I mean, the 2017 film was at the least pretty to look at in UHD. That couldn’t save the everything else, though.
Twenty-five years ago, Production I.G. and Mamoru Oshii’s seminal adaptation of the classic Masamune Shirow seinen manga provided us a neon-soaked vision of the future, and influenced the way we talk about and consider the design of cyberpunk aesthetics to this day. And now, to celebrate, the original movie is being released in 4K for the first time in September by Lionsgate. Here’s a trailer the studio put out for a 4K release in 1080p, because... hmm. Anyway, it still looks good:
Set in in 2029, Ghost in the Shell follows the missions of Public Security Section 9 in New Port City, an elite police taskforce helmed by the cyborg Major Matoko Kusanagi. While navigating her own identity as one of the titular “ghosts in the shell”—a human consciousness in an entirely cybernetic body—the Major is tasked with hunting down a mysterious hacker known only as the Puppet Master, who begins targeting cybernetically enhanced officials with a debilitating virus.
The UHD/Blu-ray edition of the film will come with cover art re-utilizing Martin Ansin’s stunning poster art for Mondo, and remasters the film in both Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos. As well as an audio commentary from Mary Claypool (Ghost in the Shell’s English-language scriptwriter), Eric Calderon (animation producer and writer), Richard Epcar (who voiced Batou in the dub), and Charles Solomon (animation historian and critic), the release includes two new featurettes, one offering a retrospective of 25 years of the animated franchise, and another examining the architecture of its cyberpunk future.
Ghost in the Shell comes to 4K UHD on September 8, both physically and digitally.
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