MINDCRUSH
Let me spam you with some images from one of the most amazing movies ever.
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence
I've mentioned loving this movie before. It's gorgeous to look at, and it's a mindfuck.
First off, this is a VERY visual movie. The animation and action is extremely fluid. There's a lot going on all the time in every scene. There's plenty to look at. The music is generally subtle and ambient, the voices are few and quiet. The sound effects are just enough to pull you into the amazing amounts of detail. There's a lot of themes going on, both visual and intellectual. Honestly, screencaps can never convey what this movie shows, but I'm gonna share a few things, anyway, to encourage you all to WATCH IT. :D
This Film is Rated PG-13 for Violence, Disturbing Images and Brief Language.
Awwwww yeah.
For those who know nothing about Ghost in the Shell, it's a series set in the not-too-distant future. A bit cyberpunk, and although dystopic, the story focuses on a militant organization (Section 9) trying to make the world a better place. There are androids, think-tanks, and most people have cybernetic implants. Ghost in the Shell 2 is set right after the initial movie. The Major (Motoko) has disappeared into the "net." The story now focuses on her former partner, Batou, and another member of Section 9, Togusa.
...
That's right.
It's about BATOU and TOGUSA.
A MOVIE DEDICATED TO THEM OH MY GOD lskdhgksdg but that's not the point. I love this movie for reasons OTHER than that, thank you, they're just an incredibly tasty bonus. (That and Togusa isn't made out to be a worthless moron.)
There is a series of strange, brutal murders going on. Now, I have like the original release of this movie, meaning there is no English dub. My DVD has only Japanese on it, and since the subtitles are mediocre (all closed-captioning), I decided to be DARING and watched it in Japanese with no subtitles. I think it's quite possible to do, although the murders might be hard to follow, and all the references to humanity made later are lost unless you know Japanese. NOT THE POINT.
Section 9 deals with android-related crime, and in the case of a haywire android, Batou shows up to disable and retrieve her.
...and I won't tell you what happens next. 8)
Immediately after this, the opening sequence starts. I embedded a video of it, and following it are some screencaps to show you the detail that the embed leaves out. By the way, I had my media player smushed down so I could actually SEE the movie, so I cut down on some detail even then.
A machine being born.
This is actually quite relevant. The best I can figure is that this film proposes the question of reality and humanity... a genre I shy away from on account of forcing opinions and being retarded, but this sways you in neither direction. It simply puzzles you and constantly flips your mind around. Right from the start it shows you one thing, only to show you moments later that it wasn't real. But it's so gorgeous, like a work of art. Perhaps it's too real. Perhaps it never was real. You don't know. And everything is always moving, repeating, tricking not just your eye but your mind, leaving you to question always, "Is this real?"
And here are our heroes. AND IN A CAR. DOESN'T THIS SEEM VAGUELY FAMILIAR TO A PARTICULAR LOVE I HAVE?
This was... very nice. The way the light washed over their faces and the car interior, then went to black shadows with only the buildings in the background lit... and they were speaking so softly to each other. Almost... whispering. With a few long pauses. It... it seriously sounded like pillow talk.
The angle keeps switching around. There was even a point where Togusa took a quick glance at Batou during a period of dark. Togusa was fast, but the light still caught his eyes shifting in Batou's direction, and the outline was enough to tell what he was doing. (THEY'RE SO SWEET OMFG THIS IS THE BEST MOVIE EVER JUST BECAUSE OF THEM SLKDGLKSDHGSDG moving on.)
This is another quality of the superior animation. In most anime, you see the characters mouths move and it's like yeah okay whatever. In this, however, their mouths enunciate words, their facial expressions change, their jaws and neck move with their speaking, their eyes wander, they don't stand around idle while talking or being talked at. It focuses so much on being... human and alive.
AND! This movie doesn't make Togusa seem worthless! (What the fuck happened, television series?) Batou always hangs nearby while Togusa does all the investigation work. THEY'RE A *REAL* TEAM. ALSKGHDKSDG ♥
Here's just me being gay again.
The light moving through the latticework... @_@
Now then. The haywire android Batou had encountered before the opening credits was returned to a lab. There are two labs shown in this movie, and both are in stark contrast of each other. This one is extremely white, very "clean" looking. It's creepy, filled with half-assembled and broken dolls.
