anybody out there know why nothing but old styled cars exist in gits innocence? it's bugging the hell out of me... also - i would really appreciate it if anybody knows the japanese vocal theme (playing while we see the creation of the sex bot in cg, very similar to making of a cyborg but better).
shareThe old style cars really bothered me too, it doesnt fit in at all...especially sincethe first one had futuristic cars.
shareProbably wanted to underline how technology gets old real fast, or probably he simply liked old cars... but I guess he has an explanation for everything, it's his style after all
shareIt bugged me too, but all my friends think I'm just complaining for no reason. My problem is that all the cars in the film are quite 1920s/30s style. In the first one they were very utilitarian in their design, quite chunky, quite square. They looked nice, but in a practical way. They looked in many ways like the kinds of cars most people drive today, not ugly, but functional. Additonally, a lot of people don't even like that style of car, its certainly not the sort designed to appeal to a wide range of people.
In GITS2 all the cars you see have classic car stylings, beautiful, but impractical. Those sorts of cars are not cheap to produce, and therefore even now cars with that sort of beauty are generally produced in small number and most people don't drive them. I have no problem with Batou driving one or Ishikawa, they're both S-9 employees, and that sort of job pays pretty well I reckon.
Every car in the film is that style though, and it doesn't make sense that everyone could afford, or would even want, a classically styled car.
I agree that its probably just because Mamoru Oshii likes old cars, but it did seem to break with the style of GITS. Its a small thing, but its nice to know that some people out there agree with me.
If you want some kind of explanation, I doubt you'll get one from the man himself. However, there were a couple of reasons for the old cars that I could see. First, the impracticalities of manufacturing and running those old-fashioned style cars would not be an issue in the GITS world. Factory robots presumably would have reached such a level of complexity and efficiency that they could produce such cars with no difficulty. Second, presumably technology is advanced enough that the old problems of reliability and economic/ecological efficiency in such old car designs would not be an issue.
I may be grasping at straws here, but it's plausible that, given the above, cars would be relatively cheap (they appear to be the only form of popular transport). This film is set some years after the first one (I think) and perhaps fashion in car design had changed? Given the cheapness of such cars, and the speed at which they could be designed, marketed and manufactured, it's possible that the majority of cars could have changed to a more old fashioned design.
Reading that, though, it seems a bit of a stretch, I admit.
The only other thing I would put forward to explain it is that this film, much more than the first, has a Film Noir style to it. These old-fashioned, Chandler-esque cars may simply be a nod to the original film noirs.
The most convincing argument, though, is that in the same way the director manages to stick one of those dogs, often completely implausibly/clumsily, into every film he makes, it seems likely he would have no qualms about upsetting the balance of the film by sticking in the cars he loves too. The guy's a weirdo.
Great reply.
I can agree that future car factories would probably make it economically viable to mass-produce cars like that, and that new technology would eliminate the ecological and economic faults those cars have. You could be right, it could just be a fashion trend at that time, one that all the major car manufacturers are adopting.
Also the Noir feel was something I considered when watching the film, but forgot as soon as I was drawn into it, you reminded me about that. The cars do fit that sort of mood, so maybe you're right and it is a nod.
However, I still think its probably just like those damn Bassetts.
In the audio commentary (Japanese version Disc 2), Mr Oshii said that the red classic car that Batou and Ishikawa are on, is 'boat tail' (spelling?). And he also wondered if Americans nowadays haven't heard of that car, as Scott of Skywalker said "The design of this car is good", giving him impression that he took it for an original design made up for the film.
That's just a comment about the stylings for the rear of the car. It's the term used where the hull of the car tapers to a knife point instead of being flat like most cars. It's been used with quite a few cars over the years, but was particularly popular in the 20s and 30s.
shareIt's called fashion! If it weren't for that cars wouldn't have curves today... ;)
shareJust a bit of quality post modernism...
shareI would wager money that its there to underscore the noir feeling of the film, just like the jazzy number over the closing credits.
shareif one were to delve deeper it could be suggested that this signifies human's natural yearning for nostalgia. the cars act as a reminder of the "good old days", that is, a reminder of a time when we were still fully "human".
think about it, coming from the 1940's were not yet augmented by advanced information technology, they were cars in their purest form. i believe that for this reason, oshii chose vehicles from the time period as a reference for vehicular design in his gits:i universe. yet this choice was merely a cosmetic one, as the interiors were far from old-fashioned.
perhaps oshii used this imagery as a visual metaphor for the film's characters. humans began without technological augmentation existing as purely organic beings, but much like how cars have evolved as society advances, so did humans. overtime cars began to take on another form (one that emphasized information technology and not simply transportation) and as we see in the gits universe, humans turned to a similar path.
the film's characters (and we assume, the rest of the film's population) appear as though they are purely organic beings (as they were originally), but on the inside have been completely changed by robotics and information technology... the same with the cars--designed to look like their 1940's predecessors (memories of the days before technologically "integrated" cars) but on the inside augmented with the latest technology.
Why limit your comment to the cars in Innocence? Take a drive in your own hometown, and you'll probably see more than a few brand new cars with "classic" exterior designs. The new Mustang is a great example, but I'm sure you'll see others on the road. The automotive design in Innocence is not really so unrealistic then, though it is definitely exaggerated. You can see similar appreciation for nostalgia in Togusa's revolver or in the fact that cyborgs continue to eat and drink. There are a lot of things we do because they offer the security of familiarity. Such idiosyncrasies can also be expressions of personality, something which seems to be more and more of a commodity in our mass-produced world. Look around the room your are sitting in at the moment, and you will see very little that is not mass-produced, aside from your own body, and even that is debatable considering there are about 6.5 billion of us on the planet now. In Innocence, even that small consolation is gone since one's shell is also product. This is a key story point, and that's why it was established in the title and in the first scene of the first movie. Much of the movie's concerns can be tied right back into that central theme, and in this particular case ("old car models") retro-futuristic design might satisfy certain psychological needs.
shareMr Oshii said that the red classic car that Batou and Ishikawa are on, is 'boat tail' (spelling?).
I LOVED the cars!
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Yeah, I had issues with the cars as well, although I can appreciate they underline the noir feel of the movie, they just didn't sit right with me. The movie only takes place 3 years after the first so no way could this be indicative of changing consumer trends in the GITS world, nothing changes that quickly, especially not car design, although I like m t112's take on it all as being part of the great philosophical mediation of the Oshii style, how the cars parallel the humans who have been artificially enhanced internally but still retain their human shell.
"WHOA, WHOA, WHOA, WHOA, WHOA, WHOA... Lois, this is not my Batman glass."
Didnt like it either, watched the second movie right after the first so i was put off by the style. And i loved the cars in the first movie.
share