Such a frustrating disappointment

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

This is only made for money the animation is cheaper looking then other anime's these day's awful script,awful dialogue,,boring,stupid,terrible voice acting and awful when you compare it with the original.

So yeah the story does fit perfectly & neatly as a prequel etc, but the storytelling is mostly very dull, the pacing of it feels like sleepwalking, it lacks strong emotions, no character development. If you watched the other films then you get the point - timewise it's an early phase for the characters so you could say it makes sense to have them intentionally underdeveloped. But still, I expected more depth from this series and this was very flat. The 2nd movie was way better.

Though this sequel prequel is better than the first sequel, Ghost In The Shell - Innocence, it still doesn't match up to the original, Ghost In The Shell.What the screenwriters John Burgmeier, Clint Bickham, and Tow Ubukata, give the audience is the story of Major Motoko Kusanagi and her perfect machine of paid mercenaries. I like the idea that she sees her team as a well-oiled machine, each person represents a working part of the machine and every part (man) is required to make her perfect machine. Since she is a cyborg, I could quite easily see her making this simile. It's the story of how they were recruited into Section 9.The story is stronger than the last as the Disney influence is no longer there and the philosophical issues are once again interwoven throughout the story, which helps to give it strength and carry the viewer along. However, there are not as many twists in the tale.Also, the CGI is used to much better ability, as it's mixed in with the traditional animation style to help build better effects and ambiance. I particularly liked the scene near the beginning where a child is running through a flowery archway... The flowers are so bright and vivid it's very dreamlike.There is so much right with this animation that I cannot pick any faults, except it's just not as hard-hitting as the original... or as stylised.If you've watched the original then I'd say forget watching Innocence and opt to watch this one instead. It's soo much better and has a similar taste, tone, and mood to the first. These two together what a treat, not just for the eyes but for the mind also.

I love Ghost in the Shell. The original movie was great, the series were a bit different, but still making the viewer think about the nature of self and the direction technology takes us in. All of that was enabled by great stories and wonderful music.While "The New Movie" is a good piece of animation and with an interesting story, it doesn't quite catch the magic of the original. Also, as a continuation of the GitS:Arise four episode series, it makes it difficult for newcomers to understand what it is all about. But probably what bothered me most was the soundscape. While not bad, it is a far cry from Kenji Kawai's work.Perhaps the problem is that, in attempting to reboot the franchise, they went too soft. Less blood, less killing, less subtlety and instead just a modernized corporate Yakuza fight that is easy to understand from the perspective of the Japanese viewer. Ghost in the Shell was never about the present, though, it was about the future, its role to make the viewer think things forward and see the predictions of the anime come true in the years to come. "The New Movie" doesn't quite do that and so I feel a slight disappointment with it.Still, a flawed GitS movie is a lot better than no GitS movie and I was glad to watch it. The excitement of the original, though, I didn't find it here.