Eyeless. There's a jar of synthetic eyeballs in this lab, too.
Unassembled dolls are sealed away in plastic, like some sort of mail-order package.
The doctor tells Togusa that there was an audio recording before her system was disabled. She plays it for them, and only a flat, ghostly "help me" repeats, and repeats, and repeats--
help me
help me
help me
help me
help--
...then silence.
SO CREEPY. SO GHOSTLIKE. SO OTHERWORDLY.
So surreal.
;_;
...then Batou and Togusa talk about it in their car. In the pitch black night just... holy crap I not only get beauty and mindfuck with this movie, but I get tons of perfect fodder. ;_; uwaaaaaah.
I picture them gently holding hands, slowly moving their fingers along each other, just feeling the other's warm and smooth skin, a soothing motion as they whisper in the dark...
But this isn't about me shipping like an idiot. I could be here all day for that, and only because it would be fucktons easier to explain.
They get a call to investigate a murder scene. It's a pretty wicked mess they walk into.
I wonder how the dinner tasted.
I'm skipping a ton of points and scenes within the movie now for sake of time and sanity.
The action sequences are AWESOME. The music isn't blasting into your skull during fights like most action sequences, but instead it's soft, suspenseful, and pulls you into the actions themselves as they unfold. The camera moves as smooth and liquid-like as the actions themselves, all part of an intricate illusionary dance. It really is amazing to watch.
And while the action is amazing to watch, so is the "non-action." You see Batou and his dog. They're living a quiet, normal life. What would typically be "uninteresting" has indeed become very interesting, all the details of life you don't usually notice or simply take for granted. There is a scene where Batou goes to buy dog food, and I bet you never thought that something like buying dog food could be turned into FUCKING EPIC. But then--was it real?
God damn it. ._.
Another thing to note is that every scene seems to have a "color." Each scene is notably associated to a single color such as blue, blue-green, red, etc. but it doesn't look tacky at all. It looks natural. (Almost supernatural?!) Just as every aspect of each location is beautiful and filled with detail, even things that we believe should be ugly or left unnoticed, like street slums or alleyways. It's also very dark until you approach scenes of gold and light (read on!).
We view a city. It's alien-like. It's shrouded in a dusty fog and golden light, and it's filled with countless white birds.
Thousands of birds, flocking aimlessly, calling out like whalesong. You start to wonder if the birds are real, or if they're just part of the fog.
And as the fog and the birds mix together, soon joins a plane, flying among the birds, as if it belongs there, as if maybe you're not seeing birds at all.
Amazing.
Within the city, a sort of oriental parade is being held. It's a memorable scene for a lot of reasons.
The golden light washing over everything, reflecting off every surface, thousands of gold cherry blossoms snowing down, and the movement is slowed, almost dream-like. There are plenty of people watching, but none of them speak. You only hear the sound of cold, detached music, and the soft synthetic groans of the mock-animals in the parade.
And again, the birds fly through.
Perhaps those gold blossoms weren't real, either?
While every scene had a color, suddenly the color is washed away. It's not quite white, but instead a very pale gray. An oriental shrine. Togusa discovers a strange haiku written on the shrine (I was a douchebag and deleted the image) and after he reads it, a single gold cherry blossom flutters by.
(Togusa was also eating like some giant ricecake or something lkshdglkhsdg ♥ ;;;)
The scene turns red. Very red. Red with fire. The people are now surrounding a giant fire, and are throwing bodies into it, forming a giant pile. But these people are not dead. These people are not burning.
These people are being unmade.
The opposite of the opening credits we saw. The hair shrinks away, the skin melts away, the electronic organs melt away to nothing until only hollow doll cases remain. They lose their features as people, then as living things, before they lose their existence.
And now the movie turns incredibly trippy.
There is a mansion surrounded by forest sitting on the edge of a lake. There is a long bridge across the lake to a colossal statue. The grays have become much darker, almost storm-like. The lake reflects the stormy sky in such a manner that the lake looks like the sky itself.
But as Batou and Togusa walk along the bridge, the sky and the lake life merge into one.
The mansion is very distant.
But always looming.
