In April 2017, the release of the live-action version of Ghost in the Shell, although more damage than praise, called the fans of Ghost in the Shell to shout disappointment, but also made the classic sci-fi series of Ghost in the Shell become the focus of heated discussion. The live-action version of Hollywood blockbusters tends to be superficial and vulgar. It is inevitable that people will look back and revisit the classic 95 theatrical version, and see how much the forward-looking imagination of the future more than 20 years ago is similar to the current changes in the world. place.
Behind the well-conceived technical details of the future world presented by Blade Runner, the Matrix, and Ghost in the Shell, the core issues to be discussed are the same as those of many great sci-fi works: human existence, human existence Evolution, the human predicament.
Supporters of globalization have predicted that the existence of human beings in the future will have a high degree of homogeneity. The process of globalization has allowed in-depth genetic exchanges between different races, thus blurring and even dissolving the boundaries of races. This is indeed a childish imagination. No matter how the differences and contradictions between nations cannot be attributed to the "Great Harmony", this homogenized race alone needs only one plague that spreads around the world, and it is enough to affect the survival of mankind. "Whether individuals or collectives, too simplification will only lead to destruction." As Motoko said in the film, in the future, human beings will not converge, but diverge.
In the world of Attack in the Shell, everyone has undergone electronic transformation to varying degrees, becoming the so-called Cyborg. Batou's electronic eyes, Dr. Willis's binary tree-like hands, and all kinds of grotesque people on the streets of live-action movies are all heralding the arrival of an era of individual differentiation. People can transform themselves according to their own needs, and become stronger than the original human beings in some aspects. Interestingly, in Ghost in the Shell, we can hardly see the figure of competitive sports, because everyone has been strengthened, and the huge difference between them determines that there is no comparison between people in the sense of competitive sports. sex. So Olympics, the only event that unites people of all nationalities in today's society, will also face bankruptcy in the near future. Even if an Olympics Extended Edition is evolved to allow Cyborgs that have been strengthened by the same kind to compete, it is destined to become a money-burning war for the equipment party, which goes against the original intention of Olympics. The word "common" is rarer than ever in the air of Shell.
Another unique imagination of the future human form in the 95 version of the Shell is the "puppet master". "I am a living being born in the ocean of information." A program that generates autonomous consciousness is an imagination that has existed since the birth of computer science. However, in the 95th edition of Attack in the Shell, the appearance of "Puppet Master" still makes people feel Shock and awe, because of its cool and realistic appearance, its calm and composed voice, its thinking about the definition of life, and the pursuit of life rituals - death and reproduction. When it comes to the live-action version of the movie, the major of the human brain machine can turn everything into code, which can be read and even edited by Dr. Ouelet. In the 2004 theatrical version of Innocence, the hallucination labyrinth that appeared after Batou and Togusa were invaded by the electronic brain really taught people to re-examine themselves, for fear that they were actually a brain in a vat. To what extent will human beings be integrated with the information network in the future? How can an information body with autonomous consciousness refresh the definition of "human"? The 95th edition of Attack in the Shell shows the direction of human differentiation into Cyborg on the surface, but actually further points out the direction of differentiation between humans and information coupling. Cyborg focuses on the differences between limbs and organs, and the living body in the information ocean needs to touch the soul, that is, the choice of Ghost: Does my electronic brain need to be connected to the Internet? How much privacy rights do you enjoy on the web? Does my memory accept coding? Are memories allowed to be deleted and implanted? Do you want to break away from the flesh and become a program completely? To lift restrictions on reproduction and death, to freely arrange self-replication and self-termination? Every choice node here means the differentiation of human existence.
Coupling with machinery, coupling with information, the differentiation of human beings, that is, Difference of the Human, is the first trend in the future of attacking the shell.
In 1947, Erich Fromm made an observational commentary on the "market" orientation that accompanies domestic and international commercial phenomena in the 20th century: he describes the emergence of a class of people who experience themselves and others as commodities, and who regard themselves as possessing superiority. Products of attraction, fame, and resources to "package yourself" or "sell yourself" to seek self-esteem. This description very accurately predicts the emergence of today's so-called "Internet celebrity economy", and also describes the future of attacking the shell. Physical phenomenon.
In the 95 version of Ghost in the Shell, the Nine Sections of Public Security were the first group of human beings to undergo prosthetic transformation, and they were also the first to face the problem of objectification. Everyone in the nine classes, except Togusa and the class leader, has been transformed by the Megatech company and accepted its regular maintenance. If they choose to resign, they must return the prosthetic body and the memory that needs to be kept secret. "We didn't sell Ghost to Nine Lessons!" Batou is right, but because of their deep transformation, they have blurred the boundaries between private and public areas in the body and mind. The so-called "return" is nothing less than a Field "formatting", a castrated version of resurrection after killing. "Just as there are many parts to make a whole person, and each of them has to be very different to make a very different person: a face that is different from others, the tone of the subconscious, the hand you see when you wake up, Childhood memories, future destiny, and the ocean of information that my electronic brain touches...all of which gave birth to me." As Motoko said, all body and mind, private or public, constitute the present An integral part of "I". It is undoubtedly unreasonable if the government still uses the way of social operation in the 20th to the early 21st century to make a binary separation of people's own and public attributes, and it is a collective invasion of individuals.
