
Ghost in the Shell Original Soundtrack mystery - firasd
https://medium.com/@firasd/the-biggest-hollywood-mystery-of-2017-is-being-questioned-online-and-ignored-by-mass-media-2d800106934c
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anc84
The original title of the page is "The biggest Hollywood mystery of 2017 is
being questioned online, and ignored by mass media". Let that help you decide
if it is worth a click or not.

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ekianjo
For a second I thought it was about the Japanese movie soundtrack. Excellent
compositions from Kenji Kawai by the way. Who cares about the Hollywood
mediocre movie that came out recently?

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partisan
Absolutely. I listen to the original Kenji Kawai GITS soundtrack often and it
never seems to lose its haunting beauty.

The new movie disappointed in all ways including the music.

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erikb
The movie is already out? I'm a little sceptical by such a heavy named remake.
We already had an awesome anime movie and an interesting tv show. It's often
too much to ask for a remake with real actors to be good as well.

So, if it is already in the cinema and not a success, why make such a fuss
about something like the OST? It's not a big deal in itself.

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chiph
Not the first mistake the studio made with this film.

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firasd
I have some sympathy for Paramount in this. First the social-​justice types
went after them for not casting an Asian lead, then the critic reviews were
unkind, then it really under-performed at the box office, and now people are
upset about the music not being released… Some marketing exec over there is
probably like “I don’t want to hear about GITS anymore, ever!”

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anotheryou
No sympathy whatsoever. They kinda inverted the main plot.

SPOILERS AHEAD:

What they made: A (slightly technophobic) very human and involentary cyborg
fighting for humanity and letting the equally human anti-hero die to keep on
fighting for the human race against digitalization and greedy other humans.
Also: strange human trafficking sob-story.

What it was: The first cyborg without any human tissue remaining fighting for
justice and falling in love with the genderless anti-hero who is first machine
gaining conciousness. They fall in love, unite in death, are reborn as a child
and are the first thing far beyond humanity: a human soul and AI hybrid, the
first life-form beeing native to the physical and the digital world. Also a
loveletter to technology.

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CivilianZero
Other than the "love", you've hit exactly on why I dislike the movie.

I don't care who they cast or recast if they would just get the point of the
story, but western media has no concept of how to do a proper narrative about
identity and can't accept any story involving technology that isn't bemoaning
it and "exposing" how dangerous it is to us and society as a whole.

In other words, western media becomes a drooling idiot when discussing either
of these topics.

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humanrebar
> ...western media has no concept of how to do a proper narrative about
> identity...

I must be misunderstanding your complaint, because it seems that everyone's
favorite metaplot is about identity these days. Off the top of my head:

\- Frozen: choosing own future and identity over what was given you

\- Dark Knight: projecting an inaccurate identity to protect people

\- Zootopia: overcoming prejudice by breaking glass ceilings

\- The Crown: how to manage contradictory identities (head of church, head of
state), overcoming prejudice

Especially on the nose:

\- Westworld: I don't want to get into too many plot details, but there are
absolutely questions of identity, both for humans and for artificially
intelligent machines.

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CivilianZero
Just because it's their favorite, doesn't mean they do it well. Some of your
examples are perfect for a surface look at identity. They focus on how our
concept of identity affects our day to day life and how we can manipulate that
to help or hurt. Others, like Frozen, really have little to nothing to do with
identity and instead are that tired plot of "figuring out who I am" which,
yeah that's kind of what identity is but it's not really looking at the
concept of identity.

But that's not what GitS is about.

I'm referring to a more philosophical approach, even an abstract one. GitS
specifically is looks at identity as a malleable thing. To a "western
audience", in the original film, The Major is no longer The Major at the end.
Or at least, they'd be reassured by her familiar voice and reassure themselves
that it really is still her and they haven't lost their protagonist. "Well,
she sounds the same and seems to act the same, must be the same person."

This is again a very surface look at identity. I'm not saying this is bad
subject material or even wrong, but it gets very old when every movie throws
in you face how deep and interesting they are because they're about "identity"
when really they're just about "stuff people do in situations" or applying a
rigid concept of identity to some character's struggles.

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firasd
I wrote this to try to prod some bloggers/writers to look into this, as this
puzzle is being pondered on the internet but not 'breaking through' to the
larger media. My title (Biggest Hollywood mystery of the year) is not
hyperbolic, it's literally true. The abrupt silence from people and companies
involved in this is very strange, and in the context of the fan campaign to
get it released, would make fertile ground for an enterprising journalist.

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Paul_S
I'm really struggling to believe there are people out there dying to get the
soundtrack. I'm afraid this entry in the franchise will go the way of the
matrix sequels. And if your question is "what matrix sequels?", well, that's
my point.

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jads
You're confusing the movie and the music. There are a lot of terrible movies
with great soundtracks (Phantom Menace, for instance). Both Clint Mansell and
Lorne Bale are highly-regarded and talented composers, with many soundtracks
under their belts - and plenty of fans. I haven't seen the movie but I've
heard some of the soundtrack and it saddens me that it isn't available.

Soundtracks to movies, TV shows, and video games are an extremely popular
genre, it's just one that goes unnoticed. Same thing with Classical music -
arguably there are many, many people who enjoy listening to Classical music
and can't wait to buy the latest album by their favorite orchestra. Just
because there aren't billboard signs, music festivals, or Spotify music
promotions doesn't mean it's not a genre that's of interest to many people.

Sure, the movie had a lot of problems, but that doesn't mean people aren't
interested in the soundtrack. Phantom Menace is awful for many different
reasons, but it's one of my favorite movie scores.

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Pigo
I remember loving the soundtrack the Queen of the Damned, it was completely
arranged by Jonathan Davis and had a lot of big names on it. The movie was a
travesty and an insult to Anne Rice's work, but then there was this awesome
soundtrack (if you were a fan of that type of music).

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Meph504
I don't understand why stories like this even get shared?

It's hardly a mystery, much less the biggest mystery of 2017.

The movie flopped, was an embarrassment to the studio, licensing the songs
used in the film for distribution was probably a gamble they didn't feel worth
it.

Crap, article simple.

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firasd
This is about the original score, not songs in the movie. If it's such an
embarrassment to the studio why would they not just ignore the score, and let
it be uploaded to iTunes as scheduled (including pre-orders and cover
art)--instead of abruptly putting a hold on it? You are just speculating and
that's my point, an entertainment reporter who knows how to dig into these
things needs to look into it.

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arm85
I'm listening to an album release related to the film; "Ghost in the Shell
(Music Inspired by the Motion Picture)". So they've released something, just
not the Clint Mansell OST.

