Ghost in the Shell Storylines that Inspired the Live-Action Film Revealed

The Ghost in the Shell live-action film is finally happening despite its whitewashing controversy, and so far, it looks like the film will stay true to the source material, a Japanese media franchise created by Masamune Shirow. We already got our first look at The Major (played by Scarlett Johansson), and now, we're getting more details on other Ghost in the Shell elements we'll recognize in the film.

For anime and manga fans who are wondering what storylines director Rupert Sanderson is using in the live-action film, you might want to check out what producer Avi Arad told Collider:

"We're not doing Puppetmaster. It's not Laughing Man. It involves Kuze. The Kuze story. The big thing we are doing here is that we're not necessarily doing an origins backstory, but we are addressing her sense of self and resolving how she defines herself in terms of memories. That's one of the main thrusts in the story. Inspired by that episode of Affection in Second Gig. It's bits and pieces of those mixed together."

The Second Gig is Season 2 of the anime series Stand Alone Complex while Affection is an episode of that series. Arad went on to say other things fans will recognize:

"You'll recognize some things from Ghost in the Shell: Innocence like the geisha bot. A lot of the time when you see futurist movies either it feels very beautiful and removed and clean or you have to go down a grimy, dystopic world. Rupert was chasing something else that was more similar to the source where it felt really tactile and tangible and you had things like cables even though wireless makes more sense. If you look at the original, the guys' hands break off and type. Even in 1995 the idea that if you talked to a computer you'd type really, really fast didn't make sense. That's where we are coming from a lot of the time."

Ghost in the Shell also stars Takeshi Kitano, Michael Pitt, Pilou Asbæk, Juliette Binoche, Kaori Momoi, Chin Han, Danusia Samal, Yutaka Izumihara, and Tuwanda Manyimo. It will be released in theaters on March 31, 2017.