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GHOST_IDENTITY

                                                           April 7, 2022 
                                                            
It was interesting seeing the review of                     
the Scarlet Johannsson "Ghost in the         [link]    
Shell" that she wrote *after* actually
seeing it (she's happy to review trailers          WHITEGHOST
for upcoming movies-- kids these days).
                                                   GHOST_QUEEN
She mentioned but didn't bother to
comment on the "whitewashing" business
(which she covered before), and instead       "I don't understand. What is the
ranted about what they'd done to the          point of making a Ghost in the
philosophical premise of the story,           Shell film if you only create the
which for her has to do with overcoming       shell and not put the ghost in!?"
the attachment to your individuality: 
                                        
At the close of the original anime film,
the major intentionally merges with the      
puppetmaster, which Alachia sees as          
giving up on being herself for the sake      
of something greater.                        
                                             
                                             
Her point is that the ScarJo Ghost completely
flips this around, and makes it a story about     Alachia compares
the Major finding herself and preserving her      that to a Disney
identity.                                         film finish,
                                                  complaining that
    That's an interesting issue to fixate         the "eastern"
    on, I think.  I'm not sure why it never       philosophy in the
    seemed terribly central to me-- in part,      original was just
    I would guess it was because it's hardly      dropped.
    the first time I encountered something
    like this: half of Sturgeon's major
    works touch on things like this.

    That material in the original Ghost in
    the Shell anime film was okay by me,
    but it struck me as being a little           I know the *sort* of thing
    prefunctory.  There's a line about how       Alachia is talking about
    the ghosts have merged, and the Major        though: I can remember
    is no longer exactly the major-- but         reading Asimov's Foundation
    what that's supposed to mean, what the       and being thrown by the
    implications of it are, and why the          premise that the predicted
    Major would've decided to do that...         collapse could *not* be
    there's not much there, as I remember it.    averted-- the Foundation was
                                                 just going to let it happen
                                                 and try to assist in the
                                                 recovery afterwards.
                                                 
                                                 There are common romantic 
                                                 conventions in genre fiction
                                                 that we get used to, and 
The "Mother's Basement" reviewer fingers         *any* deviation from them 
the same issue as Alachia, commenting            can seem very dtrange.
that the original depicted
"transhumanism and the loss of self as
not being inherently negative"

                         [link]


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