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Ghost in the Shell

Scarlett Johansson in Ghost in the Shell (2017)

In the near future, Major Mira Killian is the first of her kind: A human saved from a terrible crash, who is cyber-enhanced to be a perfect soldier devoted to stopping the world's most dange... Read all In the near future, Major Mira Killian is the first of her kind: A human saved from a terrible crash, who is cyber-enhanced to be a perfect soldier devoted to stopping the world's most dangerous criminals. In the near future, Major Mira Killian is the first of her kind: A human saved from a terrible crash, who is cyber-enhanced to be a perfect soldier devoted to stopping the world's most dangerous criminals.

  • Rupert Sanders
  • Shirow Masamune
  • William Wheeler
  • Scarlett Johansson
  • Pilou Asbæk
  • Takeshi Kitano
  • 1K User reviews
  • 461 Critic reviews
  • 52 Metascore
  • 3 wins & 6 nominations

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Juliette Binoche

  • (as Michael Carmen Pitt)

Chin Han

  • Bearded Man
  • (as Mana Davis)
  • Hanka Security Agent

Kai Fung Rieck

  • Diamond Face

Andrew Stehlin

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Ghost in the Shell

Did you know

  • Trivia In an establishing shot of the city, a Pan Am advert can be seen in the top left. The bankrupt airlines inclusion is a reference to Blade Runner (1982) which also had an in-film advert for them.
  • Goofs When Major shoots the geisha robot in the face, the robot's face is open, revealing its inner workings. The face then closes and, when next seen, the impact patterns from the bullets smoothly cross the seams of the closed face which they would not do if the face were shot when open.

Dr. Ouelet : We cling to memories as if they define us, but... they really don't. What we do is what defines us.

  • Crazy credits The title appears on screen twice. Once during the creation of the Major and again at the end of the opening credits.
  • Alternate versions Middle Eastern releases of the film have the Major's thermal optic camouflage suit recolored black.
  • Connections Featured in The Late Show Con Karim Musa: Sad Yotobi (2016)
  • Soundtracks Piano Concerto 20 Written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Arrangement by Sam Zeines

User reviews 1K

  • nandanchoudhury
  • Dec 17, 2017

Animated vs. Live Action Adaptations

Production art

  • How different is the 2017 film from the 1995 original?
  • Is The Major Japanese?
  • March 31, 2017 (United States)
  • United States
  • Official Facebook
  • Wellington, New Zealand (various locations)
  • Paramount Pictures
  • Dreamworks Pictures
  • Reliance Entertainment
  • See more company credits at IMDbPro
  • $110,000,000 (estimated)
  • $40,563,557
  • $18,676,033
  • Apr 2, 2017
  • $169,846,945

Technical specs

  • Runtime 1 hour 47 minutes
  • Dolby Atmos
  • Dolby Digital
  • 12-Track Digital Sound
  • IMAX 6-Track

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  • A Comprehensive Guide to the <i>Ghost in the Shell</i> Controversy

A Comprehensive Guide to the Ghost in the Shell Controversy

T he first live-action, English-language adaptation of the popular Japanese manga series Ghost in the Shell hits theaters this week. But even before the previews roll, feelings are mixed. Some fans’ anxiety stems from Hollywood’s splotchy track record with manga adaptations (see: Speed Racer , Dragonball Evolution ). But more notably, the movie has ignited the discussion about Hollywood’s continued whitewashing of Asian roles. In this case, fans have protested Scarlett Johansson’s casting as the character known in Masamune Shirow’s original manga series as Motoko Kusanagi.

Here’s a primer on the the franchise, the controversy surrounding its release and how it fits into larger conversations about cultural representation in Hollywood.

What is Ghost in the Shell and why are they remaking it?

Ghost in the Shell originated as a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Masamune Shirow beginning in 1989. It takes place in a fictional city in mid-21st century Japan and tells the story of a group of special operatives, Public Security Section 9, who fight terrorism, corruption and cybercrime. In this futuristic world, some people have cyberbrains, others have prosthetic bodies, and still others—like Motoko Kusanagi—have both. Having a cyberbrain has advantages (like connecting to various networks) and disadvantages (like the ability to be hacked). The “ghost” in the title refers to human consciousness, and the “shell” is the cybernetic body.

As for a modern retelling, the themes of the story—questions about what defines humanity as artificial intelligence grows increasingly prominent—continue to fascinate moviegoers (see: Ex Machina , Westworld , Black Mirror , Blade Runner 2049 ). The original movie adaptation, a Japanese animated film released in 1995, has a big following, including directors Lana and Lilly Wachowski, who the New York Times reports brought a copy along when they pitched The Matrix . And while the manga has spawned a second animated film, TV series and a handful of video games, it’s never been rendered as a live-action film.

When did the controversy begin?

Soon after Johansson’s casting was confirmed in January 2015, fans launched a petition for the role to be recast: “The original film is set in Japan, and the major cast members are Japanese. So why would the American remake star a white actress?” In April 2016, the first photo of Johansson in the movie (in which she is called simply “Major”) reignited anger about her casting.

The day after the photo was released, Screencrush published a report that Paramount and Dreamworks had tested out post-production visual effects that would have made Johansson appear more Asian in the film. Critics, led by celebrities like Constance Wu , pointed out not only did not correct, but arguably exacerbated, the central problem. Paramount responded to the report, saying that “A test was done related to a specific scene for a background actor which was ultimately discarded. Absolutely no visual effects tests were conducted on Scarlett’s character and we have no future plans to do so.”

How does the uproar fit into the broader conversation about whitewashing in Hollywood?

Though the issue has had increasing visibility in recent years thanks in part to outspoken celebrities and viral Twitter campaigns, the whitewashing of Asian roles has a very long history. In the 1930s, the Swedish-American actor Warner Oland played a Chinese detective named Charlie Chan in 16 films. In 1944, the shape of Katharine Hepburn’s eyes was altered with makeup when she played a Chinese character named Jade in Dragon Seed . In the 1950s, John Wayne played Genghis Khan and Marlon Brando played a Japanese interpreter. These are just a handful of entries on a long list.

The practice has continued, which brings us to more recent examples: Emma Stone as a half-Asian character in Cameron Crowe’s Aloha in 2015. Tilda Swinton’s role last year in Doctor Strange as the Ancient One, a character generally depicted in the comics as an Asian man. In some instances, it is not a case of an Asian role going to a white actor, but a bankable white movie star headlining a story that originates or takes place in Asia, like Matt Damon’s The Great Wall or Finn Jones in Marvel’s Iron Fist on Netflix. Though the representation of characters of Asian descent onscreen is minimized in different ways, each instance contributes, unwittingly or not, to a landscape in which the proportion of Asian characters in top-grossing films hovers at around 5%.

Has Ghost in the Shell made headlines since the initial backlash?

In May 2016, the website Nerds of Color launched a campaign called #WhiteWashedOut on social media. Many weighed in on the stereotypes perpetuated by Hollywood’s limited portrayals of characters of Asian descent and the importance of seeing people who look like yourself onscreen. This month, critics of the movie commandeered a meme generator released as part of its marketing campaign to make memes with statements like “I am part of the whitewashing pantheon” over photos of white actors who have played non-white characters.

How have people involved with the movie responded?

Last June, Ghost in the Shell producer Steven Paul defended the movie in an interview with Buzzfeed . “I think everybody is going to end up being really happy with it,” he said. “There [are] all sorts of people and nationalities in the world in Ghost in the Shell,” he said of the movie’s otherwise diverse cast. “I don’t think it was just a Japanese story. Ghost in the Shell was a very international story, and it wasn’t just focused on Japanese; it was supposed to be an entire world.”

Director Rupert Sanders recently told CNET that he stands by his casting of Johansson, who he calls “the best actress of my generation and her generation, and the person I felt most embodied the physicality and the ability to inhabit that role.” The director of the first Ghost in the Shell movie, Mamoru Oshii, agreed but for different reasons, telling IGN : “The Major is a cyborg and her physical form is an entirely assumed one. The name ‘Motoko Kusanagi’ and her current body are not her original name and body, so there is no basis for saying that an Asian actress must portray her.”

Johansson has also responded to questions about the controversy in recent interviews. In February, she told Marie Claire , “I certainly would never presume to play another race of a person. Diversity is important in Hollywood, and I would never want to feel like I was playing a character that was offensive.” This week, she appeared on Good Morning America and explained, “I think this character is living a very unique experience in that she has a human brain in an entirely machinate body. I would never attempt to play a person of a different race, obviously.”

How has Johansson’s casting been received in Japan?

The movie’s casting seems to have been less controversial there than it has in the U.S. Last April, The Hollywood Reporter interviewed members of the Japanese movie industry and Japanese fans of the original manga and animated adaptation. Many applauded Johansson as the right choice for the role based on her suitability for the movie’s cyberpunk vibe. Others expressed resignation that a white movie star seems to be a prerequisite for getting a Japanese property successfully distributed to an international audience. Some were disappointed, but not as much as with past instances of substituting one ethnic identity for another, as with the casting of Zhang Ziyi, a Chinese actress, as a Japanese character in the 2005 drama Memoirs of a Geisha .

What does all of this ultimately mean for both the movie and the future of whitewashing in Hollywood?

The controversy over Ghost in the Shell has dominated the conversation around the film for two years now and may figure into its critical reception. Negative reviews (as of two days before release, they are just on the positive side of mixed), have more potential to damage the film’s box office haul than protests. The whitewashing conversation hasn’t penetrated the mainstream enough to keep otherwise interested moviegoers at home, and in part because the studio can count on a strong international audience even if they do stay at home. (The last time Johansson fronted a major non-superhero action movie, in 2014’s Lucy , the film took in $126 million in the U.S. and $336 million abroad.)

As for its potential impact on the erasure of Asian roles in major Hollywood films, it’s unlikely that anything will change overnight. But the pressure to course-correct will continue—in fact, it already has. Netflix’s forthcoming manga adaptation Death Note has come under fire for casting a white actor, Nat Wolff, instead of sticking to the original story’s Japanese lead character. An online petition has more than 13,000 signatures. We haven’t seen the last of whitewashing in the movies, but—if nothing else—at least there’s a conversation.

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Ghost in the Shell

2017, Sci-fi/Action, 1h 47m

What to know

Critics Consensus

Ghost in the Shell boasts cool visuals and a compelling central performance from Scarlett Johansson, but the end result lacks the magic of the movie's classic source material. Read critic reviews

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Ghost in the shell videos, ghost in the shell   photos.

In the near future, Major is the first of her kind: a human who is cyber-enhanced to be a perfect soldier devoted to stopping the world's most dangerous criminals. When terrorism reaches a new level that includes the ability to hack into people's minds and control them, Major is uniquely qualified to stop it. As she prepares to face a new enemy, Major discovers that her life was stolen instead of saved. Now, she will stop at nothing to recover her past while punishing those who did this to her.

