ghost in the shell

Now that March is officially part of the summer movie season, the deluge of blockbuster marketing has started earlier than ever. We used to be able to wait until the summer to comb through a batch of brand new television spots for new footage from upcoming releases; instead, with Ghost in the Shell landing at the end of this month, we’re being treated to the same escalating series of theatrical trailers and short television spots. No wonder the climate seems to be changing so rapidly: if Mother Nature gets her news from basic cable, she’d be forgiven for thinking it’s almost Fourth of July weekend.

Blockbuster movie season is officially upon us, kicking off this week with the release of Logan and continuing all month long with a flurry of major (no pun intended) titles: Beauty and the Beast, Kong: Skull Island, and, last but far from least, Ghost in the Shell — the live-action remake starring Scarlett Johansson, who has surprisingly (but delightfully) become the queen of sci-fi. We’re unlikely to get a new trailer between now and the end of March, but how about some new motion posters to help you get acquainted with the film’s cast of characters?

The government is not to be trusted, not at present and certainly not in the trippy future Japan of Ghost in the Shell. Major Motoko Kusanagi (Scarlett Johansson) has been led to believe that she endured some manner of terrible accident in life, and the police department salvaged her body by augmenting it with cybernetic implants. In exchange for a second chance at consciousness, all she has to do is devote herself to fearlessly cleaning the street of crime and to surrender what’s left of her free will; naturally, she has some doubts about this. And when she meets an enigmatic stranger warning her that all is not what it seems, her whole understanding of who the bad guys are starts to shift.

Two movies steeped in the very same kind of controversy are about to hit theaters: The Great Wall, whose casting of Matt Damon in the lead role of a movie ostensibly about a fantastical spin on Chinese history is laughable at best, and Ghost in the Shell, which cast Scarlett Johanssen in a role that is, for all intents and purposes, a Japanese woman. Well, robot-woman. Both sets of actors from both films have tried their best to find ways around this whitewashing issue, with many involved in The Great Wall calling it a “cross-cultural” story of “an outsider.” Johanssen recently addressed accusations of whitewashing leveled at her own movie, and unfortunately she doesn’t really get it.

Ah, the Super Bowl: the one magical night each year in which the nation unites under the binding forces of domestic macrobrewed beer, buffalo chicken wings, and good ol’ American football. Everyone’s got something to enjoy at the big game, whether that’s the competition itself or, for those of us unable to enjoy sporting events due to PTSD over a childhood of getting picked last, trailers for a movie in which Scarlett Johansson plays a sexy police robot. The Super Bowl regularly doubles as the premiere for a handful of brand new previews of upcoming blockbusters, and Paramount has done us all the solid of giving us a three-day jump on the fun.

Before Scarlett Johansson launched a thousand essays by taking on the role of Motoko Kusanagi, the cybernetic crimefighter was nothing more than a drawing. The original Ghost in the Shell anime debuted in 1995 and blew audiences away with its futuristic cyberpunk aesthetic, influencing everything from The Matrix to the Star Wars prequels. In the film, the robotic government agent cuts through the dystopian world of 2029 in search of the Puppet Master, a sentient computer virus taking over human hosts and causing havoc. The film’s flashy Hollywood remake is only a couple months away on March 31, but before that, the original will infiltrate theaters in a special engagement.

With 2016 almost over, thankfully, it’s time to turn our collective attention to everything we’re excited for in the new year. Our staff even drew up a list of all the movies we’re most anticipating, and among those is the Ghost in the Shell adaptation starring Scarlett Johansson. To say that the movie remains controversial would be an understatement, but we can’t deny that it looks stunning. There’s even a new image from the movie to prove it.

Paramount has rolled out a new international trailer for Scarlett Johansson’s live-action Ghost in the Shell, which is faster-paced and shorter than the first one we got early last month. There isn’t a whole lot of new footage in this aside from a few second-long shots, but we see the Major and her partner Batou in action again, and less of those scary-looking spider leg people.

After 25 years as an influential force in popular culture, the Japanese manga and anime Ghost in the Shell is headed to American theaters in the spring of 2017. Scarlett Johansson stars in the film and, if its first trailer is any indication, the movie is not shying away from its source material’s wild, imaginative visuals. But how does the Ghost in the Shell live-action film, directed by Snow White and the Huntsman’s Rupert Sanders, compare with the classic anime version, directed by Mamoru Oshii? To find out, check out the trailer above, which takes the audio from the new Ghost in the Shell trailer and pairs it with visuals from the old cartoon. In our opinion, it’s an impressive match. It’s no easy feat to translate wild animated imagery into live-action, but, at least so far, Ghost in the Shell seems to have done it.

This past weekend, Paramount Pictures kicked off the publicity tour for its upcoming Ghost in the Shell adaptation with a global launch party in Tokyo. Cast and crew were on hand to talk about the film; exhibitions of the film’s art and costume designs were on display for those in attendance. For the rest of us, something even better was announce: the first theatrical trailer for Ghost in the Shell is here, and it is not exactly short on style.