And who better to be the poster child for flat and thoroughly uninteresting characters than our leading lady, Major Motoko Kusanagi? The end of 2nd GIG saw her lose someone important to her and leave Section 9 as a result, and it’s stated that in the two years since then, she basically took up the role of the Laughing Man from season one: surfing the Internet and dealing out vigilante justice, although somehow without anyone (not even from Section 9) noticing her actions or even keeping tabs on her. During the film, the Major is her usual stoic self, never talking about anything in her past with anyone and focusing solely on the task of catching the Puppeteer. I won’t spoil the ending to that plot thread, but suffice it to say that, just like the 2nd GIG finale, it rests entirely on the Major being an idiot for not noticing something crucial and laughably obvious. At the end of the film she has a heart-to-heart (in her underwear, of course) with Batou, musing about how she had felt lost during those two years pretending to be Aiden Pearce from Watch Dogs (himself a Laughing Man enthusiast), but began to feel whole when she worked with Section 9 to catch the Puppeteer, implying that she will rejoin the team.
Here’s another million-dollar question for Kamiyama: why don’t we ever see the Major struggle with those feelings of emptiness rather than just talk about them at the end as though they were at all relevant or even hinted at? If this movie is trying to be the first movie from the 90s, why couldn’t it revolve around her intrapersonal conflict, just like that one? The original GitS film was all about the Major’s search for her own sense of self while the villain (the Puppet Master) was someone who wanted to experience humanity and is thus complementary to the Major’s own inner turmoil. SSS’ Puppeteer is clearly cribbing from the Puppet Master, and yet the former’s identity, despite it being a major plot point, has basically no impact on the Major, nor should it for how poorly it’s explained. Couple that with the fact that the only thing tying him to that totally removed conspiracy plot involving child abductions and elderly care is some meaningless sci-fi babble the audience could not possibly understand even if Masamune Shirow wrote a companion manual and you have an antagonist that fails to be either narratively or thematically important. What I am getting at is that this film's attempt at carving a new identity is to lazily mash the first season and the first movie together. We are thus left with a mystery plot that is less fulfilling than the Laughing Man arc and a (virtually) entirely dissonant character piece that is an insult to the legacy of the original Mamoru Oshii film.
I will be clear about this: Kamiyama has intriguing ideas for conspiracy-thrillers and a knack for capturing suspense with his style of direction, so why not try to marry his skill at conspiracy-thriller writing and high-tension filmmaking with a more personal story revolving around a single individual or small set of characters rather than this Frankenstein’s monster of previous GitS material? Here’s an alternative idea: during her time Aiden Pearce-ing around the Internet, the Major's emotional state gets more and more volatile due to her inability/unwillingness to grieve. This leads to the Major making a mistake in one of her investigations, nearly causing the Section 9 members to be killed (leaving them all incapacitated). She and Batou, who barely escaped, are then branded fugitives (again), and it’s now up to the Major and Batou to clear their names, solve the conspiracy, and find the perpetrator(s) while she strives to finally allow herself to heal, her closest friend helping her along the way. That’s all there needs to be for a standard structure. Fill it in with some introspection, proper metaphors and symbols for narrative-thematic cohesion, give the characters real vulnerability, deepen the bond between the two, complete their respective character arcs, and whammo, you have an entertaining yet emotionally rich and fulfilling action-thriller that, more simplistic story aside, is right up Kamiyama’s alley. He shows his deftness in crafting suspenseful thrillers with SSS, and it really is a genuine shame that the film’s overly complicated plot makes it difficult to follow.
Kamiyama’s good directing is helped along by a production quality that is distinctly better than that of 2nd GIG, even if it’s nowhere near on the level of the original film. Despite that, the character designs are sharp and the coloring is greatly improved over season one (fixing its overly-saturated hues). Yusuke Takeda’s art direction impresses again, giving us some fantastic background work. There really isn’t too much character animation, unfortunately, and, although that face-morphing bit was seriously well-done, the film comes off feeling a little stilted and unmoving outside of action scenes. Additionally, a problem I have with said action scenes is the obnoxiously disproportionate sound mixing that would feel right at home in many a Christopher Nolan film, with sound effects completely overpowering both the vocal and musical tracks. I was lucky enough to get the Bandai DVD from my local library so I could enable the subtitles while still hearing the English vocal track (and I do recommend the dub). This poor sound mixing can, at times, be a disservice to Yoko Kanno’s soundtrack which is a shame. Outside of a couple scenes where the music is just too upbeat and jazzy, the music is both fantastic and well-utilized. Kanno especially nails the suspenseful hospital scene, and I found myself listening to the track "Solid State Society" quite often.
Ultimately, there is enjoyment to be had in Solid State Society, but it would be more entertaining to watch season one and the first film seeing as they both do what they separately set out to do far better than this film does with either of their material that it so callously stole. It may not be the most apt comparison, but I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the last film I reviewed, Psycho-Pass Sinners of the System: First Guardian, and I see some similarities to SSS: good art direction, not-stellar-but-still-solid animation, great music, a conspiracy plot, and Production I.G.’s brand of science fiction. Some things are actually done better in SSS, primarily in how it gives some scenes a much more palpable and nail-biting sense of tension, but it just falls so much shorter of First Guardian from a narrative standpoint. Where SSS, at the end, shoehorns in some struggle the main heroine supposedly went through before the film took place and isn't even mentioned throughout the majority of the film's runtime, First Guardian spends almost all of its runtime exploring the hero’s struggle in a flashback and ends the film with him demonstrating how much he grew by making a key decision. First Guardian is dedicated to making its characters and world more interesting while furthering the overarching narrative of the franchise whereas Solid State Society is content with just taking two highly regarded entries of the GitS franchise, poorly combining them, and calling it a day. It has its moments, but I won’t be revisiting it anytime soon, if ever. As usual, Kamiyama’s writing unfortunately disappointed me, so I think I’ll make the smarter play and not give SAC_2045 a shot.
Happy watching!
- LC
