Ghost in the Shell 2017: Lean & Mean Edition

I anticipated seeing this edit for a long time now.
I liked the theatrical cut enough to appreciate it without the obvious comparison to the source material, but was always curious to check another take on it - mostly one that was praised to be more competent and straightforward.
However, to my disappointment, the edit tries to shorten the distance between the movie and its anime counterpart but ends up making one that falls short of both of them.
For better or for worse, the theatrical relied heavily on Major's backstory to keep its pace and character development, and that's whats mostly compromised in the edit. In this version, everything happens so lightning fast and the movie never stops to think any reason to be moving at all. At the core of Kuze's unveil there is originally a detective story, where Section 9 follows several clues and locations to spin a thin thread of what's going on. In the edit, this all boils down to scene-hopping from point A to point B with little cohesion. As a result, the Major is just along for the ride. Even though as fans we're familiar with Kusanagi's pragmatic attitude, the edit reduces her to an effectively soulless action doll who beats people, shoots people, stops once in while for a repair and goes at it again. Whitewashing controversy aside, the whole Mira subplot involving her past was necessary to give the movie any identity, even if it dumbed down the quintessensial Ghost in the Shell philosophical ramblings of self and soul to the cliché corporate conspiracy. On top of that, the removal of some lines thin the exposition a little too much. Like the aforementioned Major's subplot, some of the original lines present in the theatrical cut clearly wanted to convene a critique about ownership and autonomy of self on the information era. Even if the execution of these ideas was originally clunky (like the "i give my consent" silliness), the edit is poorer for the complete absence of them.
To the edit's merit, it's well cut and with no jarring transition whatsoever. The added scenes and music are great, and the overall nitpicking (like fixing the movie title persistently repeating in the opening credits) do give the film a subtle refinement. The encode is very good and lives up to an already gorgeous looking movie - in my opinion, one of the most beautifully realised cyberpunk scenery ever made in film.
Overall, I think, Lean & Mean is a technically great editing work that unfortunately doesn't do the original narrative any favors.

It's been a long time since I've seen the theatrical cut. I was not a fan at all, but with some time now passed, I was curious how this edit might come across since the aims seem to fit with what I'd want out of the film.

Quality is good. I saw mention of compression artefacts in dark areas. The overall edit seemed a bit dark to me, but maybe that's the look of the film. I didn't see any actual blockiness on my end, personally, even though it can look a bit soft at times.

I'm sure there were many cuts throughout and the edit largely flies by with transitions unnoticed. I did pick up on a handful of moments though, some worse than others:

- 12:16 - sounds like a subtle dip in audio from crossfade
- 13:44 - audio and visual cut is rushed
- 16:58 - music suddenly fades in and the dialogue is out of sync with the major's lips
- 39:25 - this transition doesn't work at all IMO. It's very odd to have the audio fade out and have dialoguee start part-way through an action sequence
- 1:21:08 - rushed audio fade
- end credit music is a lot louder than the rest of the film mix

The only narrative issue I picked up on is at 1:09:30 - Batou is about to be attacked, but when we cut back he's suddenly driving. Feels like an odd jump. Otherwise, pacing feels fine and I did not miss any cut subplots.

I would say I actually enjoyed the film less this time around. I'm sure this has little to do with the edit, because I know that some of what bothered me before has been removed. I think it's just certain aspects hammering home for me on a rewatch. The edit itself is largely well put together and I would say it is a definite improvement over the original - there are things I remember annoying me before which are mercifully absent - but for me, it only turns a bad film into a mediocre one. The goals were to bring this more in line with the spirit of the 1995 anime but I think more could have been done to achieve this. The opening was a good choice and numerous changes to dialogue have been made to help, but there still remain a lot of forced moments. Equally, by its nature, the narrative of the theatrical cut is watered down and derivative, and I'm not sure that's something that can be fixed. The "it's what you do that defines you" is also such a trite and Hollywood theme that is hardly needed, let alone to be repeated explicitly more than once in the film (which is kept in this edit). It's kind of astounding how so much can be removed in this version and yet the film still comes across as over-explained and simplistic, especially compared with the more philosophical and meditative nature of the original.

The theatrical cut feels like such an odd product to me, deriving its visuals and story from different anime incarnations of GITS (and Innocence) as well as Blade Runner (most likely inspiration for the original GITS as well). There are a handful of aesthetically pleasing moments, but everything has the clumsy feel of a youtube fan film with a decent budget. The way people walk, the way people talk, the way the action is executed. It just falls very flat. I do think there is more room for improvement in "lean and mean" - more dialogue that can be removed, and further tweaks to how some of the action is edited, but at the end of the day, I don't think the original film can be "fixed". Or at least, you can't change its essential nature. It feigns substance, drawing from other more significant films but watering down their themes, and bringing nothing new to the table.

Do I recommend this? If you liked the original in spite of some flaws, yes, I absolutely do. You will likely find this an improvement (and clearly a lot of people have enjoyed it a lot more than me). If, like me, you were sorely unimpressed by the theatrical cut, I would guess this edit won't change your mind too sharply.

I thought it was great. I didn't know there was a good movie in there until I saw this edit. What was radically improved was the pacing. It is so much tighter and to the point than the original version. The original movie isn't anything amazing, it's a fairly generic plot with mediocre direction, but the editing now gives the film momentum and energy. The original version just plods along a snail's pace. I remember seeing the theatrical film in Imax and was incredibly bored, but this time I was engaged and entertained. I just find it remarkable when someone is able to take a movie that I had essentially written off and forgotten about, and was able to make me appreciate it. The file is in HD, no hard cuts or issues in the edit, and is definitely worthwhile. Excellent work.

As a fan of the franchise (and even the original cut of this film) this edit was amazing. My main complaint of having things dumbed down and over explained in the movie was fixed, which already made this edit an improvement, but then the additional editing used to speed up the pacing and give the movie more focus also helped the story's flow. The editing itself was also executed very well, with no noticeable cuts in audio or video. Overall everything that changed here was an improvement and was done perfectly. The only scene that I would've possibly kept is the "prostitute scene" because of what it adds to The Major's identity questions like in the 1995 film, but given that the scene is so short it doesn't make a huge difference to the film and would likely slow down the pacing, so I'm willing to give it up. Otherwise this was a great edit that pretty much improved the movie in every way it could've.

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