Rating: PG-13 (Some Disturbing Images|Intense Sci-Fi Violence|Suggestive Content)

Genre: Sci-fi, Action, Adventure

Original Language: English

Director: Rupert Sanders

Producer: Avi Arad , Ari Arad , Steven Paul , Michael Costigan

Writer: Jamie Moss , William Wheeler , Ehren Kruger

Release Date (Theaters): Mar 31, 2017  wide

Release Date (Streaming): Jul 7, 2018

Box Office (Gross USA): $40.5M

Runtime: 1h 47m

Distributor: Paramount Pictures

Production Co: Paramount Pictures, Reliance Entertainment, Crystal Sky Entertainment

Sound Mix: DTS, Dolby Digital, Dolby Atmos

Aspect Ratio: Flat (1.85:1)

Cast & Crew

Scarlett Johansson

Pilou Asbæk

Takeshi Kitano

Michael Pitt

Juliette Binoche

Danusia Samal

Peter Ferdinando

Kaori Momoi

Anamaria Marinca

Daniel Henshall

Lasarus Ratuere

Yutaka Izumihara

Tawanda Manyimo

Adwoa Aboah

Rupert Sanders

Screenwriter

William Wheeler

Ehren Kruger

Steven Paul

Michael Costigan

Jeffrey Silver

Executive Producer

Tetsu Fujimura

Yoshinobu Noma

Mitsuhisa Ishikawa

Cinematographer

Film Editing

Lorne Balfe

Original Music

Clint Mansell

Production Design

Kurt & Bart

Costume Design

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Critic Reviews for Ghost in the Shell

Audience reviews for ghost in the shell.

The real life version of the classic anime film can rely on a pretty neat production design and decent enough effects. The action works too, but it's getting rare at some point throughout the film. Instead it is trying to raise supposedly philosophical questions about identity and what makes us human. That's neither particularly new nor ground breaking. In the end that makes for a rather mediocre experience that can't entirely satisfy on any level.

the ghost in the shell scarlett

Scarlett Johansson stars in the sci-fi techno-thriller Ghost in the Shell. The story follows a cyborg named Major Mira who works for an elite police task force that's tracking a cyber terrorist, but the investigation takes a strange turn when Mira starts experiencing glitches and begins to question her memories. Unfortunately Johansson gives a rather lackluster performance, and the rest of the cast pretty weak. Also, the plot is convoluted and drops the audience into a strange dystopic future without taking the time to explain any of it. However, the film has an incredibly rich and stylistic visual aesthetic. The costume and set designs, along with the special effects, make for a remarkably interesting futuristic look. And the action scenes are dynamic and well-choreographed. Yet while it's entertaining and a marvel to look at, Ghost in the Shell is a mess of a film that's formulaic and full of stereotypical sci-fi tropes.

Not amazing but far from disappointing.

Rupert Sanders spends a lot of time on the visuals, both painstakingly recreating images from the '95 film and creating new ones . . . unfortunately everything else suffers, from the lackluster script to the lifeless performances this mostly seems like a missed opportunity.

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Review: In ‘Ghost in the Shell,’ a Cyborg With Soul

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the ghost in the shell scarlett

By Manohla Dargis

  • March 30, 2017

Like the greatest screen goddesses, Scarlett Johansson rises above it all. In the thrill-free science-fiction thriller “Ghost in the Shell,” her character comes at you in pieces, emerging first during the opening credits in the form of a metallic skeleton. It’s a good look — it evokes the original Terminator — but soon the skeleton is being dipped like a chip in whitish goo. This technological soup gives the metallic frame a humanoid cladding, making it more reassuringly and pleasantly familiar, from bosomy top to round bottom. It looks like a giant dream Barbie, hairless pubis and all.

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Enjoy these credits because they offer some of the more arresting, inventive images in this visually cluttered yet often disappointingly drab movie. A live-action version of a famed Japanese manga by Shirow Masamune, “Ghost in the Shell” is one of those future-shock stories that edges around the dystopian without going full-bore apocalyptic. To that end it is set in a possible future world that looks distant enough to seem exotic and familiar enough to seem plausible. The original manga takes place in what’s described as a “strange corporate conglomerate-state called ‘Japan,’” while this movie unwinds nowhere in particular, just a universal megalopolis filled with soaring gray towers.

Anyone who has seen Ridley Scott’s “Blade Runner” or that film’s innumerable 2.0 follow-ups (“Strange Days,” “The Fifth Element”) will recognize this “Ghost” cityscape, with its jumbled forms, neo-noir shadows, patina of art-directed decay and its conspicuous Asian-Hollywood fusion touches. Some of this tickles the eye, like the semi-translucent, pony-size koi fish that float through the air, seemingly just because they look cool. The koi don’t seem to be selling anything other than the movie’s production values and visual concept; elsewhere, enormous spectral human figures loom over buildings like embodied billboards, nicely evoking rampaging movie monsters of the past.

The most important leviathan, of course, is Ms. Johansson, whose mysterioso cyborg, Major, effortlessly slides right into this scene, with her preternaturally still face – often as blank as a mask – and the ports in the back of her neck that she uses to jack into cables and other characters. These artificial orifices are pleasingly mysterious and highly suggestive, at once creating a sense of human vulnerability and raising the possibility of the posthuman. Major occasionally stuffs goo in her ports and also uses them to plug into others. About the only part of her that’s human is her soul, or “ghost” in the story’s poetic parlance. The rest of Major is a bendable, mendable shell, which makes her well suited for hard-core tactical work with a police outfit known as Section 9.

Movie Review: ‘Ghost in the Shell’

The times critic manohla dargis reviews “ghost in the shell.".

“Ghost in the Shell” is the live action retelling of the beloved Japanese manga about a cyborg in a dystopian future. In her review Manohla Dargis writes: The film is visually cluttered and often disappointedly drab. The director Rupert Sanders likes a dark palette and is good with actors, but there’s little here that feels personal and he mostly functions as a blockbuster traffic cop, managing all the busily moving, conspicuously pricey parts. That’s too bad, especially because the original “Ghost in the Shell” is such a delightful philosophical plaything, with pleasures that simultaneously delight the eye and enchant the mind. This version, by contrast, ditches the original’s big questions, but keeps all the firing guns and car chases, the action clichés and intentionally genre stereotypes.

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As the title suggests, “Ghost in the Shell” is haunted, including by the original manga, its sequels and several excellent animated movies: the first, also titled “Ghost in the Shell,” and the entrancingly lovely “ Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence ,” both directed by Mamoru Oshii. The new “Ghost in the Shell” was directed by Rupert Sanders, who has made commercials and one other feature, “ Snow White and the Huntsman .” He likes a dark palette and is good with actors, but there’s little here that feels personal, and he mostly functions as a blockbuster traffic cop, managing all the busily moving, conspicuously pricey parts.

That’s too bad, especially because the original “Ghost in the Shell” is such a delightful philosophical plaything, with pleasures that simultaneously bewitch the eye and enchant the mind. This version, by contrast, ditches the original’s big, human, all-too-human questions, but keeps all the firing guns and car chases, the action clichés and intentional genre stereotypes. Stripped of its deeper-dish musings, the story turns into a perfectly watchable, somewhat bland action movie, tricked out with sharp details, some fine actors and one slumming legend, the director-actor Takeshi Kitano , who plays Aramaki, Major’s boss. He only speaks in Japanese; Major and almost everyone else speak in English.

The characters understand one another, presumably because they’re beyond mere language and, in any event, they sometimes communicate telepathically. At first, the fact that they can speak to one another comes across as an inventive flourish, but like so much in “Ghost in the Shell” — the toddling geishas, the Asian extras — it helps to reduce an entire culture to a decorative detail. The movie has been widely criticized for casting Ms. Johansson in a role that was, of course, originally Japanese, a decision that isn’t offset by an absurd narrative twist that seems to have been created to forestall criticism but will only provoke further ire. This isn’t just appropriation; it’s obliteration.

Ghost in the Shell Rated PG-13 for genre violence. Running time: 2 hours.

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Whitewash? Scarlett Johansson in Ghost in the Shell (right) and her character in the original anime movie.

Ghost in the Shell’s whitewashing: does Hollywood have an Asian problem?

From Scarlett Johansson’s heroine in the remake of the anime classic to Tilda Swinton as a Himalayan high priest in Doctor Strange, the film industry stands accused of whitewashing Asian characters and culture. Does it have a defence?

A s social-media marketing strategies go, Ghost in the Shell’s promotional site was a bit of an own goal. Visitors were invited to create their own personalised tweet of empowerment by uploading an image and writing a slogan starting with the words “I Am …” Suggestions included “Strong”, “A Fighter”, and “Whoever I Want To Be”.

The fans had other ideas. Ghost in the Shell is a live-action Hollywood remake of one of the most successful Japanese anime movies ever . The decision to cast Scarlett Johansson as its cyborg heroine, originally named Motoko Kusanagi, has not gone down well. This was “whitewashing”, the fans complained . The role should have gone to a Japanese actor. To date, more than 100,000 of them have signed a petition saying so. They also made a mockery of the Ghost in the Shell promo site. Examples include an image of Johansson with the slogan “I Am Totally a Japanese, Yeah”, Japanese actor Rinko Kikuchi with “I Am The Woman That Should Have Been Cast” and, over an image of kids painting a picket fence white: “I Am Hollywood Making Any Movie Ever.”

Hollywood has only just finished congratulating itself on its progress over African-American diversity, after Moonlight’s Oscar win put all that #OscarSoWhite unpleasantness in the past. Does the industry still have an Asian problem? Ghost In The Shell is just the latest iteration of a story that has been replaying with increasing regularity and visibility recently.

Offending the Arab world in the past few years, we have had ancient Egypt-themed epics Exodus: Of Gods and Kings and Gods of Egypt , neither of which contained Egyptians. Before that, there was Jake Gyllenhaal’s blue-eyed, Swedish-surnamed Prince of Persia , Rooney Mara’s non-Native American Tiger Lily in the reimagined Pan , and Benedict Cumberbatch as Star Trek’s “Indian” adversary, Khan.

But east Asians have particular reason to feel aggrieved, having seen their culture regularly plundered, appropriated, stereotyped and ethnically cleansed. Ghost in the Shell comes in the wake of Emma Stone playing Chinese-Hawaiian “Allison Ng” in Cameron Crowe’s Aloha , Matt Damon at the heart of Chinese epic The Great Wall , and white-dominated Hollywood versions of Asian stories such as The Last Airbender and Dragon Ball Evolution .

Ghost in the Shell arrives into a pop-culture conversation still ringing with previous whitewashing outcry: Marvel’s Doctor Strange. This time, the problem was The Ancient One , the superhero’s mystical mentor. In the original comics, the Ancient One was a Himalayan high priest, with long, white facial hair, a bald head and a penchant for Buddhist aphorisms. In the movie, the role went to Tilda Swinton, who, for all her versatility, is possibly the whitest actor out there.

Avoiding stereotypes? Tilda Swinton as The Ancient One with Chiwetel Ejiofor in Doctor Strange.

“There’s a frustrated population of Asian Americans who feel the role should have gone to a person of Asian descent,” wrote actor Margaret Cho to Swinton in an email exchange she later made public . “Our stories are told by white actors over and over again, and we feel at a loss to know how to cope with it.”

Swinton replied that Dr Strange’s writers were seeking to avoid the tired Orientalist stereotype of the “wise old Eastern geezer” or “Fu Manchu type”. “Wanting to switch up the gender (another diversity department) and not wanting to engage with the old Dragon Lady trope , they chose to write the character as being of (ancient) Celtic origin and offered that role to me,” she wrote, adding that Chiwetel Ejiofor and Benedict Wong were also in the movie. In other words, it was whitewashing in the name of diversity.

“Erasure is not the answer to stereotypes,” says Keith Chow, editor of The Nerds of Color blog , which views pop culture through a non-white lens. “When the excuse is, ‘We were trying to not offend you’, well, denying my existence I find more offensive! It’s basically saying we can’t exist as anything other than stereotypes.”

