Kôkaku kidôtai 2.0

GITS is one of my favourite films, and one of the first DVD's I bought when the format was new on the scene. After watching Innocence (which looked great), I was quite ready to see something totally awesome in this update. I was wrong.

As another comment said, they should have re-done the whole film, instead of a bit here and there. I couldn't enjoy the movie when it kept switching from CGI to cel-shaded animation. Also, considering this was made FOUR years after Innocence, the CGI is awful. Most of the time Motoko looks like a plastic doll. Not cool.

The music and sound effects were re-done, sometimes better, most times not. In the original GITS if somebody was getting beaten up, you would hear them scream. In 2.0, a guy gets his ankle broken and doesn't even let out a whisper. Stupid. The main theme song (the choral piece) was re-recorded and it too lost a lot of impact.

Don't bother with this. Just watch the original.

ALL the animation is redone; it's much sharper, cleaner, more vivid and dynamic. There are sections completely redone with CGI that look amazing. This is a brand-new movie.

Also, all the original voice character actors have come back and redone the dialogue, and it's MUCH, MUCH better. There is no argument that 2.0 is far superior to the original.

If you've never seen the 1995 version, don't bother. Just watch this one, because the plot and dialogue is the exact same, beat for beat. It just looks far better. It's a new beast, not a "pointless remake" as so many troglodytes on here spuriously claim.

10/10. One of the best animes of all time, and a direct inspiration to The Matrix.

Just like other reviewers have said, I can not recommend this remake of Ghost In The Shell to people who like the visuals and the sound of the original. For me, the original GITS was near-perfect in look and feel. The color palette, visual designs, animations and sound design were all strong, hard-hitting and rough.

In the 2.0 remake, the color palette was changed to a earthy, brown look that we know from so many video games and movies. Additionally the image is drowned in blur and bloom effects. Watching the movie you can clearly tell which scenes are CGI and which are hand-drawn, whereas these elements integrated well in the original. To make matters worse, many of the CGI scenes do not hold up to the original hand-drawn scenes. The jaw-dropping intro and title sequences from the original GITS are ruined for that very reason. The city has lost it's dirty, melancholy mood and is now indistinguishable from designs in other movies.

A similar treatment has been given to the audio. All new sounds are toned down in impact. Vehicles, machinery and weapons now sound like plastic. The new sounds alone destroy the combat scenes beyond recognition. On the upside, the original voices and music were preserved.

Why Ghost In The Shell received this treatment I can not understand. Supposedly it was to adapt GITS to the look of it's successor "Innocence" (Ghost In The Shell 2). The merits of such an undertaking can be disputed on a general level, yet GITS 2.0 is a perfect example of how not to execute such a task. Viewers should be able to recognize "Ghost In The Shell" as "Innocence"'s predecessor from the title, the story and promotional material.

There is not much to say. 2.0 is an unnecessary, invasive and generally destructive "remaster" which violates the tone, breaks the immersion and adds strange 3D scenes, attempting to unite the original with the sequel in style, all the while their stylistic differences were so important to highlight the advancement of the story.

Avoid this and watch the original 1995 Ghost in the Shell.

Honestly, just watch the original.

This "2.0" movie is legit just the same movie, with some cgi scenes sprinkled in. It just comes across off, and a waste of my 5AUD to rent this movie on Prime.

Most of the movie is just the original, with different sound samples and original voices. The random bits of cgi I found quite off putting. If you can't find the original, then watch this simply for the storyline. Since this movie is pretty much the same, you'll have that in this movie, and the story line is awesome.

This movie will constantly switch between original artwork and cgi in some chapters, so if that is going to annoy you, then you should skip this movie and pretend it doesn't exist.