Koukaku Kidoutai: Shin Movie

Lacking much of the philosophical aspects the series had traditionally had. Very much just an action flick, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Just that, I expect more from the GitS series. Even the "Arise" series -- which is probably the weakest of all GitS -- had some of the philosophical and meta things that really makes the series interesting.

Storywise, thought it was a little convoluted. Was hard to follow who was fighting who and for what reason. Not even really sure the ending really explained any of that. Though, perhaps, it was left that way for future releases.

Some of the English voice acting was ... jarring. Not sure why, but Chief Aramaki's voice actor has been replaced. And the voice doesn't fit him at all. Same goes with some of the other team members. The voice acting just doesn't fit the characters as we've seen them before.

Somewhat along the same topic, it seems that some of the personalities have been changed as well. Characters who don't speak all that much seem, do so more often, without necessarily adding anything to the story.

At the very least, it was entertaining.

Not bad! If you’re a fan of the ARISE series, this is a nice way of capping it off. It’s as convoluted and scientific psycho-babble as that series, and the original GITS series and movies too. I suppose if you were expecting something as revolutionary, or at least a cult hit, like the original GITS movie, you’d be disappointed. It’s more of an engaging sci-fi intrigue ride, rather than a head turner. Animation was fantastic, and the action scenes were high quality, as you’d expect from the franchise. I can certainly see people’s disappointment in this movie, but if you’re a GITS fan overall it’s ... worth the watch. If anything, you’ll get some cheeky retro continuity at the end too. To be honest, it makes me want to re-watch the Stand Alone Complex series again! As someone who’s seen every GITS feature, including all movies, multiple series, and the compilation movies (GITS SAC Laughing Man & Individual 11), I’m just happy to get more GITS.

Another dumb series of poorly strung together action set pieces playing out pretty much the exact same plot framework of every iteration of this series. Zero characters, all plot devices, most all behaving out of character for this series. Zero meaningful character dialogue beyond pointless exposition.

Starts off with a big dumb pointless action set piece and pretends like it matters because 'all according to keikaku' before actually starting the plot with a completely unrelated plot point: a pointlessly over-complicated bomb murder mystery in a series where literally everyone can at any moment be hacked into a plot device. Fuck am good at righting.

They already pointlessly ... threw away all suspense about who the puppet master is earlier in the series, making the central plot of the movie a suspenseless investigation about revealing the truth we already know about the bombing. Genius.

You're telling me a simple scan of the corpse didn't immediately reveal it as a dummy shell (in the most pointlessly self-incriminating plan possible to assassinate high level government officials while faking her own death) and immediately cut out all that pointless filler of the entire movie from start to finish? God this series is dumb.

We noncharacter twins tried to kill you but actually we're pointlessly sacrificing ourselves to save you despite you not being in any danger (and also us being the ones who put you there in the first place), this is very emotional and totally not artificial and lacking in any weight.

And finish it off with another big dumb action sequence.
Oh no! More noncharacters from the start of the series dying after having contributed nothing of value to the series. Heartbreaking, focus more on it, really expecting us to feel something here director-san?
Somehow the team are still fighting these guys before and after recovering Major while their boss is doing literally nothing and apparently never actually had any keikaku... this all makes perfect sense, trust me. What happened to the plot device orb virus of version up(update)? Don't worry about it, maybe it becomes the other AI that becomes self aware (no not the blonde android pretending to be an American spy, the other one) in the original GitS or something. That random virus AI mesh of stuff forming a talking person's face antagonist also from before? Who knows. Certainly not the screenwriter.

Nostalgia pandering ending to poorly redo the exact 1st nonsense scene of the original GitS movie. (Haha! I screwed over my ally to pointlessly commit an illegal assassination of a government official because due process is for pansies!) *Paid for by Nationalist Propaganda™

Somehow even with the much higher movie budget art/animation compared to the prior Arise TV-movies, it still looks like shit compared to the 1st GitS movie. Just more generic boring settings and terrible non-cinematography.

Literally nothing. Not 1 drop of depth in this movie. But damn, at least they managed to name drop a fucking Sleeping Beauty reference because... you know... Major was unconscious for a little bit... and you know it was because of her evil step mother(childhood friend) figure... and you know she was rescued by her dumb prince tool guy Blando... and the crew are her 7 dwarves because they're all a bunch of tools... fuck yeah. It totally doesn't ruin a reference when you literally have to have the characters point it out in dialogue. Please pay no attention to the brick on your nose and in your face.

3/10 (where 5/10 is average)