Ghost in the Shell (1995) | Sci-Fi Saturdays

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Zoinks! It’s a Ghost in a Shell! Like that’s far out Scoob!

While Ghost in the Shell is an animated film, it’s definitely not for children. This adult oriented film about the rise of a sentient life form deals more with the musings of what it means to be human, rather than lots of action and explosions, though it has its share of that as well. It set a high bar for other films to follow, influencing both anime and live action films to come.

First Impressions

This futuristic animated film about cyborgs and cybernetic implants is based on a Manga of the same name. The trailer has little to say about a plot. There is a scene with a man being informed that his wife and family are false memories implanted by someone in his head. There’s also a number of shots showing off the animation style, with cybernetic beings, explosions and shootouts between the police and someone else. Then a woman disrobes and leaps naked off a skyscraper in a graceful dive. This is the Ghost in the Shell.

Presented below is the trailer for the film.

The Fiction of The Film

The film opens in the near future, when the world is sufficiently computerized but still maintains nations and borders, with Major Motoko Kusanagi (Atsuko Tanaka) on a rooftop stakeout. She is a cybernetic officer with the highly specialized Section 9 in New Port City, Japan. She is monitoring a defection of Mr. Daita, a computer programmer to a non-specific foreign power. The police, led by Section 6 Chief Nakamura (Tesshô Genda) break up the meeting as Major Kusanagi leaps gracefully off the roof (apparently nude) and kills the foreign diplomat, disappearing with therm-optic camouflage. During the opening credits, flashbacks of The Major’s assemblage are shown, with the mechanical structure getting a coating of skin as the body floats within a pool of water. It rises from the bath, nude, and apparently asleep.

Chief Aramaki (Tamio Ôki) of Section 9 meets with the New Port City foreign minister about another defection they are hoping to prevent. They soon discover that the Minister’s interpreter’s brain was ghost-hacked by someone going by the code name Puppet Master–a mysterious international hacker that is believed to be American. The “ghost” is slang for a person’s brain. Section 9 operatives Batou (Akio Ôtsuka) and Ishikawa (Yutaka Nakano) are tracking the signal while The Major is driven to intercept whomever is helping the Puppet Master by Togusa (Kôichi Yamadera), one of the few humans in the division. They discover a garbage collector (Kazuhiro Yamaji) has had his memories altered and is being used by the Puppet Master to plant computer viruses into the system.

The Major and Batou discover a swarthy man with an automatic weapon is planting the data chips for the garbage collector to use. When they attempt to stop him, he begins shooting up a marketplace with high-velocity bullets. He escapes temporarily, using a therm-optic cloak, before The Major disarms him. Like the garbage collector, he does not know his own name, or any history about himself, having been implanted with artificial memories for this job. The Major goes scuba diving (which mirrors her birth scene) while Batou waits on the boat drinking beer. They discuss how much of their bodies are actually human; from their augmented brains to their cybernetic “shells.” The Major wonders how unique she is amongst living organisms, deciding that even if she is 99% cybernetic, all of her thoughts and experiences make up a unique individual.

A nude woman is struck by a van while wandering in the rainy street at night. Don’t worry, she’s actually a cybernetic body from a company called Megatech, the same company that built Major Kusanagi’s shell. The woman comes back on-line while being examined in Sector 9 offices and apparently has a ghost inside her, but unlike any they’ve seen before. The Section 6 Chief, Nakamura, and Dr. Willis arrives at Section 9 to reclaim the body, which they claim is holding the ghost of the Puppet Master. The Puppet Master (Iemasa Kayumi) speaks and requests political asylum, now considering itself to be a sentient life form. But before anything can happen two men in therm-optic camouflage steal the shell. Togusa is able to plant a tracker on the vehicle as it speeds away from the facility.

The Puppet Master is revealed to be a rogue program created by Section 6 called Project 2501. Dr. Willis was working with Daita (the defector) on the program when it got loose, and now Section 9 is concerned about the damage it might do now that it has a shell. Major Kusanagi is ordered to destroy it if she cannot retrieve it. She manages to find the shell in an abandoned factory guarded by a spider-like robotic tank. The Major goes in by herself, against Batou’s wishes, and manages to disarm the tank–while also severely damaging herself in the process. Batou manages to save her so that she can take a deep dive into the Puppet Master’s ghost. It reveals that though it is only a program it has grown aware of its existence, and was trapped in the body by Section 6, in an attempt to escape.

