Sexy, R-Rated Cyberpunk Classic Inspired The Greatest Films Ever Made

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 14 seconds ago

Right now, Ghost in the Shell has a new anime series, one that blends top-notch animation with heady stories set in a kind of cyberpunk dystopia. The new show is great, but it put me in the mood to go back to the original source code for this seminal animated franchise. Back in 1995, the original Ghost in the Shell movie premiered, and it blew everyone’s minds in every possible way. Like, this was the kind of movie you’d show skeptics who thought that anime was nothing but lowbrow fight scenes. Forget Dragon Ball Z, y’all; Ghost in the Shell is art, full stop!

One of the ways we can tell Ghost in the Shell is art is that it inspired some of our greatest filmmakers to experiment with different kinds of stories. Without this early cyberpunk adventure, the Wachowskis would never have made The Matrix, and James Cameron would never have made Avatar. For that matter, Steven Spielberg would never have made A.I.: Artificial Intelligence. Just what is it about this legendary anime that has inspired so many creators, and where can you see its influence on the big screen? No need to scour the ‘net with your artificial body; just keep scrolling to fill your cyberbrain with all the knowledge fit to download.

Hack The World

The plot of Ghost in the Shell is that Motoko Kusanagi, who works for Public Security Section 9, must investigate a mysterious villain known as the Puppet Master. This Big Bad has the ability to hack into the brains of just about anyone, making him hard to find, much less to stop. Kusanagi and her team may be the only ones who can eliminate this threat for good. Along the way, however, she will learn some uncomfortable truths about her own government, all while tackling crunchy questions about consciousness, autonomy, and what it means to be truly alive in an increasingly postmodern world. 

Ghost in the Shell is one of the most influential anime movies ever created, one that has inspired a growing number of sequels, TV shows, and even a fairly forgettable live-action movie. But what most fans of this film don’t realize is how much of an influence it had on other creators and their works. Perhaps the greatest example is The Matrix: the Wachowskis were inspired to create their own world where human consciousness could be digitally uploaded, forcing a protagonist to question the nature of both reality and consciousness. How deeply does the anime influence the later film? Get this: even the green Matrix code is inspired by prominent green text from Ghost in the Shell!

The Most Influential Anime

It pretty much doesn’t get more blatant than The Matrix, which the Wachowskis pitched by handing the Ghost in the Shell script to Joel Silver and saying “we want to do this for real.” Many years later, the anime inspired James Cameron to create Avatar, though his film involved transferring a human mind into an organic alien body rather than a ghost shell. While that’s a fairly big difference, Cameron explored similarly existential concepts as Ghost in the Shell. This includes how much of our identity is tied to our physical selves and how much our perspective changes when we look at the world through (quite literally) new eyes.

Even Steven Spielberg, Hollywood’s greatest director, was inspired by Ghost in the Shell. It directly inspired A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, a movie in which the lead character deals with the major philosophical question of the earlier anime: does an artificial being still possess a soul? The fantastic technology of Ghost in the Shell also inspired the future tech of Minority Report, where (as in the anime film) it is misused by nefarious agents. How much did Spielberg love this animated film? For better or for worse, he spearheaded the effort to buy the live-action rights so that DreamWorks, his own company, could bring the film to life.

A Genuine Work Of Art

This brings us back to why Ghost in the Shell is art. Certainly, it fits the more conventional definitions of the term: the movie is jaw-dropping beautiful and perfectly written. But it also meets the more comprehensive definition of art because it became a foundational text to the entirety of the sci-fi and cyberpunk genres. Just as we wouldn’t have Star Wars without earlier films like The Hidden Fortress, we wouldn’t have The Matrix without Ghost in the Shell. When you think about just how insanely influential that Keanu Reeves movie was, you get a better idea of how big this anime’s cultural footprint really is.

Care to experience what is possibly the most influential sci-fi movie of all time? Do you want to ponder philosophical questions about mind, body, and soul, or maybe explore the fractured nature of human consciousness? Or (and no judgments here), maybe you just want to see the hottest protagonist in anime history wandering around Japan like an unstoppable, one-woman army? No matter the itch, you’re just a click away from scratching it: Ghost in the Shell is currently streaming for free on Tubi!