Chow makes the point that the Ancient One turned out to be pretty much the most interesting character in Doctor Strange – likely as a result of Swinton’s casting. “If Tilda Swinton had read the part and it was like in the comics, she would not have taken the role. So what they did, by changing the character to fit Swinton, they made that character more complex.” Had the character been played by an Asian actor, it would have been just as complex, Chow suggests.

Part of the problem with comic-book characters in particular is that they were created decades ago, at a time when their American creators had little awareness of the stereotypes they were peddling. Just as Doctor Strange found enlightenment in the Himalayas, so Tony Stark became Iron Man in Vietnam in the original comics (transposed to the Middle East for the movie). During the 1980s, comics writer and recovering Orientalist Frank Miller sent Batman, Wolverine and Daredevil to Japan for various forms of ninja/samurai/martial arts training as he refashioned their backstories.

Those stereotypes have needed some retooling for the modern movie era. Marvel’s movie midas Kevin Feige admitted there were “things to cringe at” in the old comics but claimed: “For us, it’s important that we don’t feel like a completely white-European cast.” It’s also important that they don’t annoy the lucrative Chinese market, which means it’s often the Asian characters who lose out. Just as the Ancient One became the Celtic One, so Iron Man’s adversary The Mandarin – another Fu Manchu stereotype – was recast as Ben Kingsley, from Croydon, and Batman’s quasi-Arabian adversary Ra’s al Ghul became Liam Neeson.

There has been some reverse-whitewashing, too, to be fair: Samuel L Jackson as Nick Fury in The Avengers movies and Will Smith as Deadshot in Suicide Squad, for example. Chinese-American actors Chloe Bennet (nee Chloe Wang) appeared in the TV series Agents of SHIELD, and French-Cambodian Elodie Yung played Elektra (who was originally Greek) in Daredevil. All of these characters were originally written as white.

Like a barefoot gap-year student … Finn Jones as Danny Rand in Iron Fist.

Just when they were doing so well, though, Marvel went and spoilt it all, with their new Netflix series Iron Fist , which debuted earlier this month. This was another one of those 1970s comic-book titles riddled with Asian cliches, many of which have been left in place. Its hero is Danny Rand, a white American kid whose plane crashed in the Himalayas, killing his billionaire parents and leaving him to be raised by a bunch of mystical “wise old geezers”. In the new series, the grownup Rand returns to New York to reclaim his birthright, looking like a barefoot gap-year student but possessing awesome kung-fu powers.

The series has received mixed reviews, partly for its slow-moving story and lacklustre martial arts, partly because it centres on an entitled rich, white kid, and partly for rehashing some familiar tropes. One that Asian-Americans are particularly weary of is the “white guy who’s better at being Asian than actual Asians”. They’ve put up with it since the Kung Fu TV series in the 1970s (which Bruce Lee developed for himself, only to see David Carradine cast in the role), through the likes of Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai and Uma Thurman in Kill Bill. Now they have Danny Rand, played by British actor Finn Jones, speaking fluent Mandarin and throwing his Japanese-American sparring partner to the mat and telling her things such as: “Your chi can be focused and brought into the fight to overcome any obstacle.” Jones’s attempts to defend the show on Twitter only deepened the row, to the extent he had to delete his account .

Many critics suggested it would have been better to cast an Asian-American actor as Danny Rand. One of the character’s core tenets is that he felt like an outsider in Asia and he feels like one in New York, too. “You don’t have to be white to feel that way,” says Chow. A lot of non-white Americans know exactly how that feels, especially in light of the Trump administration’s Muslim-targeted travel ban and xenophobic sentiments. It wasn’t all that long ago that Japanese people were being put in American internment camps on the basis of their appearance, Chow points out. Pop culture, perhaps unwittingly, transmits and reinforces these prejudices. “I’d challenge the notion that Americanness equals whiteness. As someone who was born and raised in America, who has roots in America for generations, this idea that I’m not as American as someone else, not as American as a British actor, even – it’s an interesting dynamic, right?”

Keanu Reeves and Hugo Weaving in The Matrix Reloaded.

One person who didn’t have a problem with Ghost in the Shell’s casting, ironically, was Mamoru Oshii, director of the original anime. In fact, he thought Johansson was perfect casting. He pointed out that the character was a cyborg, after all: “Her physical form is an entirely assumed one. The name Motoko Kusanagi and her current body are not her original name and body, so there is no basis for saying that an Asian actor must portray her.” From a Japanese perspective, in a culture abundant in its own stories and characters, Ghost in the Shell is a flattering novelty.

In the source material, Ghost in the Shell’s heroine is not particularly Japanese-looking, it must be said. Her hair is black or purple, her eyes are round and their colour ranges from blue to orange. Japanese anime has never cared much for racial specifics. Characters can easily have blond hair and blue eyes, but that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily “white” or non-Japanese. Furthermore, the location of Oshii’s anime is actually a future version of Hong Kong, not Japan – reportedly influenced by Blade Runner. The new film honours that. The setting is identifiably Asian, though Johansson is surrounded by a multicultural cast that includes few Asian faces, apart from Singaporean actor Chin Han and Japanese legend Takeshi Kitano – who, bizarrely, speaks his dialogue in Japanese while nobody else does. Equally bizarrely, Johansson’s character turns out to be Japanese after all – even though she can’t speak the language.

In a way, the new Ghost in the Shell comes a little late into this conversation, seeing as it was already remade, and “whitewashed”, by Hollywood nearly 20 years ago. They cast Keanu Reeves in it and called it The Matrix . When the Wachowskis were originally pitching their movie around Hollywood, they played producers the Ghost in the Shell anime and told them: “We wanna do that for real.” They pretty much did. The Matrix borrowed a great deal from Oshii’s anime – its grand, human-machine themes, its action sequences, even little details such as sockets in the backs of people’s necks. The difference is, The Matrix combined these elements with many others: Hong Kong wire-fu techniques, then-novel “bullet time” special effects, a wardrobe department of wipe-clean fetish gear, and a grand mythology that owed little to Asia specifically. It’s the difference between Hollywood remaking Seven Samurai as a western and remaking it with a bunch of white guys pretending to be samurai.

It’s fitting that Ghost in the Shell is a story about attachment to identity. In Oshii’s original, the cyborg heroine lets go of her human identity altogether and embraces a post-human future. The Hollywood version isn’t prepared to go that far; it’s more interested in its heroine’s original humanity. Perhaps that’s our dilemma here too: whether to honour the origins of stories or cut them loose and do what we wish with them?

Hollywood and east Asia have at least been finding common ground, often with sci-fi. Look at movies such as Pacific Rim, with a multinational team including Idris Elba, Charlie Hunnam and Rinko Kikuchi (the fans’ choice for Ghost in the Shell) saving Earth from monsters they call “kaiju” – the Japanese word. The forthcoming sequel also brings on Chinese star Jing Tian. Admittedly, Pacific Rim borrows heavily from Japanese sources, Neon Genesis Evangelion in particular, but it’s not a straight rip-off. Meanwhile, the original kaiju, Godzilla, has been crossing the Pacific between Hollywood and Japanese cinema for 70 years. Another clash with King Kong is on the cards for 2018. Disney’s Big Hero 6 successfully fused cultures with its trans-Pacific setting of “San Fransokyo” and its east-west animation style. Its heroes even had Japanese names. And all eyes are on Netflix’s Okja , directed by Korea’s Bong Joon-ho, and starring Steven Yeun, Jake Gyllenhaal and the Ancient One herself, Tilda Swinton.

Whether or not integration and inclusiveness will prevail over simple appropriation, protests against movies such as Ghost in the Shell are making film-makers and performers think twice about what they do, and whether they want to spend every interview tackling questions about whitewashing, appropriation and stereotyping, as actors such as Johansson, Swinton and Finn Jones have. It doesn’t look as if it will stop any time soon, though. Last week, Netflix aired its first trailer for Death Note , another popular Japanese manga that has been entirely transposed to the US. Its hero is played by the American actor Nat Wolff. At the time of writing, the online “Boycott Netflix’s Death Note for Whitewashing!” petition is up to 14,000 signatures.

  • This story was amended on 31 March 2017 to correct the spelling of actor Jing Tian’s name.
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Secrets of 'Ghost in the Shell' special effects

Scarlett Johansson's new film blurs the line between humanity and technology. The effects are a dazzling combination of live-action and cutting-edge CGI.

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" Ghost in the Shell " is one of the year's most visually stunning films.

Scarlett Johansson stars as a cybernetic cop whose human brain and robotic body blur the line between humanity and technology. The film similarly blurs the line between live action movie-making and cutting-edge computer effects.

Director Rupert Sanders oversaw the effects with VFX Supervisor Guillaume Rocheron and effects pioneer John Dykstra . They drew on the original manga and 1995 anime "Ghost in the Shell" and built their own contemporary vision of the story's futuristic setting.

Critics haven't warmed to the film. But they agree the dazzling visuals are a real highlight. Click through the gallery to see behind the scenes of the effects extravaganza.

Before plate of Scarlett Johansson as the Major on the set of Ghost in the Shell from Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Pictures.

Scarlett Johansson stars in \"Ghost in the Shell\", a dizzying and visually stunning blend of live action with cutting edge computer generated effects.

The film blends real actors and practical effects with vast CG environments, including the futuristic setting of New Port city.

Johansson stalks the teeming streets of New Port City, with CG holograms and effects added in post-production to the live action shots.

'Ghost in the Shell' special effects gallery

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A water-filled courtyard fight scene and the climactic Spider Tank sequence familiar to fans of the anime were recreated with complex layers of digital character animation, computer-generated environments and simulated explosions, gunfire damage and destruction. All of this was added to green-screened live-action footage.

Recreating the courtyard sequence in all its water-y glory meant building a completely computer-generated environment blended with real stunt footage. The scene was further complicated by adding the invisibility effect of the "thermoptic camouflage" suit worn by Johansson's character.

Scarlett Johansson filming a live-action fight scene in front of a giant green screen to which a futuristic cityscape was added in post-production.

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Effects house MPC, which won this year's visual effects Oscar for its work on "The Jungle Book" , provided more than 1,000 shots for "Ghost in the Shell". Staff in Montreal, London and Bangalore developed new shooting techniques and software tools along the way.

Among the shots created by MPC are elements of the spine-tingling shelling sequence that shows the creation of the cyborg Major. Drawing on the animated film's iconic title sequence, MPC created a digital version of the Major's skeleton and musculature as well as the different types of fluid in which the body floats.

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MPC was also involved in conjuring the movie's futuristic city. The visual effects team created a library of futuristic buildings and highways teeming with simulated crowds and vehicles. Among the towering skyscrapers are giant advertising holograms, dubbed 'Solograms'. MPC made some 372 Solograms and other holograms to fill the city.

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To create these holograms -- or photoreal volumetric displays, to give them their proper name -- the filmmakers shot actors with a custom-made rig of some 80 high-definition cameras, each running at 24 frames per second. MPC then developed new software and tools to reconstruct, process and manipulate the huge amount of 3D data generated.

A special camera rig was also used for a scene in which the Major's virtual self explores a rival robot's memory. More than 125 DSLRs captured the actors frozen mid-movement so they could be recreated digitally.

"Ghost in the Shell" is in theatres now.

