How Ghost in the Shell Hopes to Surpass the Anime Despite the Controversy

When the first Ghost in the Shell movie was released in 1995, it was revolutionary, presenting a whole new way of looking at technology, artificial intelligence, and more. Twenty years later, director Rupert Sanders not only has to live up to that legacy, he's trying to build upon it, despite being stuck in a cloud of controversy. Sanders is the director of next year's live-action adaptation of Mamoru Oshii's anime masterpiece, starring Scarlett Johansson as the Major, a futuristic cyborg in a world where the human essence, called Ghosts, can be transmitted electronically into robot bodies, called Shells. He, along with Johansson and Japanese legend Takeshi Kitano, debuted the first trailer and several clips this past weekend at an event in Tokyo, Japan. "We're taking the next chapter of this legacy very seriously," Sanders said of the franchise that has been around in various formats since 1989.