And when they open the front doors of the mansion, the color is rainbow.
A gigantic music box plays.
I won't even bother trying to explain the massive mindfuckery that's within this mansion. Instead I'll point out a couple of key things. This scene repeats three or four times, each time it gets shorter and certain things within it change. (My first time watching it, I thought the DVD hit an error. But the dialogue changed slightly. Togusa could have sworn he already knew the information Batou was giving him, but Togusa didn't know any of it before arriving at this place.)
This entire segment of the movie is also very, very fucked up.
One of the things that notably change are objects that hang from the ceiling. First we see this:
There is also an unmoving child resembling the Major sitting with an unmoving dog on the center floor. She is holding her hand by a series of cards, this:
As Batou is walking through the hallways, fucked up shit is happening. For instance, his shadow does not follow him. Instead, it stays cast on the wall, as if it is another figure, watching him. It's unnerving.
Batou opens a door. Inside the room is this:
...but then the view slowly pulls away. Now we see this:
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK.
But there's more. Suddenly the view changes to this:
@_______________@
The people and the fire are not real. (Are they?) They do not move. The people have blank, dead expressions on their faces. The flames are see-through, the flames hang in the air, but the flames are burning nothing.
Batou walks on.
She is a statue. She reminds me of a ballerina dancer inside a music box. Especially since the only sound you hear is the giant music box still playing on.
Beyond the girl is a courtyard.
As Batou walks into the courtyard, the camera is moving behind latticework. Within the courtyard are birds. The birds are in flight, but they are not moving. They are not real. They stay suspended in the air. The view switches to Batou and the birds.
But then... you realize...
...that the courtyard is not real.
GOD DAMN IT!!! ;_;
The feathers hang like glass. Batou is the only thing that moves. Surreal.
I seriously can't put into words all the weird shit that starts happening now.
But the scene "resets."
Again Batou and Togusa walk down the path.
They enter the mansion.
This time on the ceiling hangs this:
The gears are moving as the music box plays.
The unmoving girl is reaching towards the cards:
More weird shit happens. Even weirder this time.
The scene "resets."
There is panic now. The music box sounds the same, yet somehow different. The music is backwards. The track isn't simply playing backwards, but the notes are reversed, so the music is playing forward, although the tune is in a different direction.
From the ceiling hangs one of the white birds. Instead of looking up at the object in the ceiling, you are looking down passed the object to the floor.
The cards with the unmoving child now read:
(Significance related to the haywire dolls.)
The weird shit happens again.
You hear the sound of a bomb falling. The window bursts in. The shards of glass look like water. A wave of blue glass comes crashing through, washing away everything.
There is a battleship attacking the mansion. Destruction. Chaos.
There is death. But there was no life.
The scene resets.
THIS KIND OF BATSHIT NONSENSE GOES ON AND ON, PEOPLE.
CAN YOU RELATE TO TOGUSA RIGHT NOW? BECAUSE I SURE CAN.
Also, this movie is interesting to someone who's really freaked out by and afraid of dolls. Hnn. ;_;
This movie is still far from over, but I won't go into details.
IT'S BATSHIT.
And then again the aspect of humanity connects. The last time I saw this movie was about a year ago, so I don't remember the dialogue too well, and as I said I watched this last night without subtitles. Near the end they start to discuss "humans," what they are, and they discuss "life," and what makes it... and you realize that you have to wonder. Are they real, too? These androids, these robots, these ghosts?
One of the most interesting things was when the movie showed birds again around this point. By now you're convinced they must not be real.
A bird flies in close to the you, looks at you, blinks its eye, wind ruffling its feathers as it soars with its flock. The bird is real.
And after this "mystery" is solved, the case involving the murders by a haywire android, you see birds flying over a blood red scene, only instead of flying aimlessly, they're all moving in perfect circles.
AND IT SUDDENLY IT'S BACK TO REALITY! (WE HOPE?)
Batou and Togusa return to their homes. Happy ending, right?
Then how the fuck does one explain that creepy ass doll that stares at you and makes me want to cry.
PLZ 2 NOT B REAL, KTHX. ;_;
CREDITS ROLL!
OH WOW WHAT.
Holy shit, this was a long entry.
tl;dr watch GitS2 innocence.
