GHOST IN THE SHELL 2.0

Version: Manga Entertainment 2009 Blu-Ray; English dub

Ghost in the Shell is one of my favorite anime films, evidenced by my earlier review. So I'm not going to go into the material here, just the presentation. In all honesty, I think it sucks. They took a bunch of the original scenes and redid them in CGI. It would be fine if they did this for buildings and effects like in Innocence.

But no, they didn't have that much forethought. Take the opening scene where the Major assassinates a political figure. They kept the political discussion as it was, but they redid the Major in CG. The opening titles, where they construct the Major's body, is kept as 2D. I'm guessing they did that because the opening in Innocence is pretty much the same scene in CG. Most of the animation they kept from the original has been tinted orange instead of the original green. I guess the idea is to get it more "gritty".

The blu-ray has the original film as an extra, and it's pretty much just that: an extra. The transfer is TERRIBLE. They didn't even put any effort into making it look good. It's grainy, the camera shakes, and it looks like somebody recorded it on VHS.

Bottom line, buy the DVD I reviewed earlier unless you are a collector. The only special features on this blu-ray are just rehashes from the same DVD. The only thing new is the treatment of the film. I didn't notice any changes in the dub like advertised.