This is filmmaking that should be seen and discussed.
The film argues that this will occur within the next thirty years, and the superbly ambiguous ending inspires us to come up with our own ideas of what will happen to humanity once this new life form begins to reproduce. But it's the movie's ideas that make it great, particularly in the last half hour, when thoughtful viewers learn what this story is all about- the emergence of a new kind of life form, an intelligent and self-aware intelligence that can live indefinitely without ever inhabiting a physical body. Gunfire, martial arts combat, and car chases are depicted exactly as they would occur in the real world- without fast music or Armageddon-style hyper-editing or any of the needless cinematic baggage we've come to expect. The film's action sequences are strikingly different from the overly stylized symphonies of destruction seen in most action films. As brilliant as the comics are, I really prefer the film version, which eliminates the nearly pornographic T&A (the film has nudity but it's clearly not meant to be titillating) and all of the exaggerated comic relief which only detracted from the manga in my opinion.
Masamune Shirow's stunningly believable vision of the future makes the jump from manga to anime remarkably well. The film is stylish, artistic, and beautiful. Every time I show this movie to non-anime fans I have to explain beforehand that Ghost in the Shell is a serious work of science fiction and that everything in it, including the adult content, is part of the point the movie makes about where our society is headed. The movie kind of gets in its own way- within the first five minutes we see the heroine's nude body as well as a very messy head-exploding scene, and many of the viewers who would otherwise end up enthralled by the film's abundant style and intelligence immediately dismiss it as exploitative anime trash. I find it terribly unfortunate that the only American viewers familiar with Ghost in the Shell are anime fans, many of whom overlook the film's complexity and see only its nudity and violence. I would go so far as to say that it's the second best science fiction film I've ever seen (behind 2001, of course), but no one knows about it.
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