SAC_2045 Part 1 Review
Ghost in the Shell is one of those franchises that just keeps on going.
From the original manga way back in 1989 to now, there have been three full manga volumes, three animated movies, one live action movie, four seasons of tv and a tv movie, not to mention video games and hundreds of other instances of licensed merchandise. Hell, at one point you could get Ghost in the Shell airsoft guns.
It’s not surprise that a movie as seminal as Ghost in the Shell (1995) would spawn a plethora of sequels, prequels and moneyspinners. Look at literally anything that is both well regarded and commercially successful, especially for something that did as well on the home video market as GitS ’95 did. What’s surprising is how consistent, barring a couple of notable exceptions, the quality of Ghost in the Shell as a franchise has been. What’s really surprising is how, for a cyberpunk property originally released in the late 1980s, it has tried to remain prescient and relevant.
Without going too deep into it here, the problem with a lot of cyberpunk fiction is that its too reverential. It looks back at the genre stalwarts of decades past and sees all the neon and the synths and the tech and tells itself that is what it ought to be about. It fails to grasp what it should be doing in favour of how it should be doing it, prioritising aesthetic over message and totally missing why cyberpunk looks that way in the first place. The success of Ghost in the Shell is that it hasn’t dwelled on the topics of the past, but used its characters, themes and tropes to tackle the topics of the present by looking to the future.
Like Cyberpunk is supposed to.
The most recent entry in the franchise, SAC_2045, is the third season of the well-regarded animated tv show that started in 2002. The show in the past has approached omnipresent state surveillance, online activism, right-wing radicalisation and a refugee crisis all while remaining true to the original concepts laid down in the source material, the nature of the individual in an ever-changing technological and social landscape. 2045 focuses this time on anonymised harassment campaigns, financial crises and war-as-business. Unfortunately, it doesn’t hit quite like the earlier material. 2045, at least in the 12 episodes currently available, fails in execution, not message, wasting the first four episodes on a confusing and needless ‘getting the band back together’ plot line involving the Major and co. driving around the desert blowing up nebulous bad guys. It picks up a bit later after all that is out of the way, with a cute one-shot centred around Batou and some pensioners and a bank robbery before continuing with more serious takes on organised harassment and the A-plot concerning the rise of ‘posthumans’.
From the original manga way back in 1989 to now, there have been three full manga volumes, three animated movies, one live action movie, four seasons of tv and a tv movie, not to mention video games and hundreds of other instances of licensed merchandise. Hell, at one point you could get Ghost in the Shell airsoft guns.
It’s not surprise that a movie as seminal as Ghost in the Shell (1995) would spawn a plethora of sequels, prequels and moneyspinners. Look at literally anything that is both well regarded and commercially successful, especially for something that did as well on the home video market as GitS ’95 did. What’s surprising is how consistent, barring a couple of notable exceptions, the quality of Ghost in the Shell as a franchise has been. What’s really surprising is how, for a cyberpunk property originally released in the late 1980s, it has tried to remain prescient and relevant.
Without going too deep into it here, the problem with a lot of cyberpunk fiction is that its too reverential. It looks back at the genre stalwarts of decades past and sees all the neon and the synths and the tech and tells itself that is what it ought to be about. It fails to grasp what it should be doing in favour of how it should be doing it, prioritising aesthetic over message and totally missing why cyberpunk looks that way in the first place. The success of Ghost in the Shell is that it hasn’t dwelled on the topics of the past, but used its characters, themes and tropes to tackle the topics of the present by looking to the future.
Like Cyberpunk is supposed to.
The most recent entry in the franchise, SAC_2045, is the third season of the well-regarded animated tv show that started in 2002. The show in the past has approached omnipresent state surveillance, online activism, right-wing radicalisation and a refugee crisis all while remaining true to the original concepts laid down in the source material, the nature of the individual in an ever-changing technological and social landscape. 2045 focuses this time on anonymised harassment campaigns, financial crises and war-as-business. Unfortunately, it doesn’t hit quite like the earlier material. 2045, at least in the 12 episodes currently available, fails in execution, not message, wasting the first four episodes on a confusing and needless ‘getting the band back together’ plot line involving the Major and co. driving around the desert blowing up nebulous bad guys. It picks up a bit later after all that is out of the way, with a cute one-shot centred around Batou and some pensioners and a bank robbery before continuing with more serious takes on organised harassment and the A-plot concerning the rise of ‘posthumans’.
