MovieChat Forums > Kôkaku Kidôtai Shin Gekijôban (2015) Discussion > The inner struggle just became a fascist...

The inner struggle just became a fascist propaganda campaign

posted 8 years ago by shide_85
10 replies | jump to latest

[EDIT - After watching the movie]
If the subtitles I viewed it with are correct it is not as bad as I thought it would be, it does contain faulty asumptions about how fascism works (in favour of fascism) but it is more or less a defense of the Nation State.
Posted a little more about it below.

[SPOILER WARNING]
Ok, I maybe should have clarified, I still see this as a loveletter to fascism as it shows the negative parts of the natural evoltion of markets (into oligopolies -> monopolies -> stagnancy) as an intentional route taken, when the real positive reason for markets positive impact is competetion - increase competetion and you increase technological advance.
They have a good goal as uniforming the technology as the intended goal by dead ending competing technologies (extremely naive, and a message you should not let anyone get accustomed to or simply accept), well unless you are a plutocrat that work actively against democracy.
States used to regulate away the negative impacts markets could have - one way was to own some specific key markets (roads, garbage collection, sewers, violence, information networks etc) that established basic human rights. Fascism privatise those markets and remove civil liberties by making them nothing more than words on a paper (without accountability): freedom to travel freely - if you pay the tolls, clean water - if you pay for purification, freedom of speech - if you accept the consequences of comapnies storing that information and using it out of context against you.

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Note that I do not give this movie any stars as that would be intellectually dishonest as I have not viewed it.

Well the title says it all, instead of messages to act with care, rationalise and embrace the inner struggle there are the fascist tag lines present in the trailer.
Changing things for the sake of change is never a good idea, changing things to attain a greater value is - this is not one of those cases (one small example is the cyborg eyes that instead of being eye sized, which logically would make sense) theyre smaller which means it does not make logical sense.

•Things like messages that war is natural (...only the field on which it takes place change).
Comes in a time when USA has actively started wars and destabilised a whole region without taking responsibility for the outcome (well if you discount the natural resources and trade available for their plutocrats to amass).

•Everyone is disposable, and that is not for the main lead to worry about.
Fascistisk notion, in a democracy all voices are heard and valued, in fascism (a plutocracy) most voices are not heard and the majority are basically slaves either by debt or the need to stay alive.

•They're always searching for a future, if only we could be the same.
Everyone is always searching for a future, humans are by their very nature curious - if we don't evolve we die.
This statement is a classic valuesegregating notion, us and them - while anyone who knows anything about education knows that the primary differentiating factor is the contextual one and not the hereditary or cultural one.

• "You have to accept your limits."
(yes it's partly taken out of context but not enough to make it clear how to be interpreted)
This might be the single worst advise to give youth and anyone, once you are pragmatic with where you aim you will never challange yourself properly.

• "Are you willing to sell your ghost for the sake of some uniform standard?"
The Nation State are the only ones (supposedly) with monopoly on violence, nationalism/democracy is bad and the dichotomy is then supposedly good (fascism/plutocracy).

• "If you want something from others you have to find something to offer in return."
Classic line to denote detest for unemployed, the conservative "theory" (socio-economic status quo) and the liberal requires a "natural" unemployment rate. The more wealth that is accumulated by the upper spheres the higher the unemplyment gets as the accumulated wealth is used differently and alot less useful for the economy (that is why inflation is seen partly as a progressive tax on inaction with capital).

• "Build your future, follow your ghost. (close after the previous line)."

The liberal capitalist theory states that all who work and participate in the trade of value contribute to creating a future by striving for their individual goals, and by focusing on their own goals they create efficiency (this is true, that does not exclude a state which operates alot more efficient as seen in Europe). This is a line that is in line with the conservative agenda.

This is clearly built off the series I havenät viewed (the new one) which does not follow the previous story.
For anyone thinking of viewing it I'd recommend watching the old movie or even the two first series before to get to know why Gits became popular.
I really hope the new movie with human actors that comes out is not based on this one.

Ignorance is only a bliss if you haven't reached awareness.
My imdb posts are getting altered.

[–] johcafra-150-658402 8 years ago

Don't worry, I won't edit your post. Heck, I wouldn't know how and have enough of a challenge editing my own...

And I'm inclined to agree that any "re-imagining" with a subtitle "The New Movie" already begs the imagination...

But I do recommend viewing both seasons of the TV series ("Stand Alone Complex" and "S.A.C. 2nd GIG") and the feature film "Solid State Society" in sequence. You might actually get more comfortable with the concept and understand the characters, who DO change throughout. THEN tackle the two preceding feature films (original title and "Innocence") in sequence.

P.S. I've since established "The New Movie" is a feature based on the series' latest incarnation, "Arise." However, I can't vouch for that series simply because (like you) I haven't yet viewed it myself.

[–] shide_85 8 years ago

Changing the concept this far is not something I will tag along for and honestly the only reason i watched the trailer and commented on it was because of a post i felt obligated to do in the forum for the blockbuster that is being made with Scarlett as the major and real actors playing the lead roles.

