Oh yeah, I forgot this was happening.
In case you missed it, Paramount recently dropped the first official full-length trailer for the live action Ghost in the Shell adaptation. Based on the classic sci-fi anime/manga, Scarlett Johansson stars as the human-cyborg Major -- otherwise known as Major Motoko Kusanagi in the original source material. But you knew that. Yes, for the uninitiated, this is that movie where Scarlett plays a Japanese robot lady.
Ghost in the Shell follows the Major, a special ops, one-of-a-kind human-cyborg hybrid, who leads the elite task force Section 9. Devoted to stopping the most dangerous criminals and extremists, Section 9 is faced with an enemy whose singular goal is to wipe out Hanka Robotic's advancements in cyber technology. And if they get around to it, Section 9 might just crack the baffling case of why the Major is played by a white woman.
Take a look:
Visually, this looks incredible. It has to be. What is the point of making a live action Ghost in the Shell if it doesn't, at the very least, look really f*cking awesome? They've probably delivered there. The film's look is mind-blowingly faithful to Mamoru Oshii's 1995 animated masterpiece.
It's also a hell of a missed opportunity. As expected, it feels like a bloated excuse to surround a pretty white lady with cool-looking Asian shit and shoot it all up, with actual Asian performers relegated to side characters and literal props. I see no reason why this casting was imperative. But I'm sure they'll unearth some kind of bend-over-backwards explanation to justify why Scarlett must be the One True Super Cyber-Asian.
Surprise, surprise. Hollywood's historical love of cool-looking Asian shit stops at actual Asian people.
Ghost in the Shell hits theaters on March 31, 2017.
