Tuesday
Nov152016
YNMS: "Ghost in the Shell"
Tuesday, November 15, 2016 at 8:00AM 
by Chris Feil
Coming with a wave of whitewash casting controversy and mini teases over the past month, Ghost in the Shell finally has a teaser trailer. The Rupert Sanders directed manga adaptation opens in March, and you can expect to hear more and more takedowns on the casting of Scarlett Johansson as an asian character before then - especially Disney screws up with their coming Mulan revamp. But will the film offer anything to draw our attention beyond the controversy, as much as we do love Johansson?
Take a look at the spooky opulent teaser below and check out our Yes No Maybe So analysis after the jump...
YES
- You gotta love a teaser that actually teases. Michael Pitt's Kuze is still lurking in the shadows and there's plenty of mystery unrevealed.
- That geisha robot is instantly memorable and creepy. As cliched as our scifi actioners have become post-Matrix, this may actually give us something that really catches our imagination.
- Juliette Binoche in IMAX 3D!!!
- Even if Ghost looks super moody, it's not reflected in the visuals. What a poppy (but not ghastly) color palette!
NO
- But when the visuals are obviously the real star, Johansson's whitewashing casting looks extra foolish.
- Featured cliches: slow mo, stoicism, whispery monologuing, and a crappy revamp of an 80s track. Originality is not on this film's side, even if it is an adaptation.
- Lots and lots and lots of guns in a probably inappropriately PG-13 package. Bloodless brutality is still brutality.
- The actually action doesn't look all that exciting, does it?
MAYBE SO
- The complaints about Johansson's casting remains, but this may actually feature diversity throughout even if the headliner role is whitewashed.
- We can always just pretend it's a Black Widow standalone right? ... oh yeah, she's a robot here...
I'm leaning towards NO. What do you think of the teaser?
Reader Comments (19)
So everything is still set in Japan but the characters are white? Okay then. No.
Don't go see it. Don't support whitewash.
Most of the Asians I saw in that trailer were in the background or played disposable evil henchmen. Even Takeshi Kitano was just a wordless figure. The diversity here is just set decoration. No.
Did anyone see this Action Heroine persona coming after Scarlett's 2003 breakthrough.
I'm Asian and I don't mind this casting. I'm excited to see Scarlett than some random Japanese actresses just to support diversity cause (which is important, of course).
It's not like she's playing the lead in Memoirs of a Geisha or something very specific (Mulan, for example). Zhang Ziyi and Gong Li in Geisha were much more foolish casting choices, IMHO.
Scarlett is actually my top choice to play lead role (also robot) in Battle Angel Alita. Another manga adaptation. She's so perfect for it (look, attitude, energy, etc.). They decided to go for lesser known talent but I'm still looking forward to it.
But based on this trailer... I'm nervous... but YES.
A hard NO. It's really not that difficult to change it up so that it's set in a different city. Of course, this is complicated by the fact that actual Japanese don't see anything particularly wrong with this, but they have a vibrant entertainment scene with stars of their own, and often view spectacles like these as homage/remake/Hollywood-ized. It's different for us North American Asians though, and especially in light of this stupid election, it's doubly difficult to bear that Scarlett Johannson and Emma Stone are the top picks for characters with birth names like Motoko Kusanagi and Allison Ng.
I'm a definite yes! I think it looks amazing.
I'm an Asian too, and I also don't mind the casting. Who on Earth would see the film if it doesn't star Scarlett? The original manga fan maybe, but not the general audience. I haven't even heard of this before the whole debacle.
Judging from the trailer, I'm probably a YES!
starlit: Yeah, that's kind of the issue. I'd imagine if they had the film industry of, say, Britain? You'd get a lot more out cry from native Japanese people over decisions like this.
Craver: On keeping ScarJo, I'm split. On the one hand, diversity does matter. On the other hand, since the entire theme of this is about The Major feeling disconnection from everything else around her, it makes sense. Instead, I almost think that every OTHER white person is the real problem here. So, no Pilou Aesbeck, no Michael Pitt, no Juliette Binoche, no Michael Wincott and switch those four out to give Asian or Asian-American actors a bigger-budget break than they usually get while ALSO scrupulously accentuating the theme of disconnect.
If you wanna see Scar-Jo 3:16 open up a can of whoop-ass on a bunch of bad guys? Give me a FUCK YEAH!!!!! FUCK YEAH!!!!!!!!
Stop pretending you are Asians, whitewash defenders.
I'm an Asian too, and I also don't mind the casting. Who on Earth would see the film if it doesn't star Scarlett? The original manga fan maybe, but not the general audience. I haven't even heard of this before the whole debacle.
I loathe this train of thought. If that's the case, why don't we do a live action version of Aladdin and put Zac Efron as Aladdin and Anna Kendrick as Jasmine? Jaffar will be played by Alexander Siddig, coincidentally the only one who sort of looks like he actually may be from the region, but the lovable Sultan, let's get Jim Broadbent for that.
If Asian actresses can't even get a lock on a character named MOTOKO KUSANAGI, why the hell bother?
I'm an Asian too, and I also don't mind the casting. Who on Earth would see the film if it doesn't star Scarlett? The original manga fan maybe, but not the general audience. I haven't even heard of this before the whole debacle.
And also, if the argument lies in that the general audience wasn't hugely aware of the origins of the property, making the Aladdin/Ghost in the Shell parallel flawed, why don't we make that into say, oh Persepolis. Let's cast Alicia Vikander or Brie Larson or perhaps the best suggestion of all, Jennifer Lawrence as the young Marjane Satrapi fleeing persecution in Iran. People will see that now, and since the general public isn't too aware of the movie, that makes it OK!
I'm Asian (Chinese), and I most certainly DO mind this casting. I shan't be watching this whitewash of a movie.
Late to the argument, but agree wholeheartedly with starlit. The only reason why Johannson is consider a draw is BECAUSE she gets to be cast in these kind of roles, particularly that of Black Widow. If we live in a world where say Maggie Q can be Black Widow, I am sure the "who will see this movie if not for Johannson" argument will disappear. Besides, Lucy was her only hit outside of the MCU. What makes everyone so sure that people see movies because of her?
Speaking of Lucy, I find it interesting that this is Johannson's 3rd movie set in Asia with no main characters going to Asian actors (Lost in Translation, Lucy, Ghost in the Shell). I am not making any claims of Johannson (who I am sure is very nice) nor am I comparing the movies, but yeah...kind of weirdly interesting.
If ScarJo was playing a human, I would be bothered by the whitewashing... but she's not. She's playing a robot, a machine whose cover could easily be decided by the creator's taste. To justify that a robot in Japan wouldn't look like japanese is easy and not cringe-worthy, we've seen way worse race-related castings, top of it all, oh the irony, Denzell Washington as the Prince of Aragon in "Much ado about nothing", a casting that left us spaniards totally OUT of the film itself, back then. That reminds me, how "The Impossible" was accused of "whitewashing" also for changing the original spanish family to a british one... that makes me really afraid of many film-critics knowledge about Spain... and the actual looks of Spaniards...
Jesus: I agree on ScarJo. The character is a robot. There are other, FAR less justifiable, white people here.
Major No! I cannot support a movie that despite being set in Japan, features Japanese characters in the background with a whitewashed lead. ScarJo, I like you. But I cannot bring myself to support this.
What you mean Disney screws up with Mulan? There were some false reports regarding that by click-bait sites but there is nothing that seems to be issue with it as far as I am aware from the actual sources.