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Story? What story? Although there is a thinly veiled plot that admittedly does have a bit of a twist, Innocence is essentially devoid of ANY sort of plot at all. Let’s face it folks, this movie wasn’t made to challenge your mind or open your horizons to anything. It wasn’t supposed to make you ooh and aah at the character development, or get involved in the storyline; it was made for the visuals, signed, sealed, and delivered. Period. To be honest, I was fairly disappointed with how completely lacking the plot was. In the beginning, you have a faint glimmer of hope that a plot exists – the robots are killing people, and Section 9 needs to find out why. Until the last 5 minutes of the movie, we see almost zero in the way of plot, at all. And I swear to god, if I have to read one more goddamn quote from a poem or famous philosopher, I am going to shoot myself in the head. That’s part of the problem with this movie... besides being a complete fanboy film, it tries to insert 8 million quotes from poems in a row, in an attempt to make you guess at some sort of philosophical theme going on. I’m sorry, I don’t buy it, and it made me incredibly bored and weary. Honestly, if you watch this, probably the best way would be without any sort of subtitles, since they are essentially useless and do nothing except make you want to smash your TV/Monitor/Movie screen in with a hammer, shove ham sandwiches inside the broken vessel and then pee on it out of sheer "OH MY GOD NOT ANOTHER QUOTE" spasms. Quite frankly, I could have picked up a poetry book and read random pages and it would have been as applicable as all the quoting nonsense in this film. The concept of beating a dead horse must not exist for Mamoro Oshii, that’s my only guess.
In a dystopic city of the future, there has been a rash of killings at the hands of prototype robots. These anomalies from the company Locus Solus are making headlines, and have caught the attention of the cyborg Batou and the crew of the Section 9 special forces. Yet beneath the random violence, a sinister plot is unfolding -- a situation so dangerous that it threatens not only Batou, but innocent humans and cyborgs alike. Can the team of Section 9 unravel the mystery of these murders before they suffer the same fate as the victims?
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My fav genres include sci fi and horror, but you'll find a lot of obscure reviews from me too, given I watch a ton to add to the database. My new reviews are written a lot better than my old ones, so when in doubt, sort by date! ^_^ Enjoy, and I welcome any and all feedback.
hyperactve
I totally agree with this review.
I liked the movie though. Because of those music and animation I guess.....
captaincrunch
"Honestly, if you watch this, probably the best way would be without any sort of subtitles, since they are essentially useless and do nothing except make you want to smash your TV/Monitor/Movie screen in with a hammer, shove ham sandwiches inside the broken vessel and then pee on it out of sheer "OH MY GOD NOT ANOTHER QUOTE" spasms"
Lol, I watched the dub, but I felt the same way. This show had more references than I get in one of my grad school text books. I think the scriptwriters wrote the entire thing from wikiquotes (did they have wikiquotes in 04?).
I was also somewhat dissapointed at the lackluster appeal of Batou and Togusa as leading roles. I guess that just goes to show how much the relationship between Major and Batou and Major herself adds to GITS, or takes away if it's lacking in this case.
TheMajor5
Alright, so i have been pondering whether or not to watch this movie or not. I love the rest of the franchise but i have a very hard time convincing myself to watch this movie. Before i have based my reasoning on the animation, which, though it may be impressive, is a far cry from the rest of the series. That being said i have found another reason not to watch this, the story seems like nothing and the characters are virtually nonexistent. Though the visuals (CG-like animation, can't stand it) looks like a turn off, whats even worse is no story and no development, only a nice shell to look at. (pun intended)
l33tmomiji
Overall, for once, I agree with you.
The story probably wasn't as bad as you make it out to be, but it was spread EXTREMELY thinly. They could have aptly told the story in 30 or 40 minutes, as a pose to the 2 hour or so movie that is Innocence.
But of course, I let that slide, because they filled the extra time with gorgeous animation, and an incredible soundtrack.
I also agree with you on the placing of completely irrelevant quotes and poetry. Adding philosophical elements using external references and quotes is all well and good when you can relate it to the story in some way, but the vast majority of quotes and references stuffed into this movie made absolutely no sense in relation to the story, and were just awkward.
I mean...my favourite anime is Ergo Proxy, so when you hear that from me you know it must be true :P
This is why I dislike people comparing Innocence with Ergo Proxy so much. Ergo Proxy relates the majority of it's references to the characters and story in some way, (as a story is actually present) or it leaves them as subtle irrelevant details that don't matter if they go unnoticed, but are intriguing when they are.
Innocence however, had more poetry and philosophical quoting in its two hours, than Ergo Proxy had in 23 episodes. Cramming every single one of them down your throat.
Mind you, this didn't enrage me as much as you, when the movie went into these spells I just became bored and slightly irritated.
Overall I think Innocence is worth the watch regardless, in the end the soundtrack, animation, and rare, relevant, well placed philosophical tidbit almost compensates for the negligible story and character development.
Although it's a good review even as I disagree, I just like this sort of philosophical and visual approach rather than spoon fed story telling. The two movies combined don't create characters of the year nominees but they was interesting enough for me to enjoy them. Not their backstory but the way they interacted during the film.
My problem is with the Paranoia Agent referance as having a good plot and even being compared. PA had exactly one metaphor it told through the whole 13 episodes and it told it in 12 different ways (trying to forget the 13th episode). It lacked plot altogether.
I agree GITS Innocence is meant to be for the eyes and ears more than anything else. However I understood all the philosophical quotes and metaphors and combined with the basic plot it had, I was satisfied.
Good Review.