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Rupert Sanders Defends Casting Scarlett Johansson in "Global" Ghost in the Shell

Published on 11/13/2016 at 5:01 PM

the ghost in the shell scarlett

Sunday night in Toyko, Ghost in the Shell director Rupert Sanders faced questions about the charges of Hollywood whitewashing the movie has sparked. Scarlett Johansson, rather than a Japanese actress, takes on the lead role in the new version of the Japanese classic. At a party to debut the Ghost in the Shell trailer , he defended his approach to remaking the iconic anime as an international retelling with a global cast.

On Why He Chose Johansson For the Role of Major

"I think whenever you cast someone, someone's going to be critical about it. To me . . . I stand by my decision," Sanders said during a Q&A on stage, which followed the debut of the footage. "She's the best actress of her generation, and I was flattered and honored that she would be in this film. And I think so many of the people around the original anime have been vehemently in support of her because she's incredible, and there are very few like her."

On How He Expects Those Wary of the Casting Will React to the Film

Despite the answer Sanders gave on stage, the director faced even more questions about the reasoning behind his decision — and what efforts he took to achieve the global cast he spoke of — in a huddle with journalists later that night. When asked what it was like to wait to show footage from the movie amid such controversy, he said it was "quite seductive" and seemed assured that he can change the minds of those who are suspect of his approach with the movie itself.

"We knew this time would come, and I think we're quite proud of what we've done and how we've done it. So it wasn't like, 'We've got to get it out there and we're not going to take any more flak.' It's like, it'll come out when it's ready," he said. "Even when we started putting out the little 10-second teasers . . . we started to see when that stuff came out, people were like, ah, maybe there's something in this. And I hope that we see this week, what do people think of it? And how to grow and how to find its place in the zeitgeist."

On Why He Says Casting Johansson Allowed For a More Diverse Cast Overall

Sanders repeatedly praised Johansson's performance throughout the evening but also seemed to suggest that casting her was also a practical decision; one that allowed him to fill the rest of the big-budget film with global stars including Japanese megastar Takeshi Kitano and French actress Juliette Binoche.

"It's a very international cast, and the beauty of casting [Johansson] was that I kind of didn't have to cast big-name actors around her," he told reporters. "I could cast people like Juliette Binoche and Kaori Mamoi and Takeshi Kitano. You know, that's unusual for a Hollywood film. Usually you need your star and then you need 10 people who can go on the chat shows; [go] beneath them on the poster. But we didn't have that. It was great to be given the freedom to cast the film how you want."

Fans and critics will be able to decide the matter for themselves when Ghost in the Shell hits theaters in March of 2017.

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What Went Wrong With Ghost in the Shell ?

By Janelle Okwodu

Scarlett Johansson stars in 2017's troubled 'Ghost In The Shell'

It’s hard not to root for Scarlett Johansson . As one of the most reliable action heroines in recent memory, she’s fought her way through blockbusters like The Avengers and Lucy, carving out a niche as Hollywood’s resident female badass. All of which makes her latest flick, Ghost in the Shell , seem like an understandably compelling idea on paper—but the film has drawn criticism on everything from its race-bending casting to its treatment of the source material. Currently receiving a tongue-lashing from critics and on pace to perhaps lose the weekend to the animated Alec Baldwin toddler comedy, The Boss Baby, it's clear something went wrong along the way. Here, a primer on how a promising project lost the plot.

The stolen identity trope has lost its appeal.

With the story centered on Scarlett Johansson’s Major Mira Killian attempting to piece together the events of her past, the film diverges from its source material in an attempt at originality. The move to differentiate Johansson’s character with a new backstory would be admirable, if that backstory actually felt new . As it stands, *RoboCop’*s police officer turned into invincible cyborg has a plot that’s remarkably similar, right down to the heartless corporation pulling the strings—and anyone who has seen an entry in the Jason Bourne franchise could predict what happens when amnesia and defense training combine. Taking the conceit readily associated with male protagonists and reimagining it with a female lead might seem groundbreaking—if it weren’t for Geena Davis doing the same thing about two decades earlier in (the very excellent) film The Long Kiss Goodnight.

The special effects don’t feel that special.

Much of the praise directed to Ghost in the Shell has been focused on its sleek look and seamless visual effects. While few could argue with the beauty of the work done by Moving Picture Company, the majority of the eye-catching moments are culled directly from Mamoru Oshii’s 1995 adaptation. This is not an egregious case: Hollywood films often borrow from anime, lifting scenes and reinterpreting them to suit the new material. The Wachowskis drew inspiration from the original Ghost in the Shell for many of the visuals we now associate with the The Matrix, while Christopher Nolan’s Inception dreamscapes borrowed heavily from Satoshi Kon’s equally trippy film Paprika . In both those instances, enough of a difference existed to justify each project’s existence, but in GITS we're offered reduction, rather than innovation. Sure, the sight of the Major leaping from a building and fading into the city sky as she turns on her thermoptic suit is cool—but we’ve seen it before.

The whitewashing controversy.

The moment Scarlett Johansson’s casting was announced, complaints arose regarding the choice to use a Caucasian actress to play a Japanese character. Though the filmmakers balked at accusations of “whitewashing,” the Asian erasure isn’t just an online concern: It’s a plot point. With Johansson’s version of the Major (an Asian woman whose brain has been placed into a white body) the story seems especially tone-deaf. Though the film features Asian actors like Japanese cinema icon Takeshi Kitano and acclaimed Singaporean star Chin Han in supporting roles, it doesn’t counteract the use of the blonde, blue-eyed Johansson in a part that could have easily gone to well-known Japanese performers like Rinko Kikuchi, or rising stars like Tao Okamoto or Sonoya Mizuno.

The film’s director, Rupert Sanders, has pointed to Johansson’s international popularity as the reason behind her casting. But his justification highlights the catch-22 that performers of color face: If roles are chosen based on box office, and Asian actresses are rarely if ever given a chance to prove their bankability, where does progress come in? (Also, have we learned nothing from the success of Hidden Figures ?)

The deeper meaning of the manga got lost along the way.

Ultimately, Ghost in the Shell isn’t supposed to be about one woman’s search for her past. In the manga, and corresponding animated films, the hero’s journey is only one part of the tale. The Major, while important, is a gateway into an entire world, one where people have become indistinguishable from the technology they’ve created. The scope extends beyond simple sci-fi, and the answers—when they come— only lead to more questions. With existential speeches happening nearly as often as shootouts, and psychobabble mixed in with talk of hacking the metaphysical and mechanical, it makes for a story that is bold and challenging and scarily relevant to our lives today .

None of that translates into the live-action version; challenges are replaced by neat conclusions, and existential dialogue has been ditched for platitudes about memory. All the elements of the original that were interesting have been watered down, presumably to attract viewers unfamiliar with the franchise, but in disservice to the story. It’s a Hollywood lesson in settling for less, and ironically, one that it seems audiences are refusing to settle for.

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Screen Rant

Ghost in the shell tries to own its whitewashing... and fails.

The Ghost in the Shell remake tackles the whitewashing controversy head on, but fails to justify Scarlett Johansson's casting.

[Spoilers for  Ghost in the Shell (2017)]

Ghost in the Shell ’s journey to the big screen has been dominated by accusations of whitewashing. Rupert Sanders’ live-action adaptation of the classic manga (which is also an in-part remake of the 1995 animation) was always going to be contentious for its inevitable westernization of a wholly Japanese story, but when Scarlett Johansson was cast as the series’ central icon, Major, the project seemed marked. Especially as - and this will be incredibly important later - Paramount reportedly considered trying to make her more Asian with CGI. Now, viewers are seeing that the film studio attempted to address the whitewashing controversy with an in-fiction "twist" - one that takes a drastic turn from the original movie and, frankly, is a rough sell in the live-action reboot.

From a marketing perspective, Johansson was a strong choice for the reboot - between a recurring Avengers role and other smart career choices, she’s become one of the most successful actresses ever – but creatively it was a tough pill to swallow; not only does it see a distinct character bluntly made white, it also deprives an Asian actress the opportunity to head up a major franchise. Naturally, those involved have been quick to defend the decision, with Johansson  touting the importance of having female action leads , while original director Mamoru Oshii has stated there was no original ethnicity to override (which is odd, but we'll get to that). While they’re somewhat fair points, it felt like they’re fighting a losing battle. Now the film’s here, they’ve resolutely lost.

You see, Sanders’ way of addressing the whitewashing is to steer into the skid, and he fails spectacularly. Ghost in the Shell takes a lot of its ideas from the original – the ethics of cybernetic enhancement, the importance of a person's actions on their character – but the overriding theme is a desperate attempt to justify its casting that’s so tone deaf it tanks the film regardless of any other merits. Whitewashed casting is integral to the plot, and the result is something more interchangeably ill-advised and gobsmacking than Finn Jones’ entire Iron Fist press tour and Transformers: Age of Extinction ’s Romeo and Juliet clause combined.

Kusanagi Is Major’s Previous Identity

Ghost in the Shell - Scarlett Johansson wakes up

Whereas the original Ghost in the Shell was all about Major’s future and her transcendence to a higher plane of being, the remake is heavily focused on her past: where does the ghost (her soul) in the robotic shell come from? The answer is far too meta-textual for comfort.

The opening scene depicts Major’s original body (crucially with her face obscured) having its brain removed and put into the robotic confines of Scarlett Johansson - where she now goes by Mira Killian. Through the involvement of Kuze (Michael Pitt’s terrorist attacking Hanka Robotics, the company that created Major) she begins to learn the given story of her creation – that she was saved from the terrorist attack that killed her immigrating parents – is a lie. Eventually Major learns that she (as well as Kuze and 97 others) was a runaway whom the nefarious Hanka (specifically snarling villain Cutter) used as the basis for their synthetic bodies. The disturbing part, though, is that her previous self was a Japanese woman who went by the character’s original name, Makato Kusanagi.

That’s right - Major’s very character is a physical representation of whitewashing. It’s troubling (and unnecessary), but what really hammers home the insensitivity is the conclusion - it's something along the lines of "oh well, she’s alive and that’s what matters, let’s just keep hunting bad guys and Scar-Jo can visit her brain’s mother every now and then in a race relation olive branch." It’s a faux happy ending that would be awkward without the racial element and is offensive with.

Now there’s nothing inherently wrong with doing this sort of race switch. That’s not to say it’s the optimal route for Ghost in the Shell to take, but there’s a way to make it work. The future Japan of the film is one dominated by multiculturalism; the streets are full of different ethnicities and, honing in on the story, Major is far from the only whitewashed character - Batou is played by Game of Thrones ’ Pilou Asbæk, Kuze by Michael Pitt and Section 9 overall a grab-bag of different nationalities. Immigration in particular hangs in the air, most prominently in Major’s false backstory. You even have a solid real-world link in how Japan has an entire sub-culture built around people trying to make themselves more Caucasian. If you’re looking for something to explore in a movie that is, lest we forget, about the rise of cybernetic enhancements and the question of whether that makes you un-human, the gradual disintegration of race is a perfect topic. It even befits the expansion of the original, which in its opening establishment text cites "The advance of computerization, however, has not yet wiped out nations and ethnic groups" That clearly implies Major does have a nationality (sorry, Oshii), but means that a remake could have gone the while hog and presented a furthered world where race and nation are on the brink of being overridden.

But Ghost in the Shell either skirts over these elements (the western casting is purely for marketing purposes) or refuses to address them (there’s no proper commentary on how augmentation will change society). In fact, while the literal whitewashing dominates the narrative, in the final act especially, it never feels like it’s a theme Sanders wants to explore. Every time the movie wants to appear smart by raising a philosophical talking point, instead of letting the story lead the audience there naturally, it has characters explicitly spell it out: “Major, you’re the first of your kind, that must weigh heavy on you.”; “She poses big questions about humanity, like these I'm about to list.”; Batman Begins’ “it’s what you do that defines you” is trotted out ad nausea.