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence
I've mentioned loving this movie before. It's gorgeous to look at, and it's a mindfuck.
First off, this is a VERY visual movie. The animation and action is extremely fluid. There's a lot going on all the time in every scene. There's plenty to look at. The music is generally subtle and ambient, the voices are few and quiet. The sound effects are just enough to pull you into the amazing amounts of detail. There's a lot of themes going on, both visual and intellectual. Honestly, screencaps can never convey what this movie shows, but I'm gonna share a few things, anyway, to encourage you all to WATCH IT. :D
This Film is Rated PG-13 for Violence, Disturbing Images and Brief Language.
Awwwww yeah.
For those who know nothing about Ghost in the Shell, it's a series set in the not-too-distant future. A bit cyberpunk, and although dystopic, the story focuses on a militant organization (Section 9) trying to make the world a better place. There are androids, think-tanks, and most people have cybernetic implants. Ghost in the Shell 2 is set right after the initial movie. The Major (Motoko) has disappeared into the "net." The story now focuses on her former partner, Batou, and another member of Section 9, Togusa.
...
That's right.
It's about BATOU and TOGUSA.
A MOVIE DEDICATED TO THEM OH MY GOD lskdhgksdg but that's not the point. I love this movie for reasons OTHER than that, thank you, they're just an incredibly tasty bonus. (That and Togusa isn't made out to be a worthless moron.)
There is a series of strange, brutal murders going on. Now, I have like the original release of this movie, meaning there is no English dub. My DVD has only Japanese on it, and since the subtitles are mediocre (all closed-captioning), I decided to be DARING and watched it in Japanese with no subtitles. I think it's quite possible to do, although the murders might be hard to follow, and all the references to humanity made later are lost unless you know Japanese. NOT THE POINT.
Section 9 deals with android-related crime, and in the case of a haywire android, Batou shows up to disable and retrieve her.
...and I won't tell you what happens next. 8)
Immediately after this, the opening sequence starts. I embedded a video of it, and following it are some screencaps to show you the detail that the embed leaves out. By the way, I had my media player smushed down so I could actually SEE the movie, so I cut down on some detail even then.
Click to view A machine being born.
This is actually quite relevant. The best I can figure is that this film proposes the question of reality and humanity... a genre I shy away from on account of forcing opinions and being retarded, but this sways you in neither direction. It simply puzzles you and constantly flips your mind around. Right from the start it shows you one thing, only to show you moments later that it wasn't real. But it's so gorgeous, like a work of art. Perhaps it's too real. Perhaps it never was real. You don't know. And everything is always moving, repeating, tricking not just your eye but your mind, leaving you to question always, "Is this real?"
And here are our heroes. AND IN A CAR. DOESN'T THIS SEEM VAGUELY FAMILIAR TO A PARTICULAR LOVE I HAVE?
This was... very nice. The way the light washed over their faces and the car interior, then went to black shadows with only the buildings in the background lit... and they were speaking so softly to each other. Almost... whispering. With a few long pauses. It... it seriously sounded like pillow talk.
The angle keeps switching around. There was even a point where Togusa took a quick glance at Batou during a period of dark. Togusa was fast, but the light still caught his eyes shifting in Batou's direction, and the outline was enough to tell what he was doing. (THEY'RE SO SWEET OMFG THIS IS THE BEST MOVIE EVER JUST BECAUSE OF THEM SLKDGLKSDHGSDG moving on.)
This is another quality of the superior animation. In most anime, you see the characters mouths move and it's like yeah okay whatever. In this, however, their mouths enunciate words, their facial expressions change, their jaws and neck move with their speaking, their eyes wander, they don't stand around idle while talking or being talked at. It focuses so much on being... human and alive.
AND! This movie doesn't make Togusa seem worthless! (What the fuck happened, television series?) Batou always hangs nearby while Togusa does all the investigation work. THEY'RE A *REAL* TEAM. ALSKGHDKSDG ♥
Here's just me being gay again.
The light moving through the latticework... @_@
Now then. The haywire android Batou had encountered before the opening credits was returned to a lab. There are two labs shown in this movie, and both are in stark contrast of each other. This one is extremely white, very "clean" looking. It's creepy, filled with half-assembled and broken dolls.