This invasion is very clearly expressed in the live-action film: Hanka CEO Cutter bluntly said that the Semantic Major is a "weapon." They treat human beings with the same roots as commodities, make products with excellent perception, action and resilience, and sell them to the government, and place them in the ninth section of the public security for observation and research, so as to gain greater power and interests. In order to make this "weapon" more effective, they even implanted a memory of a parent who died in a terrorist attack to motivate Major to better carry out counter-terrorism work - even the memory is no longer private property, but has come from others. The fiction of such a materialized life will not be readily accepted by anyone.
If the materialization of the Nine Sections of Public Security still has a strong passive color, can the characters such as Dr. Willis and Haraway who appeared in the Attack in the Shell series actively choose to strengthen themselves, can they avoid the fate of materialization? In fact, to choose any direction of strengthening transformation means the denial of the original human image and the identification of a specific Cyborg form. However, putting this identity into the practice of self-transformation also means that individuals will be permanently bound to a specific Cyborg collective and become a labelled and instrumental existence. It is not difficult to imagine that in the future world of shelling, when you see a hand like a binary tree, you can speculate that this person is a scientist, no matter how bad it is, he is a clerk. He is a first-class butcher and cook—his class attributes are clearly written on his body, and "people rely on clothes and horses rely on saddles" can no longer work. People shape themselves into tools that conform to the division of labor, and they have to suffer the consequences of becoming tools.
The infringement of the private domain, the instrumentalization of the public domain, and the materialization of human beings, that is, Materialization of the Human, are the second trends in the future of attacking the shell.
The scene of the battle between Motoko and the Thinking Chariot at the end of the 95th edition of Attack in the Shell is an abandoned European palace-like building with a set of evolutionary tree reliefs on the wall. From fish of all kinds to humans at the top of the evolutionary tree, anthropocentric holders of evolution may proudly think that today's humans are the most suitable species to live on the earth, whether it is God or nature. , there is a being called "creation" in the shadows that has shaped human beings and made them a primate that transcends all things. However, the differentiation of people in the future complicates the situation. People have become Cyborgs with different functions to different degrees. They live in different occupations and classes, and cannot choose a perfect existence that can represent all Cyborgs. The unprecedented alienation between people makes "different" the biggest "common" in this society.
In a society dominated by Cyborg, the human face has gradually become an abomination. On the one hand, people become their own creators, modifying themselves according to their will, the structure of the body and the transplantation of the soul are no longer mysterious, but become "minor operations" that ordinary people can enjoy. , is a challenge to the authority of the creator, is tearing apart the beauty and harmony that exists in the human body, and is blaspheming God's most proud work. On the other hand, people are imprisoned at the boundaries of their own abilities and cannot construct a more beautiful and peaceful social structure. Instead, through the differentiation and materialization of Cyborg, the alienation effect of social class and occupational division of labor on people is strengthened, and the collective human beings will become higher. The possibility of level development is eliminated, and a dangerous balance can only be maintained in the vicious circle brought about by technology and desire.
The advertisements that can be seen everywhere in live-action movies, such as "Powerful Gloves", "Quick Hangover", "Language Crash", etc., seem to be good blessings, but in fact they expose people's insatiable desires. "As long as technology can do it, human beings will find a way to achieve it, as if this is the core of life." The line of defense of science and technology ethics seems to be false under the burst of common desires of the world. The turmoil is even more severe. The day when the strong have all their interests and have nowhere to go, the weak are struggling to survive and have nowhere to stand.
Human body mutation is blasphemous, society is chaotic and there is no way to improve it, and the ugliness of human beings, that is, Uglification of the Human, is the third trend in the future of attacking the shell.
The future imagination of the world of attack in the shell has three levels from Differentiation, to Materialization, and then to Uglification. One is more sad, worrying and depressing than the other. All these changes point to the alienation of human beings, that is, Alienation of the Human, from the individual to the collective, from the micro-life to the macro-society, stripping people of their virtues, tearing apart people’s connections, magnifying people’s evil thoughts, and putting people away. become inhuman.
Nowadays, the society seems to be peaceful and peaceful, and the Haiyan River is clear, but in fact it is full of crises and hidden reefs. The constraints of scientific and technological ethics, the guarantee of information security, and the optimization of the social structure are all maintained by the ingenuity and hard work of countless people. The future vision of the world of Attack in the Shell forward-lookingly exposes the many contradictions and challenges we are about to face in an exaggerated form. And the improvement of the real world cannot always rely on the 100% success of the heroic characters to turn the tide like a fictional work.
Let’s take the interpretation of the shell world as an opportunity to discuss the precursors of the changes facing human beings today: artificial intelligence defeats humans in chess competitions, human-beast chimera embryos are created in some secret laboratories, and the Internet celebrity economy The tendency of man to materialize himself, the tendency of man to become a tool in an atomized society... If we can fully discuss and deduce strategies on these issues, so that we can avoid the fate of turning from human to inhuman in the future, then It is not worth the painstaking efforts to create and disseminate this dark and boundless future of attacking the shell.
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