If I’m going to be honest, this A-plot that has me a little concerned. I don’t know how it’s going to play out, but ‘posthuman’ is a weird word to use in a franchise that’s dealt with this sort of thing in a much more nuanced way before. I’m not about to dismiss 2045 entirely because of this, it doesn’t re-tread old ground on the subject, this isn’t ‘Puppetmaster 2.0’. Rather, it does feel like ‘posthuman’ is just being used as an easy way to conceptualise someone who can beat the Major in a fist fight AND a hacking fight. They’re not making a point thats being made before, I fear, as much as they are simply not making a point at all.
Netflix is releasing the show in two, twelve episode sections so the second half may provide more clarification and context to this idea. So far, I suppose, there seems to be an undercurrent of being left behind, being made obsolete. It’s possible that’s what the show is going for, but without the second half, it’s too early to tell. It’d certainly be interesting if they went from contextualising the Major as being at the forefront of technological revolution to redefining her as being kind of past it. We all get old.
Speaking of the Major, and if you’re talking about GitS at all you have to speak about the Major, we need to talk about her look in this season of the show. While the rest of Section 9 look basically the same, they’ve leaned in even harder into making the Major cute and doll-like. Now, there are a billion ways you could read the Major’s identity and personal expression but at this point the way they’ve made her look is just fanservice. It was bad in the original seasons of SAC where her outfit was just this weird bodysuit with super low-riding pants, but now they’ve upped the ante by making her look really young. It feels off, against the nature of the character to want to look so young. I don’t know, as someone who herself is in her mid-thirties and noticing more and more grey hairs by the day, maybe I’d jump at the chance to make myself look super young again*. But I’m just someone on the internet who posts a lot and writes about the things I like. I feel like I don’t need to project the same level of competent maturity that Motoko Kusanagi does. It’d be one thing if the Major had started out looking like that, but one considers how she looked in the original Ghost in the Shell movie, and even in SAC 1 and 2. She looked older, questionable outfits notwithstanding. She’s The Major, I feel like she of all characters in all of anime she should be spared the waifu treatment. The doll body at the end of the first movie was meant to symbolise rebirth, not a design concept going forward.
Speaking of the Major, and if you’re talking about GitS at all you have to speak about the Major, we need to talk about her look in this season of the show. While the rest of Section 9 look basically the same, they’ve leaned in even harder into making the Major cute and doll-like. Now, there are a billion ways you could read the Major’s identity and personal expression but at this point the way they’ve made her look is just fanservice. It was bad in the original seasons of SAC where her outfit was just this weird bodysuit with super low-riding pants, but now they’ve upped the ante by making her look really young. It feels off, against the nature of the character to want to look so young. I don’t know, as someone who herself is in her mid-thirties and noticing more and more grey hairs by the day, maybe I’d jump at the chance to make myself look super young again*. But I’m just someone on the internet who posts a lot and writes about the things I like. I feel like I don’t need to project the same level of competent maturity that Motoko Kusanagi does. It’d be one thing if the Major had started out looking like that, but one considers how she looked in the original Ghost in the Shell movie, and even in SAC 1 and 2. She looked older, questionable outfits notwithstanding. She’s The Major, I feel like she of all characters in all of anime she should be spared the waifu treatment. The doll body at the end of the first movie was meant to symbolise rebirth, not a design concept going forward.
I need to see more of SAC_2045. On the one hand, it does seem to be doing a lot of what I like about GitS in general, using its premise to hold a mirror up to modern day society. However, it really also seems to be getting into a nasty funk where flashy action and fan service are more important than the plot. Like I say, there’s twelve more episodes coming. Hopefully they’ll do more episodes like Batou and the pensioners and the harassment mob, and make the posthumans into something more than weird boogymen. Ghost in the Shell is at its best when it is genuinely insightful and clever. If it gives in to the aesthetic it helped create, you just end up with the 2017 live action movie. And no one wants that.
*I mean I would, without question. Who are we trying to kid here.
*I mean I would, without question. Who are we trying to kid here.
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