Eyeless. There's a jar of synthetic eyeballs in this lab, too.
Unassembled dolls are sealed away in plastic, like some sort of mail-order package.
The doctor tells Togusa that there was an audio recording before her system was disabled. She plays it for them, and only a flat, ghostly "help me" repeats, and repeats, and repeats--
help me
help me
help me
help me
help--
...then silence.
SO CREEPY. SO GHOSTLIKE. SO OTHERWORDLY.
So surreal.
;_;
...then Batou and Togusa talk about it in their car. In the pitch black night just... holy crap I not only get beauty and mindfuck with this movie, but I get tons of perfect fodder. ;_; uwaaaaaah.
I picture them gently holding hands, slowly moving their fingers along each other, just feeling the other's warm and smooth skin, a soothing motion as they whisper in the dark...
But this isn't about me shipping like an idiot. I could be here all day for that, and only because it would be fucktons easier to explain.
They get a call to investigate a murder scene. It's a pretty wicked mess they walk into.
I wonder how the dinner tasted.
I'm skipping a ton of points and scenes within the movie now for sake of time and sanity.
The action sequences are AWESOME. The music isn't blasting into your skull during fights like most action sequences, but instead it's soft, suspenseful, and pulls you into the actions themselves as they unfold. The camera moves as smooth and liquid-like as the actions themselves, all part of an intricate illusionary dance. It really is amazing to watch.
And while the action is amazing to watch, so is the "non-action." You see Batou and his dog. They're living a quiet, normal life. What would typically be "uninteresting" has indeed become very interesting, all the details of life you don't usually notice or simply take for granted. There is a scene where Batou goes to buy dog food, and I bet you never thought that something like buying dog food could be turned into FUCKING EPIC. But then--was it real?
God damn it. ._.
Another thing to note is that every scene seems to have a "color." Each scene is notably associated to a single color such as blue, blue-green, red, etc. but it doesn't look tacky at all. It looks natural. (Almost supernatural?!) Just as every aspect of each location is beautiful and filled with detail, even things that we believe should be ugly or left unnoticed, like street slums or alleyways. It's also very dark until you approach scenes of gold and light (read on!).
We view a city. It's alien-like. It's shrouded in a dusty fog and golden light, and it's filled with countless white birds.
Thousands of birds, flocking aimlessly, calling out like whalesong. You start to wonder if the birds are real, or if they're just part of the fog.
And as the fog and the birds mix together, soon joins a plane, flying among the birds, as if it belongs there, as if maybe you're not seeing birds at all.
Amazing.
Within the city, a sort of oriental parade is being held. It's a memorable scene for a lot of reasons.
The golden light washing over everything, reflecting off every surface, thousands of gold cherry blossoms snowing down, and the movement is slowed, almost dream-like. There are plenty of people watching, but none of them speak. You only hear the sound of cold, detached music, and the soft synthetic groans of the mock-animals in the parade.
And again, the birds fly through.
Perhaps those gold blossoms weren't real, either?
While every scene had a color, suddenly the color is washed away. It's not quite white, but instead a very pale gray. An oriental shrine. Togusa discovers a strange haiku written on the shrine (I was a douchebag and deleted the image) and after he reads it, a single gold cherry blossom flutters by.
(Togusa was also eating like some giant ricecake or something lkshdglkhsdg ♥ ;;;)
The scene turns red. Very red. Red with fire. The people are now surrounding a giant fire, and are throwing bodies into it, forming a giant pile. But these people are not dead. These people are not burning.
These people are being unmade.
The opposite of the opening credits we saw. The hair shrinks away, the skin melts away, the electronic organs melt away to nothing until only hollow doll cases remain. They lose their features as people, then as living things, before they lose their existence.
And now the movie turns incredibly trippy.
There is a mansion surrounded by forest sitting on the edge of a lake. There is a long bridge across the lake to a colossal statue. The grays have become much darker, almost storm-like. The lake reflects the stormy sky in such a manner that the lake looks like the sky itself.
But as Batou and Togusa walk along the bridge, the sky and the lake life merge into one.
The mansion is very distant.
But always looming.