In the context of this movie, the whitewashing is strange exactly because its meaning isn’t painfully overstated. It just happens, almost like it was something a producer dictated needed to be in but the film didn’t have the grounding to include. This is perhaps best seen in how obliviously the film presents the conflict.

Whitewashers Are The Movie’s Bad Guys

Ghost in the Shell Kuze and Major

The danger of a movie providing commentary on itself is that it needs to be wholly aware of what exactly it is. In last year’s X-Men: Apocalypse , Bryan Singer had Jean Grey walk out of Return of the Jedi and quip “the third movie’s always the worst” in a paper-thin jab at how reviled Brett Ratner’s The Last Stand is, totally missing that his film was also the third in its own prequel series (and wound up being almost as bad as X-Men 3 ). It was a laughable lack of self-awareness, but in terms of criticism is more an emblematic issue than something ingrained - in that case it didn’t dominate the entire film. The third act of Ghost in the Shell  is essentially that joke’s obliviousness screamed from the top of Sanders' lungs.

In a parallel twist the original anime, it’s revealed that the instigating terrorist threat is in fact simply a tortured, misunderstood product of extreme experimentation (in 1995 a rogue digital sentience, in 2017 a precursor to the Major) and the true villains are the ones who created him. These bad guys' evil scheme is that they've been taking Japanese people and putting them in Caucasian looking bodies, meaning they're essentially whitewashers; the villains of Ghost in the Shell are avatars for the filmmakers. This is latent subtext that seems to have completely gone over the heads of everybody involved because there’s no attempt to develop it further. We glimpse a smidgen of regret in the enacting scientists, but that seems more to give Juliette Binoche a redemptive arc than it is make a statement.

Just imagine a big, serious tentpole movie that willingly positioned itself as the antagonistic force and used the restrictions placed on it as a way to present the future. You make the villains metaphorically some part of Hollywood, and through their defeat show how you would like things to be in an idealized future. It’s the sort of trick we’ve seen done wonderfully in the like of The Lego Movie  (a toy-based film all about the power of imagination and how bad conglomerates are), but without an overtly comedic shield it could be something genuinely conversation-changing. How does Ghost in the Shell do it? They kill the baddies and go back to normal; if the film was trying to make a point with this – and, again, it doesn’t seem to operating on a high enough level to be doing that – then its moral is that we should get rid of the really, really bad eggs and just accept things the way they are. Talk about dystopia.

Going deep into the movie's development, however, reveals something more disturbing. Following the first image of Johansson in the role was released, the aforementioned story of CGI alteration broke . It was later refuted by the studio, with Paramount saying, " A test was done related to a specific scene for a background actor which was ultimately discarded. Absolutely no visual effects tests were conducted on Scarlett’s character and we have no future plans to do so. " So, even in this toned down version of the story, this - while rejected swiftly (duh) - was considered. The specifics are vague, but does it sound like the optimal creative choice for a movie trying to explore race transference to explicitly lather that on CGI yellowface? Or does it speak of a production unsure of how the play its troubled hand and desperately trying to find the best way out of controversy?

Ghost in the Shell poster with Scarlett Johansson (cropped)

As an actual movie, Ghost in the Shell is really rather unremarkable. It's not a quote-unquote disaster, just wholly uninspired; the pretty visuals are usually ripped from the original anime (and its precursor, Blade Runner ) with the only really inspiring action set-pieces those "storyboarded" in the manga, and while Scarlett Johansson makes a pretty good questioning robot (especially in the way she subtly controls her eye movement) she's ultimately lumbered with an iffy story. It's in this whitewashing element (and the wider flubbing of any thematic depth) where it becomes truly crass and unrecommendable.

If there’s one moral we can take from this it’s that whitewashing isn’t going anywhere, in part because those in a position to change things aren’t making the steps. We’re not in the days of racially insensitive casting like John Wayne as Genghis Kahn or Mickey Rooney as Mr. Yunioshi, but as the all too regularly debates of a character going from one ethnicity to Caucasian spark online (or, conversely, opportunities where non-white casting would be a strong move aren’t taken ) it's clearly still a major issue. To expect Rupert Sanders and co. to directly fix it may have been a bit much, but they seem to think a token half-baked narrative justification absolves them of blame.

A Scarlett Johansson-led Ghost in the Shell was always going to have racial recasting issues thrown against it, but had the film itself pled the fifth then it could have at the very least hidden behind the inevitable assumption it was the product of marketing demands. Instead it tries desperately to justify its decision without fully considering what it’s saying. If it was at least a remotely smart movie there may be a trace of realization it’s on the wrong side, but this is really just the oppressor proclaimed the oppressed's problems over because, hey, things are alright for us now, aren't they?

Next:  Ghost in the Shell Review

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Scarlett Johansson Signs On to Star in DreamWorks’ ‘Ghost in the Shell’ (EXCLUSIVE)

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Scarlett Johansson

Following the success of “Lucy,” Scarlett Johansson looks ready to take on another action pic, this one coming from the world of Japanese anime.

Johansson is set to star in DreamWorks’ adaptation of the popular anime pic “ Ghost in the Shell .” Deadline Hollywood had reported that the actress had the offer to star but at the time she was still undecided about taking the role. Sources now say she has agreed to star in the pic.

The story follows the exploits of a member of a covert ops unit of the Japanese National Public Safety Commission that specializes in fighting technology-related crime.

Rupert Sanders is on board to direct. Avi Arad and Steven Paul are producing the film from a script by Bill Wheeler. Mark Sourian is exec producing.

Insiders also tell Variety that Paramount has the option to come on as co-producer and financier and that decision is expected in the coming weeks.

DreamWorks principal Steven Spielberg is a huge fan of the original and has long wanted to get this film off the ground. A commitment from a star like Johansson should help in getting the pic greenlit for production.

Besides Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Lawrence, Johansson is becoming one of the few actresses in town with the clout to get a project greenlit on her name alone.

“Lucy” made $394 million worldwide and Johansson can be seen next in “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” bowing in May. Johansson has also done a nice job of balancing action-heavy tentpoles with serious dramas and comedies.

She received rave reviews for Spike Jonze’s “Her” and is a part of the ensemble of the Coen brothers’ next pic “Hail, Caesar!” She is repped by CAA and LBI Entertainment.

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The 15 Most-Anticipated Action Films We Can't Wait To See In 2024

By Eric Frederiksen on February 23, 2024 at 6:20AM PST

The 15 Most-Anticipated Action Films We Can't Wait To See In 2024

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Did you know that there's only one Marvel Studios film releasing in 2024? Next year is starting to stack up, but this year, Deadpool is holding the MCU up all on his own. That means that the rest of the movie world--from kaiju heroes to bouncers--have to keep our blood pumping.

This year's slate of currently announced action movies include a few sequels to major franchises, a couple of remakes of 1980s properties, and spin-offs that we hope manage to live up to the legacies of their predecessors. Don't worry, though, there's a few originals in there, too. We'll get more explosive, epic action from Godzilla x Kong, a fresh infusion of vengeance in Monkey Man, and some action-comedy from Ryan Gosling's The Fall Guy.

Once you're caught up on this year's list of upcoming action films, make sure to check out our list of exciting upcoming horror films , as well as our overall list of 2024 films we can't wait to see .

1. Road House

1. Road House

Director: Doug Liman

Release Date: March 21, 2024

The original Road House imagined a world where nightclub bouncers were legends who would be hired by troubled establishments to clean them up and turn them into reputable joints. Patrick Swayze starred as Dalton, a philosopher and fighter who quite literally rips a guy's throat out in one of the movie's fight scenes. The new Road House ( trailer ) comes to life this spring with Jake Gyllenhaal as the itinerant monk and former MMA champ, called to clean up an incredibly divey-looking bar in the Florida Keys (moving south from the Missouri location of the original). Alongside Gyllenhaal, the movie stars Daniela Melchior and MMA fighter Conor McGregor. The original movie is beloved by moms everywhere for the dual stars of Swayze and Sam Elliott. With its cult-classic status, it feels like a weird one to remake, but the trailer suggests fun fights. If Conor McGregor's MMA charisma can translate to the screen, he could be a fun villain.

2. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire

2. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire

Director: Adam Wingard

Release Date: March 29, 2024

After the showdown between Godzilla, King Kong, and Mechagodzilla in the last film, the two titular titans will face an even bigger threat in Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire ( trailer ). What threat could be bigger than King Ghidorah or Mechagodzilla? While we will find out the details soon enough, we know there is at least one villainous great ape in the film. Skar, a violent ruler from the Hollow Earth, has shown up in the trailers. However, the latest look at the movie also teased an ice monster called Shimo. Adam Wingard is once again directing the two titans, returning from Godzilla vs. Kong. Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, and Kaylee Hottle are all returning. Welcome to the new age of monsters.

3. Monkey Man

3. Monkey Man

Director: Dev Patel

Release Date: April 5, 2024

While Jordan Peele didn't write or direct Monkey Man ( trailer ), we have him to thank for this movie hitting theaters this year. Monkey Man was reportedly set to hit Netflix, but Peele saw it and loved it so much that he swiped (bought) it out from under them to release it in theaters under his Monkeypaw brand.

Monkey Man is being described as "John Wick in Mumbai," following the story of a man who fights in an underground fight club while wearing a gorilla mask and ends up on a quest for revenge through Mumbai's underworld. This movie marks the debut of actor Dev Patel (The Green Knight, Slumdog Millionaire) as both a writer and director on the film in addition to starring in it. The buzz around this film is strong, and we can't wait to see it.

4. Civil War

4. Civil War

Director: Alex Garland

Release Date: April 12, 2024

Civil War ( trailer ) isn't an action film in the strictest sense. It comes from director Alex Garland (Annihilation, Devs, Men), meaning that it'll likely play on some of our deepest fears about the political climate of the United States in the last decade. Even so, we expect the film to have some tense, action-packed moments.

5. The Fall Guy

5. The Fall Guy

Director: Wes Ball

Release Date: May 10, 2024

300 years after the War for the Planet of the Apes, ape civilizations have risen while man has regressed into a feral state. In Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes ( trailer ), a chimpanzee named Noa will search for the truth of both man and ape alike. Rise, Dawn, and War were all well-received movies, lauded for strong visual effects and bringing the titular apes to life, and we expect the same from this film when it hits theaters.

6. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

6. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

7. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

7. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

Director: George Miller

Release Date: May 24, 2024

Despite the movie's title, Mad Max: Fury Road was far more focused on its female lead, Furiosa, than it was on Max Rockatansky. It also happened to be one of the best action movies in recent memory, hailing a sort of return for the now 78-year-old director, George Miller. Miller isn't done with the post-apocalyptic Australian outback, though. Furiosa captured his imagination, and he's looking to bring her story to life with Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga ( trailer ). This movie is set before she met Max, before she betrayed Immortan Joe, and before she lost her arm. Anya Taylor-Joy steps in for Charlize Theron as the younger Furiosa, while Chris Hemsworth as the villain Dementus. We aren't sure we needed a backstory for Furiosa, but then again, we weren't sure the Mad Max series needed another sequel before Fury Road. So it's time for the War Boys to head out historic on the fury road and ride to Valhalla when we witness Furiosa's tale this spring.

