So one can't talk about The Ghost In The Shell without touching on cultural appropriation. Personally I have a hard time with that, what with being a principal member of the White Male Hegemony (but more on that another time). Actually we'll talk about the whole cultural appropriation thing another time.
For this movie, I thought for the most part it was gorgeous environment, many of the effects lovingly done. I didn't like the vocabulary -- the way they used "ghost" would be better in english as "spirit" or "soul" -- but that's probably a legacy thing from the original transations. Story wise it kind of avoided what it was trying to talk about, and it wasn't uneven in the way that North American audiences like. So I understand why it wasn't a "success". I'd like to watch it again, maybe.
