The new scenes are nicely executed for the most part, but completely unnecessary. As eye-candy on their own, they're not particularly impressive either. Further, they tend to break the flow of the film, especially when cutting directly from the new CG to the cel-animated original. Clearly, the entire film should have been revisited rather than this selective and perfunctory approach to an update. It reeks of something George Lucas would do (i say that negatively) and sadly, GITS2.0 fails to live up to his much more seamless updates of the original STAR WARS films.
More importantly, some shots lose their original intent somewhat, for example the scene where Motoko rises to the surface during her dive; also the angel-vision that Motoko has just prior to being blasted by snipers was diluted. There are little details added here and there like rain etc, which do add to the atmosphere, but ultimately i was left wondering about the intentions of the people that carried out this re-envisioning. I cannot for a moment believe that Oshii was consulted regarding small but important decisions like changing the sex of the Puppet Master from male to female. In the absence of the original director's blessing, i have no choice but to condemn what seems to be a superficial attempt at re-marketing a classic.
As an introduction to the franchise, GITS2.0 is still more than adequate, but it merely offers a diminished and disjointed experience compared to watching the original.
The sound FX are improved, although lacking in subtlety. Other user-comments suggest music was redone but i detected no apparent changes.
More importantly, some shots lose their original intent somewhat, for example the scene where Motoko rises to the surface during her dive; also the angel-vision that Motoko has just prior to being blasted by snipers was diluted. There are little details added here and there like rain etc, which do add to the atmosphere, but ultimately i was left wondering about the intentions of the people that carried out this re-envisioning. I cannot for a moment believe that Oshii was consulted regarding small but important decisions like changing the sex of the Puppet Master from male to female. In the absence of the original director's blessing, i have no choice but to condemn what seems to be a superficial attempt at re-marketing a classic.
As an introduction to the franchise, GITS2.0 is still more than adequate, but it merely offers a diminished and disjointed experience compared to watching the original.
The sound FX are improved, although lacking in subtlety. Other user-comments suggest music was redone but i detected no apparent changes.