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Ghost in the Shell 2 - Innocence Actors: Akio Ôtsuka, Atsuko Tanaka, Tamio Ôki Director: Mamoru Oshii Number of Items: 1 Format: Animated, Color, Widescreen, Dolby Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested) Running Time: 100 minutes Studio: Umvd/Dreamworks Product Group: DVD Release Date: 2004-12-28 Buy from Amazon |
 "One of the most brilliant films ever made"Not only is Innocence a beautifully animated piece of cinema, it represents what literary filmmaking should aspire to. Unfortunately, Hollywood edits out most of its cerebral content to appeal to a wider audience, but Mamoru Oshii spent about eight years creating this phenomenol exploration of transhumanistic thought. Not for the average viewer, this is sci-fi with not only brains, but spirit as well. One of my all-time favourites.  "Unacceptable"The animation was excellent. The story was probably great but I really don't know, I could not follow it as it was not dubbed in English. My overall experience was that of frustration, confusion and annoyance. I could not appreciate the visuals or follow the story while reading sub titles. The lack of an English Dub for an American release is unacceptable and ignorant. For those that may think a bad rating is unfair, understand that I am rating my overall experience of watching the film. Nothing more, nothing less. "Fantastic Film, Horrible DVD"If you look at some of the other reviews on this page, you'll see that I'm not the only one who thinks Dreamworks messed this release up pretty badly. I wonder if the Japanese crew who made it knows what the quality is like for the North American release. The cover art is not attractive (at all), and looks like an independent anime release from the late eighties. The subtitles are poorly executed and almost comical. The voices are still in Japanese, which is fine, but, even when they are cheesy, dubs allow viewers to take in a lot more of the film, as well as create authenticity for the characters. Do not waste your time or money on this - wait for a rerelease by Dreamworks or a good release by someone else.  "Now Lets Get This Straight... "GITS2: Innocence is well made and decent follow up to the first one. SO I can not understand why some reviewers are giving this film /DVD 1 star just because it's not dubbed in english or has subtitles /captions for sound effects etc. I don't think thats a fair way to judge a movie, for minor flaws or personally gripes or because you don't like to read. Judge it for it's content, the quality and relevance of the story on contemparary and future sub culture. The animation, action sequences and excellent artwork. Consider all the time and creativity put into the making of this film as you'll see in the bonus features. Like The first GITS and Blade Runner (and even the book that inspired both these films, Do Andrids Dream of Electric Sheep), the main characters, who are either androids , half androids or don't know wether they are android or human, contemplate their own humanity. Do thoughts and memories make them human or is it flesh and blood make you human? If I'm an android, then why do I care so much about my pet dog, and why do I miss my former partner, who is also not human? These are the sort of topics brought up throughout GITS 1 and 2 and what make them essential viewing, not neccassarily the CGI and action scenes, which are quite good here. So if you say the film is great but the captioning in bad and distracting, don't give it 1 star at least give it 3 stars then. I will agree that reading the subtitles distracted me a bit from the visuals, so I used the pause button quite a bit. But I thought the story, plot and animation was intriguing , and I was not as confused watching GITS2 as I was with GITS with all the chatting about section 6 and section 9. This is why I give this Dvd 4 stars, for brilliant animation, intriguing story and twists, and informative bonus features. I would also love to see an English dubbed version when it does come out. "BAD DVD REPLACEMENT OFFER MAKES THIS 4 STARS"If you are fluent in Japanese, don't miss the awesome sequel GHOST IN THE SHELL 2 INNOCENCE (DreamWorks) in its original audio (with closed captions turned off), otherwise caveat emptor. Amazingly, there is NO English dub and NO standard English subtitles, as in the theatrical release! This strikingly beautiful animated film of spiritual, political and philosophical substance is mightily flawed by extremely distracting, huge, closed captions that not only describe all sounds in brackets but offer inferior English subtitles different from the theatrical release. A spokesperson from DreamWorks told me: "We are aware of this problem. Go to: gofishpictures.com/GITS2/main.html and follow directions for a prepaid mailer. Double click on THE DVD, then double click on QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR DVD?" NOTE: If you're a Mac OSX user, this website may not be functional without latest version of Flash. |
