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Coming hot on the heels of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - The Laughing Man, Manga Entertainment bring us the follow up, the similarly pointlessly long titled Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - The Individual Eleven. Like its predecessor, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - The Individual Eleven (which I'll just call The Individual Eleven from now on) is made up from clips from one of the Ghost in the Shell TV series, in this case Stand Alone Complex 2nd GIG. As with the previous film, The Individual Eleven focuses on the main storyline of the series, which sees Section 9 tackling an even bigger threat than ever before. After the events of the previous film Section 9 are on
permanent standby, but this situation doesn't last too long when terrorists take
over the Chinese Embassy. The terrorists call themselves the Individual
Eleven and after Section 9 defeat them it comes to light that several terrorist
attacks happened simultaneously, all by groups with the same name. The
attacks are linked to an increasing crisis where refugees from the last war have
been gathering on the island of Dejima, and now want independence from the
Japanese mainland. The Japanese government and press see them as nothing
more than a nuisance, but there's a sense of a major conflict on the horizon.
A former member of the Individual Eleven, Hideo Kuze, has emerged as a
charismatic leader for the refugees, uniting them within his cybernetic
consciousness and giving them hope of a revolution. Section 9 are called
in by the Prime Minister to track down Kuze after he tries to assassinate her,
but even Kuze may be a pawn in a bigger plot. A government agency led by
the enigmatic Gohda appears to be manipulating things from the background, but
how deep they are involved and what their aims are remain unclear. What is
clear is that Gohda is a clever and manipulative foe, and with the elusive Kuze
also proving a thorn in their side Section 9 are seriously going to have their
work cut out to avoid all-out civil war... |
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Whereas the first series and the Laughing Man film focused on a very domestic issue for Section 9 to tackle, 2nd GIG and The Individual Eleven takes the story to a far bigger scale. This time Section 9 have an international issue to tackle, and with a war to avert the stakes are far higher. As well as the immediate issue to refugee unrest there's a lot of political wrangling, power struggles and plotting at the highest echelons of power. The issue isn't so cut and dried, it's ideological and sociological and the story digs deeper into the |
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characters' psyche than in the last one. The problem with this is that the story is a lot more complex and involved than before, and constrained within the film format there's quite a bit of exposition that needs to be cut.
The difference between the first and second Ghost in the Shell: Stand
Alone Complex series was the depth and scope of the story.
Both series consist of 'complex' episodes that follow a central
storyline, and 'standalone' episodes that are generally self-contained
and unrelated to the main plot. However, in the second series the
'complex' plot was so involved that even the standalone episode often
related to it, or built up character relationships and dynamics that had
a bearing on it. Unlike in the Laughing Man film, squeezing
the plot from the series into the shorter running time of a film means
that a lot of exposition has to be cut out, particularly early on.
This means that the first half of the film flies past and a lot of
things don't get explained too well, particularly who Gohda is and why
Section 9 decide to investigate him. The Individual Eleven are
important for about five minutes and are then barely mentioned as the
focus shifts to Kuze, and the situation rapidly escalates with hardly a
pause for breath. Without the background detail it's hard to get a
grip on what's going on and plot strands come and go seemingly for a
pastime. |
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Towards the end things start to come together though, and it becomes clear that the omission of early exposition is to allow time to focus on the epic ending. When everything starts to reach its climax, with fleets of ships surrounding Dejima, the possibility of nuclear bombing and Section 9 caught right in the middle, the film really comes into its own. The action is superb, and the bigger scale of everything brings a palpable sense of tension as a handful of people try to stop a civil war that could cost thousands of lives. The |
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ideological debates and concepts are often extremely heavy, and sometimes suffer from the lack of context that the trimmed story causes. There is some great imagery though, and the animation and music is amazing too, but strangely the English voice actors are different to the series which does detract from it somewhat. It's at the end where the film really rescues itself though, with a superb and very moving moment of sacrifice and a surprising end to Gohda's final confrontation with Section 9. Missiles fly, Kuze and Section 9 team leader Major Kusanagi have deep discussions, and Batou leads a daring mission to take stolen plutonium to Dejima. It really explodes into life at the end, but it's really a game of two halves, and at the start it simply doesn't live up to the series it's based on. At the end of the day Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - The Individual Eleven does not work as well as Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - The Laughing Man. The story is more complicated and farther reaching and too much has to be removed to fit it into a film's running time. It's best at the end, when it pretty much sticks to what happens in the original series, but minor edits to events and a couple of added bits can't paper over the cracks that are left earlier on. It's a shame, but on this occasion I can't recommend this as an alternative to the series. In the end it's a film that only partially succeeds in bringing together the series' main story, and is a bit average when the series is so much better. Extras Another great selection of extras sees a new lengthened 'Tachikomatic Days' short and a lengthy discussion between Major Motoko's voice actress Atsuko Tanaka and series director Kenji Kamiyama join the usual trailers. The discussion is very in depth and really gives an insight into the creative process behind the film, whereas the Tachikomatic Days short sees the cute sentient Tachikoma tanks try to solve the murder of another robot. It's a nice easy going aside to the main film, and caps a decent selection of extras. Ratings Feature:
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