8. The Crow

8. The Crow

Director: Rupert Sanders

Release Date: June 7, 2024

This spot was originally held by the John Wick spinoff Ballerina, but Lionsgate pushed the film into 2025, instead setting The Crow to release on the same date of June 7, 2024. This film will act as a reboot for the series, retelling the story of Eric Draven. In the original comic, the story begins as Eric and his fiancee, Shelly, are assaulted by a gang. Shelly dies, followed by Eric. A crow resurrects Eric so that he can seek revenge on the gang members with his newfound life and abilities. Bill Skarsgard stars as Draven, with British musician FKA Twigs starring as Shelly. The film also stars Danny Huston (half-brother of Ballerina cast member Anjelica Huston!), Jordan Bolger, Laura Birn, and Sami Bouajila. Sanders most recently directed the live-action Ghost in the Shell film starring Scarlett Johansson, and Snow White and the Huntsman.

9. Bad Boys 4

9. Bad Boys 4

Director: Adil & Bilall

Release Date: June 14, 2024

How bad are these boys? 4 bad. 4 life. 4 good. Bad Boys 4 is probably not the final title of the film, but it is the fourth film in the Bad Boys franchise, starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence as Detectives Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett. That might be a bit confusing given the third movie was titled Bad Boys for Life, but that's not our fault. The film is being directed by the duo Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, who work under the name Adil & Bilall and who helmed the previous installment.

10. Deadpool & Wolverine

10. Deadpool & Wolverine

Director: Shawn Levy

Release Date: July 26, 2024

Deadpool is invading the MCU, and he's not taking it lying down, though he does tell the guards that drag him away that he does have experience taking it other ways. As the only Marvel Cinematic Universe movie on the schedule for this year, Deadpool & Wolverine ( trailer ) reunites the merc with a mouth with his best frenemy, Wolverine, played once again by Hugh Jackman. In the first teaser for the movie, the Time Variance Authority drags Wade out of his own birthday party and into the multiverse. He proclaims himself Marvel Jesus, and then gets into a battle in front of what appears to be the 20th Century Fox sign. As he lays on the ground, next to a copy of Marvel's Secret Wars #5, a shadow with spiky hair and even spikier knuckles stands over him. It doesn't seem like things are going to go great for him at first. But it's Deadpool; they never do.

We're recounting the trailer because it acts as a sort of a blinking neon sign for the film. It screams that yes, Deadpool is being released by Disney, but it's not a "Disney movie." It's as prurient and self-referential as ever, and absolutely shatters the fourth wall. Deadpool might as well come sit next to us in the theater at this point.

11. Borderlands

11. Borderlands

Director: August 9, 2024

Release Date: Eli Roth

Director Eli Roth is best known for his horror films, but this time he's pointing his lens toward video games and action, bringing to life the fan-favorite Borderlands series. While the games feature a distinct, cel-shaded look, this is a live-action feature starring Cate Blanchett, Jamie Lee Curtis, Ariana Greenblatt, and a reunited Kevin Hart and Jack Black, who appeared together in the two newest Jumanji films. We haven't yet seen an official trailer for the film, but we're hoping for a first look soon with the film on the way later this year.

12. Kraven the Hunter

12. Kraven the Hunter

Director: JC Chandor

Release Date: August 30, 2024

When we look at Spider-Man's rogues' gallery and wonder which ones could hold up their own films, big characters like Venom and Doctor Octopus stand out the most. We weren't expecting a film centered on Kraven the Hunter ( trailer ). But Sony wants to make the most of its Spider-Man characters license, and so we're getting a film based on Kraven the Hunter, releasing not even a year after an unrelated Spider-Man game starring the character. Kraven stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson as the Russian big game hunter, with the film reimagining him as more of an antihero pushing back against his father (Russell Crowe). While Crowe is doing a Russian accent in the movie, Sony has thankfully spared us and Taylor-Johnson the misery of having to listen to the star fake one for the duration of the film. The first trailer, released last summer, suggests a pretty gory outing for the hunter, much more in line with the Venom films than with anything Spider-Man has been part of.

13. Transformers One

13. Transformers One

Director: Josh Cooley

Release Date: September 13, 2024

Transformers One marks the beginning of a new animated trilogy set in the Transformers universe. The film is animated, but we think it's worth putting in here since it'll surely have explosions on par with the previous Transformers movies. The voice cast is star studded, too, including Chris Hemsworth as Optimus Prime, Bryan Tyree Henry as Megatron, as well as Scarlett Johansson, Keegan-Michael Key, Jon Hamm, and Laurence Fishburne.

14. Venom 3

14. Venom 3

Director: Kelly Marcel

Release Date: November 8, 2024

We know almost nothing about this film, other than that it once again stars Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock and is coming out this year. Juno Temple and Chiwetel Ejiofor have also joined the cast. The plot is still under wraps. Directing the film is Kelly Marcel, who wrote this film, as well as Venom and Venom: Let There Be Carnage. This will be her directorial debut.

15. Gladiator 2

15. Gladiator 2

Director: Ridley Scott

Release Date: November 22, 2024

Director Ridley Scott returns to ancient Rome and the time of the Gladiators. Paul Mescal stars as Lucius Verus, secret son of Maximus, set 15 years after the previous film. The film also stars Denzel Washington, Pedro Pascal, Connie Nielsen, and Joseph Quinn. Musician Nick Cave reportedly wrote a version of the script that had Maximus returning from the dead, being tricked into murdering his own son, and being cursed to fight in all of the wars through time. This version, which is eerily reminiscent of the story of the original God of War on PlayStation 2, was scrapped in favor of this new story focused on Lucius.

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Product Description

In the near future, Major (Scarlett Johansson) is the first of her kind: A human saved from a terrible crash, who is cyber-enhanced to be a perfect soldier devoted to stopping the world's most dangerous criminals. When terrorism reaches a new level that includes the ability to hack into people's minds and control them, Major is uniquely qualified to stop it. As she prepares to face a new enemy, Major discovers that she has been lied to: her life was not saved, it was stolen. She will stop at nothing to recover her past, find out who did this to her and stop them before they do it to others. Based on the internationally acclaimed Japanese Manga, "The Ghost in the Shell."

Product details

  • Is Discontinued By Manufacturer ‏ : ‎ No
  • MPAA rating ‏ : ‎ PG-13 (Parents Strongly Cautioned)
  • Product Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 0.7 x 7.5 x 5.4 inches; 1.98 ounces
  • Media Format ‏ : ‎ NTSC, Widescreen
  • Run time ‏ : ‎ 1 hour and 46 minutes
  • Release date ‏ : ‎ April 16, 2019
  • Actors ‏ : ‎ Takeshi Kitano, Chin Han, Pilou Asbaek, Juliette Binoche, Michael Carmen Pitt
  • Dubbed: ‏ : ‎ French, Spanish
  • Studio ‏ : ‎ Paramount
  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B06XT8M1WV
  • Country of Origin ‏ : ‎ USA
  • Number of discs ‏ : ‎ 1
  • #216 in Mystery & Thrillers (Movies & TV)
  • #699 in Action & Adventure DVDs

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Bloody Disgusting!

‘The Crow’ Reboot Starring Bill Skarsgård Will Release in Theaters June 2024!

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The original movie is headed to 4K and we’ve learned tonight that Lionsgate’s brand new reboot of The Crow starring  Bill Skarsgård  ( IT ) will also release in the first half of 2024.

The Crow reboot will release in theaters on June 7, 2024 !

From director  Rupert Sanders  ( Snow White and the Huntsman ,  Ghost in the Shell ), Bill Skarsgård ( IT ) is leading the cast of  The Crow  as Eric Draven, with singer/actor  FKA Twigs  co-starring.  Danny Huston  ( 30 Days of Night ) also stars, alongside  Laura Birn  ( Foundation ),  Sami Bouajila  ( A Son ), and  Jordan Bolger  ( The Woman King ).

In the new movie, “Soulmates Eric Draven (Skarsgård) and Shelly Webster (FKA Twigs) are brutally murdered when the demons of her dark past catch up with them. Given the chance to save his true love by sacrificing himself, Eric sets out to seek merciless revenge on their killers, traversing the worlds of the living and the dead to put the wrong things right.”

“We appreciate what  The Crow  character and original movie mean to legions of fans and believe this new film will offer audiences an authentic and visceral reinterpretation of its emotional power and mythology,” said Lionsgate’s Executive VP Acquisitions and Co-Productions, Charlotte Koh. “To work with a creative team led by Rupert’s unparalleled visual style and storytelling and with a producing team who have made some of the most popular and impactful films of the last several decades is a true privilege.”

“The original film left an indelible mark on our culture that lives on,” added the producers. “We are thrilled to bring a new adaptation for today’s audiences that respects this legacy. Rupert has masterfully brought new dimensions to create a contemporary universe for this timeless saga of undying love, and we can’t wait to share this vision with film audiences.”

Zach Baylin  ( King Richard ) and  Will Schneider  wrote script, with the new movie of course based on James O’Barr’s original graphic novel that spawned a previous film franchise.

Producers on this fresh new reimagining include Molly Hassell ( Braven, Terminal ), Victor Hadida ( Resident Evil  and  Silent Hill  franchises), John Jencks ( Honest Thief, Guns Akimbo ), and Edward R. Pressman ( American Psycho, The Crow, Wall Street ).

In the 1994 movie starring the late  Brandon Lee , Eric Draven’s fiancée is killed alongside Draven, setting the film’s revenge storyline into motion. It spawned a handful of sequels.

The Crow Skarsgard

Bill Skarsgård in ‘Barbarian’

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Writer in the horror community since 2008. Editor in Chief of Bloody Disgusting. Owns Eli Roth's prop corpse from Piranha 3D. Has four awesome cats. Still plays with toys.

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A Game of Rivals: The Conflicts That Shaped Horror Classic ‘The Black Cat’

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In the 1930s, Universal laid claim to the two biggest horror stars of the era, Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi , and it was only a matter of time before the pair would meet on screen. In 1932, only months after each rocketed to stardom in Dracula and Frankenstein respectively, the two were dressed in tuxedoes and brought together for a genial photoshoot that simultaneously announced their partnership and implied a rivalry. Through a series of circumstances, it was another two years before the pair would star in a film together. As one might expect, it was in the most transgressive horror film of the era, 1934’s The Black Cat , a film that remains shocking not only for the early 1930s but even more surprising as a product overseen by the newly enforced Hays Code.

The Code had been established in 1927 as a self-censoring wing of the motion picture industry and an attempt to avoid government censorship. From the days of the first talkies to early 1934, it was very loosely enforced giving rise to what is now known as the “Pre-Code” era. But in 1934, the Hays office began to crack down on the film industry under the watch of the newly appointed overseer of the Code, Joseph Breen. As the first horror film made by Universal under this new regime, it was expected that the office would come down hard on the script to The Black Cat with its depictions of Satanism and implications of incest, necrophilia, and more. Breen did make his objections known but still gave the screenplay by Peter Ruric from the story by director Edgar G. Ulmer and Tom Kilpatrick the stamp of approval.

The story had been commissioned to Ulmer by head of production Carl Laemmle, Jr. who was eagerly pushing for a vehicle for their newly re-acquired star Boris Karloff, who had walked out on his contract in 1933 due to a pay dispute with the studio. Universal soon realized their loss and quickly renegotiated with the actor, signing him to a “star” contract which afforded him top billing, lucrative salaries, and the ability to make films with other studios. Between this renegotiation and the making of The Black Cat , Karloff had played featured roles in The Lost Patrol (for director John Ford) and The House of Rothschild . These parts gave him the chance to stretch his acting muscles and he returned to Universal more relaxed and confident in his abilities as an actor.