The Major and Project 2501 converse privately, turning off the monitor so Batou cannot hear. Project 2501 tells The Major that it respects her and believes that she too is questioning the confines of existence. It has come to realize that mortality and reproduction are the essences of life and wishes to “merge” with Kusanagi in order “to create a new and unique entity.” She agrees as Section 6 snipers shoot up both cyborg bodies. Batou manages to extend his cyborg arm in front of The Major’s head, keeping it safe, even as it flies off her body. Later her head is grafted onto a smaller child-like body, as Batou has moved her to his safe house. She reveals that she is now something new; no longer Major Kusanagi or the Puppet Master. She sets off on her own to explore the world as a newborn.

“If man realizes technology is within reach, he achieves it. ” – Major Motoko Kusanagi

History in the Making

Ghost in the Shell is probably the best known Japanese anime outside of Akira. It is based, as many anime are, on a manga–serialized between 1989 and 1991. But unlike Akira, this was one of the first anime that had a wide release, in both Japan, and other parts of the world. And unlike many of the other traditional sci-fi films looked at over the last few weeks, Ghost in the Shell focuses on many philosophical and existential themes.

The title is reminiscent of, and reportedly inspired by, Arthur Koestler’s 1967 psychological philosophy book Ghost in the Machine, which also was the name for the fourth studio album by the rock band The Police. These all stem from philosopher Gilbert Ryle’s 1949 paper Concept of Mind, in which he posits that “the mind is distinct from the body” and is a “ghost in the machine.” This concept has flourished in the years prior to the release of Ghost in the Shell as a concept for Artificial Intelligence and other cybernetic hybridizations.

Genre-fication

The film leans heavily into the realms of cyberpunk and neo-noir. Culling its visual look from films like the afore-mentioned Akira and Blade Runner, it also owes much to the pioneers of cyberpunk fiction like William Gibson’s Neuromancer or Neil Stepheson’s Snow Crash. Unlike the mildly entertaining Johnny Mnemonic, discussed a few weeks ago, Ghost in the Shell deals with many of the same themes (and more) in an even shorter runtime.

Here characters are not just computer enhanced, but made up of numerous inorganic parts. The Major actively wonders if any part of her is real, and Batou mentions that she at least has a few real brain cells. This is an entirely different concept than most films that came before it. Ghost in the Shell was treading on ground similar to the replicants in Blade Runner, and even presaging the modern “hosts” from the show Westworld. In fact the opening title sequence of the film is very reminiscent of the Westworld titles that show the 3D like printing of the hosts, as they get dipped into a milk-like bath which solidifies into their skin.

The film would also inspire many other films, though The Matrix is the one that many point to. The Major jacks into computer systems via the access ports in her neck, allowing her to drive the van via remote control, or peruse the Net for information, much like the data ports used by Neo and his crew. During the battle with the spider-tank, The Major hides behind concrete columns, while the high-velocity gun on the mech obliterates most of her cover. This is seen as a direct homage by The Wachowski’s in the first Matrix film as Neo and Trinity storm the building to rescue Morpheus and hide behind similar columns that get blown to dust by the firepower of the police.

Societal Commentary

What makes Ghost in the Shell unique in any of the films from the 1990s that Sci-Fi Saturdays has looked at so far this year is its philosophical and existential approach. For all intents and purposes, The Major is a highly specialized cyborg that has the barest amount of actual human tissue inside. But still she muses about the nature of humanity and what it means to be human. She wonders if a cybernetic brain could create its own soul and muses about her own uniqueness in the world. Even if she is not “real,” her own interpretation of the events she experiences, as well as the way her brain works, creates something that no one else can share. Just like her memories are her own, unfettered by any other oversight. There are moments in the film that spend long seconds focused on everyday elements of the city. Rain falling on the buildings. The cars and the traffic lights. Or just the reflection of light off of the glass high rises. These elements could just be considered setting the tone of the film, but it feels like more of a point of view from Major Kusanagi. As if it’s a cyborg viewing things that humans might feel are mundane, but that contain much beauty to be appreciated.

