Though Blade Runner is coming back this fall, Ghost in the Shell will give it a run for its cyberpunk money. As the Major (Scarlett Johansson) regains her quasi-human memories, her story doesn’t just dabble in cyberpunk, it revels in it.
The arresting new trailer for Ghost in the Shell makes previous cyborg or transhumanist cyberpunk movies — like The Matrix — seem quaint. Literally everyone in in this trailer sports some kind of biohacking or cyborg accoutrements. But Scarlett Johansson’s “the Major” mashes up visual cyberpunk cues with a convincing and totally immersive aesthetic. It’s not just that the new Ghost in the Shell trailer looks cool; its that it looks believable.
Giving audiences the most extensive visual details yet, the trailer also introduces what will probably be the film’s primary baddie: the mysterious Kuze. In the narrative of previous iterations of Ghost in the Shell (a manga and an anime movie), the Major’s human consciousness is put inside of robot body, making her a spiritual cyborg. In the new film, Kuze is seemingly at the center of the conspiracy surrounding her complex origin.
Ghost in the Shell opens on March 31.