On the other hand, Lugosi’s fortunes had fallen somewhat since his breakthrough performance as Dracula. He famously turned down the role of the monster in Frankenstein , instead making Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932), which did not fare well at the box office. He followed this up with small but memorable roles in films like Island of Lost Souls and The Death Kiss and larger roles in independent and poverty row films like White Zombie . Lugosi was also known to be generous to a fault, often literally giving his friends the clothes off his back, and money easily slipped through his fingers. Lugosi was brought on to The Black Cat signed to a one picture deal with Universal with an option for more if the film was successful. He would also by necessity of contract receive second billing to Boris Karloff, who was credited at this point only as “Karloff.”

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Under the circumstances, it is no wonder that there has been an assumption of rivalry between the two stars ever since, and there is good reason for this assumption. Gregory William Mank in his book Karloff and Lugosi: The Story of a Haunting Collaboration , as well as in his commentary on the Scream Factory Blu-ray of The Black Cat , pieces together and attempts to come to the truth of their rivalry. In public, neither man ever said a negative word against the other. Their children Sara Karloff and Bela Lugosi, Jr. have both stated on many occasions that they never heard their respective parents speak ill of the other actor. Mank interviewed three people involved with the film who gave their perspectives on the “rivalry.” David Manners, who had faced off against Lugosi in Dracula and Karloff in The Mummy (1932) and played Peter Alison in The Black Cat sensed jealousy on Lugosi’s part on the set of the film. When Mank asked Lugosi’s fourth wife Lillian Lugosi Donlevy, who drove her husband to and from the set every day if Lugosi and Karloff were friends, she emphatically responded “No!” She went on to say “Bela didn’t like Karloff. He thought he was a ‘cold fish.’”

Perhaps most insightful of each man while working on the film was Jacqueline Wells (aka Julie Bishop ) who played Joan Alison. She adored Karloff and enjoyed spending time with him between scenes. “I have been fortunate, working with a great many excellent male stars,” she told Mank, “but none of them have I respected more than Boris, both as an actor and a gentleman.” She went on to tell him, “Lugosi was a delight. Kind and considerate to work with. I liked him very much, but we didn’t visit between scenes. He was very serious, and I just didn’t get as well acquainted with him as I did with Boris.” She also said that she sensed no rivalry between the two actors.

If there was, it appears that it was primarily on Lugosi’s end. He seemed to feel that Karloff was receiving preferential treatment from the production and Ulmer in particular. It was Karloff who had the memorable makeup, costumes, and entrances in the film. He was also receiving tea breaks, per English tradition, and enjoyed personal time with the director that Lugosi did not. In a later interview, Karloff discussed that Lugosi was, “…fearful of what he regarded as scene-stealing. Later, when he realized I didn’t go in for such nonsense, we became friends…” But as previously noted, Karloff’s feelings may not have been mutual. Whatever the case, the two actors seemed to have a professional, if distant, relationship on The Black Cat .

Another better documented but less discussed rivalry was between Carl Laemmle, Sr., the founder of Universal, and his son Carl Laemmle, Jr. who had been put in charge of production in 1930. Director Edgar G. Ulmer, a friend of Junior, was roped into this rivalry as a seemingly willing participant, at least at first. The elder Laemmle, or Uncle Carl as he was affectionately called, objected to horror and was vocal about it. “I don’t believe in horror pictures,” he told his son, “It’s morbid. None of our officers are for it. People don’t want that sort of thing.” Despite his father’s objections he moved forward, proving his father wrong with the massive twin successes of Dracula and Frankenstein in 1931. By 1934, after several more successes (and a few failures) in the genre, Junior was intent on making a horror film that would scare the old man out of his wits. Apparently, he did just that with The Black Cat .

After viewing Ulmer’s first cut, Uncle Carl demanded reshoots to tone down the horror of the film. Junior and Ulmer reluctantly obliged but at least some of these new sequences improved the film, making Lugosi’s character, Dr. Vitus Werdegast, more complex and sympathetic and Karloff’s Hjalmar Poelzig even more sinister. One of the most disturbing scenes of the film was actually one of these reshoots. In it, Poelzig strokes his apparently resurrected black cat, which Werdegast had killed in a previous sequence, and walks among the corpses of several young women displayed and preserved in glass cases. The implication of this collection is that Poelzig and his followers captured these women to be taken as his brides and sacrificed to Satan after forced consummation. There is further suggestion that he might continue to defile their corpses on later occasions. Apparently, the concepts of rape, human sacrifice, and necrophilia implied by this scene did not register with Uncle Carl and remains in the final film.

the ghost in the shell scarlett

The film created a further rivalry between the elder Laemmle and Edgar G. Ulmer when it was discovered that the director and the assistant script supervisor, Shirley Kassler had fallen in love. Unfortunately, Kassler was married to Laemmle’s favorite nephew at the time and blackballed Ulmer from working at any studio in town. The couple married in 1935 and Ulmer began to work again in 1939 after the elder Laemmle’s death. He would go on to make several films, mostly for independent studios, the most famous being the landmark film noir Detour in 1945. Edgar and Shirley Ulmer remained married until his death in 1972 and she continued to be the guardian of his legacy until she too passed away in 2000.

The third major conflict that shaped The Black Cat is central to the story and themes of the film itself—World War I, still known at the time as The Great War. According to writer Steve Haberman in his audio commentary for the film, The Black Cat is the first horror movie to overtly deal with this war, though it had been subtext to a great deal of horror since The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari in 1920. The War looms like a shadow over the entire film and greatly affects the psyches of the two leads who were both on the losing side. It is revealed early on that Lugosi’s Dr. Werdegast was taken as a prisoner of war and spent fifteen years at Kurgaal “where the soul is killed, slowly.” Karloff’s character, Poelzig, was the commander of Fort Marmaris which he sold to the Russians and “scattered away in the night and left us to die.” He then built his house on the site of the old fort and took Werdegast’s wife, who died, and daughter whom he married. Here we see yet another subtext surprising for a movie made under the Code—incest.

The film is innovative in its examination of the effects of the War and also in its design. The setup for The Black Cat is along the lines of the classic “old dark house” plot with the Alisons and Werdegast involved in a car accident on a rainy road and forced to take refuge in a house on the hill. In this case, however, the house is not a crumbling manor but a sleek and modern, even futuristic, domicile in the art deco style. Of course, it is owned by Werdegast’s old rival. The climax of the film is also extremely subversive compared to anything else seen at the time. It begins with Poelzig presiding over a satanic ritual that will involve his being “married” to yet another unwilling victim, in this case Joan Alison. A keen eye can spot Michael Mark (the father of Maria, the girl who drowns in Frankenstein ) and a very young John Carradine among the worshipers. Werdegast rescues Joan and captures Poelzig, shackling him to a large wooden “X” in a crucifixion pose and strips him to the waist. He then proceeds to skin him alive. In the film this is only seen in shadow and silhouette, but the original script called for a much more gruesome conclusion with Karloff, sans skin, crawling across the floor toward Joan.

The film ultimately did receive some regional censorship and cuts were made. A few countries, including Austria where the film is set, banned it outright. It was also not treated kindly by critics. Variety called it “a clash of two eyebrow squinting nuts” in a particularly delightful pan. Despite this, the film was quite successful and the two stars, rivalry or not, would team up again.

At its heart, The Black Cat is about conflict and rivalry. In addition to examining the Great War, the film pits its stars against each other in a literal game of chess in which the lives of the young newlyweds are placed in the balance. Perhaps both the perceived and real offscreen rivalries served to enhance those depicted in the film. It remains the best of the Karloff-Lugosi collaborations at Universal and the only one in which the two stars are given roughly equal screen time. Lugosi was quite fond of the film, feeling that the role of Dr. Werdegast was one of his best. When he saw a revival of it a few years before his death, Lugosi loudly proclaimed “my, what a handsome bastard I was” when he appeared on screen to the amusement and delight of the other theatergoers. As for Karloff, he considered Lugosi “a fine actor and a brilliant technician in every sense of the word.” Later in life, he refused to take the bait of reporters and discuss Lugosi’s troubles, sharing only kind words about “Poor Bela.” Instead, Karloff said, “Bela was a kind and loveable man and I remember our work together with affection.”

And ninety years later, so do fans all over the world.

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In  Bride of Frankenstein , Dr. Pretorius, played by the inimitable Ernest Thesiger, raises his glass and proposes a toast to Colin Clive’s Henry Frankenstein—“to a new world of  Gods and Monsters .” I invite you to join me in exploring this world, focusing on horror films from the dawn of the Universal Monster movies in 1931 to the collapse of the studio system and the rise of the new Hollywood rebels in the late 1960’s. With this period as our focus, and occasional ventures beyond, we will explore this magnificent world of classic horror. So, I raise my glass to you and invite you to join me in the toast.

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ScreenRant

10 Hardest Legendary Pokémon To Catch In Indigo Disk (& Why They're So Tricky)

  • Catching Legendary Pokémon in Indigo Disk DLC requires completing the main story and purchasing the DLC.
  • Some Legendary Pokémon like Solgaleo and Cobalion are harder to catch due to specific locations and resistances.
  • Gengoldo and Terapagos are among the most challenging to catch, requiring special items or completing specific quests.

There are 25 Legendary Pokémon in the Pokémon Indigo Disk DLC. However, some Pokémon are much harder to catch compared to others. Some Legendaries are in hard-to-reach locations, are only available in group quests, or need a specific routine to be able to catch them. To catch a Legendary Pokémon, players must complete the main story of Scarlet & Violet and purchase the Indigo Disk DLC , then speak to Snacksworth at Blueberry Academy.

Snacksworth will send players on quests in exchange for lure items called Snacks. Each Snack corresponds to a Legendary Pokémon, as well as a hint on where to find the legendary Pokémon. The Snacks can then be used to help catch Legendaries but are given out in a random order, meaning the Legendary Snack that is needed may take longer to receive, depending on a person's playthrough.

Every Legendary Pokmon In Indigo Disk That Can Be Caught Through BBQ Group Quests

Solgaleo (#0791), psychic- steel-type.

Solgaleo is difficult to catch due to its move sets and location. Players will need to fly up to the Pokémon League building to reach it . Solgaleo uses Flare Blitz, Solar Beam, Wild Charge, and Metal Burst, so it can be difficult to find a Pokémon to defeat it. Solgaleo can also only be encountered in Pokémon Scarlet through Solo Blueberry Quests, so players using Pokémon Violet will need to do a group quest. Solgaleo is a psychic and steel-type Pokémon, so it is weak to Fire, Ghost, Dark, and Ground-type moves, so make sure to have those Pokémon ready.

Remember, the Legendary Pokémon will not appear until players are given the corresponding Snacks to that specific Pokémon.

Terapagos (#1024)

Normal-type.

Players will not be able to have an encounter with Terapagos until all four of the BB Elite Four Trials are completed , as well as the fight with Kieran. After the battle with Terapagos, Kieran will catch it. However, after battling Kieran, Terapagos will transform into its true form, creating another battle. Terapagos has the Tera Shell ability when it's in the Terastal Form, meaning any damage-dealing moves that hit it when it has a full HP will not be as effective. The best way to catch this Pokémon is by using Terastallize as many times as possible, as Terapagos will absorb the players Pokémon’s Terastal energy.

