Ghost in the Shell!

Kusanagi Motoko is coming to the big screen!

According to the article, Universal and Sony were busy courting but DreamWorks has managed to secure the movie rights for GITS. It seems that Spielberg took personal interest in the negotiations and made things happen. I so really hope that they don’t screw it up. This is a great opportunity for manga/anime productions to translate onto another medium.

They’ve also managed to secure Avi Arad as the producer. He has previously worked on all three Spider-Man, all three X-Men, the two Fantastic-Four, and the upcoming Iron Man and Incredible Hulk. But these were all live-action films. GITS is going to be a purely CGI production. Seems like the time for GITS has arrived.

The reason that I’m so excited is because I am a big fan of the series. I have bought all the DVDs (bar one) and I’ve watched them all several times. That’s two stand alone movies and two seasons of the series. In fact, at this very moment, I’ve got the second season playing on my second laptop. It is an anime series that is good to have playing while burning the midnight oil as it helps to keep the adrenaline pumping and blood flowing.

GITS has all the elements of an anime that I like: greatly flawed characters, a dark story line that keeps me glued, plot twists that take me off guard, and superb voice acting. I’m sure that DreamWorks can deliver on most of the elements, but I’m not too certain about the last one. I hope that they find someone right to play the role of Motoko. She needs to be strong enough to be a special forces unit Major, and smart enough to be an elite hacker.

Another difficult character to translate would be the Tachikomas. They are the self sacrificing sentient artificial intelligence tanks that feature in the series. I hope that the Hollywood version does not turn them into stereotypical robots or overtly flawed ones. Once again, the voice acting has to be perfect. They are the most important support characters in the series and lend a comedy element, in an otherwise entirely serious show, with their naive view of the world.

While I’m excited, I also have a sinking feeling that Hollywood will spoil it. It is going to be rather difficult to develop the story within the span of a single movie as there is a lot of character development and back story involved. Unless of course, they plan to make it into multiple films, then they may stand a better chance of getting a good story down. Otherwise, if they only make a watered down version of the story, then it will not fare well.

I’ll now leave you with a little taste of the series. This is the intro sequence from the second season DVD. Let’s all pray that they don’t screw it up.