Changing backstories and the message of it will not sit well with people, atleast that is what i believe. Others are free to think otherwise, though if you are to draw conclusions from the past i don't think changing history in follow-up projects works well (excluding back to the future etc).

Ignorance is only a bliss if you haven't reached awareness.
My imdb posts are getting altered.

[–] johcafra-150-658402 8 years ago

I'll go along with that. I certainly can't stop them from making a live-action version with whatever worldview it may espouse. If it convinces others to look further into its anime heritage the effort may actually be worth it. Put another way, I'd long known of Tintin and the rest before the quasi-live-action version. That film was...alright...and did not in any way alter my regard for Herge's work.

[–] cinesimonj 8 years ago

Ha! Ha! Ha! You think you're being intellectually honest by analyzing a TV movie based on it's trailer? And cripes - you think bartering is a form of hating the unemployed? Grow the hell up.

[–] shide_85 8 years ago

You do realise this is mostly a reworked series that is turned into a movie right?
So before you go on your next rampage, don't.
Here it's clear that profit has taken the front seat, infront of the storyline.

Ignorance is only a bliss if you haven't reached awareness.
My imdb posts are getting altered.

[–] rmkeltz78 8 years ago

This is not a reworking of a series, this is a follow up to the last two episodes of the Alternative Architecture series. The First eight episodes of AA are a kinda meh recut of Arise 1-4 though...easier tojust watch Arise 1-4 and then episodes 9 & 10 of AA then this movie to get it all kinda in order. And all of it is a prequel storyline to the original movie.

[–] augurae 8 years ago

It's called history and propaganda. I was SURE as soon as they announced the new GITS Arise serie that it fall into propaganda *beep*

You just confirmed what was obvious for me, but I thank you for that.

It's terrible, but it's called history, and guess what happens after? All these pseudo-liberal fascist and racist conservative coward get screwed, and hopefully this time, people will have to be accounted for their responsibility, especially for this kind of propaganda.

[–] ryusaki 8 years ago

I didn't watch the trailer because there is a blaring glitchy sound playing in the background, which i think is supposed to be "music". It irritated me so much that i turned the whole thing off, also i didn't want to spoil the movie for me, since its a hip thing to basicly spell out the whole plot and show all moneyshots in the trailer.....

Advertising is per definition Propaganda. Its also in most cases misleading and made by other people than the creators of the movie.

I will obviously wait until i've seen the whole movie before i declare a judgement and i would advice you guys do the same, because anything else makes no sense.

[–] x1nd0lent 8 years ago

Advertising is per definition Propaganda. Its also in most cases misleading and made by other people than the creators of the movie.

This poster gets it!

Sure, the US trailer takes a lot of stuff out of context to advertise a dumb-sounding "generic reactionary action movie" for broad appeal. So what? Sure, it's crass and lame, but trailers often are.

I saw the movie tonight, and I think it's rather good. Much better than the previous few Arise stories. It was made by Production IG, who made the previous series, and it definitely maintains the same ethos. Not quite as great as SAC/2nd Gig, but this one came close IMO.

FFS, don't depend upon decontextualized soundbytes to tell you what something is supposed to all about.

[–] shide_85 8 years ago

Might have to watch it just to be (likely proven right, about twisting its message beyond recognition).

FFS, don't depend upon decontextualized soundbytes to tell you what something is supposed to all about.

OP wasn't, it focused on the messages put forth in the trailer which is supposed to arise interest in the possible audience (if commericialised, doing so by different specific methods - one being adherens - noting specific taglines that younger more easily moldable minds might recongise and as such the more they hear it the more credibility it's subjectively given and accepted).

[SPOILER WARNING]

[EDIT] Watched it; here are some conclusions:
It's not complete crap and even if it contains some blind love regarding fascism the movie has disregarding that fact a somewhat intricate plot. The plot is in line with current developments within global powerstructures even if asumptions that are presented that fascism (which is an old system of being) would be the natural development for modern democratic nation states is silly (people will wake up to the reality and change it even if the politicians get payed off, it has happened before and will happen again if people work for it).
The version i watched had subtitles that was not anywhere close to satisfactory (make sure whatever version you view has those as it'll otherwise partly muddy the waters).

The Movie is supposed to be a preqeul to Ghost in the shell (1995), it's seemingly partly built off the new series (but rightly downplays that alot), the plotline more or less has the feel of that some of the original creators came back and straightened things out to get it back on track.

It does however lack in character rationality, meaning and depth, it logically ties together the strings left in a manner I would not asume they were initially meant to be but as after the fact has been found to be the ideal way. It does this while being less in most manners compared to the original. Watching it will slightly decrease the value of having watched the original.

The thought that plutocrats (people behind the fascism) want to achieve revolution through dead ending technologies and establishing monopolies is dead on, if you by revolution mean regression and increased socio-economic segregation (yes that is sarcasm). That means revolt against democracy and tearing down rights and laws replacing it with plutocratic rule (tyranny/aristocracy), removing the laws that ensure equal access to compete on markets.

[EDIT] Spellin, clearing up meaning and sentence structure.

Ignorance is only a bliss if you haven't reached awareness.
My imdb posts are getting altered.