only things in the original meant to look digital to begin with, so the replacement CGI is the least intrusive CGI in the whole thing. Another minor grievance I have is the framerate difference between the 2D animation and the 3D animation. It’s just another reason on the pile of reasons that mixing the 2D animation and the 3D animation wasn’t that good of an idea. Everything else that wasn’t completely replaced with the CGI has also been modified to varying degrees. Every shot of the film has been tinted with a warm orange color, with varying intensity. Some shots it’s barely noticeable, and in some shots, it’s overpowering to the point of washing out a few scenes. It completely ruins the cold clinical blue look that the original film was going for, that was supposed to help heighten the sense of some characters losing their identities and becoming more robotic with how modified their bodies were. I assume it the color tinting was to help the older 2D animated scenes match the new CGI, but it just ruins the stylistic choices the original had. The weirdest thing about this new version is the way it was re-edited. Several scenes have been changed, and there doesn’t seem to be a reason why. All of the edits are simple trims, cutting anything from a couple of frames to about a second of time off at most. But the fact that these edits were made make no sense. They add literally nothing to the whole experience. I don’t know if it was done to make the whole experience feel different or was done just to make a change for changes sake, but it just felt unnecessary. The other obvious and significant change is the new audio mix. The original soundtrack was re-arranged and re-recorded, and the whole thing was remixed into 6.1Channel Surround, done by Randy Thom over at Skywalker Sound,previously working on Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence. For the most part, I don’t really have any problems with this. A lot of the new sound effects are not terrible, but nothing to complain about. Along with the remixed audio, the Japanese voices were also re-recorded to try and modernize the dialogue. I don’t speak Japanese, but from what I can tell compared to a decent amount of Japanese performances that I’ve heard throughout the years, the performances are fine. The biggest change is that the original voice of The Puppet Master, played by Iemasa Kayumi, the male voice, was replaced by Yoshiko Sakakibara, a now female voice. This isn’t necessarily a bad choice, but it feels like another change in a long list of unnecessary changes. I could see the argument that since it’s a robot intended to be female, it would have a female voice, but then why does the Major’s voice change back to her previous voice at the end of movie when she’s in a new body? And since the new sentient AI was born in the sea of information, it would either go with whatever voice it happened to be “born”with or pick something that represented itself. I have no idea if this change was done with some sort of intent, but considering how many weird changes that 2.0 gets seemingly without much thought, I’d be surprised if there was any intent in the change of voice besides changing something for the sake of it, like maybe a perceived error in casting a male voice. When it comes down to it, this whole 2.0 experiment feels a little pointless. If the entire film was redone as CGI, it would have at least been consistent in it’s quality. It still might have been a pointless shot-for-shot remake, but it would have felt less intrusive. But instead, what we got was a mixed bag in terms of a “remaster”. None of the changes feel like they enough of a change to justify their existence. Best case scenario,Ghost in the Shell 2.0 is a companion piece to the original and is for fans only. Worst case, it’s entirely skippable, but doesn’t exactly ruin the film. I have a hard time recommending this when it’s incredibly easy to find and watch the original version of GitS over 2.0. The only people who would be interested in this version of the film would be fans of the original version anyway, and those are the people who would complain about this the loudest. And this version is not exactly a good way to introduce more people to a classic movie like this.

Not to be confused with Ghost in the Shell 2 Innocence, Ghost in the Shell 2.0 is an attempt to remaster/modernize the original Ghost in the Shell movie, therefore I won't focus on the overall quality of the movie just on the changes that 2.0 may add or subtract from the original which is one of the greatest cinematic achievements in anime. Take these observations from someone who loves the original and watched both versions at the same time alternating between them every 5 to 10 minutes to compare them both. This version does not change absolutely anything in terms of dialogue and scenes. Nothing wasadded or removed that it wasn't shown in the original. They both have the exact same length. The most obvious change, and as others point out, the biggest detriment is the CGI introduced in this version. The original also had CGI scenes but it was much more subtle, in this version the change from animation to CGI is very noticeable. I don't see much of an issue to change just the original CG scenes with more modern ones, but they also changed animated scenes such as the iconic dive at the beginning and the vision of an angel near the end, and that is borderline sacrilege in my opinion. Having said that, don't dismiss this version yet... A positive change, though a very small one, is that in the old version since it was animated by hand and photography, not digitally like modern anime, you can faintly see a small shaking in the image and this new version improves that. Another small change is they added a filter that balances down the image to a more darker tone from the brighter blue and green tone of the original in an attempt to make it feel more cinematic. I personally don't see the necessity other that it helps to balance out their added orange/brown CGI scenes with the rest of the movie. Now the BIGGEST PLUS and possibly game-changer in this version is the audio, done by none other than Skywalker Sound of Lucasfilm. Everything sounds substantially better from music, to sound effects, to the dialogue which was re-recorded by the original voice actors word for word in both English and Japanese. The improved audio makes this version very worth it despite the other negatives already mentioned. In summary: The very bad - Changing iconic animated scenes to CGI The kind of bad - Changing the previous orange/blue CGI scenes to more modern orange/brown CGI. The neutral - The darker filter. The kind of good - Fixing the image shaking The very VERY good - The improved audio. Don't dismiss this version. You can't go wrong with either, whether you yourself want to experience Ghost in the Shell for the first time, or introduce someone else to it. The improved audio makes it very worth checking out even if you are a fan of the original who considers it perfect as it is.

Merchandise

Links may contain affiliate references

Studio

Producers

Themes