Ghost in the Shell 2017: Lean & Mean Edition

Definitely the go-to version of the film. Big fan of GITS here, and upon watching the theatrical version thought that the sequence of the story, mother subplot, extraneous scenes, lack of expositional restraint, cheesy 'on the nose' dialogue etc etc really detracted from and bogged down the kick-ass postcyberpunk film that could've been. Ever since that first viewing in the cinema, I've been waiting for a faneditor to craft the film I knew was in there somewhere. This is that fanedit. Though the film is by no means perfect, what FairFriend has done here is focus and ground the characters and story (as much as one could, given the material available) and eliminate the expositional overload (which deprived the audience's imagination any mysterious elements to explore) and the cheesy/pandering/on-the nose aspects to create a tight, immersive cinematic experience of the GITS world, ensuring that all the neonoir/cyberpunk/postcyberpunk themes of identity, memory, technology, transhumanism, corporate greed and corruption, the exploitation of marginalized sectors of society, and the procedural whodunnit mystery are intact. The 'lean and mean' approach of cutting everything except the essential elements of the story adds to further bolster and highlight the key strengths of the film: the production design, cinematography, effects, and amazing electronic score, creating a cult classic that should be shared w all fans of GITS who were disappointed by the original theatrical cut, and, as mentioned, should be the go-to version for those who haven't seen the original. Well done, FairFriend!

*Like digmodification, I too noticed the aforementioned audio/video sync at 16:58 and the sudden cut re Cutter's death; also, apparently in earlier test screenings there was a whole different scene involving Cutter's death that involved a geisha and Aramaki, a pity we don't have access to it.

You have done this film a great service. I will now be able to show this to my anime-hating wife >.

As a big fan of the original anime movie, I was somewhat disappointed by the original live action Ghost in the Shell release, which I saw in theatres. The main criticisms I had were around the dumbing down of the material, significant changes to the overall visual style, lack of story coherence, and the score. Nerdwriter does a very insightful comparison of the visual elements here, which really resonated with me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2soHxEN79c&feature=youtu.be

This edit does a fantastic job at fixing these issues, as much as possible in a fanedit, while also improving the pacing. I think removing some of the 'on the nose' explanations helps the viewer focus on exploring core cyberpunk elements themselves. Trimming sub plots to focus on the main story arc works really well, and gives more relative time to the core Major experiences.

Thoroughly recommend over the main theatrical cut.

To be clear I have not yet delved into the gits franchise or watched the original live action film. In fact, I have only seen the animated film that started it all. I liked the themes of the animated film, and it's imagination for what it saw in our potential future.

When it comes to live adaptations, I am not one of those that likes them only and only if they are extremely resembling their original materials. I am more than happy if they are crisp, and have interesting things to say. Another thing I dislike is when they are westernized, especially if being adapted from eastern media. A good example of this is the death note adaptation in 2018. In westernizing media, it is made generic, and in my opinion loses what makes it unique.

Now that that is out of the way, when I saw the beginning of this film with the intro and all, I was like "Holy shit!!!" I found myself enjoying the themes portrayed, and the questions posed by the movie. I also, loved how to the point and concise your edit was. It was streamlined. There were some cuts that were noticeable, but they didn't break my flow of the film to a halt. I really do believe that based on the noticeable cuts, you were able to strengthen the narrative focus of this movie. And props to you for that.

I can't even wrap my head around how this film was made. It is so packed with visual activity. I had dismissed it originally because of the reviews, but this edit made me interested in checking it out. Thank you so much for your time and effort into making this. I loved this movie/edit. There are very few fan edits on here that capture that perfect narrative flow, and in my opinion those are the best ones. I don't know about everyone else, but yours is one of them in my books.

Wow. If I didn't know better, I would say this was a studio cut. Great narrative decisions and fantastic editing.