Ghost in the Shell 2017: Lean & Mean Edition

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.

I already liked the original cut of this movie. but this edit is so much better. it improves the pacing and all the other changes are completely justified

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.

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.