Many of The Major’s assessments of herself are similar to the things that Puppet Master believes. Being a program that has attained sentience, it has a very optimistic view on life, realizing that the two basic things that organic beings do that it cannot, are reproducing and being mortal. Placing itself within the Megatech shell, and living off a remote battery was its way to solve experiencing the frailty of mortality. Deciding to couple with The Major by intermingling their uniqueness to create a wholly new entity was its way to reproduce. Apparently all of the things that the Puppet Master is doing in the film are only ways to attract The Major’s attention. It had noticed here previously and saw a kindred spirit that it was “attracted” to, and thus able to mate with. It’s able to achieve the things that Roy and his fellow replicants from Blade Runner wish to have, but cannot attain. A chance at a real life.

The filmmakers, via The Puppet Master, also discuss how similar the robotic shells of the cyborgs are when compared to humans. When Project 2501 is said to be programmed for self-preservation, it responds that all life is. It compares the DNA in humans to its own structured code, and says that technology has encroached on the ability to parallel human memory and thus duplicate the main thing that makes humans unique amongst the species. “Humanity has underestimated the consequences of computerization,” it says while denying it is an Artificial Intelligence. It instead rationalizes that it is as real as the humans in the room. But how to prove it is alive? It argues that the humans are incapable of proving themselves alive since neither science nor philosophy have been able to ascertain that question in all of humanity. Certainly a series of deep conversations in a mere science-fiction film about killer cyborgs.

The Science in The Fiction

Though no date is ever revealed in the film, sources indicate that the year is 2029–presumably drawn from the manga. A long way off from the 90s, but as we see from the early 21st Century, too close to create some of the fantastic technology seen here. However the film mixes typical sci-fi aspects with other, more academic, applications of technology that would exist in a computerized and digital future. The primary aspect of this advanced technology is the cyborgs and cybernetic implants of which the majority of characters utilize. Even Togusa, whom The Major considers human, still has a few advanced parts in him, yet not enough to be thought of as cybernetic. Batou has some kind of advanced optical implant, while Dr. Willis (and some of the Section 9 assistants) has cybernetic hands that split into multiple appendages in order to type at a greater speed. Some people even have advanced elements inside their brains as well, such as Chief Aramaki. These are all byproducts of the advanced nature of computers seen in the film.

Ghost in the Shell presents early examples of how computers might function and interact with humans. The film opens with the neon-green glow of a CRT monitor showing two numbers moving in tandem. This on-screen view switches to the real-world where two helicopters fly over the city. These types of images and the brain/machine interface used by characters continue throughout the film. Major Kusanagi is able to “dive” into computers via the interface nodes implanted in her neck, whereas Togusa uses a monitor to access similar screens. The whole world of New Port City is interfaced, from CCTV cameras, to pressure sensors in parking garages, all networked by computers constantly monitoring the information. It’s no wonder that a program like the Puppet Master, having been written for “industrial espionage and intelligence manipulation” was able to tap into all of this data in order to grow.

While there is a glimmer of truth, and reality, in the computer networking, the film also contains other hi-tech elements. The primary piece of tech is the therm-optic cloak, an invisibility screen that hides objects from both visual, as well as thermal, sensors. It is seen several times, hiding both The Major and one of the Puppet Masters pawns, and later the spider-tank. It represents a suitably advanced piece of espionage technology unavailable to humans at the present time. This mix of futuristic tech with the extrapolated ideas of modern technology help to define the science-fiction world of the film, allowing it to feel more “real” than a future populated wholly with amazing and fantastic technology.

The Final Frontier

Ghost in the Shell continues to endure, having made the leap from manga to anime to live-action film. The franchise contains two sequel manga, Ghost in the Shell 2: Man-Machine Interface and Ghost in the Shell 1.5: Human-Error Processing as well as two sequel films, and three television series, the most recent, Ghost in the Shell: SAC 2045, having aired on Netflix in 2020. Film fans are probably aware of the 2017 live-action adaptation with Scarlet Johansson, which received mixed reviews.

Part of the appeal of the story and film, has to do with the philosophical questions that are asked about the nature of life and humanity. Who are we, and where do we come from? What makes up sentience? This is not just another cyberpunk action-thriller that is loaded with gunfights and explosions. It seeks to ask questions about our reality using the genre of science-fiction, which is what some of the best sci-fi stories do.

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