Cobalion (#0638)

Steel- fighting-type.

Cobalion can only be found in Pokémon Violet through Solo Blueberry Quests, which already makes catching it a little more tricky if Pokémon Scarlet is being used, as a group quest will need to be done. Cobalion is also resistant to Ice, Bug, Grass, Dark, Steel, Rock, and Dragon-type moves. As Cobalion is a fighting and Steel-type Pokémon, it will be weak to ground, Fire, and Fighting-type moves. Make sure to use these types, and make sure to use Fury Swipes for success.

Gouging Fire (#1020)

Fire- dragon-type.

Gouging Fire is a time-consuming Pokémon to catch , as players will need to have already caught 200 Pokémon before being able to attempt to catch it. After catching 200 Pokémon, go to the Savannah Biome in the Terarium and talk to Perrin . From there, Gouging Fire can be found to the north of Area Zero, and players will need to fly up the waterfall to the top, where it can be found.

Iron Boulder (#1022)

Rock- psychic-type.

Iron Boulder is another time-consuming Pokémon to catch, as players will need to fill the Pokédex up with 200 entries, have access to the Pokémon Home, or the upgrade to the Teratium in the League Club Room will be needed. Iron Boulder can also only be obtained once per save file. Iron Boulder resists False Swipe, so the best way to counter it in battle is by using a Pokémon with a sleep-inducing move such as Sleep Powder or Hypnosis.

Groudon (#0383)

Ground-type.

Groudon is Solo Quest Exclusive in Pokémon Scarlet , so if players are using Pokémon Violet , a Group Blueberry Quest must be completed for a chance to catch Groudon. Finding this Pokémon is a little tricky, too; Groudon can be found on top of the tallest rock found inside the cave Alfornada Cavern, located below the Alfornada Gym. Players must enter the cave on the west side and fly straight across the gap to a platform where Groudon can be found. Navigating the cave can be a little tricky, so make sure to remember the way.

Lunala (#0792)

Psychic- ghost-type.

Lunala is a difficult Pokémon to catch due to it being a Ghost-type Pokémon, meaning False Swipe will have no effect if it is used. Instead, players can change Lunala’s type to make it easier to catch. Using a Water-type Pokémon and using Soak will turn Lunala into a Water-type Pokémon, and False Swipe will have an effect, making it easier to catch. Similar to other Pokémon on this list, Lunala is also only available through Pokémon Violet in Solo Blueberry Quests.

Meloetta (#0648)

Normal- psychic-type.

There is a very specific way to catch Meloetta, which makes catching it so difficult. Players must rotate the control stick in a circle until the character begins to stand on one leg and spin. Then, hold the pose for 10-20 seconds. Pull out the camera and press down on the D-pad 5 times to change to the Sepia filter. Listen closely, and the music should change. Finally, rotate the camera around, and Meloetta should be close .

Gholdengo (#1000)

Steel- ghost-type.

To be able to catch Gholdengo, players will need to obtain 999 Gimmighoul coins. The quickest way to get the coins is to battle and defeat Gimmighoul, as coins will be awarded as a prize after winning a battle. However, the amount of coins given will be random. Some players will be lucky and be able to obtain all 999 coins after one battle, but if not, a lot of persistence and luck will be needed.

Glastrier (#0896)

Glastier can only be encountered in Pokémon Scarlet by going on Solo Blueberry Quests otherwise group quests will be needed. It also has some powerful attacks, which makes catching it so difficult. It uses Double Edge, Taunt, Thrash, and Iron Defence. The key is to paralyze Glastier and get the HP down to 1. Then, swap with a Ghost Type Pokémon, as Double Edge and Thrash will have no effect. After this, any Poké Ball can be used and will have a high chance of success in capturing Glaster in the Pokémon Indigo Disk.

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet

Franchise Pokemon

Platform(s) Nintendo Switch

Released November 18, 2022

Developer(s) Game Freak

Publisher(s) The Pokemon Company, Nintendo

Genre(s) Action, RPG, Adventure

10 Hardest Legendary Pokémon To Catch In Indigo Disk (& Why They're So Tricky)

IMAGES

  1. Scarlett Johansson in Ghost in the Shell 2017 5K Wallpapers

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  2. GHOST IN THE SHELL: Scarlett Johansson & Her Shell Squad Feature In

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  3. Scarlett Johansson Ghost in the Shell 2017 Wallpapers

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  4. Ghost in the Shell Scarlett Johansson 5K Wallpapers

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  5. Scarlett Johansson Ghost In The Shell 2017, HD Movies, 4k Wallpapers

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  6. Scarlett Johansson Ghost In The Shell Wallpaper,HD Movies Wallpapers,4k

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COMMENTS

  1. Ghost in the Shell (2017)

    In the near future, Major Mira Killian is the first of her kind: A human saved from a terrible crash, who is cyber-enhanced to be a perfect soldier devoted to stopping the world's most dangerous criminals. Director Rupert Sanders Writers Shirow Masamune Jamie Moss William Wheeler Stars Scarlett Johansson Pilou Asbæk Takeshi Kitano

  2. Ghost in the Shell (2017 film)

    It stars Scarlett Johansson, Takeshi Kitano, Michael Pitt, Pilou Asbæk, Chin Han and Juliette Binoche. Set in a near future when the line between humans and robots is blurring, the plot follows the Major (Johansson), a cyborg supersoldier who investigates her past.

  3. Ghost in the Shell Official Trailer 1 (2017)

    Get Tickets - http://www.fandango.com/ghostintheshell2017_194493/movieoverview?cmp=MCYT_YouTube_DescStarring: Scarlett Johansson, Michael Pitt, and Juliette ...

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  5. Ghost in the Shell review

    Sun 2 Apr 2017 03.05 EDT H ow do you improve on one of the greatest anime films ever made? The groundbreaking 1995 original Ghost in the Shell, directed by Mamoru Oshii and based on a manga...

  6. Ghost in the Shell 2017 Controversy: A Comprehensive Guide

    movies A Comprehensive Guide to the Ghost in the Shell Controversy By Eliza Berman March 29, 2017 12:28 PM EDT T he first live-action, English-language adaptation of the popular Japanese manga...

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    42% Tomatometer 300 Reviews 51% Audience Score 25,000+ Ratings What to know Critics Consensus Ghost in the Shell boasts cool visuals and a compelling central performance from Scarlett...

  8. Review: In 'Ghost in the Shell,' a Cyborg With Soul

    1h 47m By Manohla Dargis March 30, 2017 Leer en español Like the greatest screen goddesses, Scarlett Johansson rises above it all. In the thrill-free science-fiction thriller "Ghost in the...

  9. Ghost in the Shell

    Watch the first trailer for Ghost in the Shell, directed by Rupert Sanders and starring Scarlett Johansson and Takeshi Kitano.Based on the internationally-ac...

  10. Ghost in the Shell review

    Like Blade Runner, Ghost in the Shell amplifies the fusion-chic imagery of the cityscape: with some huge and nightmarish giant hologram adverts, with some wording in English, the figures waving ...

  11. Ghost in the Shell's whitewashing: does Hollywood have ...

    Ghost in the Shell comes in the wake of Emma Stone playing Chinese-Hawaiian "Allison Ng" in Cameron Crowe's Aloha, Matt Damon at the heart of Chinese epic The Great Wall, and white-dominated...

  12. Ghost in the Shell (4K UHD + Blu-ray + Digital)

    Scarlett Johansson stars in the visually stunning Ghost in the Shell, an action-packed adventure set in a future world where people are enhanced with technology. Believing she was rescued from near death, Major (Johansson) becomes the first of her kind: a human mind inside an artificial body designed to fight the war against cyber-crime.

  13. 'Ghost in the Shell's special effects: behind the scenes

    02:15. " Ghost in the Shell " is one of the year's most visually stunning films. Scarlett Johansson stars as a cybernetic cop whose human brain and robotic body blur the line between humanity and ...

  14. Why Was Scarlett Johansson Cast in Ghost in the Shell?

    Published on 11/13/2016 at 5:01 PM. Sunday night in Toyko, Ghost in the Shell director Rupert Sanders faced questions about the charges of Hollywood whitewashing the movie has sparked. Scarlett ...

  15. Ghost in the Shell: What Went Wrong?

    The moment Scarlett Johansson's casting was announced, complaints arose regarding the choice to use a Caucasian actress to play a Japanese character. ... Ultimately, Ghost in the Shell isn't ...

  16. Ghost in the Shell Whitewashing Controversy Explained

    The Ghost in the Shell remake tackles the whitewashing controversy head on, but fails to justify Scarlett Johansson's casting. Ghost in the Shell 's journey to the big screen has been dominated by accusations of whitewashing. Rupert Sanders' live-action adaptation of the classic manga (which is also an in-part remake of the 1995 animation ...

  17. 'Ghost in the Shell': Scarlett Johansson Signs On to Star ...

    Jan 5, 2015 8:30am PT Scarlett Johansson Signs On to Star in DreamWorks' 'Ghost in the Shell' (EXCLUSIVE) By Justin Kroll Following the success of "Lucy," Scarlett Johansson looks ready to...

  18. Amazon.com: Ghost in the Shell (2017) : Scarlett Johansson, Pilou

    Amazon.com: Ghost in the Shell (2017) : Scarlett Johansson, Pilou Asbaek, Takeshi Kitano, Juliette Binoche, Michael Pitt, ... Et le film, surtout, reprend tout l'univers de Ghost In The Shell, il n'est pas un simple remake de l'animé (qui n'est pas du Ghost In The Shell mais une vision parmi tant d'autres du vaste univers de Ghost In The Shell ...

  19. GHOST IN THE SHELL Official Trailer with Scarlett Johansson ...

    Ghost in the Shell follows the Major (Scarlett Johansson), a special ops, one-of-a-kind human-cyborg hybrid, who leads the elite task force Section 9. Devote...

  20. Ghost in the Shell (2017)

    In the 2017 live action remake with Scarlett Johansson, we see some of the same concepts in place. A company created a "shell" that has a brain inside of it. But I feel that they removed a lot of the complex philosophy of the original by essentially making it that a company tried to transfer a human brain (the "ghost") and putting it into a ...

  21. Ghost in the Shell

    Ghost in the Shell is a Japanese cyberpunk media franchise based on the seinen manga series of the same name written and illustrated by Masamune Shirow.The manga, first serialized in 1989 under the subtitle of The Ghost in the Shell, and later published as its own tankōbon volumes by Kodansha, told the story of the fictional counter-cyberterrorist organization Public Security Section 9, led ...

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  23. Ghost in the Shell (2017) Official Trailer 2

    Scarlett Johansson stars as The Major in the 2017 live action remake of an anime classic. Directed by Rupert Sanders, Ghost in the Shell hits theaters on Mar...

  24. Ghost in the Shell (2017)

    In the 2017 live action remake with Scarlett Johansson, we see some of the same concepts in place. A company created a "shell" that has a brain inside of it. But I feel that they removed a lot of the complex philosophy of the original by essentially making it that a company tried to transfer a human brain (the "ghost") and putting it into a ...

  25. 'The Crow' Starring Bill Skarsgard Will Release in Theaters June 7!

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  26. 10 Hardest Legendary Pokémon To Catch In Indigo Disk (& Why They ...

    Solgaleo can also only be encountered in Pokémon Scarlet through Solo Blueberry Quests, so players using Pokémon Violet will need to do a group quest. Solgaleo is a psychic and steel-type ...