The "Ghost in the Shell" movie adaptation, starring Scarlett Johansson, is currently in production, and now, producer Avi Arad revealed just how faithful the film is going to be to the source materials. These source materials include the original manga and the numerous anime series and animated films from the franchise.
Speaking to Collider, he explained they wanted to first let the audience get to know the central characters and the internal conflicts they struggle with. For the first movie, one of the main goals was to focus on Major Motoko Kusanagi (Johansson) and how she defined herself by her memories, despite being no more than a human-cyborg hybrid.
He explains that in the original source materials, ghost hacking was a central plot device, and they wanted to take it further in the film. This time, they want to tackle the issue of how losing someone's memories would affect their sense of self and what they might do to rebuild their life.
For those unfamiliar with the series, ghost hacking is when someone hacks into a human-cyborg and steals information from their brain. Ghost hacking can be as simple as stealing vital information to something as deep as wiping away a person's memories or altering their identity entirely.
With regards to the villain, the film will be featuring Hideo Kuze. Kuze was introduced in "Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex - Second Gig," which was the second season of the anime series. Kuze is one of the members of the terrorist group known as the Individual Eleven and is recognized by having a full cyborg body.
Arad continued to explain that Kuze's story would interact with that of the Major.
"We're not doing Puppetmaster. It's not Laughing Man. It involves Kuze. The Kuze story. The big thing we are doing here is that we're not necessarily doing an origins backstory, but we are addressing her sense of self and resolving how she defines herself in terms of memories," he explained.
"Ghost in the Shell" will premiere on March 31, 2017.