And when they open the front doors of the mansion, the color is rainbow.
A gigantic music box plays.
I won't even bother trying to explain the massive mindfuckery that's within this mansion. Instead I'll point out a couple of key things. This scene repeats three or four times, each time it gets shorter and certain things within it change. (My first time watching it, I thought the DVD hit an error. But the dialogue changed slightly. Togusa could have sworn he already knew the information Batou was giving him, but Togusa didn't know any of it before arriving at this place.)
This entire segment of the movie is also very, very fucked up.
One of the things that notably change are objects that hang from the ceiling. First we see this:
There is also an unmoving child resembling the Major sitting with an unmoving dog on the center floor. She is holding her hand by a series of cards, this:
As Batou is walking through the hallways, fucked up shit is happening. For instance, his shadow does not follow him. Instead, it stays cast on the wall, as if it is another figure, watching him. It's unnerving.
Batou opens a door. Inside the room is this:
...but then the view slowly pulls away. Now we see this:
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK.
But there's more. Suddenly the view changes to this:
@_______________@
The people and the fire are not real. (Are they?) They do not move. The people have blank, dead expressions on their faces. The flames are see-through, the flames hang in the air, but the flames are burning nothing.
Batou walks on.
She is a statue. She reminds me of a ballerina dancer inside a music box. Especially since the only sound you hear is the giant music box still playing on.
Beyond the girl is a courtyard.
As Batou walks into the courtyard, the camera is moving behind latticework. Within the courtyard are birds. The birds are in flight, but they are not moving. They are not real. They stay suspended in the air. The view switches to Batou and the birds.
But then... you realize...
...that the courtyard is not real.
GOD DAMN IT!!! ;_;
The feathers hang like glass. Batou is the only thing that moves. Surreal.
I seriously can't put into words all the weird shit that starts happening now.
But the scene "resets."
Again Batou and Togusa walk down the path.
They enter the mansion.
This time on the ceiling hangs this:
The gears are moving as the music box plays.
The unmoving girl is reaching towards the cards:
More weird shit happens. Even weirder this time.
The scene "resets."
There is panic now. The music box sounds the same, yet somehow different. The music is backwards. The track isn't simply playing backwards, but the notes are reversed, so the music is playing forward, although the tune is in a different direction.
From the ceiling hangs one of the white birds. Instead of looking up at the object in the ceiling, you are looking down passed the object to the floor.
The cards with the unmoving child now read:
(Significance related to the haywire dolls.)
The weird shit happens again.
You hear the sound of a bomb falling. The window bursts in. The shards of glass look like water. A wave of blue glass comes crashing through, washing away everything.
There is a battleship attacking the mansion. Destruction. Chaos.
There is death. But there was no life.
The scene resets.
THIS KIND OF BATSHIT NONSENSE GOES ON AND ON, PEOPLE.
CAN YOU RELATE TO TOGUSA RIGHT NOW? BECAUSE I SURE CAN.
Also, this movie is interesting to someone who's really freaked out by and afraid of dolls. Hnn. ;_;
This movie is still far from over, but I won't go into details.
IT'S BATSHIT.
And then again the aspect of humanity connects. The last time I saw this movie was about a year ago, so I don't remember the dialogue too well, and as I said I watched this last night without subtitles. Near the end they start to discuss "humans," what they are, and they discuss "life," and what makes it... and you realize that you have to wonder. Are they real, too? These androids, these robots, these ghosts?
One of the most interesting things was when the movie showed birds again around this point. By now you're convinced they must not be real.
A bird flies in close to the you, looks at you, blinks its eye, wind ruffling its feathers as it soars with its flock. The bird is real.
And after this "mystery" is solved, the case involving the murders by a haywire android, you see birds flying over a blood red scene, only instead of flying aimlessly, they're all moving in perfect circles.
AND IT SUDDENLY IT'S BACK TO REALITY! (WE HOPE?)
Batou and Togusa return to their homes. Happy ending, right?
Then how the fuck does one explain that creepy ass doll that stares at you and makes me want to cry.
PLZ 2 NOT B REAL, KTHX. ;_;
CREDITS ROLL!
OH WOW WHAT.
Holy shit, this was a long entry.
tl;dr watch GitS2 innocence.